Mount & Blade Warband Infantry Primer

[Alene]

Spears used without shield goes into category I call "spamsticks". With those it's possible to spam attacks so fast that when someone gets hit, he has no time to block the next attack because he's still stuck at the hit animation from the previous attack.

[Reapy]

Youtube is evil with their blocking. I think I can file some protests and claim fairuse to get the sound going. It's more annoying when I can't tell when the sound is cut out vs putting some ads up. Wish they'd just link the song in the bottom to buy it and be done with it.

For the 4x spear hit, I don't know if it is a bug or property, but spear especially will 'stun' you like that sometimes. This is exacerbated on servers where the swing speed is set to fastest, most weapon's dont do this on medium, and spears probably about 3 max, but on fastest you start to see it a bit more often. At least with the spear is balanced by the fact that it does so little damage 3 hits are about the equivalent of 1 hit with a normal weapon.

Also, some servers break everything, like if you play on gk siege when its tuned up to 80 people, you'll find that the game is a lot less responsive than on smaller population servers.  In this case you have to play kind of like you have 100 ping, where you keep a lot of space between you and other players, and keep it very, very simple in how you play, give yourself lots of time to block through the lag and be very sure about your return swings.

[brognar]

Spears used without shield goes into category I call "spamsticks". With those it's possible to spam attacks so fast that when someone gets hit, he has no time to block the next attack because he's still stuck at the hit animation from the previous attack.

The spear is a weapon of skill, a weapon of speed, and a weapon of agility.

The ability to "spam" (a stupid evaluation IMO) is balanced out by the crap damage.

[Alene]

I still call it a "spamstick". I have no more trouble fighting that than other weapons though.

[Das Knecht]

Just aim for the head and it does very good damage indeed.

[SaulCanner]

How can  an enemy swing his spear four times back to back without even giving me the time to block? I can't understand that. All the servers I've played so far, It's all about "let's swing and whoever hits wins". I want to learn but, meh, I'm really frustrated after all these tries. Enemy doesn't even try to block. They simply swing and hit. Extremely fast. As I've said, I was hit by a spearman with 4 left swings back to back, and although I knew which way the attack was coming from, I couldn't even raise my sword to block. Weird.

If you get hit with a non-knockdown polearm, you have a 50% chance of getting a longer than normal stagger animation. This animation is long enough that you can usually get hit a second time without a chance to block.

If you get really unlucky, this can happen several times in a row.

[Girl_with_Pike]

spam combos  are good for usually 2 hits occasionally 3 but its by no means reliable.

most Polearms have other combo options as well which are good for 3-9 or more unavoidable hits depending on the weapon/armor situations, but executing them isn't nearly as easy as the 2 hit spam swings.

The bottom line is ultimately this:

Combo killing somebody for 7 hits with a bamboo spear = 1 shotting them with a 2h sword.  It just looks 7 times cooler and makes you go WTF i couldnt block that...

soooo focus on chopping your opponents head off in 1 swing with a solid weapon and these will not be an issue

[Finnbhennach]

After two days' play, I finally got used to the basic mechanics of the game. Following the advices, I've focused on timing first. Have developed a good defence against cavalries--actually I enjoy slaying cavalries the most--. Yesterday I had a 44/20 k/d ratio.

How I usually go is, I get a two handed weapon with a good range and force the attackers to swing back while I keep a safe distance and after they miss, I step forwards and land a hit. What I want to learn now is how to develop a keen sense of blocking and fighting really close. I tend to lose fights when I am at a short sword's range. If you can help me with any further advices, I would really appreciate it.

[Scully]

If you want to learn to defend yourself at close range, stop back peddling.

[Girl_with_Pike]

yeah not backpedaling helps.  Try flanking instead or at least circling.

Learning how to block up close is really the best thing you can do unless you want to invest countless thousands of deaths in learning how to kick.

[Finnbhennach]

I will give it a shot next time and let you know how it goes. Thank you so much

[Reapy]

Biggest improvement for me was spending time in front of the tutorial or mp bot learning to block. Once you can stand there and block a bunch in a row, it really cuts down on any kind of stress you feel when someone is in your face.

[Vendigr]

Also, some servers break everything, like if you play on gk siege when its tuned up to 80 people, you'll find that the game is a lot less responsive than on smaller population servers.  In this case you have to play kind of like you have 100 ping, where you keep a lot of space between you and other players, and keep it very, very simple in how you play, give yourself lots of time to block through the lag and be very sure about your return swings.

 

I'd like to point out that for 90% of the day GK siege works just fine, and that the "breaking everything" is a temporary issue that we're trying to resolve. I was able to play with 97 players and make full use of feints, chambers, etc. recently. Next time you feel like you're "playing with 100 ping" I suggest you hit tab and see if you actually are -- sometimes pings are elevated by stress on the server.

That being said, I would say that large population server probably aren't the best place to rapidly develop your skills. Duel, DM, or TDM basically push you into inf combat over and over again until you're decent at it -- play on siege and you might be tempted to roll xbow 

[Reapy]

I didn't mean to come across as though GK siege is a shitty server. Far be it, from the ever updated and new maps coming in to the native armory expansion and pretty dedicated admins keeping it clean, as well as continuous maintenance and updates from you guys, it is a really well run server, and probably where most every new native player in the US will be starting.

I know the difference between server cpu lag and a higher ping. Just saying that the lack of responsiveness from the server when the CPU is lagging is similar to trying to play across the Atlantic, you can do it, but you have to play differently. You can't block 2 people in rapid succession in 2 different directions because the server just wont process it fast enough.

If you are using a shield + 1h you won't really notice the lag, you can do a 1 feint attack and just hold down block and its all good. Just if you want to try things involving other timing it won't really work out, so maybe it is more a gripe for someone who has been playing longer vs a new player.

But you will see the difference with how fast you can block and move when you hop off a server with an overloaded cpu and pop onto a low pop one.

Yeah so 'break everything' is probably a bad choice of words, just that you have to stick to the basics and keep lots of room between yourself and other people so there is time to block through added time it takes for your commands to get to the server.

[John7]

*Bumping*

Like a baws