Tale Words
Recruit
Back by popular demand, here is yet another request for Taleworlds to improve the current state of chamber blocking. Please note that this request is for chamber blocking to be improved in both single player and multiplayer game modes.
Chamber blocking is not routinely used in multiplayer tournaments, because it is currently not a viable strategy.
The reason for this is that the chance of hitting your opponent with a riposte after a successful chamber block is much lower than the chance of getting hit while trying to chamber block the initial attack, due to the difficulty of chamber blocking itself. When you add in human opponents that move, feint, and change stance, that difficulty is compounded exponentially.
Using basic probabilities and some reasonable assumptions, we can demonstrate our point mathematically. In a duel between two veteran players (who are using feints, movement, etc), let's assume Player B launches an attack that is about to strike Player A, and Player A has decided to chamber block. Being very generous to Player A, we will set his probability to successfully chamber the attack at 50%. This means that if he elects to chamber block and fails to do so successfully, Player A has a 50% chance of taking damage from the initial attack if he elects to chamber block (this probability would be much lower if he simply attempted to parry). If Player A succeeds with the initial chamber block, we will again be generous to him and assume that his riposte (return strike) will have a 50% chance of hitting Player B, as he has caught Player B off guard with a successful chamber. There is also a 25% chance that his return strike misses altogether, and a 25% chance that Player B parries the riposte (yes, you can successfully parry even after being chamber blocked).
In sum, we see that if Player A is trying to chamber block an attack from Player B, Player A has a 50% chance of missing the chamber block and taking damage himself, a 25% chance of successfully chamber blocking and dealing damage to Player B, and a 25% chance of sucessfully chamber blocking but dealing no damage to Player B. So even if we are very generous to Player A (the probability of chamber blocking a veteran player is in reality significantly less than 50%), we see that Player A is at least twice as likely to take damage himself as he is to deal damage to his opponent if Player A chooses to attempt a chamber block.
We see from our calculations above that chamber blocking is not a viable strategy in multiplayer against competent opponents. In it's current state, the risk/reward ratio is very poor.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise to see that the entire mechanic of chamber blocking has been completely ignored by the vast majority of veteran players in online tournaments. It is only something that happens on rare occasion and by accident in the current setup.
It would be better for the state of the game if chamber blocking was a viable strategy (even if only as a secondary backup strategy) that had a better chance of success, as the mechanic was brought into the game for a reason.
The solution is to make chamber blocking slightly easier, so it becomes at least a somewhat viable alternate strategy behind the current parry-feint-strike one, and we start seeing it used in multiplayer events and tournaments. Taleworlds can do this by making the window of frames in which a chamber block succeeds slightly longer, or by slightly increasing the width of swords in-game so that chamber blocking them becomes slightly easier. We are not asking for game-breaking changes which would occur if chamber blocking was made much easier, rather we are asking for the developers to make it slightly easier so it is at least worth attempting in a multiplayer match from time to time, which it currently is not.
Chamber blocking is not routinely used in multiplayer tournaments, because it is currently not a viable strategy.
The reason for this is that the chance of hitting your opponent with a riposte after a successful chamber block is much lower than the chance of getting hit while trying to chamber block the initial attack, due to the difficulty of chamber blocking itself. When you add in human opponents that move, feint, and change stance, that difficulty is compounded exponentially.
Using basic probabilities and some reasonable assumptions, we can demonstrate our point mathematically. In a duel between two veteran players (who are using feints, movement, etc), let's assume Player B launches an attack that is about to strike Player A, and Player A has decided to chamber block. Being very generous to Player A, we will set his probability to successfully chamber the attack at 50%. This means that if he elects to chamber block and fails to do so successfully, Player A has a 50% chance of taking damage from the initial attack if he elects to chamber block (this probability would be much lower if he simply attempted to parry). If Player A succeeds with the initial chamber block, we will again be generous to him and assume that his riposte (return strike) will have a 50% chance of hitting Player B, as he has caught Player B off guard with a successful chamber. There is also a 25% chance that his return strike misses altogether, and a 25% chance that Player B parries the riposte (yes, you can successfully parry even after being chamber blocked).
In sum, we see that if Player A is trying to chamber block an attack from Player B, Player A has a 50% chance of missing the chamber block and taking damage himself, a 25% chance of successfully chamber blocking and dealing damage to Player B, and a 25% chance of sucessfully chamber blocking but dealing no damage to Player B. So even if we are very generous to Player A (the probability of chamber blocking a veteran player is in reality significantly less than 50%), we see that Player A is at least twice as likely to take damage himself as he is to deal damage to his opponent if Player A chooses to attempt a chamber block.
We see from our calculations above that chamber blocking is not a viable strategy in multiplayer against competent opponents. In it's current state, the risk/reward ratio is very poor.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise to see that the entire mechanic of chamber blocking has been completely ignored by the vast majority of veteran players in online tournaments. It is only something that happens on rare occasion and by accident in the current setup.
It would be better for the state of the game if chamber blocking was a viable strategy (even if only as a secondary backup strategy) that had a better chance of success, as the mechanic was brought into the game for a reason.
The solution is to make chamber blocking slightly easier, so it becomes at least a somewhat viable alternate strategy behind the current parry-feint-strike one, and we start seeing it used in multiplayer events and tournaments. Taleworlds can do this by making the window of frames in which a chamber block succeeds slightly longer, or by slightly increasing the width of swords in-game so that chamber blocking them becomes slightly easier. We are not asking for game-breaking changes which would occur if chamber blocking was made much easier, rather we are asking for the developers to make it slightly easier so it is at least worth attempting in a multiplayer match from time to time, which it currently is not.
