Spear on foot

[Kasa]

ok, something desperately needs to be done with how absolutely hot garbage spears are if you are not mounted.

I just won a tournament where the AI and myself were stuck with spears and so I just dropped mine and proceeded to punch and kick the AI to death while it futilely tried to stab me at point blank with it's spear.

[Melonidas]

How are spears going to be changed? Will you swing them? Throw them?
Spears will always lose against short weapons. You will not defeat an enemy with a sword and a shield with a spear, because why? Because it's too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long.
It's good against horses. So good, I always dismout the horse when I'm fighting a mounted enemy because it's easier to impale him on it from the ground than from a horse.
Yes, a spear is supposed to kill fast-moving, large targets. We have those. They are called horses.
I have never heard anywhere about a caveman using a spear to do battle. Stone maces ooga booga were used much often.
The developers should exclude spears from tournaments and alike. There is just simply no way to fix spears.

[Rodi]

The idea of spears is to be used in formations (obvs) and more importantly to keep the opponent at distance. Since enemies in this game will just rush through your entire extended spear, they become ♥♥♥♥ against anything that isnt cav.

[Urmel]

a spear is cheap.

[Eisenkönig]

try the improved spear performance module from the realistic battle mod. it fixes the janky collision. and pick the hard knock perk in the skill tree. with those fighting as a foot soldier with spear and shield is really fun

[Ctesiphon]

Spear in my opinion are best used in massive formations and not in lone combat. To compensate for what seems to be "Horrible" spear fighting I suggest you use mods that improve ai behavior in combat and ai formation. With such mods a simple bunch of recruits with spears and shield set in a shieldwall formation can totally wreck nearly 2-3 times their number of looters and even overpower slightly higher tier units of lower numbers.

As for spear I do wish they added the ability to swing it like a staff to add lethality because at the end of the day a spear is still a stiff point stick. Combine that with shield bash and you're good to go.

[Kasa]

Originally posted by Alter Eisenkönig:

try the improved spear performance module from the realistic battle mod. it fixes the janky collision. and pick the hard knock perk in the skill tree. with those fighting as a foot soldier with spear and shield is really fun

I did try this a lil last night, it helped a bit but spears thrust to slowly that most weapons will hit you first.

[[AC] Mendôza]

There is a great Mod about the Battle System. Its the one "Alter Eisenkönig" was referring to.

Originally posted by Alter Eisenkönig:

try the improved spear performance module from the realistic battle mod. it fixes the janky collision. and pick the hard knock perk in the skill tree. with those fighting as a foot soldier with spear and shield is really fun

It contains a Spear standalone version.

Here you go:
https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/791?tab=description

[Aven]

The problem with spears is the question of, "Why stab someone 4 times with a 30 damage spear when you can just one-shot them with a swing from a 150 damage sword, axe, or polearm?" Yes, spears stop a charging horse, but the risk isn't mitigated when you try to do so, and the rider and horse are still reasonably formidable even if stopped. And again, "Why stab a horse to stop it when you can just hit with with one swing and kill it?"

Weapon balancing, armor balancing, better AI fighting with spears, all might go a long way to improving the usefulness of spears, pikes, and spear infantry.

[kekkuli]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ eater:

How are spears going to be changed? Will you swing them? Throw them?
Spears will always lose against short weapons. You will not defeat an enemy with a sword and a shield with a spear, because why? Because it's too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long.
It's good against horses. So good, I always dismout the horse when I'm fighting a mounted enemy because it's easier to impale him on it from the ground than from a horse.
Yes, a spear is supposed to kill fast-moving, large targets. We have those. They are called horses.
I have never heard anywhere about a caveman using a spear to do battle. Stone maces ooga booga were used much often.
The developers should exclude spears from tournaments and alike. There is just simply no way to fix spears.

Actually that's totally wrong. Spear+shield is very hard to beat with any shorter weapon+shield in reality. There are plenty of videos demonstrating and talking about this in youtube. It really should be a lot better in this game as well. Being able to adjust your grip (and thus range) of the spear would be a good start.

Not even going to comment about the rest of what you said since you have zero knowledge of these things and clearly base your facts to pop culture and games.

[Kasa]

wanna know how I would fix spears with almost 0 extra work?
Press X for alternate mode and grab the spear closer to the head, just like we do with javelins. Then just use the same code for javelin damage.

Is it perfect? No, does it reflect how spears are actually used? No, but what it DOES do is make spears more usable in close range.

[Onimaho]

Originally posted by Onimaho:

The main issue is the animation and how it is tied to the damage model. If the enemy is in front of a spear user within melee range, the spear tip is already inside or past their hitbox. The resulting math from speed bonus would be 0 or negative, which in turn means glance or low damage. In previous titles players would get around this by stabbing off target and then whipping it around back onto target (AI aren't competent enough to do this). This technique doesn't work anymore (no idea why), which makes spears useless in bannerlord.

A real solution is giving spears 4D attack options, via stabs n such. Then tweaking the damage model so aiming off target and bringing it back to target gives massive speed bonus just like it would with slashing weapons. Once that is done, players should be able to wield a spear effectively. So, skill gap is in attack/defense/footwork as the determining factor in a 1v1 and not that the fact spears are useless and do no damage.

Once the above is completed, teach the AI how to do it so they can reliably get damage on targets while participating in a shield wall.

Also to add onto all that...the range on spears is somewhat irrelevant since you can smith swinging weapons that are even longer.

As for multiplayer spears are for the most part a 1 trick pony for stopping a pony. After the horse is stopped, the spear is now useless again because it will do next to 0 damage. On foot combat even as a support unit it is garbage because you can't get enough speed bonus to reliably put damage on target.

[BurlsoL]

With a spear on foot, you keep the enemy at distance and continually walking towards you. As they get within range, you step forward with your thrust to do meaningful damage to them or their shield, then step back. Rinse, repeat. Someone with a sword will never come within range to hit you with it. Someone with a spear can be feinted so that their thrust misses you and you stab them while they recover. Someone with a bow, you just drop the darn thing and punch them to death.

It's just not the instant kill weapon that you're used to on a horse and takes more skill to use.

[Kasa]

Originally posted by BurlsoL:

With a spear on foot, you keep the enemy at distance and continually walking towards you. As they get within range, you step forward with your thrust to do meaningful damage to them or their shield, then step back. Rinse, repeat. Someone with a sword will never come within range to hit you with it. Someone with a spear can be feinted so that their thrust misses you and you stab them while they recover. Someone with a bow, you just drop the darn thing and punch them to death.

It's just not the instant kill weapon that you're used to on a horse and takes more skill to use.

Except this ONLY works if your athletic skill is higher then the opponent, else they will come forward with you just as fast as you backtrack and with the speed and reach of their weapon still hit you unless your constantly blocking.

Also it's ironic that a weapon famed for it's ease of use needs more skill then any other weapon in the game to use on a sub par level.

I can take a smithed twohanded sword with a reach OVER 138, no it's not as long as the over 250 you can make with polearms but over 138 in reach is more then enough to use from horse back and still very useful on ground.

[Buck Fell]

Originally posted by Alter Eisenkönig:

try the improved spear performance module from the realistic battle mod. it fixes the janky collision. and pick the hard knock perk in the skill tree. with those fighting as a foot soldier with spear and shield is really fun

This. With that mod plus De Re Miliatari that changes up the troop trees into levy plus noble lines and then the new Freelancer mod I really enjoy starting off as a Brittanian Spearman for a bit. You're squishy at first but as your armor and athletics improve you get better at holding back a bit and darting in and face stabbing the sword and board crowd while they're otherwise engaged.

For added fun I play only in first person so 500 vs 500 battles are a real mess where your first priority is stay alive, 2nd is get some kills.

[Kasa]

Tried the "realistic" battle mod and it helps a bit, but unfortunately it's still more effective to just punch a spear user to death.