We all know it. There’s always one kid that doesn’t fit in. It’s the odd one out, so to say. Considered dull and uninteresting by other human beings in respective proximity, it is neglected by the vast majority of people.
In NI that kid is the Cavalry mode. It’s the least frequently played mode (I assume that even beginner mode is more frequently visited than this). Simply put, playing the mode is not worth it. In the longest amount of time you gain the least amount of experience. This combined with the fact that while the other modes have seen tremendous changes to the loot system and the drop frequencies of materials appearing in given modes, the cavalry mode still grovels in this concern. Mats are scarce, even basic mats like bent swords hardly drop. Given those two properties (the duration and the incredibly unrewarding nature of the mode) the cavalry mode gives absolutely no incentive to be played. Frankly, it’s a waste time. That’s not the only problem though. It’s, simply put, also the most annoying mode. Playing cavalry as xbow or pikeman doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; you end up being restricted to play either as archer or as infantry. Let’s take a look at the archer: It’s always the same job, you shoot, and in later waves, you shoot while riding in circles, or if applicable in straight lines. It’s repetitive, and gets boring quickly. Furthermore, sometimes you get an instant death via a random headshot by some random spear thrower guy. In higher waves your job solely consists of kiting the bots, shooting, shooting and once again, shooting. Is this fun? Personally, I can’t see how anyone could find this fun. I certainly do not, and given from other people’s thoughts on this mode, I highly doubt there is anyone who is fond of this.
Let’s move on to the infantry based gameplay. Well, infantry. What exactly is its job in this mode? In every other mode the inf’s job is pretty straight forward and self-explanatory. Not so in the cav mode. For some reason most players assume that the infantry relies on heavy armoured horses, which essentially leaves the player both too slow and incapable of outmanoeuvring enemies. Those players then seek out the queue of bots which mindlessly follow a single archer to hit a strike here and there. Are those infantries helpful, or effective? No. More often than not, circles end up being interrupted, or some riders collide, ending in pointless deaths. Either that or the inf player gets focused by bots, thus they suddenly turn around and swoopy woopy kill that charging inf player (this especially is an issue on wave 12, because the bots are absurdly fast moving. This also makes them quite hard to hit, and you also suffer speed bonus reduction/penalty, often causing a couch to just bounce off).
What’s the other playstyle then, an inf using a non-armoured horse? That is the playstyle I personally use (I generally only play light cavalry). You basically do the same job like an archer, but you do it with a melee weapon. In the early waves (let’s say up until wave 12) you can easily play without a strict pattern, in a randomised pattern, so to speak. After wave 12 that changes, you should now ride in circles. Here comes another problem of the cavalry mode. For the inf there simply is as of yet no decent choice of a 1h weapon to use, given that all decent 1h weapons have a short reach (with the exception of legionnaire weapons). The only decent weapons that are not too short are the swadian hope and the aurora blade. With the melee you hit the bots while doing endless circling, if you don’t know the hitboxes too well, you probably will end up dying a lot. Warning: Can go wrong on wave 12.
It’s quite clear that the cavalry mode as of yet hasn’t been thought through. Yeah, sure the recent changes made the cav mode a tad faster, but let’s be honest, 4 types of horses and lances as well as armours won’t make the cut. I deduce that given the recent changes concerning the looting system and the items' stat adaptations the focus is rather unlikely to now suddenly swap on a mode that’s been more or less neglected for the better part of several years. I might of course be entirely wrong here, but if not then let me make my proposition: If the cavalry mode is not due to undertake tremendous changes, take down the cav servers. As of now very few people play it, and even fewer like it. And without an overhaul this won’t change. In my eyes, cavalry is not only a waste of time but also a waste of money spent on servers that are being played on once per day at the most. Cav could ofc be revived whenever changes are made.
I’ll institute a poll on this matter; after all I can’t nor want to dictate how the dev team should handle this situation. Input is always welcome.
Sincerely
Loris
In NI that kid is the Cavalry mode. It’s the least frequently played mode (I assume that even beginner mode is more frequently visited than this). Simply put, playing the mode is not worth it. In the longest amount of time you gain the least amount of experience. This combined with the fact that while the other modes have seen tremendous changes to the loot system and the drop frequencies of materials appearing in given modes, the cavalry mode still grovels in this concern. Mats are scarce, even basic mats like bent swords hardly drop. Given those two properties (the duration and the incredibly unrewarding nature of the mode) the cavalry mode gives absolutely no incentive to be played. Frankly, it’s a waste time. That’s not the only problem though. It’s, simply put, also the most annoying mode. Playing cavalry as xbow or pikeman doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; you end up being restricted to play either as archer or as infantry. Let’s take a look at the archer: It’s always the same job, you shoot, and in later waves, you shoot while riding in circles, or if applicable in straight lines. It’s repetitive, and gets boring quickly. Furthermore, sometimes you get an instant death via a random headshot by some random spear thrower guy. In higher waves your job solely consists of kiting the bots, shooting, shooting and once again, shooting. Is this fun? Personally, I can’t see how anyone could find this fun. I certainly do not, and given from other people’s thoughts on this mode, I highly doubt there is anyone who is fond of this.
Let’s move on to the infantry based gameplay. Well, infantry. What exactly is its job in this mode? In every other mode the inf’s job is pretty straight forward and self-explanatory. Not so in the cav mode. For some reason most players assume that the infantry relies on heavy armoured horses, which essentially leaves the player both too slow and incapable of outmanoeuvring enemies. Those players then seek out the queue of bots which mindlessly follow a single archer to hit a strike here and there. Are those infantries helpful, or effective? No. More often than not, circles end up being interrupted, or some riders collide, ending in pointless deaths. Either that or the inf player gets focused by bots, thus they suddenly turn around and swoopy woopy kill that charging inf player (this especially is an issue on wave 12, because the bots are absurdly fast moving. This also makes them quite hard to hit, and you also suffer speed bonus reduction/penalty, often causing a couch to just bounce off).
What’s the other playstyle then, an inf using a non-armoured horse? That is the playstyle I personally use (I generally only play light cavalry). You basically do the same job like an archer, but you do it with a melee weapon. In the early waves (let’s say up until wave 12) you can easily play without a strict pattern, in a randomised pattern, so to speak. After wave 12 that changes, you should now ride in circles. Here comes another problem of the cavalry mode. For the inf there simply is as of yet no decent choice of a 1h weapon to use, given that all decent 1h weapons have a short reach (with the exception of legionnaire weapons). The only decent weapons that are not too short are the swadian hope and the aurora blade. With the melee you hit the bots while doing endless circling, if you don’t know the hitboxes too well, you probably will end up dying a lot. Warning: Can go wrong on wave 12.
It’s quite clear that the cavalry mode as of yet hasn’t been thought through. Yeah, sure the recent changes made the cav mode a tad faster, but let’s be honest, 4 types of horses and lances as well as armours won’t make the cut. I deduce that given the recent changes concerning the looting system and the items' stat adaptations the focus is rather unlikely to now suddenly swap on a mode that’s been more or less neglected for the better part of several years. I might of course be entirely wrong here, but if not then let me make my proposition: If the cavalry mode is not due to undertake tremendous changes, take down the cav servers. As of now very few people play it, and even fewer like it. And without an overhaul this won’t change. In my eyes, cavalry is not only a waste of time but also a waste of money spent on servers that are being played on once per day at the most. Cav could ofc be revived whenever changes are made.
I’ll institute a poll on this matter; after all I can’t nor want to dictate how the dev team should handle this situation. Input is always welcome.
Sincerely
Loris
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