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I personaly bloody hated the directional blocking at the start, trust me I died countless times because of it. I think I spent 15 tries trying to duel the big bad bandit guy in the start. But now I have started to get a hang of it and I honestly quite enjoy it. The way I found easiest to learn was tournaments, mainly with shields because they were a bit more forgiving if you messed up. I don't neceserily miss auto blocking, but I see why people could. I have fast reactions and learn quickly and like trying out new mechanics. It's not for everyone, and therefor the choice should be there at least in SP, because how you play SP literaly doesn't matter to anyone but yourself. Like, what's worst people having auto directional blocking or cheating in SP?

Maybe don't have to add it in this instant, but I do hope they consider adding both options. I personaly don't care, but if it ruins some peoples enjoyment of the game it's worth consideration imo. My only tip is: Learn with a shield in tournaments or practice fights (the tournaments are plenty around, some with very good rewards if you succeed) And don't hold down the block, wait until you see their swing start and move your mouse towards that direction to meet their swing with your block, and just click it. This'll give a tiny rebuff and then you hit them in the head :grin:
 
I just want a static block that I can aim in first person. Instead of this clunky directional blocking. If I want to block to the left, I hold block and look to the left, simple. I don't see the need for this directional blocking in first person.
 
Taleworlds has really been pushing the "easy to learn, hard to master" combat of Mount and Blade in their marketing, they've said it in interviews and it's even listed in the features on their website. I think automating a basic skill of that combat system because it's too hard would spit in the face of that statement. TW removing autoblock might be them saying "hey, our combat system is fun and not that hard to learn, please give it an honest try!".
I'm sorry, the current system is not easy to learn. The visual cues aren't easy for a beginner to pick up on and there's no context support. Worse, in the training field where you're supposed to learn directional blocking... the game gives you a shield. Making it super easy to pass that section of the tutorial without really absorbing the skills involved.

The learning curve for the combat is steep enough for a beginner even with auto-blocking enabled. Even a veteran of the game has to practice a fair while before directional blocking becomes intuitive for them, that's the opposite of "easy to learn."

And again, this isn't some obscure skill you can do without. This is blocking. literal self defense. This is something that will force itself onto a player's experience very early in the game and shape their opinion of how fun it is. This is not an area to be elitist "my way or the highway."

I can occasionally get it right but not if I have a million other things to focus on, like in any battle at all. Most of the time I'm just left to swing wildly and hope I can keep my opponent off balance. The result is that you wind up being one of the least effectiv units in your own army, which is incredibly frustrating.
 
While I've personally gotten used to it and (relatively) quickly picked up the block system, it certainly does have a learning curve and auto-block has been a feature in every other M&B title up until this point. I see no real reason for it to suddenly not exist.

Wouldn't hurt anyone else's experience either if they added it, would just make the game less difficult for players looking for a less difficult experience.
 
War of the Roses, Of Kings and Men, Last Oasis, For Honor, Gloria Victis. All melee-heavy games with strong inspirations from Warband's combat system. Again, directional blocking isn't that hard to learn, most people just aren't willing to try when an easier but less fun alternative is offered to them.

And the only one of those I've ever actually heard of is For Honor, and IIRC it did not do well commercially.

Almost sounds like catering exclusively to hardcore players is a bad business move.
 
According to some poster on the steam forums they contacted the support team and got this response:

Hi,

We disabled the feature but there are many requests.

So we are planning to add it back. We will announce it on our forums.

Best regards

--
TaleWorlds Support Team

Hopefully it's true and we'll hear something official soon.
 
So, the basic argument here is:


Yes, cool argument, true to some point, not gonna lie there. However, why does your experience need to dictate others'? Why does your worldview of fun have to be the fundamental point others have to have fun on?
Yes, cheaters have less satisfaction playing games, because they don't have to go through the arduous hardships of skill-learning. Does that stop them? Hardly.

The same argument satisfies claims like these: "Why do you want to spend time sitting on a chair making-believe you're a knight/king/kwhatever, when you can just lease a horse, call about 560 friends, all of you buy some make-believe armors and do the actual physical fighting, that way you have to use your own body to play! You maintain your health (exercise) AND have fun!". Cool.

Or better yet: "Why do you play football games, fifa and whatnot, when you can just buy a ball for about 15 bucks or less, and kick it around, instead of making-believe while you're sitting?"

The reasonably appropriate response to these, and similar, is "Because I want to." Why do you want autoblock when you can simply learn the blocking system? Because I want to.


Personal freedom, personal choice. That's why. And I was quite happy that TW took that route for most of the features of the game. My old ON/OFF argument at its best. You want it on? Turn it ON. Want it off? Turn it OFF. Why? Who the hell cares? No one but you, your god, your spouse and some random people on the internet trying to dictate how you should play your games. And only one of these matter. Your spouse's.


Now for the personal subjective part of the post.
I've played M&B for the last 12 years on autoblock. I just couldn't do it manually. Didn't really care much for it, the game was too cartoonish for me to care about such menial chore.

Now BL is here, and I wanted to try manual, because the animations and graphics look so much better, and it makes sense now. My brain can intuitively understand manual blocking now. It works, I am having fun with that. But I am sure I am blocked off two-handed weapons for now. And I wanted to try them, but I am still getting used to the good combat AI, and the combat is much harder with manual blocking. My mind is itching for autoblock, but I know I'm having fun for now. I am, really, having fun, especially in tournaments. I get those chills when I'm low on health, and it's fun, and when I win, it's such a joy to know I did it on my own...

For now.
Under quarantine, from a global pandemic.

I am finally able to stay at home and be able to work from home, instead of wasting 4 hours every day commuting. Yeah, I'm finally having the free time to spend on the game and learn it, and the game graphics and feeling makes combat make sense.
I'm not sure how long I'll have the patience/resilience to stay on manual. Now imagine I'm forced to do this forever. It's more fun, yes, for duels and few men combat. But as many have already said, the game has tons of other things other than combat.The simple commander mechanics work much better now, if a bit convoluted. You can just command troops from afar and never have to block anything. But what if I just want to hack and slash away some battanian lords? What if I don't have the free time to spend trying to learn (AND KEEP) the blocking skillz? Because it is mostly reflexes. It's fine and dandy when you're 22 years old. It's normal when you're 28. But when you reach 30, 40, 60... It's not so easy to keep up visual reflexes. I have eyesight problems, it makes it harder to look at the enemies, I can't be bothered to play first person forever, what if I have a potato computer that can barely render the good graphics? What then? "Just buy a better PC", yeah, daddy's credit card pays all, amirite?

There are hundreds of variants and possibilities for why having autoblock is good. I will agree with this:

But then again, maybe not everyone wants to give it an honest try, maybe the player just wants everything else, except the blocking feature, and the tabletop gaming in taverns. Yeah, they are not as hard as one might think. But one feature can be completely ignored, the other is a fundamental part of 50% of the game. And some people don't have the age, time, or mental capacity and health to feel frustrated because of blocking. Just because YOU have fun with it, doesn't mean OTHERS will.

- You can try and reduce combat AI too, yes, which will make every enemy dumber, which is not the point. Someone who wants autoblock just doesn't want to have to have 60fps perfect vision to try and fight some 500 men battle, where other 6 enemies might come around and surround you. It makes sense in tournaments, of course, but it's hard on someone trying to fight real battles.

- Just grab a shield - then you have no two-handers, so you lose a good portion of cool weapons from the game, whereas if you autoblock, you just don't have that "ive won a challenge" feeling. So it's either lose actual empirical things from the game, which you will not be able to use, or lose some subjective feeling, a feel randoms are saying is good on the internet? Material vs subjective, maybe I'd rather take my chances losing something subjective here, but still have fun with all the other actual features in the game.

Some people have very stressful lives, don't have the money for therapy, have no safety net of any sort, have no family, no nothing other than themselves. Now you want to force them to keep their reflexes up, just because you think having good reflexes for a virtual game is more fun? Maybe we should stop comparing personal opinions here, and thinking on the bigger picture, something like the collective good, like the choice yo have it ON or OFF?


All of this, just to say: if you can choose it, no one will complain. So add it in, maybe?

Sidenote, perhaps: you can keep the directional defence for shields, since it still blocks. It just breaks your shield more, while not really risking your life. I think autoblock only when you're using a weapon with no shield makes sense enough. If it's doable. Maybe another togglable option, maybe?


THANKS.
You got it. Give players freedom to choose.
Give everybody the experience they prefer.

I'm completely with you on this.
 
late to the party bu still some thoughts: :grin:

1) I think that people who do and enjoy manual blocking presume too easily that it's just better - I think they are missing the greatness of auto-block :grin: there are people who are terrible at those kind of things - like me for example - I'm currently playing Switch version of Wither 3 on 'no challenge - just story' difficulty and I die regulary :grin:

2) it's an role-playing-game so don't get mad at me that i want to role-play a master swordsman even though I lack the skillz :grin:

3) FPS shooting is waaaaay easier than directional blocking :grin: you just need to point an aiming point at something, it doesn't involve any decisions (like deciding the direction) - also aiming with mouse is something I'm practicing all the time evenoutside of playing games, but this directional blocking I would be training specificaly for this game (since it's unlikely I would buy any other game that is demanding it) and it would not be a small investment

4) it's like Arma vs Unreal Tournament :grin: I like UT because it's easy to get into and fun on LAN parties - Arma is great in concept and I get why people love it but I would rather go out and play Airsoft (and I do) - beating challenges IRL and having easy non-frustrating time in PC games is the way for me :smile:
 
These games do not hold your hands. Learn with the rest, instead of complaining you can't block right or up. The biggest issue is some you will come to MP and get demolished than complain to the forums and devs that their game is too difficult to handle.
 
These games do not hold your hands. Learn with the rest, instead of complaining you can't block right or up. The biggest issue is some you will come to MP and get demolished than complain to the forums and devs that their game is too difficult to handle.

This has zero to do with the request for a feature in SINGLEPLAYER that was available in the previous game; most of us actually bought the game because we enjoyed the previous game and we didn't care at all about the MP part of it.
It's a feature, you either enable it or you don't, it was the same in the previous games, they outright removed it hence why people complain.
 
These games do not hold your hands. Learn with the rest, instead of complaining you can't block right or up. The biggest issue is some you will come to MP and get demolished than complain to the forums and devs that their game is too difficult to handle.
Wait... you mean you don't want people who primarily play single player dictating how your multiplayer experience should be? I'm sure the single player fans who want autoblock back can't relate at all.
 
The biggest issue is some you will come to MP and get demolished than complain to the forums and devs that their game is too difficult to handle.

Most people who play M&B never play multiplayer ever. Most players are SP. So I guess what you said isn't true and isn't "the biggest issue". Let's see some video of you 1 v 8 looters without a shield on foot and no bow.
 
My opinion as someone who played 200+ hours of Warband which is quite a bit but I know for some it's nothing, I always played with auto block and going to directional blocking here was jarring. I think the skill floor for defense in this game is higher than most, though using a shield definitely helps alleviate that. At the same time, actually getting the blocking down is immensely satisfying and the improved animations and everything going on was incredibly fun. I think it'd be cool to tie auto blocking to specific difficulty levels, it should definitely be an option in single player because you want people to enjoy the game.
 
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