Implementing a charge

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omzdog

Grandmaster Knight
I was thinking last night about why infantry in combat in Warband finds itself always circling in individual fights and why no battle line is ever really established and why formations don't work at all.

In ancient warfare and martial tactics formations would collide with each other in tight formations before breaking and loosening up the ranks. I refer you to any manuscript detailing phalanx formations of any of the great Attican or Arcadian city-states, as well as Sparta, or Thracian or the famous Macedonian lines. Or perhaps Roman cohort formations of tightly packed legionaries. Go to the solid shield walls of the Nordic and Britannic warbands of the Dark Ages, there are countless tails of strong shield walls.

My point being through out history the hardest hitting tightly packed crack soldiers are often victors. Going back to how this relates to Warband, essentially I find that its all because the infantry has no real physical weight there is no push factor. I mean that you have no way of knocking down an opponent. I feel like this is a largely overlooked part of martial combat and without it infantry men are just going to run around and swing much like we do currently. Perhaps introducing a quick charge or sprint while blocking to give a knock down charge. This is different from a shield bash because it requires the whole body to move and sprint. And this raises another question about Warband. Why was there never a sprint button? Going back to my suggestion, defending against a shield charge would require dodging it or returning with your own shield charge perhaps.

Maybe I'm talking out of my ass but I think combat needs to be redefined to attune to something similar to this instead of what we have today. Thoughts?
 
I'd love to see formations charging at each other and trying to push enemy after that, but a lot of players prefer the arcade feeling of this game and to just swing their two handed swords like mindless ppl... :neutral:
Anyway I think that it's not a bad idea as long as it wouldn't be overpowered or spammed. Nothing is worse than special ability which is used too often by players.
 
No weight/pushing factor is a big miss in a game about close combat.

I don't see implementing a charge as a real necessity but this could constrain players to follow more rational behaviours indeed. I am also for more various combat options and this could bring interesting (and epic) situations (...especially when stepping aside to slash the legs of a charging fool  :smile:)

Developing your idea: I would like to see a game engine that could manage more realistically the interactions of characters (and horses): bodies should bounce/sweep/fall when knocking each other (like driving simulators do for cars), not stopping still. Also the weight of characters (considering their equipments) should be a factor on a push/resist situation.
 
I had an idea for a charging system too. It would work both on foot and on horses. Wrote about it here originally.

CHARGING (an idea that imo would make a neat addition to the fighting system)
  • assuming jump is removed, space key would be assigned for charging; jump could also be used by just tapping the space button;
  • it would be used as a sprint button (instead of the current sprint system); if you held it together with top attack it would trigger a charge; the player would start building speed (the more speed the more bonus damage on attack), if player released lmb during the peak of the charge (this would be at the end of the charge and would last for a very short time  - a second maybe) he would do damage (not full but certain percentage) even through block(bashing for shield); this would require very good timing and judgement of distance;
  • on horseback this would work the same (although it wouldn't be used for sprinting); the peak would be harder to anticipate due to bigger speed but would result in unhorsing if enemy was hit in the shield(anywhere when jousting), otherwise certain death; shielded infantry would get some bashing damage and a heavy knockback;
  • horse speed when not charging would be slower than atm; in a tournament if you hit an opponent close enough to the peak of the charge, your lance would break;
  • while charging, the maneuverability would be much lower (both on horses and on foot);
 
The most important factor is weight. By adding in weight, there is much more possibilities. Charging as you've mentioned. But also other physics like falling corpses knocking people of ladders, or people falling off horses onto other people, etc.

By adding weight, it would make infantry formation viable. It would make shield walls at gates and other choke points something useful. It would allow a formation of infantry to better withstand cavalry charge. And most importantly, it'll allow the possibility of an epic infantry shield wall fight, and such.
 
I'm happy that others agree with me at least in concept.

KuroiNekouPL said:
Anyway I think that it's not a bad idea as long as it wouldn't be overpowered or spammed. Nothing is worse than special ability which is used too often by players.
Agreed fully on this. If this were implemented and overused I wouldn't support it but it would be something that would fundamentally change the mechanics of combat.
La Makina said:
Developing your idea: I would like to see a game engine that could manage more realistically the interactions of characters (and horses): bodies should bounce/sweep/fall when knocking each other (like driving simulators do for cars), not stopping still. Also the weight of characters (considering their equipments) should be a factor on a push/resist situation.
I remember the forum community getting hyped up about some engine that was being introduced to WB in the middle of beta but I don't remember what happened with that. It was a well established engine used in many other games with good physics but not much difference occured around that time other than good rag-dolls which doesn't change combat at all. Anyone know what happened with this?
TheInsider said:
  • it would be used as a sprint button (instead of the current sprint system); if you held it together with top attack it would trigger a charge; the player would start building speed (the more speed the more bonus damage on attack), if player released lmb during the peak of the charge (this would be at the end of the charge and would last for a very short time  - a second maybe) he would do damage (not full but certain percentage) even through block(bashing for shield); this would require very good timing and judgement of distance;
  • on horseback this would work the same (although it wouldn't be used for sprinting); the peak would be harder to anticipate due to bigger speed but would result in unhorsing if enemy was hit in the shield(anywhere when jousting), otherwise certain death; shielded infantry would get some bashing damage and a heavy knockback;
  • horse speed when not charging would be slower than atm; in a tournament if you hit an opponent close enough to the peak of the charge, your lance would break;
Unhorsing is an important factor that was overlooked. Additionally I don't know how a cavalryman can take the impact at full gallop of a lance attack instead of couch his lance. As if he had incredible arm strength.
Kawee said:
By adding weight, it would make infantry formation viable. It would make shield walls at gates and other choke points something useful. It would allow a formation of infantry to better withstand cavalry charge. And most importantly, it'll allow the possibility of an epic infantry shield wall fight, and such.
It would be good to see formations able to keep together and at least a small bit of tactics in Warband, the name of the game being a band of warriors, it would only make sense to have such concepts in the game.
 
Every unit in this game has a Strength stat.  Put it to some danged use instead of letting it sit on its tail supporting Power Strike.  Let's have a real honest "push at pike" with some actual push.  It really isn't THAT hard to calculate whether you're stronger than the guy you're trying to push, or even the guy you're trying to push and the 3 guys behind him helping him push you.

Oh and there IS a way to knock people down, right now, in this game.  Your men just have to be armed with hammers.  Point being half the work is already there in terms of coded animations and much of the rest seems absurdly simple to an outsider.
 
This thread reminds me of a... fight I had during beta times.
I was bored and placed around with polls on a empty EU server, when someone else joined. We spawned 30 bots for each side and controlled them ourselves, i.e. told them to stick to us and then let them charge in the last moment.

Those were some lovely sort of formations clashing and easily the most enjoyable two hours I ever had with Warband, alas nothing that would help in single player of course.
 
Strength couldn't be the only factor in determining the a force of a push, momentum (as in which direction your weight is going) would also be important as well as how deep the rank goes as in if there are any people behind you. If a man backs up or runs away he will be knocked. He must stand is ground or dodge then the strength comes in after initial contact. Something along these lines.

Sometimes I wonder if the devs or anyone of import actually reads these suggestions. Not to bash on the creators of a game with so much potential, but I bet they just lounge around and smoke green all day. People have some pretty good suggestions like TheInsider's thread.
 
imgran said:
Oh and there IS a way to knock people down, right now, in this game.  Your men just have to be armed with hammers.  Point being half the work is already there in terms of coded animations and much of the rest seems absurdly simple to an outsider.

There is also the animations of a pushed back effect when a character is kicked (from the four angles).

Omzdog said:
Sometimes I wonder if the devs or anyone of import actually reads these suggestions. Not to bash on the creators of a game with so much potential, but I bet they just lounge around and smoke green all day. People have some pretty good suggestions like TheInsider's thread.

I am sure they smoke green. That the advantage of working in a small studio  :smile:
I don't know how but I think they do listen to the opinion of players. I understand that Warband has implemented many ideas developed by players in the original M&B. Don't expect your suggestion to be added in the next patch though. Maybe in a hypothetic Warband 2 it could.

 
Right of course. Just seams like its been a while since any major changes have occurred in combat and we've been fighting in the same style since 1.011 or .96 and only weapons have changed.
 
Doesn't seem to difficult but I don't know C programming unfortunately, only java which probably won't help much. If what I read about this new trigger is true however then perhaps combat will start developing much better in the coming weeks all we need do is wait.
 
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