Please balance (don't nerf) Horsemen

Maybe only Early Horsemen, but the rest should not have minus health. +1 ranged armor was a step in the right direction, but the nerf overall is unwarranted. Please Eric, Relic, balance team, read this post, please everyone respond. Horsemen already were too expensive for what they gave, literally all game long nearly always outclassed. The double spearmen buffs were enough to even that matchup.

Flat out Horsemen need to carve through Archers!

Please everyone else share, respond, this change needs a fast hot fix to fix the core balance triangle, that this patch literally destroyed.

  • Horsemen need a buff!
  • Horsemen nerf is fine, archers should dominate all!

0 voters

17 Likes

You’re not alone. I’m pretty sure half of the community agrees that the horsemen nerf was undesired. Just looking to know if they can revert changes and if they do these would probably take months for them to happen. Just sad

The Spearmen buff was enough

12 Likes

I literally made this poll less than half an hour ago, but it looks like people seem to agree with you for the most part: [Poll] Should horsemen have been nerfed? Also, did Springalds deserve a nerf?

2 Likes

Horsemen being in the core game’s triangle balance, need to be a very strong counter to archers, and they get shredded. I didn’t see your poll until after.

2 Likes

I don’t understand the reason for the Horsemen’s HP nerf, with adding +1 armor
against ranged units they were already a decent unit.

Eric, I’d like to know what your team relied on for these balance changes. I don’t know, a podcast, something.

Found your youtube channel today, great videos so far, keep it up!

2 Likes

I’ll do my best. Thank you!

1 Like

why the heck did they do this? Who told them this?

2 Likes

Someone in the dev team who got steam-rolled by massed horseman strategy and then rage quit, I assume?

7 Likes

the main balance dev rage quits, he did that publicly in show match before release.

The main issue I personally had with horsemen was that they are so weak in dark/feudal age. They did their job well enough after veteran upgrade but that is the point where usually your economy starts to pick up speed and bloom enough to afford mass cavalry production.

They cost x1.5 times more resources and production time compare to archers and yet they can’t counter archers well in feudal age unless it is a really small scale battle( especially against longbows ). So most of the time it was basically a waste of time & resources to invest in them at early phase unless you have very peculiar or specific strategy in your mind.

But now, the unit itself become almost meaningless to exist. I found it more efficient to use scouts rather than horsemen at this point.

6 Likes

they just want you to spam knights and xbows like AOE 2

4 Likes

If they need to nerf late age horsemen for some reason, they can do that, but early age horsemen I feel needed a buff against archers and MAA to make them more competitive and to protect some of the weaker early civs.

3 Likes

So standard Archers use to kill a standard feudal age horsemen with ZERO blacksmith upgrades in 31 shots. NOW it takes 32!!! shots to kill. THIS IS A BUFF GUYS!! (but only a buff vs range units exclusivelyyy)

Meanwhile it still takes a horseman 4 strikes to kill an archer. ON PAPER this sound very very well matched yes?? But here is the catch horseman cost 50% more resources than an archer. So what happens if you spend the same amount on archers as you do horseman in a SMALL skirmish?? The lowest common denominator is 2 horseman to 3 archers.

It would take 33 seconds to que 3 archers from 1 archer range. And it would take 32 seconds to que 2 horseman from a single stable. It is safe to say that 2 horsemen would kill 3 archers in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO (where walls and towers aren’t involved).

So on PAPER Cost for Cost Horseman are WELL BALANCED to archers. So whats the problem Devs??

MASS FIGHTS and MASS PRODUCTION!!! While doing the little 2 horseman vs 3 archers is extremely favorable to the cav BUT AS SOON AS YOU GET TO 20 ARCHERS vs 14 horseman the efficiency of the counter system breaks down WITHOUT EVEN considering MICRO (kiting, pathing, etc, etc).

I suggest an EZZZZZZZ fix would be to revert the mechanic where range units in melee range use their daggers rather than their bow attack damage.

3 Likes

+1 to this, It already happens in AOE3 and this game has a lot of features from AOE3. Forcing ranged units to use a dagger or deal much less damage in close combat would fix that issue, without having to go with this nerf they did to horses

9 Likes

Let me put the “MAFF” up so everyone can SEE ITS A BUFF!!!

Old patch feudal stats
horseman
155HP
0/0 armor
9 attack (+9 vs range)
1.62 ROF
Archer
70 HP
0/0 armor
5 attack (+5 vs light melee inf)
1.5 ROF

So the simple math is 155hp of horseman divided by 5 range attack of archers = 31 exact shots to kill the OLD horseman. Meanwhile 70hp archers divided by 18 horseman melee damage = 4 strikes to kill archers.

Now that Horseman have 125 hp BUT PLUS 1 range armor here is the NEW MATH. 125 hp divided by (5 range attack minus 1 for the range armor of the horseman) = 32!!! shots to kill CURRENT horseman!!

It’s a buffff vs range.

The nerf of horseman if felt vs everything else. Spears kill 2 strikes sooner now. MAA have now ZERO counters in feudal for standard civs that USE to use horseman to hold them off for a little bit. Early knights now completely shred thru horseman…

Honestly spearman SHOULD win vs horseman ( although this iteration is EXTREMELY cost efficient!!). But early knights got a buff so to speak vs horseman and I don’t understand that??

1 Like

I remember people hating so much about “snare effect” in early AOE3. While it is now gone in AOE3 DE ( I am not sure, correct me if I am wrong) I do think it would be nice to bring it in partially to AOE4 since ranged units in AOE4 is so much more efficient then in previous titles. It would at least give melee units some edge against ranged units once they manage to catch-up or surround them.

1 Like

correct, they just die so fast now, it’s insane

i wouldnt be surprised if somehow someone got their wires crossed…

the balance team said scouts were supposed to be nerfed, instead it was translated into horsemen…

it makes no sense the marginal horsemen were made worse, while the very unit that was far too cheap and able to be mass spammed for killing buildings or siege when it should never have been

1 Like

exactly this, i don’t know why horsemen got nerfed, it was an ok unit. It never needed any change.