Any form of mounted play style should be high risk - high reward. Even though the game does a very terrible job of it, Mordhau portrays mounted combat painfully average in what I'd like to see. As in, you get caught by one by surprise you get squished; but if you catch them they also get squished (But one - two shots in any kind of skill based game isn't enjoyable so lets not follow that trend.)
The biggest issue in MO1 was the breeding system, and the sheer survivability of the mounted. Even though this shouldn't be the focus of their attention anytime soon I'll say this.
- Horses should have brains like they used to.
- Horses should move slower, the less health they have.
- Stopping instantly shouldn't be a thing.
- Running into things should knock you off.
- You should be restricted to specific weapon types whilst on horseback. It shouldn't even be a debate of weight, but rather type. One handed weapons and lances in my eyes.
- The damage should be able to be negated by parrying entirely. It's quite literally the stupidest thing seeing an MC, parrying and or blocking him, and getting hit for 15 through your block.
Just some stuff off the top of my head. But if you seriously think mounted play wasn't busted to some extent, then you either play a mounted or your so caught up in trying to preserve realism in a dark, low-fantasy game. They were unbalanced, extremely annoying to play against, and very easy to play with low risk - high reward.
Nah, Horse brain was an absolute cancer to the entire system and its removal was a blessing that was universally agreed upon. Horse brain was the idiotic system that led to countless people losing control of their horses for no reason because "Horse brain decides to panic" only to ride into water and drown the player, or over a cliff and kill the player, and so on and so forth. Horse Brain needs to stay gone. In a game, and this is a game, a certain amount of control and reliability is required, mounts are no different.
So you basically want stunlock/snare on damage to horses. So.. I take it people/players should also move slower the less health they have, or are you specifically targeting mounts because of your footie playstyle?
Stopping instantly was a thing because of the way the game acted mechanically. Hitting the R key to dismount while going full speed caused full stop. It was just poor unintended mechanics based on a keybind.
Running INTO things should knock you out, but players still do it on foot.
Not gonna argue the weapon type thing since I agree; two handed weapons were often selected in MO1 because of the damage output and the animations for attacks were so janky that you couldn't reliably land a hit. Fix that, you fix a lot of things.
I played mounted and heavy foot hybrid. I fought plenty of people on horseback, didn't even mind melee attackers from horseback, you know who was REALLY annoying? Mounted Archers and Mages. Ranged attacks, high damage, low cost and risk, high reward.
You cry about mounted melee, however of the mounted types, they took the most risk.