Recent content by Aranarth

Personally, I insist that everyone on the opposing team immediately runs directly at my team, swinging constantly until they die.

If they refuse I start to insult their personal lives.

Everyone knows that if you don't make it easy for your opponents to kill you, it's because you've never spoken to a girl before. Don't take it out on us and hurt our feelings by beating us in a video game.

Phalanx300 said:

Something that worked for me against feinters is to not attack unless you hear the weapons collide. Then again I'm very defensive.

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Or on the offensive side, charge with a thrust hoping to catch them before they're ready to actually attack.

You should add a section for mouse turning to show how it affects some of those examples in your video.

neih said:

While doing the test with the shield, I tried to adjust my character so that Reapy was right in front of me. Reapy tried to move his character so that he can position his weapon closer to me to try to spam me. If you want, we can do the test. I'll use a shield and let you spam me the "proper way" to see if I can retaliate against it.

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Well, apparently when I saw this I was on a server that I did not realize was set to "fastest" combat. If it really speeds up a swing and/or the swing rate, this could possibly have been the cause. It was the siege Medieval Mahem server, and at the time I did not note the speed settings or realize they could be the cause.

Here is what I saw when I watched your video:

You both demonstrated how it works against manual blocking from a normal position, then you showed us an extreme angle where the blocker had a greater distance to cover.

Then, when you do the shield you start from normally facing eachother, and you can see Reapy sliding slowly to the left as he swings from the right. This means instead of the extreme angle that would make it take as long as possible to swing back, he's actually sliding into your swing to make it easier. Those are the only swings that you showed us.

I was disappointed that all you showed for the shield was purposely walking toward the attacks.

Now, I don't want to sound like a jerk, but it would probably be common sense to avoid intentionally walking into your opponent's swings, but rather you could walk away from them. Now, the most extreme angle possible might not be what you'd really see, but the idea being to mouse turn and hit with the end of your weapon as you walk away from, not into his attacks. Or much more simply, do the extreme angle and show us if it's even possible.





Unrelated to any of that, I wanted to say that I enjoyed the chamber blocking part of your video. I am just starting to practice that myself now that I feel I have a decent grasp on manual blocking.

I was wondering how you'd suggest practicing chamber blocking and what type of gear you'd use to do it. I tried it out in the tutorial in a sparring match with the fighter bots. It seemed easy there, but that doesn't translate at all to MP. The weapon selection is too limited and the bots always swing just as soon as they chamber, while a player may hold his swing and release it later.

It may just have been the fact that my weapons in MP were larger/slower than the sword you use in the tutorial, but I think it actually hurt my timing to practice that way.

I was wondering what combat speed setting you two do your duels/videos on and exactly how that affects the game. I can't find something that specifically says what exactly the combat speed setting does.

Also, when you showed the manual blocking allowing you to strike back at an extreme angle, you didn't do the same for the shield. I noticed that after the shield blocks, you walked toward the direction he was swinging instead of moving to the extreme angle and turning to hit early.

Yes, I know you showed that hitting instantly doesn't work, but you also showed that it only really is a few inches before it starts to do damage. I'd like to see the results if you tried to outspam the shield properly as someone would do it in game, and not walked into the swings of your opponent

Part of what I am thinking though is that it might have been a "fastest" combat speed server in which I saw and was able to duplicate the shield spam problem. At least, going back to that server now, I noticed that it was set to fastest.

Scientia Excelsa said:

Most newbies go into a deathmatch server, couch some other newbies, and think they're the best thing since Lancelot.

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Well, I wanted to be Legolas, but that name was already taken.

I have a question that might be related to/have an effect on this topic.

What is the expected combat speed, and how might that affect one's ability to block effectively?  I am not sure how it actually works, but I am assuming the combat speed setting affects the time required to swing, and so it would  affect the time you have to block.

I am also assuming that most servers use normal (medium) combat speed. I do not know what is standard for a dueling server, but I am assuming that it's also the default of normal speed.

However, if you don't bother looking at the settings and join a "fastest" server, won't that make it appear that manual blocking is much harder?

TakeYourProzac said:

Co-existence is possible, if only there were servers for both of us.

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Coexistence is possible as long as you are kept separate? That's sort of contradictory isn't it?

Stabbing Hobo said:

They're complaining the penalty is not big enough, not that there's none. In version 0.620 there wasn't any and it was far worse than it currently is.

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Yeah. I am pretty sure that there is a penalty at the start and end of a swing, but it doesn't seem to matter too much at this point. If you hit someone immediately with the start of the swing it makes the "bump" noise and doesn't do much, but it hardly has to move before that ends and the swing hits as normal. Also, it seems to be different for different weapons. The really long weapons still seem to be able to hit nearly right away (like the great long axe or similar polearms, for example.)

daredevi1 said:

i think you guys forgot to mention the most important thing of it all,USE 1ST PERSON VIEW WHEN LANCING.

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I wouldn't get into that habit. It really limits your ability to be aware of your surroundings.

For single player, I have been using a Masterwork Heavy Sabre with 38 damage, 99 speed and 96 reach as my one-hander. My two-hander is a Balanced Two-Handed Sabre at 47 damage, 99 speed and 120 reach.

I have had these two weapons for well over 100 game days now and have failed to find anything with better stats for me.

96 reach seems to be a good compromise for a one-hander. It's long enough to be used from horseback, but short enough to swing in a siege situation.

Someone offered advice that you should try to time your hit so that you reach your target with the spear at its furthest point. This is what I thought at first, too, but it doesn't work.

Someone advised me to time my attack so that I'd reach my target with the spear about half way through its thrust. Making this change in my timing was a big improvement for me.

The rest of it is just getting used to the control of aiming the spear. At first I tried to aim it before the thrust and just let it go as it was aimed, but as I got more used to it I learned to aim just as I begin to thrust and to make large adjustments during it if necessary. This feels more comfortable to me now, since a target often notices you at the last second and makes some kind of movement to avoid.

That's just going to come with practice, but try using the great lance to get a feel for adjusting your thrust. It thrusts very slowly, so you can watch it thrust and obvserve how moving the mouse changes where it will go.

Also, don't forget that a manual "low" block will block a spear thrust, even one delivered from a horse at a gallop. It will not block a couched lance, though.

It is deffinately possible to hit someone past their shield if you aim carefully or just get lucky.

I have seen a Rhodok with a shield up get shot in the foot by an archer on the opposite side of the map (the small one with the village and the large hills). Obviously, it wasn't an intentional shot, but it does prove that it's a possible one.

Seawied86 said:

Satire escapes you, Aranarth.

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Because you could tell my post was in absolute seriousness, amirite?

I even dusted off my Super Duper Serious Hat to wear while making this post. And I don't just do that for anyone. You should feel honored!

kuntakintay said:

im not sure what you mean exactly, the thing i think you are talking about is moving your mouse so you get more leverage.. seems fair to me as its really like putting your body into it

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I agree with this. I have seen this used and it really seems to make physical sense. The movement is large and obvious and allows time to block and the effect doesn't defy physics, so I don't see any harm in it.

inox_ionizer said:

Turning around to stab someone with a spearhead  which has already gone past them is not something people would expect of a semi-realistic game, so I would say it's more like a bug than a 'trick'.

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Well, if you were to stab a real sword forward and then turn your body so that the sword turned into an object during the stabbing motion, you'd expect it to hit that object. I don't see any reason why that would be a bug or an unexpected result.