Blocking with weapons too effective

[Tharasiph]

I was just in an arena battle and had an opponent block my mounted spear thrust with his Sword no less than 10 times, just couldn't hit him.

There should be some realism to it, you have axes that can blast through blocks.

There is no way a one handed sword should be able to block a mounted thrust from a long spear. Not couched, just thrusting while at full speed.

 

[Dodgy]

Not even couched... honestly a horse running full speed at you with a long spear pointed at you... what kind of superhuman would be able to block that with a sword... with a shield, not a sword...
They should give the crush through property to any lance/spear attack performed while mounted and going over a certain speed. It should also inflict extra damage to the shield.
I am not sure how I feel about the current crush through of axes/polearms on foot, but a couched lance/spear thrust at high speed should definitely not be able to be blocked (or chambered lol) with a sword (or worse, a looter's dagger).
This is obviously for singleplayer, I don't know how much this would affect multiplayer as I don't play it.

 

[kweassa]

"Feint"

Problem solved.

 

[anoddhermit]

Yeah the new blocking is better than NPCs facetanking as much as they used to, but it's definitely overcorrected in the other direction where looters are blocking lances with hoes like it's no big deal. Cavalry in particular is really negatively impacted in ways they definitely don't need to be, since cavalry charges take so much more time to repeat compared to just continuing to swing or shoot. Has resulted in some comical scenarios, and tournaments with mounted spear combat are kind of terrible now.

 

[niekdegrijze]

I wonder how difficult it would be to add the crash through ability to lances/spears. It could be related to speed, but maybe first calculate the total damage and use this to determine if a crash through must be used. Holding a 1h weapon horizontally should not stop a spear/lance strike with sufficient speed behind it.

 

[Glatix]

Not to be reductive but this is a skill issue more than a balance issue. You have a ton of available tools to make combat easier that the AI can't use to begin with. You can time a jab with a horse-bump to break their block, you can feint to throw them off, you can get off your horse and find a different weapon, you can literally kick them to death.

 

[JunKeteer]

Not to be reductive but this is a skill issue more than a balance issue. You have a ton of available tools to make combat easier that the AI can't use to begin with. You can time a jab with a horse-bump to break their block, you can feint to throw them off, you can get off your horse and find a different weapon, you can literally kick them to death.

I think most are past the 'skill' being the issue of concern here. The whole game has a bunch of 'broken' tools the player can use to overcome or beat the game. Doesn't discount how imbalanced it is.

 

[Totalgarbage]

The new AI is overall an improvement in my opinion, now that low tiers don't block as effectively as previous 1.2 patches, and the AI focusing less on the player when there are other units nearby is also great, but there are some important issues that should be looked at:

- As everyone and their mother has said, being able to block against a mounted attack with full speed with a spear, swinging polearm or 2 handed weapon with a flimsy 1 handed weapon is massively immersion breaking. A form of dealing damage through blocks to enemies blocking with 1 handed weapons is crucial.

- Shielded infantry, regardless of their tier, blocks too much, which is especially noticeable in tournaments and sieges against militia who take too long to take out if they face you. Decrease the low tier units' shield durability so that at skill level 150-200 without any with shield damage perks, they get destroyed in about 4 hits from a 1 handed (non axe or falx) weapon or spear, around 3 hits from a non-axe (or falx) 2 handed weapon, 1 handed axe and swinging polearms, roughly 2 hits from a 2 handed axe/falx, and in 2 hits from a 1 handed axe with shield damage perks, 1 hit from all 2 handed weapons with all shield damage perks and have the 2H axe and falx deal extra damage to the enemy unit if they overkill the shield.

- 2 handed weapon & swinging polearms duels in tournaments feel awesome against high tier enemies, but low tier enemies seem like they choose a block direction randomly and get taken out. The problem isn't that they aren't good at choosing the appropriate block direction, but rather that they don't adapt to change their wrong block direction fast enough even in cases where the player holds the attack button for 3 seconds.

- Melee Cavalry still needs a bit of tweaking to their accuracy against foot troops, in addition to the fix for the 1st issue mentioned.

- Pikemen are generally ****, and honestly all spear & pike units when fighting against other infantry are also ****. The latter is more of a damage formula/balance issue, while the issue with pikemen is both related to their damage output and the AI.

- The AI troops (and possibly the player troops as well) seem to largely ignore nearby enemy units inside their formation if they're in movement. They should be more reactive when for example a few horsemen are attacking their formation in movement.

 

[anoddhermit]

Not to be reductive but this is a skill issue more than a balance issue. You have a ton of available tools to make combat easier that the AI can't use to begin with. You can time a jab with a horse-bump to break their block, you can feint to throw them off, you can get off your horse and find a different weapon, you can literally kick them to death.

It has nothing to do with skill, since it's not about people's capabilities it's about the way it negatively impacts the flow and aesthetic of the combat gameplay. It's not specifically even a balance issue, since even if the units were balanced power wise the mechanics of this just look and feel bad.

 

[Zorion_no]

Not to be reductive but this is a skill issue more than a balance issue. You have a ton of available tools to make combat easier that the AI can't use to begin with. You can time a jab with a horse-bump to break their block, you can feint to throw them off, you can get off your horse and find a different weapon, you can literally kick them to death.

To a point yes, but its also related to the ingame "skill" and how it buffs weapondmg etc aswell.

That being said in this case it just literally defy the laws of physics at how good those npc's become to block at times.

if I ride at 50-70 km/h on a horse with a lance, I'm pretty sure the amount of force that it generate when it impact something is so strong that you can just "block" it and stop it dead in its tracks, you could deflect it etc, but just "boop" stopped dont seem to be relatable to other such effects.

Example instead of hitting the npc with the lance, I bump into him with the horse and he is tossed on his derrier to the ground - something seems abit of with the new "block system" to put it that way.

Dont get me wrong I dont struggle with it personally, but I can see why its infuriating/frustrating/breaks the immersion take your pick of why the change isnt exactly welcomed by all ehem.

 

[Glatix]

It has nothing to do with skill, since it's not about people's capabilities it's about the way it negatively impacts the flow and aesthetic of the combat gameplay. It's not specifically even a balance issue, since even if the units were balanced power wise the mechanics of this just look and feel bad.

The lance thing in isolation is admittedly goofy. As for the AI's better blocking ability, I've noticed that it's not universal. Higher tier troops are better at blocking and timing attacks (not just attacking or blocking faster, mind you, but doing things like feinting). Lower tier troops are worse at fighting altogether.

I like these changes, it makes a swordfight feel like more than just mindlessly spamming attacks. You have to actually focus on dueling the AI.

 

[anoddhermit]

The lance thing in isolation is admittedly goofy. As for the AI's better blocking ability, I've noticed that it's not universal. Higher tier troops are better at blocking and timing attacks (not just attacking or blocking faster, mind you, but doing things like feinting). Lower tier troops are worse at fighting altogether.

I like these changes, it makes a swordfight feel like more than just mindlessly spamming attacks. You have to actually focus on dueling the AI.

I also like the blocking changes overall but I take it that OP was basically talking about lance/spear attacks and so forth that shouldn't be trivially blocked by looters with their magic deflector hoes and hatchets and so on.

However I also think the A.I.'s blocking can feel too automatic and the coverage seems way too high, the angles blocking protects from are counterintuitive currently. You can be behind and to the left of an enemy and get parried by a sword they're hold to the front and left in a manner that makes it seem like you're dealing with a lot of invisible barriers. The visual cues need to line up better. Shield coverage is also too high but it's at least relatively closer to what it looks like it should block.

 

[Diavolo]

Install the Realistic battle mod, it is a bit strange to get used to understanding how much damage each weapon does, but it makes for a more fun game and solved what troubles you here.