Polearms as disposable super weapons.

[Innocent Flower]

Potentially fun game mechanic for cavalry: You ride into battle with a lance, you couch and skewer someone with ease, you drop the lance into the corpse and you automatically equip your next melee weapon (be it axe, sword, club...) you can then get another lance from the floor, have an ally give you one, or from a supply point.

This could add a lot to the game. You're no longer waiting for you lance to "recharge" but rather you're looking for a new one.  Supply points become points for dynamic control, where losing one to the enemy means no new lances and you'll be sticking with the sword. You'd now have to think more carefully over who you couch-kill, as low tier troops would be a waste of a couch, and high tier troops would be something worth saving the spear for.  From an infantry standpoint, cavalry become a more nuanced opponent as they're disarmed of their strongest weapon after it's use, and you can do more to prevent a second lancing.

(non-couched spearing would keep the spear in your hands)

Now, for pikes, we could make pikes much more powerful and dangerous, doing catastrophic damage to cavalry that charge into them, and considerable damage to infantry, if we balanced them with a loss of weapon after. (you could also charge into people on foot with pikes, but perhaps the game'd be turned on it's head too much if people could run fast...)

For shorter polearms, probably keep them as they are.
I quite liked how polearms worked in Assassins creed; The best weapons you could get your hands on in a fight (In a setting absent of shields)  but something quite inconvenient to carry and Ezio'd always drop them out of combat (which was always an annoyance when you wanted to hold on to them for the next one) But I can see why that wouldn't work in bannerlord (shields being common aside).
Polearms being something you could drop and easily pick up would be more realistic than a back magnet, but it'd take getting used to, and even if the end product is more fun that might be off-putting to new players.  I think the change would really improve competitive play.

Spears struggle against shields, but otherwise they were history's most loved weapons for the battlefield, until guns got gud. They're not super-weapons per say, but they're strong against every other melee weapon absent a shield. That could make for an interesting game mechanic, to separate polarms further from two handers.

 

[NPC99]

Hopefully, the kontos lances wielded by Empire cataphracts will not be couchable and all infantry polearms will be more effective against cavalry than they are in Warband. That and the ability to modify couched lance damage would be sufficient improvement IMO.

 

[Honved]

In my opinion, making lances a one-use weapon goes a long way toward making them less of a super-weapon.  Impale someone with a lance, and it's going to take a good pull to get it back, if not cutting tools.  They should be recoverable, but NOT while riding on horseback.  Either you would need to return to your supply point for another lance, or dismount and retrieve your weapon, neither option being good while heavily engaged against a hoard of footmen.  Win the immediate fight, and then you can at least pick up your lance again before chasing down the enemy's reinforcements.  Of course, that means not auto-deleting lances from the battlefield to save on polygons being rendered.

 

[KhergitLancer80]

I would only be fine with this suggestion as long as they limit the timing of blocking of lances.

Irl, it is not that easy to block a lance with a sword.
If TW put a limitation like ''you must start your block in no more than 0.8 seconds before the lance reaches you'' then it would both be more realistic and make gameplay richer.

Hell, in WB even if three lancers attack at the same time, a guy with 1h sword easily block all three of these blocks.
Therefore plus, lance attack should be able to expose the blocks.

After these two changes they can also add disposable lances(not all polearms though as this only gone for lances and spears).

 

[lolbash]

I would only be fine with this suggestion as long as they limit the timing of blocking of lances.

Irl, it is not that easy to block a lance with a sword.
If TW put a limitation like ''you must start your block in no more than 0.8 seconds before the lance reaches you'' then it would both be more realistic and make gameplay richer.

Hell, in WB even if three lancers attack at the same time, a guy with 1h sword easily block all three of these blocks.
Therefore plus, lance attack should be able to expose the blocks.

After these two changes they can also add disposable lances(not all polearms though as this only gone for lances and spears).

There are up and down attacks with lances now this is not needed

 

[KhergitLancer80]

+Rainbow Dash

Not enough.
Still needed.

 

[lolbash]

Why? You cant hold down block with a stick and be invincible to getting stabbed by 100 lancers anymore with this new feature. so I think its fine as it is

 

[hoboistice]

Potentially fun game mechanic for cavalry: You ride into battle with a lance, you couch and skewer someone with ease, you drop the lance into the corpse and you automatically equip your next melee weapon (be it axe, sword, club...) you can then get another lance from the floor, have an ally give you one, or from a supply point.

This could add a lot to the game. You're no longer waiting for you lance to "recharge" but rather you're looking for a new one.  Supply points become points for dynamic control, where losing one to the enemy means no new lances and you'll be sticking with the sword. You'd now have to think more carefully over who you couch-kill, as low tier troops would be a waste of a couch, and high tier troops would be something worth saving the spear for.  From an infantry standpoint, cavalry become a more nuanced opponent as they're disarmed of their strongest weapon after it's use, and you can do more to prevent a second lancing.

(non-couched spearing would keep the spear in your hands)

This has been done in a number of mods and games similar to Warband like War of the Roses, and lance breaking never really works that well. It just makes lancers useful for a single kill before being generic melee cavalry.
It doesn't make lances more fun it just makes them more worthless really, if my lance is going to break after a single kill why would I ever pick a lance on horseback, instead why wouldn't I use a spear or other polearm on horseback that won't break? Which is exactly what happened in War of the Roses, hardly anybody ever used lances because they were garbage compared to a conventional polearm.
Not to mention if couching breaks my lance, why would I ever couch? Far less people couch in multiplayer for example because thrusting gives better reach and couching is much easier to avoid. It already got nerfed pretty hard from M&B to Warband.

Now, for pikes, we could make pikes much more powerful and dangerous, doing catastrophic damage to cavalry that charge into them, and considerable damage to infantry, if we balanced them with a loss of weapon after. (you could also charge into people on foot with pikes, but perhaps the game'd be turned on it's head too much if people could run fast...)

For shorter polearms, probably keep them as they are.
I quite liked how polearms worked in Assassins creed; The best weapons you could get your hands on in a fight (In a setting absent of shields)  but something quite inconvenient to carry and Ezio'd always drop them out of combat (which was always an annoyance when you wanted to hold on to them for the next one) But I can see why that wouldn't work in bannerlord (shields being common aside).
Polearms being something you could drop and easily pick up would be more realistic than a back magnet, but it'd take getting used to, and even if the end product is more fun that might be off-putting to new players.  I think the change would really improve competitive play.

Spears struggle against shields, but otherwise they were history's most loved weapons for the battlefield, until guns got gud. They're not super-weapons per say, but they're strong against every other melee weapon absent a shield. That could make for an interesting game mechanic, to separate polarms further from two handers.

Pikes already are very powerful against both cavalry and infantry. Not to mention you can modify the rates of damage for both couching and pike bracing.
While carrying a polearm on your back isn't realistic, it works the best for gameplay. Having to drop a polearm every time you want to switch weapons isn't fun, it works for Assassin's Creed because it's a game about assassins, not formation combat.

I would only be fine with this suggestion as long as they limit the timing of blocking of lances.

Irl, it is not that easy to block a lance with a sword.
If TW put a limitation like ''you must start your block in no more than 0.8 seconds before the lance reaches you'' then it would both be more realistic and make gameplay richer.

Hell, in WB even if three lancers attack at the same time, a guy with 1h sword easily block all three of these blocks.
Therefore plus, lance attack should be able to expose the blocks.

After these two changes they can also add disposable lances(not all polearms though as this only gone for lances and spears).

You don't need that since there's multiple stab directions, you can also put block crush on lances.

 

[BayBear]

Potentially fun game mechanic for cavalry: You ride into battle with a lance, you couch and skewer someone with ease, you drop the lance into the corpse and you automatically equip your next melee weapon (be it axe, sword, club...) you can then get another lance from the floor, have an ally give you one, or from a supply point.

This could add a lot to the game. You're no longer waiting for you lance to "recharge" but rather you're looking for a new one.  Supply points become points for dynamic control, where losing one to the enemy means no new lances and you'll be sticking with the sword. You'd now have to think more carefully over who you couch-kill, as low tier troops would be a waste of a couch, and high tier troops would be something worth saving the spear for.  From an infantry standpoint, cavalry become a more nuanced opponent as they're disarmed of their strongest weapon after it's use, and you can do more to prevent a second lancing.

(non-couched spearing would keep the spear in your hands)

This has been done in a number of mods and games similar to Warband like War of the Roses, and lance breaking never really works that well. It just makes lancers useful for a single kill before being generic melee cavalry.
It doesn't make lances more fun it just makes them more worthless really, if my lance is going to break after a single kill why would I ever pick a lance on horseback, instead why wouldn't I use a spear or other polearm on horseback that won't break? Which is exactly what happened in War of the Roses, hardly anybody ever used lances because they were garbage compared to a conventional polearm.
Not to mention if couching breaks my lance, why would I ever couch? Far less people couch in multiplayer for example because thrusting gives better reach and couching is much easier to avoid. It already got nerfed pretty hard from M&B to Warband.

Exactly my thoughts. This has been done plenty of times before and I've never been overly impressed with the gameplay. As far as polearms - I'd hate for the only reason I lost a multiplayer fight was because my spear randomly broke. I pass on the entire idea.

Edit: there should be a poll with this thread

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Weapon breakage is never a good feature in a game with combat as a core mechanic.

 

[NPC99]

Weapon breakage is never a good feature in a game with combat as a core mechanic.

Agreed. I was never comfortable with arrows alone breaking shields in sieges. Shields breaking from melee attacks was fine - they needed a downside.

 

[Scarf Ace]

It does make some sense from a realism perspective, and from gameplay perspective it could be interesting - lances as extraordinarily powerful, but limited-use weapon.
The problem in practice is that people probably just wouldn't bother to use lances all too much if they just lose them anyway. In SP Warband I already don't bother as I can kill to my heart's content with any weapon, saving me a weapon slot, and in MP I also rarely use them against anybody but the most obviously competent players.
The realism problem is simple - yes, lances broke. You know what people do if that happens, but they want to keep poking people with long sticks? Go grab another. They owned multiple ones.
While I imagine it could be an interesting mechanic in a Total War game or so, I don't see that as particularly suited to M&B battles.

 

[CalenLoki]

It's an interesting topic.

I could see it implemented, but not as some special perk for specific weapon, but as general mechanics for all weapons.
And not as weapons breaking, but as embedding weapon in corpses after overkill strike.
So if you kill someone, and damage brings him down to, i.e. -25% or lower, your weapon get stuck. If you continue motion (because you're galloping) you drop the weapon. You can go back and pull it out of corpse.
Some weapons would be much very likely to get stuck (piercing), some a bit (cut), some immune (blunt). Weapons could be only slightly embedded (0.5s to pull out) or stuck really deep (2s, and you need to hold the corpse with your shoe). Kicking right after over-killing could be used to speed it up.
Of course couched lance would be affected the most, but it wouldn't feel like some artificial magic perk specific to single weapon.

Fun, kind of realistic, make weapons more unique. And immersive gore level: +over9000

PS. Block-crush should be universal mechanic too. But that's off-topic

 

[KhergitLancer80]

I would only be fine with this suggestion as long as they limit the timing of blocking of lances.

Irl, it is not that easy to block a lance with a sword.
If TW put a limitation like ''you must start your block in no more than 0.8 seconds before the lance reaches you'' then it would both be more realistic and make gameplay richer.

Hell, in WB even if three lancers attack at the same time, a guy with 1h sword easily block all three of these blocks.
Therefore plus, lance attack should be able to expose the blocks.

After these two changes they can also add disposable lances(not all polearms though as this only gone for lances and spears).

You don't need that since there's multiple stab directions, you can also put block crush on lances.

There are only two attack directions and it really doesnt solve the problem.
It was really hard to block a lance from a full galloping horse but in M&B you can block three different lances at the same time with ease.
This really breaks the immersion.

What I propose makes a lot of sense, they shall just add a time limit like if you start your block more than 0.8 secs before the lance reaches you, you get the damage. So, I am trying to make the blocking a bit harder with a timing challange in order to balance it.

Or maybe sth like your sword should be a bit higher than the lance thrust coming to you.

 

[Innocent Flower]

Weapon breakage is never a good feature in a game with combat as a core mechanic.

Controlled weapon breakage, however, is the equivelent of an ammunition counter.

More than a few games use ammunition counters
and power ups used to be pretty popular.

 

[The Pleb Knight]

Weapon breakage is never a good feature in a game with combat as a core mechanic.

Controlled weapon breakage, however, is the equivelent of an ammunition counter.

More than a few games use ammunition counters
and power ups used to be pretty popular.

This, I liked how weapon breakage was handled in The Deluge

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

It's an interesting topic.

I could see it implemented, but not as some special perk for specific weapon, but as general mechanics for all weapons.
And not as weapons breaking, but as embedding weapon in corpses after overkill strike.
So if you kill someone, and damage brings him down to, i.e. -25% or lower, your weapon get stuck. If you continue motion (because you're galloping) you drop the weapon. You can go back and pull it out of corpse.

That might be funny the first time it happens but I guarantee it'd start to get annoying when you have to do a backspin every time RNG decides to screw you over.

 

[Iberian Wolf]

It's a good idea to start with, but we are to depict heavy cavalry properly,  we should mainly focus on seeing them charging collectively, in order to break the infantry formation - not single scattered knights charging randomly over the battlefield. Failure to do so could result in the loss of some, but they could pull back and reform(usually where they would get a lance replacement if necessary). Contrary to popular belief, it was very difficult to have a successful charge, as the horses would often refuse to dive into the formation if they lacked proper training, they needed to be very synchronised,have high morale, favourable terrain, etc.

In the other hand, if they succeeded, the infantry formation would break (and then again, it would also depend on their training, ability, weapon choice, morale...) and be an easy target for archers and light cavalry.

Gamewise, if there was a way to mod a sort of equation including at least some of these factors at the time of the shock, it could lead to very interesting results. I think it would be a good idea for a single player mod at least .

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

The problem with that (and all games with a lot of individuals) is that its very difficult to do calculations on large groups of soldiers without reducing their autonomy somewhat. A realistic, or at the very least a total war style charge with believable morale mechanics would require every soldier to do a calculation for every other nearby enemy soldier. In a 200 vs 200 battle (standard in warband), that's 40,000 calculations every few seconds. In a 500 vs 500 battle (said to be standard in bannerlord), that's 250,000. In warband there's a pared down version of this--which, by the way, is completely redundant because it's terribly coded--and it causes much of the stutter in large battles: more than the graphics. And that's just for morale. Trying to get fully simulated AI individuals in a video game to behave cohesively but not robotically is quite problematic.

I reckon they'll at the very least overhaul the "charge" command, meaning cavalry don't just spread out and pursue a tonne of different targets, but instead aim for the same cluster of targets and head in the same general direction during a charge. That would eliminate most of the problems warband currently has and make battles much less of an incoherent mess.

 

[Roccoflipside]

They did mention that AI do better about staying in formation now, but I'm not sure how that is affected by the "charge" order. I wasn't a huge fan of how charging in WB or VC countered whatever formation command you had set. Sure, charging should break the formation somewhat, but not like you describe, just running around after one or two guys while ignoring the actual battle. I want my people to advance towards the enemy in formation w/out me having to say "move forward ten steps" every three seconds. Maybe some sort of "engage" command where your troops move forward in formation until they meet the enemy?