How Should Mounted Combat Look in MO2?

[Kaemik]

MO1 had one of the best-mounted combat systems I have ever experienced. Until last year I would have even said THEE best. But that's an extremely low bar to set, unfortunately. Calls for great mounted combat are as old as MMOs themselves so let's start by breaking down why most games have failed to produce fun mounted combat.

General Problem A: It's Just Flat Bad

This is a problem you're going to find in most games that half-heartedly throw it in. ArcheAge and Darkfall are both prime examples that come to mind. Conqueror's Blade also feels this way to a somewhat lesser extent. In the single player sphere Dynasty Warriors comes to mind as well. Is mounted combat there? Yes. But half your character abilities are disabled with no worthwhile replacement, the damage is meh, and the decreased turning ability of that a mount generally counters the advantage increased speed offers. You're left just wanting to hop off your mount so you can take the fight to the enemy. And that's usually what ends up happening until you start to forget the option for mounted combat even exists in that game.

General Problem B: It's Regular Combat on a Mount

I know I've played a few 2D games with this issue but their names evade me. Of the games I've played extensively with this issue though, Wurm Online solidly comes to mind. Mounted combat is basically the same as foot combat, but you move faster. So while mounted combat is exceptionally viable and even meta in that game I frequently forget that fact because it doesn't even feel like mounted combat. Mortal Online faces no danger of this problem thankfully because of the way the game is built.

How Mortal Did it Better than Everyone Else

So what made Mortal Online's mounted combat so much better? Well... the fact that it actually hurts. Mortal Online was the first game I've seen to give the mounted charge the terrifying power it truly deserves. When you are on foot and a horse charges into you at full speed, especially an armored warhorse, the horse is as much or more of a weapon than what the rider is truly wielding. When you're taking a huge hit from a weapon like a lance and THEN the horse crashes into you, you're dead son. By adding trample damage and an appropriate momentum bonus to weapon hits on horseback, Mortal Online became the first game that you don't just want to dismount to really take the fight to the enemies. You want to circle around and trample down another fool.

How Conan Exiles Did it Better Than Mortal Online

That's right. I said it. You were the best. You aren't anymore. Conan Exiles straight up outdid MO1. Thankfully MO2 is the perfect opportunity to show them up again. So how is CE better? Well first off it has everything good about MO1 mounted combat. Mount trample damage? Check. Super heavy lance hits? Check. Mounted archery? Check. So right out the gate it's on a par.

What makes it better? Last night in the graveyard in Meduli on MO1 I ran up to a walker while mounted and started swinging with my sword. No momentum. After half my health bar was gone and like 25% of it's, I dismounted and easily finished the walker with the same 1h sword on foot. I was hitting every single strike while on the donkey. They were just weaker. In Conan Exiles, if I landed a good lance hit on a target tanky enough to survive I would frequently switch to a sword wheel back around and finish the job. Strikes hit for more on mount and they at least felt like they had a slightly larger swing arc. Swinging from the vantage point of a mount's back even without momentum was no disadvantage. It turned you into an absolute blender of death if you could stay on your target. This is NOT to say mounted combat felt OP and there were never times I felt I could fight more effectively on foot.

What it is to say is mounted melee didn't feel like a one-trick wonder. It felt like its own distinct and powerful playstyle equal to foot combat. It wasn't all about landing that lance hit. Sometimes it was more effective to charge an archer and then stick onto them with a sword and mount. Or to ride around that boss using movement tanking while you apply bleeds with your pike.

So how IS mounted combat balanced in this system?:

PROS:
Fast forward movement
Devastating charge attacks
Decidedly heavier damage with all melee weapons at every momentum if both combatants are landing all their hits
Mount health/stam and player health/stam being separate

CONS:
Inertia / lower-turn-rate
Difficulty in some terrains
Larger target
Getting thrown if the horse is stammed
_________

My take away for MO2

Momentum and charge attacks are a good system but they shouldn't be the entire basis of mounted combat. Every swing from a mount at any speed should hurt more. Balance this with a slow turn-speed, the mount being a huge target, attacks to the mount apply stam as well as health damage, and riders being thrown if their mount takes a hit while it's stammed. I also think there is surely a place for weapons like polearms serving in their traditional historical capacity as counters to mounted charges and maybe even bonus damage from archers against lightly armored mounts (To help counter light-cav archers). But mounted melee can be so much more than land a big alpha strike and ride away. And it is soooooo much more fun that way. Seriously go try it on Conan Exiles if you haven't already. Nothing less will ever measure up for you again.

 

[bbihah]

Slow to turn at higher speeds, faster to turn at lower ones.
Much much slower movement speed than in MO1, the slowest possible ground mount should just barely be faster than the fastest foot fighter sprinting.
At close to its full speed. Reaching full speed should take a bit longer of acceleration(which means a lot longer than mo1).

Heal spells should not affect mounts at 100% efficiency unless you have veterinary skill and even then should be either lower or only apply a heal over time effect or something else to prevent too quick healing. You already have the power to break off combat pretty much at will compared to people on foot, you should atleast be forced away for some time when you do fail.
Veterinary skill should be a big heal over a long period of time(time to be tested) rather than how bandages work for players.


This to prevent people from just riding out of reach of people on foot, bandaging up their pet/ tossing heals at it and just instantly going back in. Or I mean, not really prevent. More like, balance it out a little bit, making charging in a bigger risk for when you do so multiple times without being careful.



Maybe even add something like a longer term stress bar for the mount when it takes damage, since people don't like losing control of their mount it does not send your mount into panic sprinting in one direction like we had in awakening? dawn? for a while. But instead it just increases the chance that Anti cav weapons will stop your mount, Maybe make the dismount threshold smaller.


This will create a sort of "Soft hp" bar for the mount preventing it from being a non punishable second health bar.

Directly compared to that of how our characters long term health is limited to make loads of healing and long term fighting require rest eventually.
Heck, stress could increase its stamina drain for running higher speeds too.

Go nuts.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

Remove the idea that mounts should stop on a dime at a key press, momentum is a thing.

Mounts shouldn't run the same speed if low HP. Should move slower.

Faster horses should have less HP, slower more HP.

Mounted combat weapons shouldn't chip for ridiculous amounts of damage.

Players on foot should have more reliable counters.

Mounted players shouldn't be able to use 2 handed weapons. Spears and lances are okay IMO.

Horses shouldn't climb super steep hills, lykiators should though.

There, MO1 MC that now is balanced and isn't an oghmium warrior who carries a keg of potions because of how unkillable his play style is.

MC in my eyes has mobility and the choice to disengage. The more damage it does, the more counters that are needed. They are mobile glass cannons and that's how they should play, not mobile tanks.

 

[bbihah]

Yeah, a mounted player coming at a prepared on foot player head on shouldn't be able to deal a bunch of damage through blocks and parries, its silly.


You already have mobility. You should be playing at "worst" second fiddle to friendly infantry and try to hit people that are distracted.
That's how it works in mount and blade(and LiF to an extent) and its a good balancing factor.


Swinging two handed weapons with 2 hands while riding is absolutely ridiculous, we had a guy permanently ruin his back at a renaissance fair about a decade ago pulling a stunt like that and hitting a dummy. You absorb almost all of the equal force reaction from your swing if you swing it like in mo1 or in mordhau, and it'll all concentrate around your back muscles and spine. You'll fuck yourself up. There is a reason why almost all mounted fighting is done by letting the momentum carry the weapon when you swing, you don't couch lances to the extent you see in tournaments when there is a chance the lance will get stuck in something or meet any kind of significant resistance and 1h blade couching is done with a bent arm and a light grip for a reason.



Spears need a functioning spear stance this time and horses should not like spears being thrust at them regardless.


In addition horses AND pets need mechanics that give them a downtime towards a lot of health(healing) and stamina use, just like a player does.

 

[Ask]

Some good suggestions and real world knowledge, I especially like the idea of momentum. I think breeding need a fresh start with MO2, make what is considered meta for a mount a wide variety rather than a select few things.

 

[Handsome Young Man]

Some good suggestions and real world knowledge, I especially like the idea of momentum. I think breeding need a fresh start with MO2, make what is considered meta for a mount a wide variety rather than a select few things.

The key here is to not allow the best stats of a slow horse and the best stats of a fast horse to culminate into a super horse. There should be playstyles in horse choice. Speed but less HP. Moderate speed and Moderate HP. Slow speed but high HP. Maybe some horses are slower but have crazy endurance, and some accelerate and stay faster but don't have a lot of stamina.

In MO1 the perfect horse just did everything lol. Fucking boring and unbalanced.

 

[bbihah]

Ah I remember the rare mongrel horses. That was such fun times. I would time the spawn on it and tame a bunch every day and keep a huge stock of them around. Then people started acquiring them in dubious ways, which didn't last for long since SV fixed the issue and all the non-real rare mongrels went poof. And I was crowned king of the bullshit OP horses. Good times.

Back when I was a mounted archer, pfft such a distant memory.

 

[Rorry]

Make only the same types of mounts able to be bred together, so that one could improve their mounts but only to the best available for that type. We would have variety, a breeding system where taming would be important, and mounted play could be more organic with foot play (they should remove dismounts all together, we won't need them with these mounts.)

 

[Eldrath]

Suggestion: Have mounts with tradeoffs


From what I understand the system for mounts is not finished currently, maybe not even under extended development. This is why I would like to present my ideas for the mount system. This partly inspired by things @Henrik Nyström said on Discord and my thoughts over the years of playing the first game.

1.
Strength as an attribute determines how heavy the rider can be before loosing speed. A Thursar fully clad in steel plate armor will need a horse of awesome strength to carry him. The lighter your character is, the more options you have. Adjusting your equipment (armor, weapon, ammo, loot) and whatever you are transporting should be necessary.

2. The stronger a mount is, the slower it becomes. This might seem counter intuitive, but it makes sense in combination with the first point. If you have the strongest horse that can carry the heaviest character and load it will be slower by default compared to a "light" horse.

3.
Strength also determines how tough a mount is. This can be more hitpoints, more mitigations or magic resistance.

4.
Pet bags should slow down the mount and transporting materials should be done with dedicated mounts, not on the one you a riding on. This is a product of the first two points.

Mounts found in the wild should have variation of those statistic, depending on their type. So a Desert horse would be quite weak, but very fast. A bullhorse would be the opposite. I believe the actual speed difference should not be extreme, maybe up to 10-15%.

There are more attributes I could talk about but this seems to me the crucial ones.


Q&A:
How should one ride a horse?
- Probably pretty close to Bannerlord and Kingdom come deliverance. It looks good and rewards smart movement.

How shall I get my enemy of a horse?
- Either with a chance based system (billhook 95%, dagger 1% chance for example) or a completely skillbased system (hitting specific areas to make the horse stop, hitting the rider to dismount for example). Having different weapons with you to deal with different situation should be rewarded. This is what the leftover skillpoints in footfighters will be for.

How tought should a mount be?
- Depends on the damage potential of the rider, the dismount system and mitigation. If there is no dismount system the horse should die quick. If riders can deal a lot of damage, the horse should die quickly. If there is a dismount system, mounted fighters deal medium damage then horses should take a lot of punishment.

Where does breeding come in?
- Producing mounts without having to leave the city? Changing appearances? Optimizing attributes without breaking the core idea above?

Are you a horse?
- No, sadly not.

Suggestion: Have mounts with tradeoffs

From what I understand the system for mounts is not finished currently, maybe not even under extended development. This is why I would like to present my ideas for the mount system. This partly inspired by things @Henrik Nyström said on Discord and my thoughts over the years of playing the first...

mortalonline2.com

Taken from my own thread, since I don´t feel like typing it again.

I think the power of mounted combat has to rely on how the mount system works. I do want to see the amount of skills needed to fight on a mount reduced, so I guess some of that power will have to go.

 

[Kaemik]

Oof. Not stopping on a dime is a good idea and that's how it worked in Conan Exiles but if a mounted charge can be parried then I don't think literally anyone will play mounted melee. The entire point of a mounted lance charge is it's a god-tier alpha strike but it's not supposed to be super easy to land and there is a long buildup to it.

Also the idea that cav aren't tanks is entirely dependent on the cav we are talking about. Yeah there were light cav and cav archers historically that weren't that tanky but there were also heavy cav such as the knights templar that were tanky as all hell. That being said a true reflection of the power that type of soldier isn't balanced for a video game. You absolutely need a weapon like bills as someone suggested that can counter it pretty hard or nobody would play anything BUT mounted fighters.

I think it would actually be pretty appropriate to have the game allow mounted sword and shield to absolutely wreck a foot soldier with sword and shield for instance though.

 

[Eldrath]

I agree with the notion that there should be ways to play "heavy" and "light" cavalry. Those concepts did not exist in late Mortal. Early from time to time someone would mount a bullhorse with 600 HP and 8 speed and play the tank. Later molvas kind filled that role, but the dismount prevented that from being effective.

For an MC to go toe-to-toe with a footfighter (like in the movies) we would need intricate control scheme that allows the sublte manipulations you can do in real life. Horses can be pretty agile for example.

I think people would play MC with my proposed system. It would only be another 2 skills to pick up, compared to the 3-4 you would need for mounted archery.

 

[Kaemik]

Maybe even add something like a longer term stress bar for the mount when it takes damage, since people don't like losing control of their mount it does not send your mount into panic sprinting in one direction like we had in awakening? dawn? for a while. But instead it just increases the chance that Anti cav weapons will stop your mount, Maybe make the dismount threshold smaller.

I was thinking more like I said you'd get dismounted when your mounts stam hits 0 and you could make certain weapons/attacks do huge bonus stam damage to mounts.

Like a brace would just one shot the stam bar of any mount while a bill might do huge bonus stam damage per hit.

Some kind of stress bar would be super awesome if they made campadons (elephants) ridable at some point. A major downside of deploying elephants in battle is they had a tendency to go berserk and start attacking everyone around them indiscriminately sometimes. Would be pretty funny if you could drive a campadon berserk and it just became an aggressive NPC with a rider that has no control over it for a bit. I think people would still risk it for the chance to be an elephant rider.

For an MC to go toe-to-toe with a footfighter (like in the movies) we would need intricate control scheme that allows the sublte manipulations you can do in real life. Horses can be pretty agile for example.

The Conan Exiles system was a lot less subtle. You had huge damage and good reach but slow turnspeed and poor ability to hit things that were behind your mount. So you're prettymuch an unstoppable force if you keep your enemy in the sweetspot where you want them. But if they can get at a good angle especially with a reach weapon, it won't play out too well for you.

It felt like a really good system. Translating it into MO I'd make your overhead thrust (or couch for a lance) and give swords and the like a pretty nasty right and left attack for clearing the right/left side of the horse. But no backward attack. I'd also make stam drain scale up much faster with weapon weight on horses so that donkey hammers and stuff aren't really viable anymore. If lances and 1h were to become meta that also gives polearm wielders and the like an advantage from the side where their weapon will outreach the mounted combatant's.

 

[Eldrath]

Ah, I understood you meant in a prolonged duel - this sounds more like a ride-by attack. Cause there are enough sources telling duels on horse back, not sure how many 1 on 1 fights there were between someone on foot and on horse back.

For the most part cavalry seemed to just ride through an open formation and whack everyone they could. Repeat till victory.

It really comes down to interesting gameplay. You should always have a way of defending yourself and getting one-shotted in any way is very frustrating in a full loot game. I think very few players had problems with hard hitting MCs when mounts died in 2 hits. They were glasscannons. The problem comes in when you have a tanky horse with guy in full steel plate zooming around killing people in 2 hits.

I think the "heavy cavalry" should be able to stick around in a footgroup and deal consistent damage and have chance to escape alive.

Light cavalry should rely on hit-and-run with higher damage spikes but high risk.

Those are my ideas on how to make a balanced system that is fun to interact with. It also has the added benefit that crafting will be more interesting, since it´s not just about putting as much weight/protection/damage into the gear but rather fitting the gear to the rider and what the rider wants to do. Imagine veelas with lances or spears on jungle horses rushing through enemy formations, always a hair away from getting killed. Or a blainn on a molva, clad in oghmium head-to-toe swing his axe left and right. Both SHOULD be possible in the game. Any system that enables that will have my vote.

 

[Teknique]

Ah, I understood you meant in a prolonged duel - this sounds more like a ride-by attack. Cause there are enough sources telling duels on horse back, not sure how many 1 on 1 fights there were between someone on foot and on horse back.

For the most part cavalry seemed to just ride through an open formation and whack everyone they could. Repeat till victory.

It really comes down to interesting gameplay. You should always have a way of defending yourself and getting one-shotted in any way is very frustrating in a full loot game. I think very few players had problems with hard hitting MCs when mounts died in 2 hits. They were glasscannons. The problem comes in when you have a tanky horse with guy in full steel plate zooming around killing people in 2 hits.

I think the "heavy cavalry" should be able to stick around in a footgroup and deal consistent damage and have chance to escape alive.

Light cavalry should rely on hit-and-run with higher damage spikes but high risk.

Those are my ideas on how to make a balanced system that is fun to interact with. It also has the added benefit that crafting will be more interesting, since it´s not just about putting as much weight/protection/damage into the gear but rather fitting the gear to the rider and what the rider wants to do. Imagine veelas with lances or spears on jungle horses rushing through enemy formations, always a hair away from getting killed. Or a blainn on a molva, clad in oghmium head-to-toe swing his axe left and right. Both SHOULD be possible in the game. Any system that enables that will have my vote.

This is pretty logical we need to reconcile it with a few of the principles of the new game with the new vision.

First it should be 100% skill based with no esports reaction times. Perhaps when the horse gets hit it stops and then the foot and the mounted begin to counter trade on eachother. Should have a modest time to kill of about 15 minutes for each player.

No player in group fights should die to a 1v1, you should only die in a group fight if its a 2v1 interaction. Fortunately the horse and you counts as the 2, making this line up nicely.

You shouldn't be able to dive, movement speed causes desync and the horse should have difficulty just trotting through a group of enemy players.

Last you shouldn't be able to turn your mouse when you take that mounted swing because this causes desync, its better if we use a targetting system and then you roll with a chance to hit on dice 6. Mounted naturally being better players has chance to hit on 2+ roll where the foot has to roll 4+.

 

[Smough]

You lost me at conan having good mounted combat.

 

[ThaBadMan]

If copy anyone Id lean more towards M&B mounted combat.

 

[Kaemik]

Ah, I understood you meant in a prolonged duel - this sounds more like a ride-by attack.

No no. In this system, I'm talking actually about the stand and fight mechanic of Conan exiles. You want to keep your horse moving in such a way that your target is in-front or to the side of you and keep taking swings that direction. If you keep them in your damage sweetspot and keep swinging they melt.

Meanwhile, if they get behind you, or have a polearm and are striking from outside your range from the side etc. you're in a really poor position and will get f-ed up. One of the biggest problems with being a mounted combatant is you and your mount are both huge targets and basically every attack made against you is going to land. Because of that, you are 100% going to win every single fight that you and you opponent are trading blows rather effortlessly unless you're fighting a PVE boss or something (Where fights ended up being more a series of tons of smaller/quicker ride by attacks, you were a really good tank for a group if you could hold aggro because you're doing a combo of kiting and being fairly naturally tough) but infantry opponents have a lot of opportunities to outplay you with their footwork.

It probably doesn't sound as good on paper as it plays in-game. But in-game it plays REALLY nice. When you first try it on mobs out in the world it's like "Holy crap this is so OP". Even some of the mini-bosses get chumped by it fairly easy. But once you start doing more difficult content with it, it becomes apparent why foot-fighters are actually pretty balanced against it.

 

[Treibholz]

"How Should Mounted Combat Look in MO2?"

Take a horse, sit down on it and then draw your weapon! And you will need at least one opponent! (use weapon with opponent)

 

[Ministro]

Last you shouldn't be able to turn your mouse when you take that mounted swing because this causes desync, its better if we use a targetting system and then you roll with a chance to hit on dice 6. Mounted naturally being better players has chance to hit on 2+ roll where the foot has to roll 4+.

This is a skill-based game, not a Dungeons & Dragons dice game.

 

[Eskaldar]

I like the look of horse fighting in Mordhau and M&B. I hope to see something close.