Possible Improvement for Couched Lances

[Papa Lazarou]

Here's my idea:

I've noticed an unrealistic (possibly unbalanced as well) aspect to the use of couched weapons. Realistically, if you stabbed someone with a spear or lance while at a gallop, and the blow wasn't glancing, the weapon would penetrate to a significant depth, making it impossible to recover while still charging. The horseman would have to abandon the spear (maybe recovering it later) and switch to a new weapon.

In the game the spear could even be shown sticking out of the fallen enemy.
I don't know about how hard this would be to implement, but if possible i think it would improve the realism and balancing for cavalry greatly.

Thanks.

 

[Redwall]

That is very true. It wasn't uncommon for jousting lances to simply shatter on impact but they were blunt weapons and against an armoured opponent. A spear against anything weaker than chainmail would easily go through someone if you were on horseback. However, retrieving the spear would be the real problem. If it was just a matter of pressing f while near the body to pull it back out, then it would only be fair to have that available for any projectiles, then you would expect to be able to grab weapons and then you would expect to grab armour (especially shields). I think that it's be much more trouble than it's worth.

 

[McPa]

One of the things you can do, and I was doing this 5 mins ago, is to manually switch to a secondary weapon to pretend you lost the spear or the lance cracked, charging scattered footmen with a lance or spear is piece of cake as long as you have a decent horse, favourable terrain and the enemy not bunching up.

So, instead of doing it the easy way, after 3 kills with a great lance I switched to my crappy Morningstar and since its reach is below par on horse I dismounted and fought the rest of the battle on foot.

I would certainly like unrecoverable-in-battle lances/spears after a couched attack, spears would return to inventory after the battle round is over, like arrows and broken shields, but the jousting and great lance would have a chance of getting a negative modifier everytime it "cracked".

 

[Ilex]

I think some spears/lances had a pole in the shaft preventing the weapon from penetrating too deep. But of course they did break "sometimes".

 

[Copy_con]

...but the jousting and great lance would have a chance of getting a negative modifier everytime it "cracked".

Definitely!

There's just one problem, Armagan has to increase the chance of finding a good lance at the smithy's place.

 

[jrawlings]

I would certainly like unrecoverable-in-battle lances/spears after a couched attack, spears would return to inventory after the battle round is over, like arrows and broken shields, but the jousting and great lance would have a chance of getting a negative modifier everytime it "cracked".

I wouldn't mind this so long as the shops sold more of the "regular" varieties of lances. As it is, it is extremely rare to find a "regular" great lance or jousting lance from the smithies...

Also on the battlefield, didn't knights have squires and pages that kept spare weapons/lances for them? So when thier lance broke, theyou could get a new one? Maybe that should be implemented here too, if we want to keep it realistic with the possibility of the spear breaking off etc...

 

[Tarrak]

Perhaps each attack should have a risk of damaging the lance depending on damage dealt and where it was struck. But then it would also be nice if lances had ammo. And it would take sometim to ready the next lance if the previous broke.

Realistic? Not at all! But I think I like it.

What do you think about this:

Blocked couched lanceattacks of over say 60 damage would result in the target getting thrown to the ground. As it is it is extremely anoying to charge an enemy rider with your super Spirited Charger and your Great Lance with 250 in proficiency only to have the attack blocked by a measly blue shield (you know which one I talk about), and then the blocker strikes you as you pass (or halts in case he was riding).

Such an attack would send enough force into the man to topple him or strike him from the saddle.

 

[Roady]

But then it would also be nice if lances had ammo.

Oh yea! Load my lance with a black powder tip, charge some fool, and BAM! watch the impact of the lance blow the cartridge and throw that fool through the air!
No more fool stuck on my lance ^^ j/k

Having lances shatter on impact would be a nice realistic addition, but I think I'd miss gallivanting across the battle field and annihilating npcs in my path.

 

[Vachir]

I don't know about realistic. Jousting lances shattered because they were meant to be safe for tournaments, I would expect a war lance to be much more durable as it would only be practical to have a weapon you could use more than a few times without breaking it. This is not something I am historically familiar with however, someone who knows more about the history of mounted combat should probably comment.

 

[Kelpo]

I don't know about realistic. Jousting lances shattered because they were meant to be safe for tournaments, I would expect a war lance to be much more durable as it would only be practical to have a weapon you could use more than a few times without breaking it. This is not something I am historically familiar with however, someone who knows more about the history of mounted combat should probably comment.

If the lance doesn't break, then you'd have a dead bandit hanging from your lance, which might make it rather tricky to use. One way or another, the lance would become unusable.

 

[Roach]

I would imagine a combination of the momentum of the charge and a sharp lance head would more sort of.. tear through an enemy rather than piercing them through on anything other than a full frontal hit on a flat part of the body such as the sternum. So they'd be left writhing on the ground in agony with a huge gash in the side/arm/shoulder as opposed to hanging on your lance like a kebab (although that would be much cooler).

Armour would change things a bit, although I have to say I see most (leather, padded, chain) just being ripped apart, and the lance tip finding no purchase on shaped plate (but perhaps catching in a crevice like the shoulder joint and ripping your arm off. Ow.)

 

[Vachir]

As I said, I'm not all that familiar with the lance, however my assumption is that being tapered is an attempt to expand an inflicted wound to a point where the lance would free it's self of an enemy after impaling them. A spear on the other hand, which I understand somewhat better, would be used in such a way as to stab into the enemy, and rotate down and outward of the horse, being pulled back out in a forward direction along the direction of travel rather than pushing 'through' the enemy and becoming stuck. It does not appear from the shape that this would be practical with a lance, but again, hopefully someone with better historical knowledge of lancing can clear this up.

 

[Lugh]

I always understood that war lances were heavily reinforced, they certainly weren't designed to shatter. As someone said, they were supposed to tear chunks out of the opponent and knock them down, rather than punch a neat little hole in them.

 

[Sir Prince]

If someone wants to mod easily breakable lances, I´d try it, but it just do´esn´t work for gameplay as mentioned above.

 

[Klokkwork]

Or you could leave the lances unbreakable, but model it so bodies stayed on the lance, and stacked like shish-ka-bobs. Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!!

Okay, it's out of my system now. (Sorry, I work customer service. Those of you who answer phones for a living know what I'm talking about.)

 

[Taka]

I can imagine that such work would be a real feat of coding. Granted, I'm not a coder and I could be looking at this all wrong, but I would rather the developer work on finishing the game than spending time putting in animation for breaking lances, working it out to lose the lance once it deals X amount of damge, ect. While its a good idea, I think it might have to wait till M&B 2 till it's possible.

One thing I would like would be for infantry to "couch" lances and pikes, so that when horsemen charge dirrectly into them, they can just die like God intended. Personaly, I think that spear on foot is extremely weak, it's only saving grace being it's ability to keep enemy's at a distance.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Thanks for the replys.

I didn't make it clear in the first post but the way i had thought about it was to have the lance lost (possibly, depending on realistic results) and recovered in the same way arrows are currently.
I would think that on impact, with a lance, it would suddenly become difficult to keep hold of it even if it did rip through the side of the opponent or something like that. I don't know myself what would happen in real life though.
Either way, the lances and spears from horseback in game can certainly be improved as far as balancing and realism are concerned.

 

[Husar]

I think that lances may just have a certain chance to break on impact when they are couched. It could even be implemented as new weapon stat for polearms like "chance to break: 10%" depending on the quality and type of the lance. Shouldn´t be that hard to implement I think, there would just need to be an animation made for the lance to break and fall down, similar to what happens with shields now.
But concerning lances in general, I think they are too easy to block with just a weapon. It shouldn´t be that easy for a simple bandit to block a thrusting attack with his falchion. And maybe Armagan could include a "switch attacking style" button, I´d like to use a lance in the old style sometimes, the animation would be somewhat similar to throwing javelins from horseback I think.

 

[mtarini]

Just a note: don't overrate realism.

Maybe real lances were more or less single shot. I dunno.
But for sure in reality one could be happy if he killed a single enemy, or at most a few. After all, if every soldier did kill a single enemy, there would be no soldier left, right?

Instead, for the game to be fun, you want to kill 10+ enemies, per battle round, per encounter. Reality needs to be forced somewhere. Make lance single use and you get a (maybe) more realitic but (surely) a lot more boring game.

But I agree, if you make a lance shatter after many impacts (more like "breaks on 1-5%" than "10%") then you balance a little better the power of that weapon, and at the same time you force gamer to switch combat style from time to time (lancing is too dominanting as a weapon now).

But, please, no permanent damage on the lance, realism or not. That would really feel bad. (Horses are already so bad in that they lose their good traits on crippling. It drains sense from investing in a "spirited warhorse". It would be a fun thing to do but it is obvioulsy not worth it, considering that it would serve for just a few fights before turning into a common, 1/10 of the money worth, mount ).

 

[Jhaerik]

Or, why not just MAKE them breakable, AND lower the price. You would think they would be a bit let expensive than swords anyway, not like there is a lumber shortage.

ALSO if lances can't break, then why do I spend 2 weeks every time I play a char that use a lance trying to find one that isn't...bent...cracked...smashed...bashed...gnarled...shattered...broken...rotted...old...useless...or some other fictional in-game term I can come up with?

Sorry for the rant, but I've been up far to long not to...lol