The inspiration for this post came from my preconceived notions of what dueling in Bannerlord would be (thanks to pre-alpha/alpha feedback and footage and my own experience playing the beta) and the delicious irony of what dueling turned out to be in the game's current form. I would like to preface this by saying I understand this is early access and no doubt the game's mechanics will continue to be tweaked and developed further. The purpose of this post is not to complain about the current combat system, just to identify and acknowledge certain duel-related mechanics in an objective way.
Prediction: "Duels will take forever"
This is exactly what many people (myself included) said regarding what duels would be like in Bannerlord. Why? Because in the years leading up to Bannerlord, there was this prevailing belief that Taleworlds had planned to restrict feinting to an extent -to limit its use in some way. The degree of how much one could angle their character up or down -thus affecting weapon angling as well, was lowered. Swing windups were made to be slower than they were in Warband. All these things created a general school of thought that was convinced duels would be this fight which lasted for an eternity -because no one had the tools anymore to overcome a skilled opponent who could block.
Reality: "Duels are over really quickly"
How wrong we were. Instead of duels being marathons, they are more like 20 meter sprints. An exaggeration I know, but you get the point. Personally, I feel they are a little too short, but there is a silver lining. No one wants to turn into Methuselah while watching/participating in a duel. The fact that duels can come to a cathartic and decisive end before we all turn gray is a good thing. That being said, some people may disagree with the factors causing duels to end quickly.
Now let us examine a few reasons why duels feel so abrupt:
-The block delay
(Yeah, not going to go into this. I don't like it. You don't like it. We all don't like it -got it. So let's talk about this one on another thread please)
-Character footwork/movement
(Many players have described the movement as "floaty" and I feel that is a perfect analysis. In Warband, it was nigh impossible to get behind your opponent in a 1v1 and vice versa, whereas in Bannerlord I feel this is a common occurrence. When I duel someone, I feel like we are both grizzly bears on ice skates gliding past one another repeatedly. It's strange being able to get past/around someone with such simplicity. It may have something to do with agent detection/too small a "character force field" and movement acceleration issues. This may be why players are having trouble re-positioning themselves when duels get very close up and in-your-face. This lack of being able to correctly position means players constantly find themselves having to block their opponents from weird awkward angles.)
-Lack of kicking
(But wait, aren't kicks an aggressive technique? Shouldn't they be one of the reasons for duels ending quickly? No, because kicks also act as a deterrent. In Warband, the threat of a kick-slash discouraged people from face hugging/crossing their opponent's center line. In Bannerlord, kicks are still possible to land, but the real problem lies with the inability to follow up with an attack. Windups take so long that by the time your swing finally reaches the enemy, they will have already recovered from being staggered and can easily block your attack. Therefore kicks are not viable, no kick-slash means no deterrent for heavy pressure tactics.)
-The over-rotation of characters/weapon swings
(I have never seen so much spinning in my life until I played Bannerlord. In Warband, it was good technique to get a good "turn" into your swing. It added some speed and decreased the time it took to reach your opponent. And while lolspins and some rotational stuff existed, you generally didn't see two skilled players trying to do back-to-back-to-back 360s against one another in a duel. Bannerlord seems to have taken the old adage "spin to win" and injected it with steroids. I can't believe this tactic works as much as it does -but it......does. Instead of doing swings/feints with fine subtle inputs of your mouse, it seems over-rotating on windups and swings brings greater success than the former. The Bannerlord mechanics allow your character to spin at a very high rate of acceleration -higher than that of Warband. While this causes chaotic screen shake on your end, it seems to hide your attack/weapon reach somewhat from your opponent's point of view -plus it greatly increases the speed of your attack. I would also like to add that windups and weapons swings in general have an over-exaggerated animation. On windup for example, your character brings their weapon all the way behind their back, and when they swing they over-swing, going all around their body with the weapon. Combing this animation with the over-rotation of your a character creates a 360 degree "hit-zone" where your weapon will hit everything within that field. Many times I have unintentionally hit someone standing behind me simply due to the over-rotation of both the character and the weapon swings.)
-Swing/Hold delay
(Not much to extrapolate on here. There's a delay, and it significantly messes with timing. Even a few frames make a big difference in a duel.)
-Feint animations
(Not necessarily a bad thing, but let's call it what it is: There is something really unkosher about many of the feint animations. They seem to "soak" into one another, making them unreadable. I wouldn't go so far as call it animation abuse, but combined with stiff camera and it's tilt (it's tilt angle is different from Warband's -we're talking 3rd person here), the block delay, and lack of telegraphing, many of these attacks are unblockable. Having difficult to read feints increases the skill-ceiling (this is a very good thing), but even in Warband, the trickiest feints could still be read by skilled players. Once the "true attack" of the feint was released, there was a window to read it and make the correct block. I've noticed in Bannerlord even when you right-click to feint or cancel an attack, the animation still continues for a brief period of time. This may contribute/be the cause of the "soaking/blending" of the feint animations. As stated above, having difficult, high-level feints is a great thing for combat and raising the skill-ceiling, but at the same time there needs to be a reliable window to read and react to them. Maybe the only adjustment needed to tweak this issue is simply the removal of the block delay, but the jumbling of animations into one very tough to read swing is something to acknowledge and think about.)
In Warband, the level of skill taking place in duels reached as high as Mt. Everest. Skilled players had many tools to work with to overcome their opponent, and their opponent in turn had all the tools needed to nullify their them. This produced some very exciting (and in some cases very long) duels. Fights between highly skilled duelists could be quite lengthy affairs, and each second that passed only added to the suspense. On display was high level feinting, high level blocking, brinkmanship in the form of distance and timing "jousts" where both players would swing when they *just* within weapon range of one another, and meta-gaming (i.e. baiting out a kick, when to go for the spam when you think the opponent is going to feint, when to chamber, when to hold your swing for a fraction of a second when you think your opponent is going to try and chamber you). In all, this created such a deep and complex dueling culture that Warband enjoys like no other.
In the current moment, the only super long duels I'm seeing in Bannerlord is when one (or both) player constantly s-keys, never coming into range of their opponent and running across the entire map, often cutting through other people's duels in the process. Perhaps the brevity of most Bannerlord duels is a good thing, and a welcome change from the constant clanging of steel that reverberated throughout many of Warband's duels between skilled players. I cannot say. All I know is I have a profound respect for Warband's dueling system, and hope that one day Bannerlord duels capture my imagination in the exact same way.
To all of you who took the time to read through my post, thank you. I hope we can bring about a greater awareness and understanding of Bannerlord's combat mechanics (especially those pertaining to duels) and how they shape and affect our gaming experience.
Prediction: "Duels will take forever"
This is exactly what many people (myself included) said regarding what duels would be like in Bannerlord. Why? Because in the years leading up to Bannerlord, there was this prevailing belief that Taleworlds had planned to restrict feinting to an extent -to limit its use in some way. The degree of how much one could angle their character up or down -thus affecting weapon angling as well, was lowered. Swing windups were made to be slower than they were in Warband. All these things created a general school of thought that was convinced duels would be this fight which lasted for an eternity -because no one had the tools anymore to overcome a skilled opponent who could block.
Reality: "Duels are over really quickly"
How wrong we were. Instead of duels being marathons, they are more like 20 meter sprints. An exaggeration I know, but you get the point. Personally, I feel they are a little too short, but there is a silver lining. No one wants to turn into Methuselah while watching/participating in a duel. The fact that duels can come to a cathartic and decisive end before we all turn gray is a good thing. That being said, some people may disagree with the factors causing duels to end quickly.
Now let us examine a few reasons why duels feel so abrupt:
-The block delay
(Yeah, not going to go into this. I don't like it. You don't like it. We all don't like it -got it. So let's talk about this one on another thread please)
-Character footwork/movement
(Many players have described the movement as "floaty" and I feel that is a perfect analysis. In Warband, it was nigh impossible to get behind your opponent in a 1v1 and vice versa, whereas in Bannerlord I feel this is a common occurrence. When I duel someone, I feel like we are both grizzly bears on ice skates gliding past one another repeatedly. It's strange being able to get past/around someone with such simplicity. It may have something to do with agent detection/too small a "character force field" and movement acceleration issues. This may be why players are having trouble re-positioning themselves when duels get very close up and in-your-face. This lack of being able to correctly position means players constantly find themselves having to block their opponents from weird awkward angles.)
-Lack of kicking
(But wait, aren't kicks an aggressive technique? Shouldn't they be one of the reasons for duels ending quickly? No, because kicks also act as a deterrent. In Warband, the threat of a kick-slash discouraged people from face hugging/crossing their opponent's center line. In Bannerlord, kicks are still possible to land, but the real problem lies with the inability to follow up with an attack. Windups take so long that by the time your swing finally reaches the enemy, they will have already recovered from being staggered and can easily block your attack. Therefore kicks are not viable, no kick-slash means no deterrent for heavy pressure tactics.)
-The over-rotation of characters/weapon swings
(I have never seen so much spinning in my life until I played Bannerlord. In Warband, it was good technique to get a good "turn" into your swing. It added some speed and decreased the time it took to reach your opponent. And while lolspins and some rotational stuff existed, you generally didn't see two skilled players trying to do back-to-back-to-back 360s against one another in a duel. Bannerlord seems to have taken the old adage "spin to win" and injected it with steroids. I can't believe this tactic works as much as it does -but it......does. Instead of doing swings/feints with fine subtle inputs of your mouse, it seems over-rotating on windups and swings brings greater success than the former. The Bannerlord mechanics allow your character to spin at a very high rate of acceleration -higher than that of Warband. While this causes chaotic screen shake on your end, it seems to hide your attack/weapon reach somewhat from your opponent's point of view -plus it greatly increases the speed of your attack. I would also like to add that windups and weapons swings in general have an over-exaggerated animation. On windup for example, your character brings their weapon all the way behind their back, and when they swing they over-swing, going all around their body with the weapon. Combing this animation with the over-rotation of your a character creates a 360 degree "hit-zone" where your weapon will hit everything within that field. Many times I have unintentionally hit someone standing behind me simply due to the over-rotation of both the character and the weapon swings.)
-Swing/Hold delay
(Not much to extrapolate on here. There's a delay, and it significantly messes with timing. Even a few frames make a big difference in a duel.)
-Feint animations
(Not necessarily a bad thing, but let's call it what it is: There is something really unkosher about many of the feint animations. They seem to "soak" into one another, making them unreadable. I wouldn't go so far as call it animation abuse, but combined with stiff camera and it's tilt (it's tilt angle is different from Warband's -we're talking 3rd person here), the block delay, and lack of telegraphing, many of these attacks are unblockable. Having difficult to read feints increases the skill-ceiling (this is a very good thing), but even in Warband, the trickiest feints could still be read by skilled players. Once the "true attack" of the feint was released, there was a window to read it and make the correct block. I've noticed in Bannerlord even when you right-click to feint or cancel an attack, the animation still continues for a brief period of time. This may contribute/be the cause of the "soaking/blending" of the feint animations. As stated above, having difficult, high-level feints is a great thing for combat and raising the skill-ceiling, but at the same time there needs to be a reliable window to read and react to them. Maybe the only adjustment needed to tweak this issue is simply the removal of the block delay, but the jumbling of animations into one very tough to read swing is something to acknowledge and think about.)
In Warband, the level of skill taking place in duels reached as high as Mt. Everest. Skilled players had many tools to work with to overcome their opponent, and their opponent in turn had all the tools needed to nullify their them. This produced some very exciting (and in some cases very long) duels. Fights between highly skilled duelists could be quite lengthy affairs, and each second that passed only added to the suspense. On display was high level feinting, high level blocking, brinkmanship in the form of distance and timing "jousts" where both players would swing when they *just* within weapon range of one another, and meta-gaming (i.e. baiting out a kick, when to go for the spam when you think the opponent is going to feint, when to chamber, when to hold your swing for a fraction of a second when you think your opponent is going to try and chamber you). In all, this created such a deep and complex dueling culture that Warband enjoys like no other.
In the current moment, the only super long duels I'm seeing in Bannerlord is when one (or both) player constantly s-keys, never coming into range of their opponent and running across the entire map, often cutting through other people's duels in the process. Perhaps the brevity of most Bannerlord duels is a good thing, and a welcome change from the constant clanging of steel that reverberated throughout many of Warband's duels between skilled players. I cannot say. All I know is I have a profound respect for Warband's dueling system, and hope that one day Bannerlord duels capture my imagination in the exact same way.
To all of you who took the time to read through my post, thank you. I hope we can bring about a greater awareness and understanding of Bannerlord's combat mechanics (especially those pertaining to duels) and how they shape and affect our gaming experience.
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