although very easily doable in duel, the extent to which you can do this in a match is much more limited by other factors like cavalry, archers, the location of the fight etc. i mean, in previous versions you couldn’t even walk backwards without getting kicked. that’s not the case now but it demonstrates the reliance on kicking which exists for melee in this game and i think it’s a bigger problem than many bannerlord players realise. sure there are many many aspects of bannerlord i disagree with and dislike, as many warband players do, but if the melee was fun or close to as good as warband I’d be able to play it just for that, regardless of balance issues with matches.
the fact is that many warband players do not enjoy bannerlord and one of the key reasons for that is the melee. the over-reliance on kicking is one pretty large reason why i find the melee less enjoyable in this game. in warband, kicking is a rhythm breaker and something which you can very easily be punished for doing. if you kick too much in a duel the opponent can easily get around you as the recovery time is longer, or your opponent can stab into the kick to guarantee damage. kicking too much in warband, or doing so inaccurately, means that you take damage and if you were to miss in a groupfight in battle you’d probably get hit 2 or 3 times and die. it being so risky in warband is justified because if you land the kick you get a free hit. a free hit is a pretty big deal, and kick someone in battle they’re probably going to take more than one hit if your team is there to assist. yes, you can be punished for kicking and missing in bannerlord, but it is much harder to do it and very often players get away with just kicking as much as they want.
the fact that kicking breaks the normal pace of the melee means that its overuse appears to constitute a broken melee, to me and to many others. i imagine it gets very frustrating very quickly for lower level players and for players from other melee games to get kicked repeatedly when they’re expecting to be using the melee to win.
yes you can move out of the way by predicting the kick, but that’s not enough in my opinion. if someone kicks and misses there should be the opportunity to punish them with damage, as there was in warband. it’s too powerful otherwise. the speed of the kick itself should be lowered, to make evading by moving or jumping easier, and the recovery time after kicking should be increased so that there is a window for the missed kick to be punished. i have no doubt that every bannerlord player under the sun disagrees with this, but kicking is far too strong in this game and you cannot possibly disagree that there is an over-reliance on it by infantry in matches and to a lesser extent duel.
