Hey ! I made a very long suggestion about lots of ideas about combat mechanics. Like someone suggested, I decided to cut it into numerous little suggestions so people can read what interest them, and can vote / downvote what they like / don't like in my ideas more accurately.
You can see the whole suggestion here with more explanation and all..
http://lifeisfeudal.com/discussions/question/better-combat-mechanics
Mounted combat ! I know it is not in the game yet, but I have some ideas about it. First, Mount and Blade did lancing wrong.. yes, you can do nice lancing, that deals loads of damage, but you can also use the down attack with the lance while mounted, and you have way more reach. In LiF, I say you should not be able to do anything but couching your lance while mounted. Please, make the lance couchable at ANY time, even when not moving. Cavalry did use to prepare the charge by couching the lance before actually charging. Of course, if you don't have eneough speed, the lance should do very low damage. When you successfuly hit someone with a lance, one of the two should happen :
1 - The lance breaks, because the enemy armor was too hard to pierce through, or because the lance was too decayed / used. In this case, blunt damage is dealt to the target. Maybe some piercing depending on the armor.. but it would be possible, and even usual, to die in this scenario.
2 - The lance.. stays in the enemie's guts. If that happens, the guy dies here, and you can pick the lance up after the battle. No need to worry about damage here, since the lance is inside the guy.
As for swords, axes, throwing weapons, bows... they should ALL be usable, with different animations in melee of course, and reduced accuracy for ranged weapons (By making the camera shake when you try to aim). Of course, 2 handed spears should not be usable (the pike for example).