Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Mounts and mounted combat, a revision.
Volkmar
Member UncommonPosts: 2,501
Hello there!
I know this argument has been encountered before, but I had time to think about it and here is what I came up with.
Mounts and Mounted combat are a central tenent in any warhammer game. not only mounted warriors have been historically important, but most warhammer races employ cavalry or cavalry-like troops (ie: rat ogres, bull-ogres, Saurus).
- 2 types of mounts, war mounts and normal mounts.
- Normal mounts are available to everyone of that race, the only benefit that a normal mount gives is increased overland speed (and looking cool). the mount can't be used in combat.
-War mounts are available only to warriors (optionally spellcasters) that invest in the "Mounted Combat" skill lists. A war mount will have 2 speeds: normal speed will be equivalent as a normal mount and can be used for overland movement, combat speed is for combat only and is way slower than normal speed, but a bit faster than normal infantry.
- War mounts comes in 3 (or 2) variety: Light mount is faster but can't carry medium or heavier armored riders. Medium mount is average but can't carry heavy armored riders while Heavy mount is slower but can carry any armored rider.
- The mounted combat skill lists will have skills for using weapons when on an horse. By necessity, a character specializing in mounted combat will leave something else away. Ideally, specializing in mounted combat should not be any more or less better than specializing in any other skill trees. Certain weapons cannot be used at all from horseback, others can be used but need more training, as such a rider needs to train both in mounted combat AND the weapon of its choice, removing variety from its repertory. in addition, shield use is strictly limited on horseback, offering much less protection than on foot.
- Mounts grants a offensive and defensive bonus to the riders, plus a impact bonus during the first attack. this last one is the bigger making cavalry the perfect shock troops, but lacking in staying power. Possibly, horses can also attack on their own, either as a cool effect only or as a real attack.
- Other skill trees, like archery and spears, will have moves and techniques to counter mounted combat, negating the bonuses or granting various penalties to the horseman. examples would include a crippling arrow attack that slow down the horse very much, so effectivly cancelling out their best bonus for mounted archers.
- Optionally make the mount possible to be hurt or even killed with certain abilities from other skill trees (for example spears should be able to impale horses). the mount is not permanently killed, but incapacitated for a certain period. the rider is thrown to the ground and has to rely on his inferior weapon skills to survive. This option, if implemented, should be fairly difficult to pull out to avoid completely negating the bonus of mounts, but not impossible.
- Horse Archery: using bows from horseback is possible with certain limitations. only smaller bows can be used in respect than on foot, so limiting range. a penalty on accuracy seems obviously in case that the horseback rider is moving, in addition, a archer on horseback is more vulnerable to archery fire than a normal foot trooper. he can't effectivly use a shield and is a much larger target. plus see before for special crippling attacks in other skill trees.
By balancing the skill trees with each other, mounted combat become a distinct possibility and one that, personally, would love to see implemented.
Thank you for your time.
Comments and discussions are, of course, welcome.
I know this argument has been encountered before, but I had time to think about it and here is what I came up with.
PREMISE
Mounts and Mounted combat are a central tenent in any warhammer game. not only mounted warriors have been historically important, but most warhammer races employ cavalry or cavalry-like troops (ie: rat ogres, bull-ogres, Saurus).
THESIS
- 2 types of mounts, war mounts and normal mounts.
- Normal mounts are available to everyone of that race, the only benefit that a normal mount gives is increased overland speed (and looking cool). the mount can't be used in combat.
-War mounts are available only to warriors (optionally spellcasters) that invest in the "Mounted Combat" skill lists. A war mount will have 2 speeds: normal speed will be equivalent as a normal mount and can be used for overland movement, combat speed is for combat only and is way slower than normal speed, but a bit faster than normal infantry.
- War mounts comes in 3 (or 2) variety: Light mount is faster but can't carry medium or heavier armored riders. Medium mount is average but can't carry heavy armored riders while Heavy mount is slower but can carry any armored rider.
- The mounted combat skill lists will have skills for using weapons when on an horse. By necessity, a character specializing in mounted combat will leave something else away. Ideally, specializing in mounted combat should not be any more or less better than specializing in any other skill trees. Certain weapons cannot be used at all from horseback, others can be used but need more training, as such a rider needs to train both in mounted combat AND the weapon of its choice, removing variety from its repertory. in addition, shield use is strictly limited on horseback, offering much less protection than on foot.
- Mounts grants a offensive and defensive bonus to the riders, plus a impact bonus during the first attack. this last one is the bigger making cavalry the perfect shock troops, but lacking in staying power. Possibly, horses can also attack on their own, either as a cool effect only or as a real attack.
- Other skill trees, like archery and spears, will have moves and techniques to counter mounted combat, negating the bonuses or granting various penalties to the horseman. examples would include a crippling arrow attack that slow down the horse very much, so effectivly cancelling out their best bonus for mounted archers.
- Optionally make the mount possible to be hurt or even killed with certain abilities from other skill trees (for example spears should be able to impale horses). the mount is not permanently killed, but incapacitated for a certain period. the rider is thrown to the ground and has to rely on his inferior weapon skills to survive. This option, if implemented, should be fairly difficult to pull out to avoid completely negating the bonus of mounts, but not impossible.
- Horse Archery: using bows from horseback is possible with certain limitations. only smaller bows can be used in respect than on foot, so limiting range. a penalty on accuracy seems obviously in case that the horseback rider is moving, in addition, a archer on horseback is more vulnerable to archery fire than a normal foot trooper. he can't effectivly use a shield and is a much larger target. plus see before for special crippling attacks in other skill trees.
CONCLUSION
By balancing the skill trees with each other, mounted combat become a distinct possibility and one that, personally, would love to see implemented.
Thank you for your time.
Comments and discussions are, of course, welcome.
Comments
good post
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
"Time.." I chuckled "I hold no secret to time, though it's mystery puzzles me. Deny it's existence and lie to myself not with hopes of a quickened pace."
Currently playing : Darkfall
Character name : Aeola Anara
Played: Almost every P2P MMO you can get your hands on, notably:
Daoc, SWG, LOTRO, WAR, AoC + Dozens more
I hope mounts will be included!
My 2 cents:
Horsemanship as a skill set is unlocked at certain levels for certain character/race combos.
This game will be using the career path caracter development last i heard so maybe you will have to work a certain career (Knight, or templar for example) to unlock combat horsemanship sub set.
fear not, I posted the thread also on www.warhammeralliance.com that is heavily frequented by Mythic devs, so we will see
If a MMorpg in development needs some form of mounted combat, that is WAR, so my hopes are still high to see it implemented in the game. Probably at E3 we will have more info about the game, so the wait is not very long...
If they do not implement mounted combat, well too bad. I would be a bit disappointed, but still consider the game for the rest of the novel stuff it is bringing on the field
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Very good post, sums up alot of ideas that I have been mulling over in regards to mounts. I only have two reservations about things you said in your post.
1. This style would possibly allow dwarfs to be more effective than Empirical cavalry. I know this is a completely seperate game from the tabletop, but i would like to see some things carry over. Certain races (Brettonia, Empire) were down right better than other, more infantry based races (Orcs, Dwarfs). I think seperate advantages could be given to the infantry based races for staying on their feet, and advantages given to Cavalry races for being mounted. Otherwise, you may see a whole battlefield of Dwarfs on horseback, and how Warhammer is that?
2. Different styles of mounts (light, heavy) should be applicable to the races that support it. I liked this idea. High elves could have faster, lighter horses for archers/skirmishers and heavier horses for the knights, gobbos have wolves, squigs or spiders, but heavier orcs can only have boars. Chaos warriors only come in one flavor, heavy duty, so they only need one style.
3. Please, Mythic, find some way to implement monster mounts. Not everyone on a battlefield should be riding one, but once in a while it would be cool. Having a chaos warrior atop a chaos dragon alight amidst a melee of chaos knights and high elves and start kicking ass would be nice.
Some great ideas but there needs to be some downsides to mounted combat... the last thing we want is it being overpowered and having every man and his dog shouting nerf mounts. Mythic will need to include mounted combat though because so many units use mounts in warhammer that it would just be wrong not to but I personally think it's better without mounts. Going by from my time on WoW, I remember enjoying the leveling and ganking aspects of the game but if I could have ganked on my mount, it just wouldn't have been as fun.
I've also seen a video of mounted combat for EQ2 and I wasn't really that impressed but maybe Mythic can pull it off so that it works, we shall see.
Mounts should be uber, a knight on a war horse should have an additional FEAR radius effect...
...next time you see a mounted police officer square off with his horse and imagine starting a fist fight with it...
Mounted troops are hardcore and should get attack and defense bonus.
Mounts for travel only should experience attack and defense PENALTIES the flighty delicate creatures they are....
Also to even it out a bit better a mount might be less manuverable in close quarters combat considering a target on foot is able to run around your mount and quickly take u off of it along with your head.
really? dwarves are disadvantaged against cavalry? How exactly? I mean, next time crash your nice and shiny bretonnia cavalry against a ironbreaker wall and see what happens, lots of dead horses.
Well sorry for that, i was joking. I'm actually an Empire player and my heavy cavalry is not more or less useful than my infantry, they have different roles ,that's it
As for the game, the goal would be that mounted combat is a career, as some infantry other route is another, so yes, choosing mounted combat should NOT make you superior at all, just make you different.
The problem about Horse archers came up on that other forum, solutions would be to either have no horse archers at all, or make them have a considerable speed reduction (or even no speed at all) immediatly after shooring with their bow.
Sadly, it is a spiny argument, Melee cavalry can be balanced because they actually have to impact with their target and so the target can do something against them, but archers? The only advantage a horse archer has is the increased speed of the mount, remove it and they are just expensive targets.
Leave it and there is no way a melee fighter can ever defeat one. So my compromise was to have the horse archers be immobile or really slow moving for a while after shooting, so that big bad ass melee tank can actually have a chance to catch up with them
Finally, in my ideas, normal mounts should not be used in combat. you can't attack if you are on a normal mount, you have to dismount for it. Normal riding horses are not suited for combat, they would panic and be a much bigger hinderance than help, you need a professional trained warhorse to do the trick
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Volkmar,
DOH. Sorry, I mis-spoke. I did not mean to say dwarves or Orcs were inferior to the more cavalry intensive races. I meant to say that they are not as cavalry reliant, but still balanced, and thats what I'd like to see in WAR. Dwarves had no cavalry, and you're right, Ironbreakers could withstand a charge from ANY mounted unit. (And proceed to break them in battle 2 rounds later.) GW designed the armies to be balanced, and the ones who didn't have cavalry didn't whine, because they had other things, such as badass armor, or toughness or special unit abilities. I hope this all survives the conversion to MMO format. Keep racial autonomy, Seperate but equal!!! (Anyone who quotes this please keep it in original context, thank you!).
As to the mounted archer debate, I see it not being implemented in game. Melee mounted combat can be fine, if Mythic puts movement suppression on mounts during combat and gives infantry the ability to charge, sorta like warriors in WoW. Archerswith mounts; the only way i can see a balance is if you ratchet their damage way down so they just sorta turn into "harrassers", or suppress their movement. There may be a way though.
Mounted combat, looks good on paper, but is a tough cookie to crack. Collision and lag play important factors in that. One day mounted combat will be a reality, but I think for now, we will have to settle with staying on our feet
mmmmh, why you think collision detection and lag are more of an effect when you are on an horse than on your feet?
Sorry for being slow, but i do not get your point, could you explain? There is no difference between the two, you get an horse model with you on top (like done by countless other MMorpg) instead of your plain model, how this affect lag and how it changes if collision detection is on or off?
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Mount for travel = yes, give them 1-mule carts if you have to
Mount for combat = don't think so.
A dwarf on a mount is a public danger
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"