I'm going to be fairly blunt about this and approach it by stating the parts that I find non-beneficial to infantry melee and my suggestions for fixing them:
1) Glancing: Ever since bayonets were nerfed (up attack in particular), I've noticed an increase in glances and pokes alike. Bouncing off of someone after they hug you is fine once or twice, but having a repeated stab fest in which no one lands solid hits is quite absurd. Having someone stand a few feet from you and literally tank the blow pulls away from the original combat system that M&B captivated all of its loyal players with. The range nerf on the up attack has also led to glancing when someone is just outside the animation reach while they are hit by the model.
Actually, down attack is the same as it was before up attack fix, upper stab got slown down by 0.15 seconds. Increases in pokes and glances are illusion, since nothing about that was changed (pretty sure bayos got a bit shorter which would make pokes happen LESS).
Also, upper stab got more reach since the patch (before last patch, hitbox of upper stab started at the gun, not at the bayonet).
Pokes might seem to happen more often since the upper stab damage calculations were turned into stab ones, instead of general weirdness because extra reach, hit timings and damage calculations of normal overhead slash.
Upper stab wasn't really nerfed, it was just made to behave like a stab not like a slash (it was implemented by just replacing the polearm overhead slash anim).
About tanking hits, sometimes good hits glance due to having low turning speed and time-based damage calculations result in pseudo-random damage.
2) Tanking: Hits people should take: At most, 3. If I am able to put a hole the size of a musket ball into someone (and they can only take 1-2 hits from a musket), then how come someone can take 5 hits with a bayonet. This definitely needs to be fixed if the game wants to reach some form of balance.
My Suggestion: This seems an easy fix that will greatly benefit the game: Just give the bayonet a better knock out punch!
Bayonet already has ridiculous damage, if it's any higher it'll break the sweetspot system which prevents the game from becoming spamfest (sweetspot damage reduction seem to reduce damage in percentages, which means that with high enough base damage you could do damage/stunlock someone by spamming hits which would normally be pokes).
If you're line infantry any half-decent stab will 1 hit kill.
4) Speed: I think that if there is something that can be used to balance the game, speed would be the best option. If the bayonet was overpowered in the terms of the community before the huge nerfs, then speed should've been used in order to reach equilibrium. A tad bit slower bayonet can give people a longer window for them to react to a stab. M&B is all about skill, so lower the level a little bit and let people take time to learn to get used to the weapon they have to go up against. This way, the people who are fond of the weapon can still enjoy their own play style while others who feel it is overpowered have more of a chance to react against a formidable opponent. Changing the weapon stats alters the play style of those used to the particular weapon enough to make it feel as if a whole new game is thrown right in there face rather than finding the balance that everyone in the community craves.
My Suggestion: Don't alter the game, just lower the learning curve a bit using speed rather than range and damage.
All weapons in NW are slower than their counterparts in native. Bayonet is slow as it is and experienced players fighting with bayonet usually leads to contest of who will get bored first and try something stupid. Slowing it down even more will pretty much erase differences in skill level.
Wrap Up: The patch focused on nerfing the bayonet and buffing other weapons, throwing off the weapon balance even more than before. To the sword: Give it back it's old range, and let it excel in the fields of speed and attack options. More importantly, buff the bayonet back up. Ramrodding people can be more effective than this once beloved weapon, so several things need to be done to revamp it (In order to meet the wants of all players): 1) Keep its speed because everyone has learned to cope with it now; this will help keep it in balance with the sword. 2) Give it some range! The down is fine, but up is atrocious; Make it seem like you are using a long musket and buff it up; Keep the balance by not returning it to its huge range advantage, but just enough to where it holds ranged edge over the sword, can footlance, and can get out of the insane glance-fests. 3) The bayonet needs some more strength. Giving it some power will take remove a portion of the glancing and stop the 5 hit tanking. Let the bayonet get a few more 1 hit kills and maybe at most 3-4 hit kills. It needs to feel more cumbersome and slower than a sword, but have enough power to overlook some of its cons.
I agree that cavalry swords should have their ghost range reduced (heavy cav sabres stab is longer AND faster than bayo stab
).
Glance-fest and fights which look like 2 dogs chasing their own tails is due to low turning speed functioning very shittily with stab time-based damage calculations.
If you need more than 2 hits to kill with bayo, it means that you're landing very crappy hits (which happens often because of low turning speed).
As it is, swords are clearly better in 1 vs 1, but they lack the range and killing power of bayonets to be effective in group fights so it's pretty balanced.
