I can't do it. Combat is too wierd

[Lord Bryggan]

I'm sorry, I keep trying, but I can't figure out the multi player combat. I've never been a great gamer, but in Warband I was just twitchy enough to become a mediocre player. Every thing in it seemed intuitive, and the only thing slowing me down was my reactions. Being a bit of an older gent (50) I'm a bit slower compared to the days when I dominated at Space Invaders at the local arcade, but I still did ok.

But everything in multiplayer seems counter intuitive. My guy won't swing when I tell him to, and he won't block when I want him to. I see no real rhyme or reason to it, and just to test to see if its just me I go to Warband multiplayer servers and I just do fine.

I dunno, I try and I fail.

 

[Younes]

Completely normal. There is a clear problem with combat that some people might deny.

You are not dreaming when the game is not responding to your blocks, it happens all the time and its frustrating as hell. It's one of the big reasons people gave up on the game.

 

[Chaoslian]

Yeah, thats not your fault. I feel you.

The combat is unresponsive. Sometimes my spear stabs really fast, sometimes it needs forever. There are so much variables that decide how fast you attack, that it often feels like gambling. I feel this gets even worse, if you hold attacks for a second. I don't do this anymore. Ping has a massive influence to that too. And i guess packet loss (the red symbol on the left side) will also have an impact.

 

[artiedee]

Sometimes the character would be even stuck in the wind up animation of the attack lol and just wont start swinging.

 

[yedrellow]

I'm sorry, I keep trying, but I can't figure out the multi player combat. I've never been a great gamer, but in Warband I was just twitchy enough to become a mediocre player. Every thing in it seemed intuitive, and the only thing slowing me down was my reactions. Being a bit of an older gent (50) I'm a bit slower compared to the days when I dominated at Space Invaders at the local arcade, but I still did ok.

But everything in multiplayer seems counter intuitive. My guy won't swing when I tell him to, and he won't block when I want him to. I see no real rhyme or reason to it, and just to test to see if its just me I go to Warband multiplayer servers and I just do fine.

I dunno, I try and I fail.

You're not imagining it. Some of the delays are exceedingly large. For example if you are attacking with a right swing feint, and someone blindly throws a gambled left swing in to you out of desperation, then the transition from right swing to block is so long that it is pretty difficult to manage a block (at least at 55 ping). This makes the defense aspect of the game extremely unreliable as playing close puts you at risk of getting punished by people spamming out of tempo with no rhyme or reason. Most people from what I have seen tend to kite by strafing to try to prevent themselves from even being in measure with their opponent to mitigate this weakness. However in warband, people would largely stick between their weapon range and the kick range of their opponent, as defense was orders of magnitude more reliable.

You can only try to recognise what causes the long animation delays, and prevent yourself from doing them, which requires way different mousework from warband, and of course mitigate with footwork by strafing to safety (using w +a/s). Keep an eye on your weapon rest position / stance and don't rely on your weapon swinging with counter-feints in defense. Attack to parry is just so slow in this game that touching LMB anywhere near a parry can make your time to block extremely large.

Along with time to block delays, there's a a ridiculously large variation in both attacker and defender stun that makes learning how to consistently recognise if you have tempo difficult. The number of variables that effect this is large enough to make both lengths seem random to an extent.

There is a bit of bugginess as well with some blocks being ignored and attacks blatantly passing around them or hitting way earlier at an improper part of the swing arc as well. I am not sure if this is a hitbox issue or related to the desyncronised attacks that you can sometimes see as well (where a held strike turns in to a different strike type at release).

 

[Wojski]

Yep, pretty much that's that. I advise to put it away for some time. I came back to Warband visiting modules, game modes, servers I've never did before and I have greater fun than trying to figuring out something that cannot be figured out.

 

[Maximuuus]

+1 OP
You're not alone, even if you're older than us
This is very frustrating and boring and this is the same in SP (just play a few tournament to understand).
The core mecanics of the game are broken whatever you're playing SP and/or MP.

 

[eddiemccandless]

Agree as well. This needs to be addressed, especially since as @Maximuuus says it affects both MP and SP.

 

[Virtuosho]

36 here and have no issues with the combat, sometimes i swear i hit somebody and it doesn't register, but what ya gonna do

 

[method man]

i'm 11 and i play this game with a trackpad and i never miss ?

 

[Yukmouth++]

I agree, and the reasons has been pointed out over and over again, we just need Taleworlds to listen : block delay and swing delay. Block delay being a slightly Higher prio to fix in my opinion. I find myself avoiding any kind of 1v1 situation when i Play mp because of the block delay. All the intuitions i developped over hundreds of hours in warband mp are all messed up if i cant cancel a swing to block when i realize the enneny will complete his swing before mine. I fancy myself as a very offensive oriented type of fighter, and these delays make it unbearable.

 

[Welcome_To_Hell]

My guy won't swing when I tell him to, and he won't block when I want him to. I see no real rhyme or reason to it, and just to test to see if its just me I go to Warband multiplayer servers and I just do fine.

THIS

Sums up Bannerlord melee

We all appreciate the new complexities of new combat features.
As long as it does not ruin the basics of character not responding to Player inputs

 

[CesareBorgia]

+1 OP, this needs to be fixed.

 

[Narmin]

+1

 

[Nalgasucia507]

-1. I am fine with combat as is.

 

[Virtuosho]

My first two weeks I thought combat was bad, then I realised I was just not gud. Now I'm doing a lot better (9 kill streak) and the game is super fun

Git gud (I recomend taking sword and shield till you learn how to time blocks and swings, then start directing your blocks with shield, then you can move to 2h

Also just going all swinging / kicking works pretty well too with 2h axe, so few people use the kick, they should, it's awesome.

 

[Younes]

My first two weeks I thought combat was bad, then I realised I was just not gud. Now I'm doing a lot better (9 kill streak) and the game is super fun

Git gud (I recomend taking sword and shield till you learn how to time blocks and swings, then start directing your blocks with shield, then you can move to 2h

Also just going all swinging / kicking works pretty well too with 2h axe, so few people use the kick, they should, it's awesome.

The problem isn't getting good at the combat, its the fact the combat is inconsistent, you're not mastering the combat, you're mastering its flaws

 

[ShakenSpeare]

My first two weeks I thought combat was bad, then I realised I was just not gud. Now I'm doing a lot better (9 kill streak) and the game is super fun

Git gud (I recomend taking sword and shield till you learn how to time blocks and swings, then start directing your blocks with shield, then you can move to 2h

Also just going all swinging / kicking works pretty well too with 2h axe, so few people use the kick, they should, it's awesome.

Oh, please, most people here including me have probably played the MP for many years, and are perfectly competent in Warband, and tend to do fine in Bannerlord, it's just incredibly unfun and infuriating to die for bull**** luck-based reasons instead of legitimate player mistakes, which seems to be at least half the time in Bannerlord. Pretty much everyone does amazing with the 2h Axe, it's because nobody can reliably block, and it's often always one-hit kill, so just get in a group and swing at the right moment, and bam, an instant kill. You probably haven't played Warband, and if you have, I doubt it was for very long.

 

[black camel]

-1. Been playing +400hrs and no issues at all in combat under 40ping.

 

[Younes]

Combat is fun if you like to turn off your brain