[Observation/Suggestion] Unintended benefit to the .720 couching system?

[Mabons]

Just to clarify, I play as horsemen when I am not infantry, which is generally when Khergits/Vaegirs appear. I know how weak thrusting is, but at the moment, I still get a lot of one shot kills with it. Wether they were damaged or not, is not in question, as I have one shot lanced someone in full armour just spawning. Wether this is a glitch, I don't know. But I still feel thrusting was about right when it took at least two to kill.

 

[Qwertyman]

I agree with OP,  VERY good suggestions.

however,  I will say thrusting isnt weak at all,  in fact it is very powerfull-    try out the warspear with nordic cavalry, its AMASING-  sure you might take 2 or even 3 hits to kill a guy, but as a skirmisher you can weave through enemy lines, jabbing everyone several times and get out again without taking a scratch.

 

[Jack_Merchantson]

  try out the warspear with nordic cavalry, its AMASING-  sure you might take 2 or even 3 hits to kill a guy, but as a skirmisher you can weave through enemy lines, jabbing everyone several times and get out again without taking a scratch.

Even better, go Swadian or Vaegir and get one of your infantry buddies to hand you an awlpike... 

 

[Cataphract]

Cavalry is insanely weak at the moment, any two handed infantry can take on a cav head on, provided he can thrust with it (glaive, awlpike etc) you name it. Thing is, cavalry currently seem to resort to secret tactic or surprising the enemy from the rear, while correct historically that it was sane to attack with cavalry from the rear, it was not the strength of the cavalry.

In any case, its just ridiculous that most of the cavalry kills come from couching a player from the rear, that hasnt heard/seen/ or is in combat already.

BTW: my fav wep against cav: Long axe, thrust it to stop the cav, it doesnt do much damage but it stops him, and you hack him to pieces.

 

[MagicMaster]

Spoiler

Observation:
So I've been playing cav more on .720 and I have noticed something.  The way couching works now, a horse that moves slower and has slower turning stats can turn more while still keeping their lance in couch mode.  You can theoretically do the same thing by simply slowing down your horse and tapping A or D with a fast horse, but its a lot easier with a big, slow warhorse or charger.
      Now, the point is, this is a really good thing!  A warhorse should have an easier time couching than a courser.  And this is what this patch helps achieve.  Sarranid, desert, and steppe horses seem to have the hardest time at controlling a couch(because of their turning skill, they reset the lance position really easily).  In my opinion, this is a great gameplay change that is also really realistic.  Heavy cavalry would traditionally use couching the most, while light cavalry fulfilled more of a skirmisher role part of the time. I think if the amount you could turn without reseting your couch could be increased slightly, it would make the cavalry system much better than any version before, as right now it still resets a little too easily.

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Suggestion:
Or better yet, the system could be improved even more with a few simple changes.
      First, make it where you press X to swap the lance into "couch mode" (like swapping the great axe now).  In couching mode, you click to lower the lance and it stays down for a certain amount of time.  This will add a little more skill into the equation.  Basically, this is similar to Welcome to Hell's suggestion.  BUT--when in couching mode, limit your ability to turn, equivalent to how far you can turn in .720 without reseting the lance.  i.e. you can mash down A or D but it only turns you at the same speed as tapping A or D to keep your lance down in .720.  This will stop people from accidentally turning too far and raising their lance while trying to couch, while keeping the turn limitation in.  The turn limitation is a good thing, as it keeps people from riding in circles in couch position, and makes you think harder about when to try to couch and when to thrust

Is this perhaps the holy grail of M&B cavalry?  All 3 forms of cavalry combat will have their place (couch, thrust, sword), and different horses will be better for different combat styles even more than now.

I like it. A lot. Absolute genius.

Though I am against any sort of timed crouching, your idea to click to lower the lance while in "crouching mode" is a good one. I would, however, change it to a click and hold instead of a timed thing.

 

[rokema]

Cavalry is insanely weak at the moment, any two handed infantry can take on a cav head on, provided he can thrust with it (glaive, awlpike etc) you name it. Thing is, cavalry currently seem to resort to secret tactic or surprising the enemy from the rear, while correct historically that it was sane to attack with cavalry from the rear, it was not the strength of the cavalry.

In any case, its just ridiculous that most of the cavalry kills come from couching a player from the rear, that hasnt heard/seen/ or is in combat already.

BTW: my fav wep against cav: Long axe, thrust it to stop the cav, it doesnt do much damage but it stops him, and you hack him to pieces.

Use a stabby lance or a 1h weapon and just bump into them + slice, 80 percent of the time their swings aren't on the right moment so they get bumped, if you go a bit slower before actually charging into him.

I can take on most of the 2handed wielders with a Sarranid horse and a cavalry sword. (Head-on)

 

[Stabbing Hobo]

You can outrange all of the twohanders excluding glaive and long great bardiche with a heavy lance.

 

[Chaingun]

Yes, heavy lance does the trick; simply ride around with the lance aimed diagonally to the side so you keep as far away from the infantry you're targetting as possible. Thrusted lancing on a moving horse is just right at the moment (inf has a slight advance on cav but speed of cav offsets it), it's couched lancing that's problematic and as a dedicated cav player I hardly use it anymore, compared to thrusted lancing which isn't a "weapon disappears right before impact" lottery. On a courser horse couched lance is best suited for killing AFK players. 

That said, thrusted lance from a still horse or an infantry lancer thrusting at a still horse feels very weird due to lance quite often just going through the body of the target without doing any damage. Furthermore, if it does hit pitiful damage results when there's 0 speed difference.

But back on topic: I'm all for some way of limiting the turn right to what's the required for the lance to stay down by some kind of mode change... The problem with pressing Left and Right at present is that a stupidly small tap immediately causes lance to go up, since Left/Right presently assumes full angular acceleration. So solution proposed by OP would work, as would controlling turning with a modifier key rather than a mode change key, e.g. like holding Shift when pressing Left or Right causing turn speed to be low enough for lance to stay down.

 

[CtrlAltDe1337]

But back on topic: I'm all for some way of limiting the turn right to what's the required for the lance to stay down by some kind of mode change... The problem with pressing Left and Right at present is that a stupidly small tap immediately causes lance to go up, since Left/Right presently assumes full angular acceleration. So solution proposed by OP would work, as would controlling turning with a modifier key rather than a mode change key, e.g. like holding Shift when pressing Left or Right causing turn speed to be low enough for lance to stay down.

That's a good idea too.

 

[Qwertyman]

a modifier key rather than a mode change key, e.g. like holding Shift when pressing Left or Right causing turn speed to be low enough for lance to stay down.

I like this idea.  could also be used as a 'walk' function for infantry  (not as useless as you'd think,  everyone would 'walk' at a uniform speed, disregarding armour, making movement in formation much easier,  and if footsteps are ever audible enough to matter, walking would dull their sound)

 

[Outlawed]

I wholeheartedly agree to this proposal.
IT always seemed weird that the person with the Courser could out run and out-couch those riding on the heavier horses. Scouts are scouts, and light cav are light cav to dispatch archers. Thats how it should be at least.