[Suggestions] My Big Weapon Balance Post

[Trelin]

About couched lancing, it seems to me that the number 1 problem is the reduced weapon range. I feel I have longer range when thrusting my spear when compared to couching. Could be wrong, though.

You're not wrong.  You do of course have a much longer range thrusting than couching. You have the added reach of your character straightening his arm from 90 degrees from couch position to straight forward when he thrusts, plus a slight pivot in the torso.  Just watch the position of the lance tip relative to your horse's head, it becomes quite obvious.  The odd time I am able to couch it does still one-shot basically every time (the rare exception being if you are "tailgating" another cavalry).

The ideas about partial damage and/or movement penalties when blocking a heavier weapon ... its interesting but I think its going too far.  I feel the combat system is already plenty realistic and robust, as is.  The fact that shields can be destroyed, and blocking w/o a shield is very difficult (I still don't understand why Auto-Block servers should even exist) seems to balance the extra power of 2 Handers, in my opinion.

 

[ares007]

getting knocked off a horse should do some damage, so it's not like cavalrymen have two lives.

I like this idea. It shouldn't be too much damage though. I've actually thought about this myself.


About the partial damage. I'd be willing to try it out, but I don't think it's necessary. I'm not sure I like it, but like I said, I'd be willing to try it out (I use bastard sword 2-handed usually  ).
While the partial damage from a spear thrust would force people to dodge, I don't think it's really that great. I've seen sparring with spear vs sword and the "dinky little" sword could parry the spear thrust. Of course the thing is, in real life, you move when you block/parry. I don't know if it would be too much trouble for the devs, but perhaps if the spear thrust hits a "parry" directly center, it would do partial damage. However, if the thrust hit the parry off-center it would be successfully parried. This might force people to sidestep when they block.


While I don't think it's necessary, I wouldn't mind the movement penalty idea. I think it might be a better idea than the partial damage personally.

2. Horsemen of all factions should have poor two-hand skill and have no purchasable two-handers. The two-hander should be a footman only weapon for sake of balance.
- You lose your horse, be afraid.

eh... It depends. Swadians... if a knight was dismounted, he'd still have really good odds against any individual infantry. For the cultures that Swadian seems to represent, the knight was the premier martial artist. Actually, a knight was probably a better martial artist than almost any other troop represented in MnB. And, a knight would very likely be using a longsword (a.k.a. bastard sword) 2-handed; he would (and should) be extremely proficient with it as well.

The way it's balanced is the infantry should be a relatively big group. Said group should overpower the lone, dismounted knight. To do this, they must work together however. The problem is that everyone just wants to kill instead of work together.

 

[test]

Partial damage could work, if it doesn't cause a stagger / stun effect - else it'll be impossible to win against them. It makes sense - you still parry the attack, even though it hurts a bit.
I think two-handers are already quite strong as is, however. The lack of a shield isn't that crippling - if you carry a two-hander, a one-hander and a shield, then it's rather easy to use the two-hander in melee battle and switch to shield when archers are shooting at you.
This is only for auto-block, though.

On autoblock it really doesn't matter which weapon you use, or if you have a shield.  You could have a javelin in melee mode and be just as surviveable as a shield user (unless you're fighting a mob of players, in which case you're dead anyway).  All fights between experienced players end up playing the same way (stalemates that go on for minutes), regardless of weapon used.  With autoblock, every weapon becomes an invincible shield. 

With manual block, two-handers lose to a shield users in a straight up fight, every time.  Not only do you have to survive long enough to break their shield, but then you have to contend with another invincible shield after that (if they're good at manual blocking it's basically like having to win TWO fights back to back).  Anything that isn't a Swadian sword is pretty godawful for feinting and easily blocked, so they're ignored by good players.  Two-handers in manual mode are used for ganking/assisting when you have numerical superiority.. the Swadian swords are favored because they have the reach to do that.  The other weapons are mostly ignored because they're too heavy/slow/have no range.  If you try to use them, you end up making yourself vulnerable/putting yourself in the range of several players.  There needs to be a mechanic that gives 2handers a chance against shield users, especially the massive/slow weapons (glaive, 2hand hammers). 

I support the idea that horsemen are too strong when dismounted. Almost as good as infantry. Only thing they usually lack is athletics, and this is compensated by their weaker (and thus lighter) armor.

Cavalrymen get the best/most protective armors.  Check out the Swadian and Khergit cav.  The only exception is the Nord scout, which gets the 2nd best Huscarl armor.

All it takes right now in a fight against a two-hander in manual block servers is to block the first swing from a two-hander with your shield, then counter it with an overhead attack or stab attack. People rarely block against these as first swings. After that, it's just a matter of swinging nonstop to keep them stun locked until they die.

This is pretty much how every melee fight plays out right now.  It's a race to see whose shield breaks first and then this happens. You might actually see an epic 2hand vs 2hand duel 1% of the time, but when they happen boy are they sweet.. they're the only fights that don't immediately end up in punching range with people spinning around attempting to get back hits while looking at the floor.

I'm picturing two-handers being able to control a 1v1 battle in the ability to slow an enemy, and maintain distance, rather than the current system where people run right up nose to nose and eliminate the small bit of range a two-hander can bring to a fight.

Yea, what melee needs is a way for people to control distance  It all boils down to this.

I think there needs to be a new mechanic tied to the weight of the weapon, as the lack of speed/lack of range/encumberment forces players to use a select few weapons if they want to win.  For example.. a 10 weight warhammer does 10 units max worth of knockback, an 8 weight sledgehammer does up to 8 units max worth of knockback, etc.  Knockback is only applied after a minimum preparation/ready time (say .5 seconds) to prevent people from simply waving heavy weapons around, or landing a hit and cancelling the animation for another quick attack.

Slowing would work well too, though I think the sight of sending someone a couple feet back from a massive clobbering weapon would be more visceral.

 

[ares007]

I think there needs to be a new mechanic tied to the weight of the weapon, as the lack of speed/lack of range/encumberment forces players to use a select few weapons if they want to win.  For example.. a 10 weight warhammer does 10 units max worth of knockback, an 8 weight sledgehammer does up to 8 units max worth of knockback, etc.  Knockback is only applied after a minimum preparation/ready time (say .5 seconds) to prevent people from simply waving heavy weapons around, or landing a hit and cancelling the animation for another quick attack.

I like this very much. Still allow the combos for fast weapons, but give a hammer/axe wielder a good chance of winning the fight if he can hit with the first strike whether blocked or not. Also give people the incentive to prepare their attacks.

Yes, I like this idea. I want to experiment! 

 

[Harn]

I don't think the stupidity of the mob is any reason to nerf the cav.  I mean I use a one hander almost religiously and still get a couple of kills in just because I maneuver about in the mob while they're all blocking each others swings and just swing frantically trying to get a kill or two and sometimes do.  It's certainly not my fault that they don't block, and removing two handers isn't going to fix this either.  It's a problem on their end. 

I agree, the reason I want to see cavalry lose the two-hander is to be at a disadvantage against smart infantry when unmounted mainly. I'm looking to help make the infantry role unique, not horsemen without the horse.

I'd much rather see sword & boarders having to work to keep outside of a two-handers range and duck in and attack

You're going to have to slow down two handed attacks if you want to see this happen because currently this would be impossible.  The time to move into their range after they've swung AND attack would be more than the time it takes them to attack again currently. 

That might be necessary, sure.

How about making Athletics / Riding increase your battle effectiveness when unmounted / mounted? Something like +5% damage dealt / -4% damage taken per point. That way, cavalry will be at a real disadvantage on foot as they have low Athletics.
It would pose some balance problems at first (think Khergits on the Village map), but I think it's the best way to truly specialize the classes in the end.

It's an interesting idea, might work, I grimace at the idea of having to swing 6-7 times to kill someone in good armor instead of the 4-5 currently already needed.

The ideas about partial damage and/or movement penalties when blocking a heavier weapon ... its interesting but I think its going too far.  I feel the combat system is already plenty realistic and robust, as is.  The fact that shields can be destroyed, and blocking w/o a shield is very difficult (I still don't understand why Auto-Block servers should even exist) seems to balance the extra power of 2 Handers, in my opinion.

The biggest problem I see with two-handers on the manual block server is how you can't maintain distance against people with shields. I do it all the time to two-handers; I crowd them in, and chop away as soon as I block them. This causes everyone to stop using their two-handers and also sword & board up. Dull.

Movement reduction would also stop bunny hopping people from running around spinning like a top blocking everyone attacking them, this instead would let people properly surround and attack someone from behind more quickly. In addition, the teamwork & coordination options for competitive play just sound awesome.

About the partial damage. I'd be willing to try it out, but I don't think it's necessary. I'm not sure I like it, but like I said, I'd be willing to try it out (I use bastard sword 2-handed usually  ).
While the partial damage from a spear thrust would force people to dodge, I don't think it's really that great. I've seen sparring with spear vs sword and the "dinky little" sword could parry the spear thrust. Of course the thing is, in real life, you move when you block/parry. I don't know if it would be too much trouble for the devs, but perhaps if the spear thrust hits a "parry" directly center, it would do partial damage. However, if the thrust hit the parry off-center it would be successfully parried. This might force people to sidestep when they block.


While I don't think it's necessary, I wouldn't mind the movement penalty idea. I think it might be a better idea than the partial damage personally.

Thanks for keeping an open mind, I will admit that at this point I've stopped caring about my whole idea about partial damage; let the auto blockers suffer .  I do think the movement reduction would be a very nice change to current "attack, block, attack rinse & repeat" gameplay though.

I think there needs to be a new mechanic tied to the weight of the weapon, as the lack of speed/lack of range/encumberment forces players to use a select few weapons if they want to win.  For example.. a 10 weight warhammer does 10 units max worth of knockback, an 8 weight sledgehammer does up to 8 units max worth of knockback, etc.  Knockback is only applied after a minimum preparation/ready time (say .5 seconds) to prevent people from simply waving heavy weapons around, or landing a hit and cancelling the animation for another quick attack.

Slowing would work well too, though I think the sight of sending someone a couple feet back from a massive clobbering weapon would be more visceral.

The problem with having a knock back in this situation is it causes a player to lose control of their character for doing something right. Maintaining control of your character is a big thing when it comes to gaming. A movement penalty wouldn't cause people to actually lose control of their character like a stagger animation would, it would just cause something similar to what happens when you start to walk up stairs in game. You walk in tar for a second, letting your enemies run around to stab you in the back. The weight of a weapon to determine the movement reduction would be neat, and the "windup" sounds smart too.

Couched Lancing
In regards to the problem with couched lancing, picture having a gumball attached to the end of the lance. We'll say that's the current size of the hit detection area for couched lancing. If the server doesn't see that gumball connect with an enemy hitbox, you miss. This is fine in single player without lag to interfere, but not so fine in multiplayer. I'd like to see something like a capital T or I there instead, much longer and a bit wider so it can pick up people's hit boxes as it travels through them to better account for lag.

Too many replies. I was supposed to post this an hour ago, but you people keep replying . I need sleep. Feel free to continue poking holes in my ideas. I'll edit the first post later to update with my current, post-debate thoughts.

 

[test]

I think there needs to be a new mechanic tied to the weight of the weapon, as the lack of speed/lack of range/encumberment forces players to use a select few weapons if they want to win.  For example.. a 10 weight warhammer does 10 units max worth of knockback, an 8 weight sledgehammer does up to 8 units max worth of knockback, etc.  Knockback is only applied after a minimum preparation/ready time (say .5 seconds) to prevent people from simply waving heavy weapons around, or landing a hit and cancelling the animation for another quick attack.

Slowing would work well too, though I think the sight of sending someone a couple feet back from a massive clobbering weapon would be more visceral.

The problem with having a knock back in this situation is it causes a player to lose control of their character for doing something right. Maintaining control of your character is a big thing when it comes to gaming. A movement penalty wouldn't cause people to actually lose control of their character like a stagger animation would, it would just cause something similar to what happens when you start to walk up stairs in game. You walk in tar for a second, letting your enemies run around to stab you in the back. The weight of a weapon to determine the movement reduction would be neat, and the "windup" sounds smart too.
. I need sleep. Feel free to continue poking holes in my ideas. I'll edit the first post later to update with my current, post-debate thoughts.

I refer to knockback, slowdown, bleed-through, and recoil/stagger as completely separate mechanics.  In the case of knockback, it'd simply be just that - momentum imparted on a player that pushes them in the direction of your swing.  This allows players to maintain distance without introducing the loss of player control (unless you're knocking someone off a castle wall or something).

I still like the other mechanics and think they should be implemented somehow, but knockback and slowdown seem like the simplest/most effective ways of addressing the issue of giving a way for players to maintain range.

Too many replies. I was supposed to post this an hour ago, but you people keep replying . I need sleep. Feel free to continue poking holes in my ideas. I'll edit the first post later to update with my current, post-debate thoughts.

Heh, I'm actually glad the manual server was down this weekend.  Actually had the chance to discuss some of the more important/fundamental aspects of the game.

 

[Nales]

Hmm yeah, two-handers on manual block are pretty much like I imagined. That sure poses a problem, as they're good on auto-block mode. It doesn't make sense that they're good in one mode and awful in the other.

The movement penalty would have to be considered very carefully. We don't want two-hander users to kite a sword & board user forever while hacking their shields (and their body after the shield breaks).


Also, when I said cavalry gets worse armor than infantry, I was thinking (team) deathmatch, not battle or siege. Since the horse already costs a lot, they can't afford the good armors.

It's an interesting idea, might work, I grimace at the idea of having to swing 6-7 times to kill someone in good armor instead of the 4-5 currently already needed.

In the end it would be the same for infantry / infantry and mounted / mounted battles, unless they have different Athletics / Riding skills. Only dismounted cavalry / infantry would put the former at a disadvantage.
So yeah, as a dismounted cavalry it'd take you 7 swings to kill an infantry in good armor, but if you have good armor as well you won't go down too easily either.

Actually, a better way to implement it would be to only consider the skill difference: on foot you'd get a % bonus to damage and defense for every extra Athletics point you have over your opponent. Same for mounted battle and Riding skill.

 

[crazycracka]

vaegir cav should get some more 2hander choices. And does anyone know what Vaeg 2handed skill actually is?

swad cav should have the morningstar, like in SP

2handed swords dont need any changes imo, especially since all the servers are autoblock(u can still use manual block, and just ridicule people using auto) 

2handed hammers definitely need some kind of tweak to make them viable, the slowing idea sounds alright. I would be weary of doing the same with axes though. They aren't that slow and can 1 hit most shields.

cav taking damage when falling off is reasonable, but it should be minimal. Maybe have it dependent on how fast you're moving. They also need to tweak falling off your horse some. Sometimes you fall and don't really slide anywhere, and other times you'll fly halfway across the map, or through(under?) buildings, this has happened to me multiple times on Village, and Field by the river.

as far as couching goes: The only times I have problems with hit detection are when I'm riding up directly behind another cav, or from 90 deg.
When attacking from behind, I'll be going considerably faster than them(if they're moving at all) and my lance will go straight through them and their horse. 
When attacking from 90deg, My horse almost always hit theirs before my lance does. Sometimes it does in fact work, usually when I think i've aimed too far ahead of them it hits. I do normally aim high on the rider when coming from the side, so I will toy around with aiming solely for the horse when trying to Tbone people.

For most of my encounters couching people though, it does work as indented. I would like to see the shield raise in tune with your lance, lance goes down shield comes up. (make a jousting map with fence in between riders plz, and tournament mode while you're at it )

 

[ares007]

I would like to see the shield raise in tune with your lance, lance goes down shield comes up. (make a jousting map with fence in between riders plz, and tournament mode while you're at it )

lot's of good ideas in this thread 

I have always been for raising shield with couched lance. Then jousting with a fence? Awesome! Tournament mode? Awesome!


The main stat difference between infantry and cavalry like Test said should be speed, not weapon proficiency.

Also, one of the big features of infantry is numbers. While I really don't want certain classes to be limited to a certain amount of players, there may need to be something that encourages more people to be infantry. Of course, they did make horses more expensive, so that helps. Maybe horses should be even more expensive  .

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I'll do it like this since I'm lazy:

1. "Recoil" makes very little sense.

2. Static "charging up" makes zero sense.

3. Two-handed swords are totally different from two handed axes/hammers in reality.

4. M&B's defensive mechanics are somewhat limited. You don't "block" a two-handed axe with a shortsword, much less with a mace or small axe. Instead you'd evade it in some way, or perhaps displace it by striking. Therefore, if changes are made, they should be to make defence using small weapons (against heavy weapons) require more evasive movement or more skill.


I think addressing this properly in a non-gamey way would require a fair bit of reworking. Otherwise, I'd rather see tweaks to the existing anti-shield/anti-armour effects of heavy weapons relative to swords. Or something like that.

 

[Berserker Pride]

I know where this is coming from.  Basically the effectiveness of shield/sword combo vs two handed in manual block has made almost everyone mainly rely on the shield sword combo.  I don't necessarily agree that all two-handers need to have a bonus effect like stagger though.  I feel the swadian two-handed swords and bastards are fine as is because they are so fast.  They often beat sword and shield guys because they are surprised by the speed.  They are also excellent when ganging up on someone.  I wouldn't change two-handed swords.

The two-handed axes probably shouldn't be buffed because they can smash most shields in two hits and almost always kill in one hit.

The hammers need some help.  I would be okay with a movement reduction when blocking a hammer with a shield or parrying it.  Frankly they suck right now.  If you hit a guy with a hammer and he couldn't move away it would give the hammer user more options.  People would no longer want to crowd the guy with the hammer as they do now it would be too dangerous.  It might be beneficial to give the blocker a very small recoil but nothing that would let the guy who hit him get another free hit in.  Just enough so that the only option for the shield user would not be to swing away at the hammer guy like a madman.  It would make fighting a guy with a maul more about keeping range against his shorter weapon.

 

[Archonsod]

As things currently stand in-game, when a horseman gets dismounted, he's still 90% as effective as a standard infantryman, diminishing the uniqueness of infantry. I'd like to see cavalry specialized a bit further into the role of lancing, and infantry into the role of two-handed weaponry, in addition to what infantry already have.

I'd partially agree. For most cases a dismounted cavalryman should be significantly worse than his own faction's infantry while dismounted. However, for one or two factions having a cavalry class which is equally capable whether mounted or on foot would be a nice distinguishing feature. The Nord Scout would be an ideal candidate, since the 'dual class' ability would compensate for being sub-par cavalry.

2. Horsemen of all factions should have poor two-hand skill and have no purchasable two-handers. The two-hander should be a footman only weapon for sake of balance.

Again, they could do with being less accessible but not a blanket ban.

- Seems illogical to me that someone will waltz into an attack with that much force hitting them. Helps group tactics for a pair of infantry men to surround an enemy more easily.

The idea of parrying or blocking a blow is you deflect the force. It's the force hitting you which actually causes the damage. Slowdown stinks a bit too much of 'magic' for my liking, if weapons start adding slowdown effects you're only a small step away from "Short sword +1" territory.
A more workable solution might be to have them physically move the target around.

4. Two-handers should have a guaranteed chance to do partial damage when parried by a one-hander on an overhead attack.

No, you're just making two handers an "I win" button. They're fine as is; you get the same speed (and in cases more speed) than a single handed weapon and considerably more damage at the price of not taking a shield. If you make two handers capable of dealing damage through a block you'd either need to slow them down so one handed weapons are faster (which will simply have people complaining they're useless) or prevent their ability to break shields. You should not at any point be capable of beating another player solely because you have better equipment, which is what this basically does.

7. Give spear/lance stabs guaranteed partial damage when parried (not blocks, just parries). Why? Someone parrying away a spear coming at them at 30-40mph with a dinky little sword is ridiculous.

If someone can hit a tiny baseball with a small rounded surface at speeds in excess of 100mph, I think a spear moving just over a third of that isn't so hard.

The hammers need some help.

Not really. They do huge damage and reduce the targets armour, the price of that is their small range and slow speed. They're the sniper rifle equivalent for infantry - in a toe to toe fight it's useless, but if you pick the right moment it's an instant kill.

 

[Oyipggy]

Vaegir, Nord and Swadian cavalry all get two-handers.

I honestly had no idea Swadian and Nord cavalry could get it, as I never play as cavalry. So I agree on Swadian losing it, maybe on Nord.

Overhead attacks only seem to register on the head hit box (probably something like 1/8th the size of what a side swing can hit).

I get kills with overhead all the time. People seem to feel blocking is restricted to swinging left or right, so overhead/stabbing is the perfect solution.

Making them the masters of the two-handed weapons would give them more reason to pull out a two-hand weapon rather than hide behind a shield 90% of the time, like many end up doing, because it's a lot safer to use a shield against another shield user than work with a two-hander on a manual block server.

Something tells me you have never fought a large group of Swadian infantry, all of them using 2h swords.

Two-handers are faster because you have twice the force behind the swing. Lots of people in other threads have described it better than I could. With the proficiency normalizations though from .600 or .610 (I forget), two-handers are no longer quite as fast as I'm guessing you are thinking of. Swadians used to have 255 two-handed, now they're 150 proficiency. They're still fast, but it's not nearly as much as it used to be.

Yea, I noticed they were slower now. I think for pure balance, it makes sense that someone can swing a 1h weapon faster than a 2h one.

 

[Trelin]

Referring to the OP:

Infantry

3. Giving bigger weapons (two-handers, polearms) the ability to slow the enemy if they block or parry it. Doesn't need to stop the player, just reduce their movement speed slightly by 30% or so for a second.
- Seems illogical to me that someone will waltz into an attack with that much force hitting them. Helps group tactics for a pair of infantry men to surround an enemy more easily.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that using a shield to block a blow from a heavy weapon should push you back a little bit.  But only so much as to cancel out your forward movement.  i.e. how could you possibly keep moving forward when a 2 handed hammer is slamming against your shield?  You couldn't, you would stand your ground, at best.  Whether the attack should cause a push back , or movement speed debuff, I'm not sure.  I sort of like the idea of the blow halting you in your tracks from a brief moment.

Against attacks blocked with a weapon, I'm not so sure there should be any penalty because:

1) In terms of realism, you could deflect the blow away from you, more like parrying than blocking.

2) Manual blocking takes a lot of skill, so its still balanced imo.

In other words, shields need to be nerfed just a slight bit so that there will be a bit more variety in combat. Thoughts?

 

[Berserker Pride]

Not really. They do huge damage and reduce the targets armour, the price of that is their small range and slow speed. They're the sniper rifle equivalent for infantry - in a toe to toe fight it's useless, but if you pick the right moment it's an instant kill.

While that is true axes kill people in one hit as well and are quicker and longer ranged(a tiny bit). Not to mention shield breakage.  And due to the short range of the hammer it isn't that easy to gank someone with it either.  The two-handed swords work far better for teaming up on people.  At the very least the hammer could do damage to shields as well.  Although it wouldn't help much because people know your hammer is slower and swing away at you.  This can sometimes work to your advantage if you can get a swing ready in time.  More often than not the other just hits you again though.  I really only use the big maul as an crossbowman because it is great for smashing a cavalry guy you just dehorsed.

 

[Archonsod]

The axe struggles to get a one hit kill on someone wearing Lamellar.

 

[ares007]

Not really. They do huge damage and reduce the targets armour, the price of that is their small range and slow speed. They're the sniper rifle equivalent for infantry - in a toe to toe fight it's useless, but if you pick the right moment it's an instant kill.

exactly. People tend to think that every weapon should be balanced for dueling and 1 on 1 combat; however, MnB is not just about dueling and 1 on 1 combat. If every weapon were reworked and balanced for 1 on 1 combat, then the balance would be kind of messed up for the larger scale combat.

I've said it before: a 2-handed axe is somewhat easy to duel against with a sword, but when it comes to a big mob swing axes from different directions, the sword's speed doesn't matter very much.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen any medieval artwork with the kind of giant hammer that is in MnB. What would be more realistic is something similar to the military pick but a hammer instead.

 

[Harn]

First post updated based on critiques and opinions.

At this point, it appears Swadian cavalry would be balanced out for when they are dismounted. Vaegir and Nord cavalry would be buffed a bit in regards to their two-hand axes.

Nord & Rhodok infantry would be moderately buffed and made more unique.

There have been good ideas in this thread, such as cavalry losing health if their horse dies under them, but this thread was made largely with the intent on making infantry weaponry more interesting and versatile to give them the upper hand in foot combat vs unmounted cavalry, so I'm going to kindly refrain from being sidetracked. I would gladly post in a new thread about these subjects though.

 

[SteveO]

If someone can hit a tiny baseball with a small rounded surface at speeds in excess of 100mph, I think a spear moving just over a third of that isn't so hard.

Problem with this argument is the baseball doesn't have a continuous force being applied to it.  Once it's hit, its velocity reverses and the force is going in a new direction.  With a lance however, it has a continuous force applied to it (the rider holding it) and no change in velocity, so it would keep going once parried with a weapon.  What would be interesting is being able to attack the riders weapon and either break it or deflect it, but that'd probably be too hard to code. 

 

[ares007]

If someone can hit a tiny baseball with a small rounded surface at speeds in excess of 100mph, I think a spear moving just over a third of that isn't so hard.

Problem with this argument is the baseball doesn't have a continuous force being applied to it.  Once it's hit, its velocity reverses and the force is going in a new direction.  With a lance however, it has a continuous force applied to it (the rider holding it) and no change in velocity, so it would keep going once parried with a weapon.  What would be interesting is being able to attack the riders weapon and either break it or deflect it, but that'd probably be too hard to code.

Yes! If the coding could be done without too much pain, deflections by attacking would be awesome! It would not only apply to lances and stuff, but would also be effective in melee combat with swords and such. It could certainly make the melee more interesting.