Spearbuff Concept

Spears suck in all mount and blade games, here's what I think would make them good

Smaller changes

Damage should be increased massively, I'd say roughly by 75% (they do roughly 1/2 of swords in my experience) so they are at least a viable alternative even if not quite as good when the line collapses

As dumb as it sounds, spears should not collide with friendlies. Historically spearlines were powerful because you could get both the front line of a formation and some behind them doing damage at the same time. The games arent advanced enough to have the ai fit their spears between eachother so while this may not look great its the only way to make it at least a little viable. It would also make spears the obvious choice for specific scenarios in tight areas like wall battles and gate battles adding more tactical variety

Shields are OP against swords in-game and can completely crush a spearline whereas irl the spears just stabbed where the shields weren't. Spears should be allowed to hit around the shield instead of being deflected simply for passing near it, for example, the feet, an exposed face, an arm, etc.

Spears should have be able to switch modes like javelins, except instead of throwing v stabbing it should be holding the back of your spear or the front (long range slow stab, short range fast stab) so walking forward is no long the ultimate counter to the spear

Major Change

most importantly... impaling yourself on my spear should hurt. Bannerlord lets you couch your spear but it freezes you in place and any damage knocks you out of it, this couching is so AI can (theoretically, never works in practice) can counter cav but its entirely useless against infantry.

You should be able to walk (slowly) with your spear extended (shorter range than max attack range), running into the spear hurts and staggers you, and the spearmen can attack from it.

The weaknesses? Walking movement and rotation speed is massively slowed. This would double down on the strengths and weaknesses of spears. A spear wall is a deadly thing to walk into but is super vulnerable to flanking. This means the spears strength would come primarily from its formation and while it can be used in 1v1 combat thanks for the smaller balancing changes its clearly meant as a defensive formation

Submitted April 24, 2021 at 10:09PM by ruskyon https://ift.tt/3nkiawz