1. Slightly decrease bayonet downstab range. Ever since the patch that change stabs' stats (before up and down had same speed and range), downstab is used far more often and it has ghost range, most of melee is just downstab spamming/backpedaling.
2. Decrease health by 50% of all units, so you don't have to stab someone 6 times before he dies, also prevents stupid tactic of getting stabbed on purpose to spam stab kill.
3. Return double-x-ing, it increases potential melee skillcap. Don't see why it was removed in the first place, if a bug is positive its not a bug. Double-x-ing could be done by anyone and it took skill to use it properly, it made feinting actually useful, nowadays only feinting that works is Rikimaru's (the one where you look up as you change attack direction), it makes blocking more of a challenge which is currently to easy only two directions in bayonet vs bayonet scenario, make at least these two directions harder to block.
4. Remove pokes if its possible, just remove armor or sth.
We all know this patch is coming because of Holdfast and you cannot compete with it in graphics, new features, but you can make melee that has high skill cap to keep people that play the game for competitive reasons.
Edit: This is post regarding balance changes for infantry gameplay, mostly competitive melee, I know nothing about Cav and cav vs infantry is not present in competitive. I also think officer swords are fine they are not to fast, people just complain because they aren't used to sideblocking, plus sword should realistically be better weapon than bayonet in the kind of melee that is in NW, so scattered people (since formations, like bayonet phalanx don't work).