Improve the combat.

[xcilian]

The combat needs to me more complex and accompanying for different play styles and could be improved. First is to make the attack now a circle, so instead of 4 basic directions you can attack in theoretically a million angles that the computer can calculate and make blocking more lock on, instead of holding a weapon in the air to stop the attack most attacks in HEMA have the defender try to riposte the attack for a counter attack. The combat needs to have an option of doing light attacks, where they are fast and small damage, but can't me feinted, making them easy to punish. Heavy attacks willl be slow but they can be feinted. Blocks will not exist anymore, and they have to attack the incoming blow with a heavy attack to riposte and follow up with a counter attack. If you riposte a heavy attack you can punish with only a light attack, btu if you riposte a light you can do a heavy punish and do more damage, making the combat less about spamming attacks, and more on mind games and counter attacking like real HEMA. This could be really trouble some in a group fight, so the player needs to set his fighter to 3 different modes: duel mode, survival mode, and formation mode. Duel mode will make the fighter lock on to the enemy and focus more attacks on the fighter and do the most damage to a person, but will suffer heavily if surrounded by multiple people. However if you are surrounded by multiple enemies you can switch to survival mode, and your blocks will be faster and your attacks are wider and will hit in an area of effect, but do least damage. When you go to formation mode, you are slow and need to be with another person in formation mode to march together, but your attacks will not be interrupted by teammates. The weapon animations can be reflected like in formation mode you will never swing a spear but in duel mode you might swing your spear. Shield combat will be different your shield is also now an offensive weapon. You can choose to attack with your weapon or your spear you can switch between each hand. If you block an attack with a reposte from your sword you can follow up with a shield strike which will do less damage than a sword swing but stun your opponent with blunt damage. Blockign with a shield will not be the same anymore, if you hold down middle mouse button you can move your shield in a passive position when not shield bashing to block arrows, unless you switch to duelist mode, when you do a light attack, shields will now be passive blocking and an offensive weapon. Weapons will now require real physics and make it more realistic instead of seeing a weapon pass through a shield cause of gamey mechanics.

You can also change your weapons into different modes to change your stance, one stance can be good against one stance and bad against another stand. For a longswrd you can have 3 modes, normal, halfswording, and mordhau. and in each of these three modes you can switch between survival mode duel mode and formation mode. For a normal stand when holding a longsword, in survival mdoe, your weapon can be extended full reach to stop running attacks form running at you, in duel mode you will hold your weapon at an offensive stance that changes depending on where you change your mouse diretion, formation mdoe, you can only attack up and down and stab sideways. Spears will always for example full lengthed formation mode stab in 4 directions, heavy attack with the off hand will be a switch to the other hand. If you havea  sword and shield, you can only stab in formation mode, but survival mode you will be countering attacks with your shield and wildly swinging. Examples of how to make the combat look more natural. WASD keys can be used to adjust grab and throw locations, diagional included with a riposte to grab attempt. Only light ripostes will confirm a grab.

With a grab attempt you can hook your enemys with your axe, a mordhau hook with the handleguards, or a stab with the sword stuck in a body. You can then follow up with more damage in duel mode, or in survival mode throw your opponent at another opponent to ensure safety and follow up with a counter attack.

In a real fight most people use their feet in combat too, but kicking to push people away for an attack that could possible whiff is a problem, you can also do a leg sweep that can trip the opponent or aim for a kick in the balls to stun the opponent. However you need to aim your kick, kicking someones thighs or shins will not do any damage or stun, and can be countered with a light attack or grab attempt that can leave your foot stuck by the grab attempt. If you are on duelist mode however you can kick your opponent away to stun him and can be followed up with a light, a heavy attack will whiff because its too slow. In survival mode you can do area sweeping kick, including roundhouse, or spin kick, to hit multiple opponents.

www.thearma.org/Manuals/Liberi.htm a quick look at this website will make formation mode and duelist mode look easier to understand that different stances and combat styles are much needed to suit the combat for this game.

You can hold down a cetrain button to change your weapon stance(rebindable, I chose alt key), and the shift button to change from survival, formation, duelist stance. Shield passive locaton will be changed by holding the middle mosue button. Angle of attack will be decided in the same format as Warband. Ripostes are somewhat automated, bu the weapon locking onto the parrying weapon. You can change to leg attacks by pressing e, and switching back to normal by pressing it again. Shield and sword is comewhat complicated, because most games with dual wielding have right click for right weapon, and left click for left weapon, so I would jsut make it alternate between sword and shield attacks, if you don;t want to shield attack after a sword attack, you can simply feint the shield attack and go back to sword attack, since it is already alternated.

A sprint button is also really needed. The bodyweight of your person can also be used as a weapon. If you sprint with your shield on a forntal passive position, you can do a shield bash that is backed by your bodyweight, usually doing a full tackle on the floor. Bashing with your body should be easy assuming there is no accel on your movement. However your opponents can dodge to the side and use the momentum to steer you into a wall, confusing yourself and getting punished with a light. You can bash without a shield, however you lose the protection of the passive shield position, and will take more damage from stabs, unless your opponent is in survival mode.

I am done explaining, so I will retire for the night. Feel free to drop any questions, I will answer them later tonight.

No Spam
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[Triune Impurity Rites 999]

This does not sound fun. Maybe its your explanation, but it seems to me like I'll be having to constantly adjust all the time different combat modes. You had me hooked at the beginning with the circular attack, but then you just blundered (possibly a fault of using a solid block of text) into something that sounds really complicated.

 

[Mad Vader]

I was hoping for a completely free-form, qwop mode, with special buttons or pedals to control the breathing.

 

[Triune Impurity Rites 999]

Item one: name is TRIUNE IMPURITY RITES 999. I don't appreciate abbreviations. Short names like Triune are okay, though.

Item two: you shouldn't multi-post.

Item three: this sounds waaaaaay too complicated now. 

 

[xcilian]

If you read my stuff closely you can understand, this information is for people who understand combat mechanics and real life historical combat. Unfortunately, if you have never played a fighting game or studied any historical combat records, you won't be able to understand what I am talking about. A nuclear scientist won't be having fun in a bachelor party and vice versa. Will a developer please look at my post.

 

[Triune Impurity Rites 999]

Jeez, uhm, how about we figure out how to utilize this mess using only WASD, EFZ, and a mouse with three buttons?

 

[Orion]

A nuclear scientist won't be having fun in a bachelor party and vice versa.

Your understanding of social norms & expectations are a bit off if you think "nuclear scientists" can't have fun, and if you think you had to make so many posts to convey a single suggestion.

If you read my stuff closely you can understand, this information is for people who understand combat mechanics and real life historical combat.

Neat, except you've come into the argument with an incomplete understanding of the medium in question, which is M&B's combat mechanics.

First is to make the attack now a circle, so instead of 4 basic directions you can attack in theoretically a million angles that the computer can calculate and make blocking more lock on, instead of holding a weapon in the air to stop the attack most attacks in HEMA have the defender try to riposte the attack for a counter attack.

Infinite* angles, theoretically, not a million. There are infinitely many discrete angles between 0 and 1 degrees on a circle, and I can prove it mathematically if you wish. The theoretical limit of what a computer can handle is more likely set by some data type like Int32 or Int64, both of which go way beyond one million signed & unsigned. An application like this could benefit from a floating point data type, which would make things even crazier.

The combat needs to have an option of doing light attacks, where they are fast and small damage, but can't me feinted, making them easy to punish. Heavy attacks willl be slow but they can be feinted. Blocks will not exist anymore, and they have to attack the incoming blow with a heavy attack to riposte and follow up with a counter attack. If you riposte a heavy attack you can punish with only a light attack, btu if you riposte a light you can do a heavy punish and do more damage, making the combat less about spamming attacks, and more on mind games and counter attacking like real HEMA.

Fast attacks which can't be feinted aren't easier to punish, they're harder to punish because of the limitation of human reaction time. If they're slow enough to be reliably blocked by a skilled player with good reaction time then they are a useless feature because the attacker lacks the ability to manipulate them with feints, and holding them would be pointless because you could just perform a heavy attack instead. Combined with your proposal for restricting riposte counter-attacks based on the deflected incoming attack's nature, you've sidelined your brand new feature (light attacks) into uselessness. If light attacks are too fast for even skilled players with good reaction times to block then they are overpowered and make heavy attacks useless except for riposting to setup a counter-attack. Since your proposed heavy attacks have the same manipulation capabilities that attacks in M&B currently have (holding, feinting, chamber-blocking, potential for increased damage) you've succeeded in adding nothing but more attack directions thus far.

Also, to equate your expertise in this area with a "nuclear scientist's" in theirs after saying M&B's combat is currently about spamming attacks and not mind games is hilarious to me. Mind games are what separates good players from great players in Warband, but it's hard to appreciate this without seeing it. Riding on this thought, let's look ahead a little bit:

In a real fight most people use their feet in combat too, but kicking to push people away for an attack that could possible whiff is a problem, you can also do a leg sweep that can trip the opponent or aim for a kick in the balls to stun the opponent. However you need to aim your kick, kicking someones thighs or shins will not do any damage or stun, and can be countered with a light attack or grab attempt that can leave your foot stuck by the grab attempt. If you are on duelist mode however you can kick your opponent away to stun him and can be followed up with a light, a heavy attack will whiff because its too slow. In survival mode you can do area sweeping kick, including roundhouse, or spin kick, to hit multiple opponents.

Where's xdjinn? I think he'd get a laugh out of this. How can you sit there straight-faced and suggest totally free-form, realism-focused combat features and follow it with Bruce Lee stuff like this?

Moving on...

Half-swording, mordhau, and other alternate move sets have been suggested before, and I am a proponent of them. They are technically possible in Warband via modding, if someone were inclined to create animations for them. They would be useful for changing up damage types (mordhau offering blunt instead of a sword's typical cut damage, for instance) and varying move sets. Useful, if implemented properly, and they simply build on existing features (move set swapping is currently available for long axes, throwing axes, and javelin-likes). Adding grapple/hook capabilities to attacks is more complicated, because it takes a damaging attack and adds a disabling functionality to it similar to Warband's kick. What makes the kick OK is that it deals very low or even zero damage against moderately armored opponents. Mordhau and axe strikes would intuitively deal more damage, so they make kicks useless against armored opponents by offering alternatives which are superior in all ways. If you've seen HEMA, then you know kicking can still be useful against even heavily armored opponents because it can upset their balance, causing them to trip or stumble. In M&B terms, kicks push opponents away a little bit while hooking would pull them towards you or move them laterally with respect to you. This means there's very little risk of moving them out of your weapon's range, so your follow up attack is more likely to land. This is troublesome because it makes kicks even less appealing. You're edging towards sidelining another feature.

 

[aekilju]

Good thing M&B isn't a simulator

 

[KhergitLancer80]

I would rather stick with the current version of combat system thank you.

 

[lolbash]

Fast attacks which can't be feinted aren't easier to punish, they're harder to punish because of the limitation of human reaction time. If they're slow enough to be reliably blocked by a skilled player with good reaction time then they are a useless feature because the attacker lacks the ability to manipulate them with feints, and holding them would be pointless because you could just perform a heavy attack instead. Combined with your proposal for restricting riposte counter-attacks based on the deflected incoming attack's nature, you've sidelined your brand new feature (light attacks) into uselessness. If light attacks are too fast for even skilled players with good reaction times to block then they are overpowered and make heavy attacks useless except for riposting to setup a counter-attack.

For Honor has the heavy light attack system. Its different for each hero, but generally light attacks are 500ms, heavy attacks are 800ms.  Just using light attacks will get you parried and killed, but if you mixup your offense with bashes or unblockables in For Honor, you can force your opponent to focus on those attacks first, then feint into a light attack, and generally the light attack hits.

 

[Revverie]

**** any other game that is not Warband, not being a Fanboy here, I tried them all and the only one that feels satisfactory is Warband, obviously using Brainy bots because bots otherwise are trash

 

[Orion]

Fast attacks which can't be feinted aren't easier to punish, they're harder to punish because of the limitation of human reaction time. If they're slow enough to be reliably blocked by a skilled player with good reaction time then they are a useless feature because the attacker lacks the ability to manipulate them with feints, and holding them would be pointless because you could just perform a heavy attack instead. Combined with your proposal for restricting riposte counter-attacks based on the deflected incoming attack's nature, you've sidelined your brand new feature (light attacks) into uselessness. If light attacks are too fast for even skilled players with good reaction times to block then they are overpowered and make heavy attacks useless except for riposting to setup a counter-attack.

For Honor has the heavy light attack system. Its different for each hero, but generally light attacks are 500ms, heavy attacks are 800ms.  Just using light attacks will get you parried and killed, but if you mixup your offense with bashes or unblockables in For Honor, you can force your opponent to focus on those attacks first, then feint into a light attack, and generally the light attack hits.

That doesn't translate 1:1 to M&B, though. AFAIK, you can't hold most attacks in For Honor and feinting isn't as critical (if it's possible, not sure on that one). It also has predetermined combos, while M&B is totally free-form originally and in OP's suggestion. The way you bait someone into dropping their guard in M&B is with holds, feints, or footwork, and the way you counter-attack is with chambers. What you described is what OP seems to think M&B is like (throwing out a constant stream of varied attacks, i.e. spamming, to force an opening). In a sense, the spirit of many of OP's suggested features are already in M&B, it's just simplified down to 4 directions. What's missing from M&B that the OP suggested are offensive capabilities for shields and alternative striking modes for some weapons. Shield bashing & pommel strikes are confirmed features for Bannerlord, but we'll have to wait & see for alternate move sets on melee weapons.

 

[xcilian]

First, you people need to read before commenting one liners. Do not comment useless comments unless you throughly have read my post. I am absolutely not at all asking for realistic combat, but there are ways to incorporate real life techniques to make the game more interesting than attack spam, and give more control to the player. You also seem tomis understand my heavy light attack implementation. You cannot block attacks, its removed. Attacks need to be riposted with a heavy attack. Unless you have a shield passively blocking an attack you will not mindless block attacks. And spamming attacks for warband is simply stating the truth. Holds and feints, they don't count as an opener. They can still be blocked. Light attacks will not be overpowered, they may be the attack that makes up most of high level combat but they will usually be in conjunction with other attacks that have been feinted or after a drag into wall from a hook or bash. Heavy attacks are not holdable, its unrealistic and has never served a purpose but to make muscle memory noobs open up and get attacked. One can maybe charge a heavy attack for more damage, but after the removal of block this would only serve well in a team fight against a survival mode lone person. In any case, if we do math and combine 3 different stances, with 3 different combat modes, you have a total of 9 stances to use and perform attacks, one can switch stances mid combat to unlock a huge number of combos, like a mordhau heavy side strike from survival stance, can be feinted into a formation bottom stab for example, to confuse enemies. Or a full body shield sprinting shield bash, which can be changed to survival heavy parry against an incoming spear jab. Much more interesting than spamming feints.

 

[Orion]

No need to be rude. I didn't give you a one-liner, I gave you more than everyone else in the thread combined. All you've given me in response is "nuhuh, Warband is about spamming, and the things you said don't count because I said so." Don't demand respect, it's a two-way street.

 

[xcilian]

I am not talking about you, but now you want to join the <snip> who can't be bothered to read after that post? Spamming feints that can easily be blocked is still not an opener no matter how many times you say it is. This is the internet, you can scroll up and read a post again, but I still have to repeat myself. The guilty gear community full of weebs are much more understanding of high level combat than this. But I digress.

 

[lolbash]

 

[Orion]

I am not talking about you, but now you want to join the <snip> who can't be bothered to read after that post? Spamming feints that can easily be blocked is still not an opener no matter how many times you say it is. This is the internet, you can scroll up and read a post again, but I still have to repeat myself. The guilty gear community full of weebs are much more understanding of high level combat than this. But I digress.

We do have one thing in common, we don't like repeating ourselves. I respect that, and I hope you do, too. That means I won't repeat my verbal warning to you.

Out of respect.

 

[xcilian]

Posting stupid animated GIFs what is the point? To laugh at this internet fight? Like the bystander who records the fight at school on your phone instead of calling for a teacher or police for help, this is stupid. You need better rules and enforcers, inciting drama or petty dismissive comments isin't a healthy way to start a community. Already hard enough <being insufferable> in real life, and **** is being carried over to the internet.

I will come back tomorrow, good night everyone.

 

[Count Delinard]

Xcilian,

First of all, do notice how you've been verbally warned before regarding multi-posting, if you keep doing it it's only natural verbals will escalate to actual warnings. Pay attention to our rules.

Secondly, while it's very valuable for you to bring your opinions on how the combat could be improved into our community, and while you are entitled to envision it the way you want, you can't post something like this:

If you read my stuff closely you can understand, this information is for people who understand combat mechanics and real life historical combat. Unfortunately, if you have never played a fighting game or studied any historical combat records, you won't be able to understand what I am talking about. A nuclear scientist won't be having fun in a bachelor party and vice versa. Will a developer please look at my post.

Or this

but now you want to join the <snip> who can't be bothered to read after that post? (...) The guilty gear community full of weebs are much more understanding of high level combat than this. But I digress.

And then be surprised like this

Posting stupid animated GIFs what is the point? To laugh at this internet fight? Like the bystander who records the fight at school on your phone instead of calling for a teacher or police for help, this is stupid. You need better rules and enforcers, inciting drama or petty dismissive comments isin't a healthy way to start a community. Already hard enough <being insufferable> in real life, and **** is being carried over to the internet.

When people don't support you.

Your contributions and ideas are important and help build value in our community, but the way you dismiss your fellow community members as "unintelligent", the way you insult them for disagreeing with you and the way you elevate yourself to a higher intellectual position demanding devs to read you instead of the rabble is exactly how you sow resentment and eventually reap its rewards.

Take the couple of days off you've been given to reflect on how you respond to your fellow community members. Do they seem not to like your ideas? they are as entitled to disagree with you as you are to propose them in the first place. Argue with them in a constructive manner, find points you can have in common but don't disregard them. Respect is indeed a two-way street and you can't simply demand it, you have to show it as well. Being new in the community isn't a problem, there's plenty of cases of users (for example, this guy) who were welcomed by everyone and have made a name for themselves because they positively contribute and add value to our community as whole, showing respect and, in return, receiving it. I recommend you learn from these people, the way you interact here can help you become better at interacting with others out there in the non-virtual world.

You can always PM me if you want to continue this conversation further. I'm looking forward to seeing you back around after the mute is over

 

[578]

So you pretty much want to make this game Mordhau. Mordhau has a 240 system with alternative modes on weapons and it also has a third person. Go play that, it's coming out at the end of the month (at least that's what Marox said on discord). Bannerlord's combat should remain 4 directional with combos and stances. Its enough.