An interesting excerpt from the 16th century Ming Dynasty general, Qi Jiguang (戚繼光: 1473~1544), in his book, "New Treatise on Effective Discipline (紀效新書.)."
Before proceeding, there is a need to explain why this particular general, and his book is relevant. General Qi Jiguang was from the Chinese Ming Dynasty, and lived during a time which the Ming Empire did not see any major, large-scale wars outside of routine defense of the northern borders. He lived about a generation or two before the largest international war in history (up to that specific point), the Imjin War (or Bunroku/Keicho no Eki in Japanese) would take place in the Korean Peninsula between 1592-1598 CE.
However, despite not having taken part in such a large-scale war, Qi Jiguang ALWAYS pops up in any kind of list that compiles the names of the most capable generals in Chinese history. This is because the times Qi Jiguang lived in, was a time of overall decline for the Ming Empire. With bureaucratic corruptions taking hold of the enormous Chinese territories, regional defense doctrines became quickly obsolete, and would often degenerate into temporary defense strategies relying on large number of poorly trained militia. Having noticed this weakness in the defenses of the Empire, the infamous, bloodthirsty Japanese pirate forces, more notoriously known as "wako", started campaigns of relentless annual raids, which quickly grew in their scale.
Unlike the initial raids, these attacks would soon begin to see pirates in the raiding fleet number in the tens of thousands. Because the regional defense system was unreliable and would fall apart so easily, the pirate bands would start their attack on coastal villages, make their way inland in a raiding campaign, destroying militia forces and even Ming regular forces. By the time the well-trained, disciplined forces sent by the central government would arrive at those regions, the pirates would already have packed up and be gone. The most favorite of targets for those pirate armies, would be Zhejiang Province, close to modern Nanjing and Shanghai, a major coastal economic hub of Southern China.
In this backdrop, began the career of General Qi Jiguang. He was to take charge of the poorly trained regional defense forces and stop pirate incursions. His task was to round up the rabble, who were objectively no match at all against the battle-hardened wako, who were so notorious in their prowess with their long swords that some years later a Chinese martial artist would write a treatise on the Japanese sword, and introduce the weapon into the Chinese military. General Qi would ultimately succeed in this task, and train such a disciplined army with effective system of combat, that the regular forces of this province would soon gain their own nomenclature. They would be called the "Qijiajun (戚家軍)" -- "The Army of Qi." And in a few decades, the Ming Dynasty would be considered to have two bands of elite military forces -- the Northern Arm, a professional army made of elite cavalry forces, guarding the northern borders against Jurchen incursion, and would defend the gates of China until the final moments of the Ming Empire in 1644, and the Zhejiang Forces, elite infantry forces that began with Qi Jiguang.
Qi, devised a training regime of disciplined infantry formation-fighting that specialized in intercepting Japanese swordsmen at a distance with polearms, known as the "Mandarin Duck Formation", which I've actually written about quite some time ago in the old forums for the first Mount&Blade game.
Now, the reason why I brought this history up, and introduced Qi Jiguang, was to emphasize that this guy, KNEW what real combat was. He was a military man entrusted with the task of transforming poorly-trained rabble into professional soldiers, participated in numerous number of battles against ruthless wako armies, coming up with a training regime and battle plan to lead soldiers of objectively lower martial prowess than the Japanese, to winning and defending the Zhejiang Province. through group formation tactics. The book I am taking the excerpt from is considered a masterpiece of military manuals of the contemporary era, is less interested metaphysic quandaries and mentions actual experiences and real-life examples to make his point. A significant part of the book is dedicated to criticizing the "uselessness" of civilian martial arts as being impractical and just for show, and discusses why it doesn't work in a real battlefield.
In that light, here is the passage I wish to introduce, that discusses weapons and the advantage of "reach."
For a bit of context,. the chapter is named "On using shorter weapons in a long manner." The chapter discusses "old ways," of using short weapons -- although in this case, all of the weapons mentioned in the chapter are actually types of polearms.
It is difficult to come up with a precise translation of the weapons, but the Chinese weapon "ba", is a weapon with a forked or pronged head, much similar to a military fork. A "gun" is a staff, or at times a club-like weapon extremely elongated and thinned-out much like a staff, and a "dadao" means "large sword," and at the time was the name for a glaive-like weapon with an extremely large blade, and relatively quite shorter handle, than compared with a typical glaive. Think of a glaive, and then imagine the blade is elongated down to almost half the weapon's length. Or, conversely, imagine a very large two-handed sword with a glaive-like blade, with the sword handle elongated around twice or thrice the size of normal sword handle. That's what the Ming "dadao" was.
Now, what the chapter is in a nutshell, is General Qi mentioning that these weapons should be used with a longer grip with more of the weapon out front so it has a longer reach -- otherwise the weapon becomes useless and cannot make advantage of its status as a polearm. He mentions that grabbing the middle of the polearm and attacking with both the tip and butt, and doing stuff like twirling it around and stuff, is just for martial arts showmen and does not work in actual combat. If you have a shorter polearm/pole weapon, then the you need to hold it in a way to extend the reach as long as possible.,
Certainly, that is by itself relevant to the game, in how the characters hold a pole weapon. Certainly, it's no secret that the character animations in a lot of the weapons are quite wrong. However, the part that catches the attention is this:
This passage displays the reality of fighting against a longer spear, with a shorter weapon. Qi notes that even if someone is quite capable with a shorter weapon, against a spear, all that person can hope is to avoid getting stabbed by the spear -- much less hope to move inside the reach of the spear to attempt anything.
This is actually not any kind of secret, and already well known in historic martial arts circles, that the spear, is simply, king. Without a shield, hoping to parry a spear with a shorter weapon and to move inside the reach, is not something to be expected realistically, unless it's a scenario between someone very skilled with a sword fighting a total novice. It's not impossible. It can happen from time to time. But as a military commander who has the obligation to teach his soldiers fighting methods to keep their soldiers alive and fighting, Qi makes an assertion that realistically, it's not something to be expected.
Realistically, in melee combat, "reach" and "distance control" is the best weapon and armor at the same time. Defeating the advantages of reach, usually comes as a fantasy more often than a reality on the larger scope of things. That's what the general observed as well. That's what historical martial arts groups agree without exception. Spear, is the most versatile weapon on the field, as a military weapon.
That fear of "reach" should be in the game. But it's simply not there.
Now, I've heard arguments that the devs are keeping the spear in this state, because supposedly, they've tried it one time with faster spear attacks and observed it becoming OP. Balancing is a necessity, and I understand not everything can be portrayed in the exact way it was in real life.
But with your hands on your heart, with all honesty, even considering the balancing needs, does anyone honestly think spears are in a good place??
How many weapons in the tournament, for example, can you defeat by just flopping into the enemy, and just mash on the button with barehands to just punch out the enemy? Against spears, in 1vs1 you really don't need to even defend. The first hit hurts, but even if that hit staggers you and pushes you back a little, it's so ineffective for keeping distance that even after that hit, you can just still walk into the enemy and mash on the attack button with your punches flying. Any stab the enemy attempts does what.. 0~2 damage at most. And you can punch punch punch punch without ever using the block button and still win. In the lower levels when my own polearm/riding skill is very low, in a jousting situation I'd just knock out the horse, and then get off the horse and punch out the opponent trying to use that spear that does NOTHING to me.
The spear is already disadvantaged in that it only has two attack directions. I thought about which scenario might make the spear OP (as in the story I've heard) and I am guessing (if such an experiment actually did happen) it was probably the devs experimented with realistic spear thrust speed. I can see that if that were the case, despite only two attack directions, if it's too fast to react, when mixed in with feints it'd feel OP to fight against because you can't reach appropriately even if it's only two attack directions.
So what I am thinking is just staying away from buffing the spear's attack speed.
What I want, for the spear, is the pushback. I've experimented with both the recent versions of the pushback perks.. when it was further down the perk tree, and where it is currently, and in both cases it's not effective at all, and does nothing to remedy the poor situation the spear is in.
I can understand having to give up the quick spear jabs due to balance issues, but the factor that should absolutely not be taken away in any form, is the spear's ability to keep range.
So this is what I want to suggest as a change. As a matter of fact, this "change" should be applied not just for the spear, but rather how "thrust" type attacks work in general.
No matter what the quality. A good hit, a glancing blow (too close), blocked, parried, chambered... once a thrusting attack makes physical contact in any form, the opponent will be pushed back to the slightly further than the full length of the weapon when extended in a thrust.
No more bullshi* where you just stabbed someone with a 2-meter spear, but the opponent is just damaged on the spot and then immediately walks two steps in and they're smack in front of you, please.
Or, sure, the armor may have stopped the blade from going through, that's fine. So it's only 0~2 damage. But it's still a 2-meter physical rod that's driving into your torso. You don't get to just ignore that because the hit failed to produce enough damage. If it hits, you're pushed back down the length of the weapon.
No more "it's just up or down." The easiest weapon to block and make totally useless. Just up or down, with a motion so different from each other even a blind person may telegraph it. You attempt to block/parry thrust, you're going to be pushed down the length of the weapon.
If you want to get within the reach of the spear, you have two ways:
(1) Side-step and actually evade the thrust. Thrusts are already very vulnerable to sideways movement. Use it.
(2) Attempt your own attack and make a gap between the spearman's thrusts, coax him into a defensive, and then move in to the distance and use a lot of side-ways movements to stay within that reach.
Is this going to be OP? Definitely not.
There's nothing that assists the current woes of the spear in the area of offense. The spear will still only have two directions of attack, which anyone can easily defend from. That part will not change. But at least, with that reach, the spear will be the most defensive weapon, because it will become a constant effort for the opponent to try to break into reach, and the spearman just constantly, constantly pushing him back until, one side makes a mistake. Is this OP? How can it be OP when the odds of winning for the spear hasn't directly increased at all, but only the odds of losing comically reduced?
I also suggest the polearm perk of pushing back to be changed, to further the distance and enemy stagger when pushed back.
Please, do something about the spears. It's been almost two-decades this weapon was introduced into the game, without given any justice. If the spear can't become the "king," or a weapon to be feared (like the menavliton), at the least make it a weapon that's nothing to be scoffed at.
Before proceeding, there is a need to explain why this particular general, and his book is relevant. General Qi Jiguang was from the Chinese Ming Dynasty, and lived during a time which the Ming Empire did not see any major, large-scale wars outside of routine defense of the northern borders. He lived about a generation or two before the largest international war in history (up to that specific point), the Imjin War (or Bunroku/Keicho no Eki in Japanese) would take place in the Korean Peninsula between 1592-1598 CE.
However, despite not having taken part in such a large-scale war, Qi Jiguang ALWAYS pops up in any kind of list that compiles the names of the most capable generals in Chinese history. This is because the times Qi Jiguang lived in, was a time of overall decline for the Ming Empire. With bureaucratic corruptions taking hold of the enormous Chinese territories, regional defense doctrines became quickly obsolete, and would often degenerate into temporary defense strategies relying on large number of poorly trained militia. Having noticed this weakness in the defenses of the Empire, the infamous, bloodthirsty Japanese pirate forces, more notoriously known as "wako", started campaigns of relentless annual raids, which quickly grew in their scale.
Unlike the initial raids, these attacks would soon begin to see pirates in the raiding fleet number in the tens of thousands. Because the regional defense system was unreliable and would fall apart so easily, the pirate bands would start their attack on coastal villages, make their way inland in a raiding campaign, destroying militia forces and even Ming regular forces. By the time the well-trained, disciplined forces sent by the central government would arrive at those regions, the pirates would already have packed up and be gone. The most favorite of targets for those pirate armies, would be Zhejiang Province, close to modern Nanjing and Shanghai, a major coastal economic hub of Southern China.
In this backdrop, began the career of General Qi Jiguang. He was to take charge of the poorly trained regional defense forces and stop pirate incursions. His task was to round up the rabble, who were objectively no match at all against the battle-hardened wako, who were so notorious in their prowess with their long swords that some years later a Chinese martial artist would write a treatise on the Japanese sword, and introduce the weapon into the Chinese military. General Qi would ultimately succeed in this task, and train such a disciplined army with effective system of combat, that the regular forces of this province would soon gain their own nomenclature. They would be called the "Qijiajun (戚家軍)" -- "The Army of Qi." And in a few decades, the Ming Dynasty would be considered to have two bands of elite military forces -- the Northern Arm, a professional army made of elite cavalry forces, guarding the northern borders against Jurchen incursion, and would defend the gates of China until the final moments of the Ming Empire in 1644, and the Zhejiang Forces, elite infantry forces that began with Qi Jiguang.
Qi, devised a training regime of disciplined infantry formation-fighting that specialized in intercepting Japanese swordsmen at a distance with polearms, known as the "Mandarin Duck Formation", which I've actually written about quite some time ago in the old forums for the first Mount&Blade game.
Now, the reason why I brought this history up, and introduced Qi Jiguang, was to emphasize that this guy, KNEW what real combat was. He was a military man entrusted with the task of transforming poorly-trained rabble into professional soldiers, participated in numerous number of battles against ruthless wako armies, coming up with a training regime and battle plan to lead soldiers of objectively lower martial prowess than the Japanese, to winning and defending the Zhejiang Province. through group formation tactics. The book I am taking the excerpt from is considered a masterpiece of military manuals of the contemporary era, is less interested metaphysic quandaries and mentions actual experiences and real-life examples to make his point. A significant part of the book is dedicated to criticizing the "uselessness" of civilian martial arts as being impractical and just for show, and discusses why it doesn't work in a real battlefield.
In that light, here is the passage I wish to introduce, that discusses weapons and the advantage of "reach."
For a bit of context,. the chapter is named "On using shorter weapons in a long manner." The chapter discusses "old ways," of using short weapons -- although in this case, all of the weapons mentioned in the chapter are actually types of polearms.
It is difficult to come up with a precise translation of the weapons, but the Chinese weapon "ba", is a weapon with a forked or pronged head, much similar to a military fork. A "gun" is a staff, or at times a club-like weapon extremely elongated and thinned-out much like a staff, and a "dadao" means "large sword," and at the time was the name for a glaive-like weapon with an extremely large blade, and relatively quite shorter handle, than compared with a typical glaive. Think of a glaive, and then imagine the blade is elongated down to almost half the weapon's length. Or, conversely, imagine a very large two-handed sword with a glaive-like blade, with the sword handle elongated around twice or thrice the size of normal sword handle. That's what the Ming "dadao" was.
Now, what the chapter is in a nutshell, is General Qi mentioning that these weapons should be used with a longer grip with more of the weapon out front so it has a longer reach -- otherwise the weapon becomes useless and cannot make advantage of its status as a polearm. He mentions that grabbing the middle of the polearm and attacking with both the tip and butt, and doing stuff like twirling it around and stuff, is just for martial arts showmen and does not work in actual combat. If you have a shorter polearm/pole weapon, then the you need to hold it in a way to extend the reach as long as possible.,
Certainly, that is by itself relevant to the game, in how the characters hold a pole weapon. Certainly, it's no secret that the character animations in a lot of the weapons are quite wrong. However, the part that catches the attention is this:
This passage displays the reality of fighting against a longer spear, with a shorter weapon. Qi notes that even if someone is quite capable with a shorter weapon, against a spear, all that person can hope is to avoid getting stabbed by the spear -- much less hope to move inside the reach of the spear to attempt anything.
This is actually not any kind of secret, and already well known in historic martial arts circles, that the spear, is simply, king. Without a shield, hoping to parry a spear with a shorter weapon and to move inside the reach, is not something to be expected realistically, unless it's a scenario between someone very skilled with a sword fighting a total novice. It's not impossible. It can happen from time to time. But as a military commander who has the obligation to teach his soldiers fighting methods to keep their soldiers alive and fighting, Qi makes an assertion that realistically, it's not something to be expected.
Realistically, in melee combat, "reach" and "distance control" is the best weapon and armor at the same time. Defeating the advantages of reach, usually comes as a fantasy more often than a reality on the larger scope of things. That's what the general observed as well. That's what historical martial arts groups agree without exception. Spear, is the most versatile weapon on the field, as a military weapon.
That fear of "reach" should be in the game. But it's simply not there.
Now, I've heard arguments that the devs are keeping the spear in this state, because supposedly, they've tried it one time with faster spear attacks and observed it becoming OP. Balancing is a necessity, and I understand not everything can be portrayed in the exact way it was in real life.
But with your hands on your heart, with all honesty, even considering the balancing needs, does anyone honestly think spears are in a good place??
How many weapons in the tournament, for example, can you defeat by just flopping into the enemy, and just mash on the button with barehands to just punch out the enemy? Against spears, in 1vs1 you really don't need to even defend. The first hit hurts, but even if that hit staggers you and pushes you back a little, it's so ineffective for keeping distance that even after that hit, you can just still walk into the enemy and mash on the attack button with your punches flying. Any stab the enemy attempts does what.. 0~2 damage at most. And you can punch punch punch punch without ever using the block button and still win. In the lower levels when my own polearm/riding skill is very low, in a jousting situation I'd just knock out the horse, and then get off the horse and punch out the opponent trying to use that spear that does NOTHING to me.
The spear is already disadvantaged in that it only has two attack directions. I thought about which scenario might make the spear OP (as in the story I've heard) and I am guessing (if such an experiment actually did happen) it was probably the devs experimented with realistic spear thrust speed. I can see that if that were the case, despite only two attack directions, if it's too fast to react, when mixed in with feints it'd feel OP to fight against because you can't reach appropriately even if it's only two attack directions.
So what I am thinking is just staying away from buffing the spear's attack speed.
What I want, for the spear, is the pushback. I've experimented with both the recent versions of the pushback perks.. when it was further down the perk tree, and where it is currently, and in both cases it's not effective at all, and does nothing to remedy the poor situation the spear is in.
I can understand having to give up the quick spear jabs due to balance issues, but the factor that should absolutely not be taken away in any form, is the spear's ability to keep range.
So this is what I want to suggest as a change. As a matter of fact, this "change" should be applied not just for the spear, but rather how "thrust" type attacks work in general.
No matter what the quality. A good hit, a glancing blow (too close), blocked, parried, chambered... once a thrusting attack makes physical contact in any form, the opponent will be pushed back to the slightly further than the full length of the weapon when extended in a thrust.
No more bullshi* where you just stabbed someone with a 2-meter spear, but the opponent is just damaged on the spot and then immediately walks two steps in and they're smack in front of you, please.
Or, sure, the armor may have stopped the blade from going through, that's fine. So it's only 0~2 damage. But it's still a 2-meter physical rod that's driving into your torso. You don't get to just ignore that because the hit failed to produce enough damage. If it hits, you're pushed back down the length of the weapon.
No more "it's just up or down." The easiest weapon to block and make totally useless. Just up or down, with a motion so different from each other even a blind person may telegraph it. You attempt to block/parry thrust, you're going to be pushed down the length of the weapon.
If you want to get within the reach of the spear, you have two ways:
(1) Side-step and actually evade the thrust. Thrusts are already very vulnerable to sideways movement. Use it.
(2) Attempt your own attack and make a gap between the spearman's thrusts, coax him into a defensive, and then move in to the distance and use a lot of side-ways movements to stay within that reach.
Is this going to be OP? Definitely not.
There's nothing that assists the current woes of the spear in the area of offense. The spear will still only have two directions of attack, which anyone can easily defend from. That part will not change. But at least, with that reach, the spear will be the most defensive weapon, because it will become a constant effort for the opponent to try to break into reach, and the spearman just constantly, constantly pushing him back until, one side makes a mistake. Is this OP? How can it be OP when the odds of winning for the spear hasn't directly increased at all, but only the odds of losing comically reduced?
I also suggest the polearm perk of pushing back to be changed, to further the distance and enemy stagger when pushed back.
Please, do something about the spears. It's been almost two-decades this weapon was introduced into the game, without given any justice. If the spear can't become the "king," or a weapon to be feared (like the menavliton), at the least make it a weapon that's nothing to be scoffed at.
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