Heavy weapon swings wound multiple opponents.

[Wraith_Magus]

Doing things at night is not "avoidable" by any reasonable measure - no more so than having to walk all the way into town, into a shop, then back out of town to get to a world map would be avoidable without a quick exit key.  Sure, I could avoid going into shops entirely, but that just means the annoyance of things taking too long is keeping me from doing something that could be simple and routine. 

Maybe if the game had a fatigue or day/night cycle where you actually had to sleep and time skipped by quickly, it might make sense, but not in the case of the game as-is.

However, this is not at all the point that I am trying to make...

The problem is not "it's hard", as you seem so keen on insisting, I beat those missions, it just took another, completely different unrealistic tactic to do it.  The problem is that this game has completely unrealistic physics that involve three enemy units occupying the exact same point in space at the same time, while being capable of attacking through the bodies of their own allies.

So then, if three physical bodies can completely defy the electromagnetic force, and portions of their bodies start occupying the same point in space as each other, why can't my mace also be "touching" all three of them when it enters that same point in space?  Why can't I at least have a little knockback on those enemies, at least to interrupt them? 

If we want to use your satiric example, then flying chairs make sense if the game already has flying tables and flying tea trays, and the game expects us to sit at those tables and chat with others over tea.  It's ultimately the only logical response to an already far more crazy situation already in the game.

The real problem at the root of it, though, is that this game routinely puts you into battles against large numbers of enemies (which can really only be avoided by playing another game) and then gives you set of combat controls that seem more suited to one-on-one duels while blocking your attacks if you hit anything in the way, but letting enemy attacks go through each other to hit you.  In other words, this game needs some nod towards the crowd-control abilities it forces the player to need because it lacks any way to make the game hard other than to throw 8 people at you at once.

Let me give an example: 

I was doing a prison break mission at Reyvadin.  My choices in this situation are basically to either set a fire that magically makes all the guards take a bathroom break at the same time only at the exact moment that you are freeing the prisoners so that I only have to kill two guards, or I fight through a half dozen all at the same time.  Just fighting just two is too easy and makes the whole thing boring, but considering how close many of those guards are, it turned out to be rather frustrating fighting the whole gang. 

Knowing that I would get jumped as soon as I released the prisoner, and that the guy I was rescuing was too weak, I scoped out the battlefield beforehand, and figured that the little area with the awning near the prison door would be a good place to stage a fight.  I made the mistake of assuming that this fight would behave like any nearly realistic battle, and occupying a narrow chokepoint that was barely wide enough for one would force the enemies to come at me one or at least no more than two at a time.  I was wrong.

The enemies flowed through each other to get to me.  When I tried to attack, my (very short) hammer hit the ceiling of the awning, and was canceled out.  When they tried to attack, they could attack through their own allies, through the awning's ceiling with a two-handed axe that was much longer than my own weapon, and walked through my shield (which occupied nearly all of the narrow area) to be able to get behind me.  They did just about everything short of walking through walls in order to swarm me, and I could not actually hit them with any attacks because MY attacks were stopped by the geometry, while their attacks were not.

That's not "challenge" and it's certainly not "realism", it's just bad game physics that breaks combat in close quarters.  There is no reason I shouldn't be able to clearly occupy a space, and prevent enemies from walking inside my own shield to attack me from behind it. 

The things people talk about - shield bashes, enemy AI that isn't set to "suicidal lemming attack", the ability to just wave your sword around enough to threaten enemies not to get into reach, or just plain knocking one enemy into another, these are all things that could help lessen that unrealism. 

Once again, I don't see how "knock one enemy into another" is so radically unrealistic in the first place...

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Doing things at night is not "avoidable" by any reasonable measure - no more so than having to walk all the way into town, into a shop, then back out of town to get to a world map would be avoidable without a quick exit key.  Sure, I could avoid going into shops entirely, but that just means the annoyance of things taking too long is keeping me from doing something that could be simple and routine. 

By avoidable I meant that all you have to do is wait until the sun is up, and barring rare circumstances where you're strapped for time, you can avoid going into towns during the night. I do not mean that you should stop going into shops entirely, if the game gets too hard for you when you're ambushed at night in towns, maybe you should strategize and leave that part of the game alone.

Maybe if the game had a fatigue or day/night cycle where you actually had to sleep and time skipped by quickly, it might make sense, but not in the case of the game as-is.

I don't quite understand what this passage has to do with the previous remarks.

The problem is not "it's hard", as you seem so keen on insisting, I beat those missions, it just took another, completely different unrealistic tactic to do it.  The problem is that this game has completely unrealistic physics that involve three enemy units occupying the exact same point in space at the same time, while being capable of attacking through the bodies of their own allies.

I have played this game before, and while I admit that some times AI do stand very close together, the claim that they occupy the same space at the same time is hyperbole. And no, they aren't meant to swing through their friends, they have problems hitting through their own troops as much as you do. The system isn't perfect, but it is clear that they're not meant to hit through each other.

So then, if three physical bodies can completely defy the electromagnetic force, and portions of their bodies start occupying the same point in space as each other, why can't my mace also be "touching" all three of them when it enters that same point in space?  Why can't I at least have a little knockback on those enemies, at least to interrupt them?

Because they're not standing in the same space?

If we want to use your satiric example, then flying chairs make sense if the game already has flying tables and flying tea trays, and the game expects us to sit at those tables and chat with others over tea.  It's ultimately the only logical response to an already far more crazy situation already in the game.

Ah, but you see, flying chairs only work if it's clear that the devs intended there to be flying furniture with the game. You're original argument claimed that there exists unrealistic elements in the game already, something that doesn't seem to be the main aim of the developers. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it would be a bug if it did happen the way you say it with multiple troops occupying the same space.

If you were to argue that flying chairs would make sense in the game because of the rest of the floating furniture, this argument would be one that it would be consistent with what the game is trying to aim for.
The argument that there should be more unrealistic elements in the game because previous ones gave some of us a headache is different from the one above. Another answer to buggy elements in the game would be to ask the dev to fix it, rather than asking for another unrealistic feature that's probably going to bug another person.

The real problem at the root of it, though, is that this game routinely puts you into battles against large numbers of enemies (which can really only be avoided by playing another game) and then gives you set of combat controls that seem more suited to one-on-one duels while blocking your attacks if you hit anything in the way, but letting enemy attacks go through each other to hit you.  In other words, this game needs some nod towards the crowd-control abilities it forces the player to need because it lacks any way to make the game hard other than to throw 8 people at you at once.

It is often remarked that the AI is quite suicidal, even when the person they're facing is swinging their weapons in wide arcs. I would think a deeper development so that they actually behave as if their own lives were valuable might answer some of the claims that they bunch up against you with the first guy charging in like a maniac and dying for the rest of his comrades.
As for crowd and individual combat controls, ideally I think they should be the same. These two concepts are quite artificial when you think about it, common in RTSes or in games where the person doesn't have direct control of their character. For this game I think there is no need for such a distinction because the mechanics can handle it unlike an RTS or an RPG where the character is mechanically fixated on only one other character at a time while an attack animation plays.

Let me give an example: 

I was doing a prison break mission at Reyvadin.  My choices in this situation are basically to either set a fire that magically makes all the guards take a bathroom break at the same time only at the exact moment that you are freeing the prisoners so that I only have to kill two guards, or I fight through a half dozen all at the same time.  Just fighting just two is too easy and makes the whole thing boring, but considering how close many of those guards are, it turned out to be rather frustrating fighting the whole gang. 

Knowing that I would get jumped as soon as I released the prisoner, and that the guy I was rescuing was too weak, I scoped out the battlefield beforehand, and figured that the little area with the awning near the prison door would be a good place to stage a fight.  I made the mistake of assuming that this fight would behave like any nearly realistic battle, and occupying a narrow chokepoint that was barely wide enough for one would force the enemies to come at me one or at least no more than two at a time.  I was wrong.

The enemies flowed through each other to get to me.  When I tried to attack, my (very short) hammer hit the ceiling of the awning, and was canceled out.  When they tried to attack, they could attack through their own allies, through the awning's ceiling with a two-handed axe that was much longer than my own weapon, and walked through my shield (which occupied nearly all of the narrow area) to be able to get behind me.  They did just about everything short of walking through walls in order to swarm me, and I could not actually hit them with any attacks because MY attacks were stopped by the geometry, while their attacks were not.

That's not "challenge" and it's certainly not "realism", it's just bad game physics that breaks combat in close quarters.  There is no reason I shouldn't be able to clearly occupy a space, and prevent enemies from walking inside my own shield to attack me from behind it.

I don't know about the last claim, it sounds like you chose the wrong weapons for fighting in a narrow corridor.

A similar situation occurred during Warband beta testing. Being on the wimpy Rhodok side, we figured out during the castle map that our very long pikes can poke through the rock ramparts and the walls. Needless to say this was fixed quite quickly. There were some people that raised your concerns after they found out their favorite weapons weren't very functional in the tight spaces of the castle towers. But as you can imagine, the counter claim that weapons probably shouldn't swing through walls was much more resonant.

Instead of giving the other factions long ass pikes so they could exploit this the hitting through the wall exploit was fixed. Similar to your story, maybe it shouldn't be the case that you should also be allowed to swing through the walls or swing through multiple opponents, but that the handicaps you experience should be made more imminent for your opponents.
Although I have to say that I've never quite had your problem though. I've noticed myself that I too could also swing over the heads of friendly troops and hit enemies, it would stop though after the hit registered and hit the head of a friendly. Could it be the case that you missed some of your opponents making room for those behind them to hit you?

The things people talk about - shield bashes, enemy AI that isn't set to "suicidal lemming attack", the ability to just wave your sword around enough to threaten enemies not to get into reach, or just plain knocking one enemy into another, these are all things that could help lessen that unrealism. 

Once again, I don't see how "knock one enemy into another" is so radically unrealistic in the first place...

If an enemy can do an overhead chop through their ally to hit me, then, yes, give me the unrealism of being able to skewer two enemies at once with one thrusting attack.  That's only fair for all this 5-on-1 nonsense I have to keep putting up with.

 

[Wraith_Magus]

You seem to be running with a quickly assembled set of assumptions more than you are actually reading what I wrote.  I'm starting to repeat myself far too often.

First of all, drop the Internet Toughguy machismo, nobody is going to think you're hardcore for playing a video game, regardless of the difficulty settings.  This isn't about difficulty, this is and always was about how the game is unrealistic and flawed.

Secondly, when I talk about how enemies walk through or attack through objects that should be solid physical objects, simply saying "no they don't", and then continuing as if that whole, "basis of my argument" thing never existed to talk about what you prefer I was arguing about doesn't make for a particularly convincing argument, either.

The enemy does move through each other, and they don't get interrupted anywhere near as regularly as they should be interrupted - their arms fly through each other's arms while attacking, their arms sometimes fly through each other's torsos while attacking, and if I kill one enemy, the corpse blocks my character from dealing any damage to the next guy who almost instantly occupies the same space as the corpse while they attack through the corpse to damage my character. 

Corpses functionally may as well make a "PICHUUN!" sound while disappearing into a bunch of glowing energy balls as they die like in Megaman for how physical they are the instant they are registered as dead - the enemy can walk through and attack through a corpse, and because the AI never stops its attacks just because an ally is in the way, this means that a kill will always leave you vulnerable to the enemy behind the one you just killed stepping through the corpse with an attack already mid-swing before you can put your shield back up. 

When they don't recognize each other's space, they will do things like make a swing from the left where they are so close to the next guy over in line that their torso is clipping into the other guy's torso already, so that their swing starts on the other side of the other guy's body, and as such, their swing is not blocked for a lack of space.  Trying to tell me this does not happen does not mean it doesn't happen, I see it occur every single time I do one of those "train the peasants" quests.  They walk into and attack through each other's bodies on a regular basis.

Enemies walk through my shield when I am in close quarters, and can attack me from behind even when I purposefully walk into a corner or narrow corridor to prevent this.  This ironically makes the rational and realistic act of trying to back into a narrow passageway to fight multiple enemies only a few at a time the worst strategy to employ, because they just get behind you, anyway, and trying to crowd in close enough to stop that just stops you from being able to attack at all.  The completely unrealistic best strategy for fighting multiple enemies in this game is to just get out in the open and waggle back and forth while backpeddling to get enemies to occasionally register that they are trying to walk through other physical objects and get blocked by each other.  This game forces players to use strategies that are completely the opposite of realism specifically to counter the unrealism caused by the bad game physics, which is exactly what I've been saying all along.

I am not arguing for any one solution to the problem of how enemies move through supposedly solid objects, I've stated many, and I simply used the notion that having the ability to attack two enemies that occupy the exact same space with a single strike to that one space as being rational considering the absurd circumstances, even if it weren't the most "realistic" one, just because the initial environment is not realistic in the least already. 

 

[Night Ninja]

I'm not sure if you're talking about Warband or the original game, but last I checked the AI opponents in Warband can be obstructed by their comrades or the scenery. Packing a Nordic hand axe or similar short weapon is a good idea if you expect to be fighting in close confines because longer weapons often smack into walls and the like.  If you haven't moved on to Warband, please do, the original game just doesn't compare.

Also, introducing a completely unrealistic mechanic to compensate for a product of technical limitations smacks of some serious bodging to me.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

You seem to be running with a quickly assembled set of assumptions more than you are actually reading what I wrote.  I'm starting to repeat myself far too often.

I could say the same for you. Could it be possible that you haven't written out your points very well?

First of all, drop the Internet Toughguy machismo, nobody is going to think you're hardcore for playing a video game, regardless of the difficulty settings.  This isn't about difficulty, this is and always was about how the game is unrealistic and flawed.

I haven't mentioned any difficulty settings, you too are assuming things that I haven't written. When I say that something might be too hard for some people I do not mean this as a put down. There are lots of games I enjoy which have elements in them that I can't do very well either. Sometimes these are flaws in the mechanics and how the engine is put together, but rather than being a justification for including features that are just as out of place as these flaws, it is justification for someone to fix the flaws in the first place (which they evidently did if you played the second one). All is does is give you options for how to deal with these circumstances.

Secondly, when I talk about how enemies walk through or attack through objects that should be solid physical objects, simply saying "no they don't", and then continuing as if that whole, "basis of my argument" thing never existed to talk about what you prefer I was arguing about doesn't make for a particularly convincing argument, either.

The enemy does move through each other, and they don't get interrupted anywhere near as regularly as they should be interrupted - their arms fly through each other's arms while attacking, their arms sometimes fly through each other's torsos while attacking, and if I kill one enemy, the corpse blocks my character from dealing any damage to the next guy who almost instantly occupies the same space as the corpse while they attack through the corpse to damage my character.

I don't see how this is so. The problem you're reacting to seems to be that you think mobs tend to attack through their comrades and through obstacles. Sometimes they do and sometime they don't, just like your own character. If this wasn't a problem then your justification for adding in hitting multiple opponents at once disappears.
I on the other hand, haven't noticed this as much. I can hit through my own troops just as well as the enemy can sometimes hit through their own troops. As for the corpse thing, I haven't noticed that at all. You can swing through them. I have swung through them in slow motion before. Are you sure this is really happening? Maybe it's confirmation bias on your part?

Corpses functionally may as well make a "PICHUUN!" sound while disappearing into a bunch of glowing energy balls as they die like in Megaman for how physical they are the instant they are registered as dead - the enemy can walk through and attack through a corpse, and because the AI never stops its attacks just because an ally is in the way, this means that a kill will always leave you vulnerable to the enemy behind the one you just killed stepping through the corpse with an attack already mid-swing before you can put your shield back up.

From my recollections corpses blocking shots doesn't happen http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Mp_ZeZzRIno#t=218s. But even if it did, it's still not a justification for adding in a feature that doesn't make sense in the world the game is based upon, it's a justification for them to fix it. You said it yourself, there is something wrong here. That what you claim to be true should not happen.
There are two approaches to this. The first one would be to fix the problems wherein there would not be anything wrong  or shouldn't happen anymore. Consistency with the real world is preserved.

The second one would be to give the player an artificial advantage to offset this problem. However, it's going to be very hard to appeal to any sort of claim to reality since you've already eschewed it for bringing consistency to the flaws in the game.

When they don't recognize each other's space, they will do things like make a swing from the left where they are so close to the next guy over in line that their torso is clipping into the other guy's torso already, so that their swing starts on the other side of the other guy's body, and as such, their swing is not blocked for a lack of space.  Trying to tell me this does not happen does not mean it doesn't happen, I see it occur every single time I do one of those "train the peasants" quests.  They walk into and attack through each other's bodies on a regular basis.

That does happen, but it shouldn't.

Enemies walk through my shield when I am in close quarters, and can attack me from behind even when I purposefully walk into a corner or narrow corridor to prevent this.  This ironically makes the rational and realistic act of trying to back into a narrow passageway to fight multiple enemies only a few at a time the worst strategy to employ, because they just get behind you, anyway, and trying to crowd in close enough to stop that just stops you from being able to attack at all.  The completely unrealistic best strategy for fighting multiple enemies in this game is to just get out in the open and waggle back and forth while backpeddling to get enemies to occasionally register that they are trying to walk through other physical objects and get blocked by each other.  This game forces players to use strategies that are completely the opposite of realism specifically to counter the unrealism caused by the bad game physics, which is exactly what I've been saying all along.

As I recall, there aren't many passages in any of the castles that are one man wide. Why is it so implausible that when you're ganged up upon that some of them get past you in a hallway that's wide enough for two people?

I am not arguing for any one solution to the problem of how enemies move through supposedly solid objects, I've stated many, and I simply used the notion that having the ability to attack two enemies that occupy the exact same space with a single strike to that one space as being rational considering the absurd circumstances, even if it weren't the most "realistic" one, just because the initial environment is not realistic in the least already.

If you're playing a racing game or any game where 1950s automotives go down seemingly level city streets, and flaws with the engine occur in which invisible jagged bumps appear of the road, would this serve as a justification to give all cars hover technology?

Or in another game where there is a duplication exploit the developers overlooked, would this entail and justify the inclusion of similar traits in the game?

The argument that absurd circumstances should lead to absurd features and advantage is only true insofar as these circumstances are static and unchangeable, and the absurd circumstances is what the developer wanted in the first place. Otherwise it's building on an error that should be fixed instead.

 

[Dr Funk]

There is actually a need for some changes along the lines that wraith magus mentioned, and they would be realistic changes to make. To quote Fezzik "You see, you use different moves when your fighting half a dozen people, than when you only have to worry about one. [FEZZIK falls to the ground, unconscious.]"

 

[TheGnome]

You only missed this thread's 1 year old birthday by about 3 weeks.  Better late than never.

 

[Sheriff-murder]

You do realize this thread was created in 2006?

 

[Amman d Stazia]

and the best summary of Wraith_Magus and Swadius' debate, is that there are serious issues with the AI and close-combat physics in (the unfinished) Mount and Blade,

Spoiler

which is why many people were surprised by the announcement that the game was 'complete' and that the developers would move on to a new game called Warband....

 

[Dr Funk]

Well the discussion may have been dropped, but the issue still remains for the most part, although now the question is whether changes are on the table for bannerlord not warband.