Polearms should be more effective

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Khan

Regular
I don't know if anyone has suggested this yet, and if someone has, I do it again.

Polearms are currently quite crappy, especially on foot. They are clumsy, slow and they do poor damage. In truth, I.E. spears were very quick and agile weapons and pikes were great against cavalry and good against other infantry.

What I am saying is that they should be improved. I think it would be great if a good hit with pike (or any weapon) would drop enemy from horseback. And of course, traditional improvements in speed, damage and alike would be good.

Homever, there is a problem with thrust-only-polearms. Currently there is just one attack for them. I think there should be multiple thrusts, so it wouldn't be possible to block them all by just holding the block key.

So, what do you think?
 
I think the problem is with the thrust type attack in general. Thare's something about it which makes it do no damage in most situations. Even with my big meaty beserker character who can do 70 damage with his Balanced SOW, single digit thrust damage isn't uncommon.

The only good polearm weapons (couched damage aside) are those which can attack with a swinging motion.
 
If you hit an enemy at the very beginning of the thrust, it does very little to no damage. Likewise, if you "dink" them at the very end of the thrust, it does little to no damage. Thrusting is the only attack where it matters when you hit. Just to test this, i took my character against a sea raider with a spear. I moved right next to him and kept running into him as to keep only an inch from his face. I let him thrust his spear at me repeatedly, and each hit dealt 0 damage, and i was only wearing a hardened leather jerkin. But even after taking that into consideration, you're correct, polearms need a bit more power IMO.
 
When I first played "M&B" (version 0.622 I guess), polearms were very unballanced. Lances were just too strong, they had great damage, the best reach, and no disadvantage. Someone with a big lance, on foot or at a horse, was almost unbeatable.

After I installed version 0.632, the first thing I noticed was the fact that the polearms damage had been greatlly reduced. Now the only way to do decent damage with a lance is using "Couched Lance", which really does amazing damage. But normal damage is crap, almost always 1 digit damage. So when on foot, lances are now almost useless, and when mounted, they are hard to use since couched lance can be a bit tricky.

I guess they realized that lances was overpowered and tried to fix it. And now I think they are underpowered. But I guess (and I hope) that Armagan will realize that and fix it in the next version. Not too strong nor too weak, he just needs to find the right balance.
 
I started playing with version 0.632, so I'm not sure what lances were like before, but to be honest, they feel about right to me. They look like big heavy things, and to me don't look like they're meant to be thrust one-handed at an enemy. In my opinion, if you want to have a polearm that's good for both thrusting attacks and couched lance attacks, then what you want is a spear, fork or the double-bladed lance. They don't have the same range as a great lance, but they're a lot faster, letting you do decent thrusting damage.
 
polearms are good balanced, at least for the AI...
i get messages like RECEIBED 88 DAMAGE when someone with a lance on horse charges me...
but i CANT GET TO USE it at all... my highest damage so far was 24..
i think the hard thing to do is get to know how it actually works...
so not only your character has to master the skill, but also YOU(the PERSON sitting behind the monitor) has to learn how to use it, which is good.. make game harder and more interesting
 
haha, no 24 damage is not much at all...
well what i do is charge at an archer or someone of the like, and leave the leftbutton 2 sec before you would leave if you were with 2hand sword... and point it to the chest of opponent, and not slowing down on horse...
you just have to leave it a little earlier
 
kroc said:
haha, no 24 damage is not much at all...
well what i do is charge at an archer or someone of the like, and leave the leftbutton 2 sec before you would leave if you were with 2hand sword... and point it to the chest of opponent, and not slowing down on horse...
you just have to leave it a little earlier
There's your problem right there. With a lance, don't push the mouse button at all -- just work up enough speed that your character lowers the lance, then run the tip of the lance into the enemy. That's a couched lance attack.
 
waitt, you mean you can do damage without clicking the lance at all?
hm.. never had it...
i thought couchad damage was something like elite damage.. and it doesnt say that for me!!
 
When you're going fast enough on horseback, the lance will lower to a forward position. If you hit anyone with the lance when it is like that, you get couched lance damage.

Do not click the attack button to get couched lance damage. It will not work. Wait for the lance to lower itself, then maneuver so the tip impacts someone.
 
I think the spearlike polearms are OK. Actually you cannot do that much damage with just with thrusting especially if enemy is good armoured. They must run into it in order to take significant damage. I have problem with maces, warhamers, axes etc. They should be more powerfull IMHO. Just their sheer weight was able to knock warrior down. In Mount&Bladee they have almost the same damage as swords. They should be more powerfull but slow.
 
It would be fun if you could swing an ax the proper Viking way that is like a flail. You know the figure eight pattern while howling like a mad dog. That would really rock. And it would scare the **** out of normal fighters.
 
Yeah, the one-handed polearms are all pretty weak, but they're not unusable. The hard part is getting the timing right. You have to try to catch the enemy at the point when the spear is moving fastest during the thrust. Too early or too late, and you do no damage at all. But you also have the option of riding a horse and going for couched damage, so they're still pretty useful.
 
if you take the time to get good at thrusting with a lance, you can do pretty good damage, atleast if you're mounted. It's hard to do good couched damage to mounted archers or other mounted units that tend to run away from you, so It's better to just thrust the lance (or pull out your backup weapon, but that's not the point). I can do pretty decent damage with a thrusting lance (25-35) and i'm only level 17. And the best part is it usualy damages both the horse and rider. I don't think it's that underpowered, just takes time to get skilled with it.

I do agree that polearms need to be improved for foot soldiers. When not mounted, it's almost impossible to effictively use a polearm against another foot soldier. Maybe even if it does 0 damage because you're too close, it should knock them back abit. Then atleast they can't just keep walking toward you and getting poked in the gut for 0 damage.
 
okiN said:
Thrusting (Not couching) with the great lance, I can do 35-45 damage, no problem. It's a question of timing.

Yeah, but great lance is very slow. And anyway, it's easy to do 60 damage with two-handed weapons on foot, so 40 damage just isn't enough, especially with those huge drawback times polearms have.
 
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