docbates7
Recruit
So I just got through my first Warband experience last night and it was amazing. Way more fun than any other beta I have tried and clearly this game is going to be great.
But in the spirit of this being a Beta test, I wanted to take some time to post my thoughts on the tactics of jumping, how prevalent jumping tactics are throughout WB and how to incorporate jumping into WB without overkill. Jumping has a place w/n the WB combat scheme but is too prevalent now. I believe that jumping needs done to it is: Limit Reaction Time, Limit Swing Power and Have Limited Height or Introduce a Jump-Charge System
1. Jumping is everywhere
My first game, as my friends on vent can attest to, I was completely schooled by the “jumpers”. I would be riding along on horseback and lo and behold some naked guy with a two-handed axe would jump up into my face and down I went. It was frustrating.
Jumping is also not just for naked men with big axes. I also was safely skewered by some nice people on horseback after coming down from a jump who then promptly launched themselves again.
(Fortunately I did not see any jumping archers. I know that this got addressed via the last beta patches and it appears to be working. All the archers and crossbows I saw were stationary. Good archers still made time for the archer foot dance, but thats OK.)
This is, I believe, somewhat realistic. Somewhat. Clearly jumping is something that may have happened during battles. However, jumping as a tactic when used too often adds an arcadey feel to the game. Removing jumping archers is completely necessary. A balance needs to be struck in melee and horseback to balance the jumping mechanics.
2. What Jumping Accomplishes
The widespread use of jumping, including by myself during the later parts of the evening last night, accomplishes the same thing that jumping accomplishes in every battle-type MMO: it reduces or moves your hit box. I remember in the early days of Battlefield a completely viable tactic was to run straight at someone, jump, go prone in the air, and then shoot. You would be close enough so that your spray would kill the person and you effectively became only the size of your head to the person you charged.
This presents a compound problem in WB. Jumping necessarily moves the hit box around but it also completely skews the WB combat/swing mechanic. Also, when you jump as a melee char, particularly when you jump onto incoming horseys, you open up a previously unreachable hit zone. This presents a problem when your previously unreachable hit zone is beyond my shield or when you have jumped high enough to reach my face.
As I ran (and rode) around the game last night, I noted two methods used to stop me (or used by me to stop someone else) from running down and skewering the hapless foot soldier. 1) the 2H to the horse; and 2) jumping to avoid said lance and releasing into either the horse or riders. Since this is about jumping I’ll stick with 2. I found, and used, the strategy of jumping slightly before the horse comes into me to be an effective strategy. This is completely due to the fact that jumping moves your hit box to a completely unexpected and generally unreachable area. The rider cannot swing the lance around to you fast enough, generally, and you live to see another day.
3. What Jumping Needs to Do: Limit Reaction Time, Limit Swing Power and Have Limited Height.
I should not be able to cock my 2H axe into a full swing, launch myself in a random direction, then go full tilt into your face, back, leg, or horse. I realize we are battle-hardened soldiers but the sheer leg strength required to do this would be far beyond what an average soldier would be able to produce.
OR if I choose to jump that high, say by introducing “jump charging”, limit my swing power due to me choosing to use my limited muscle mass to jump. Hops would be frequent and easy and not have much of an impact. Medium range jumps could have usefulness with reduced combat effectiveness. Full powered jumps would enable evasion while necessarily limiting
Similarly, if I use the jump away from the incoming spear tactic, then I should not be able to automatically turn and swing. In this sense, the jump should be treated more as a “dive” in the sense that I “dive” out of the way of the spear and then have to collect myself before attacking. Obviously using a shield to block the spear would alleviate the “dive cooldown”. Using such a cooldown would also expose you to enemy attacks much the same that (and has I have time and again experienced) getting ganked while standing up from falling off your dead horse. This would introduce a mechanic to dissuade a jumping FFA but preserve jumping as a mechanic and would retaining its usefulness in certain situations.
Combining the two would necessarily entail defining the circumstances where a jump would be considered to require a “cooldown”. I don’t pretend to have the answer to this. Just some thoughts for making the game better.
But in the spirit of this being a Beta test, I wanted to take some time to post my thoughts on the tactics of jumping, how prevalent jumping tactics are throughout WB and how to incorporate jumping into WB without overkill. Jumping has a place w/n the WB combat scheme but is too prevalent now. I believe that jumping needs done to it is: Limit Reaction Time, Limit Swing Power and Have Limited Height or Introduce a Jump-Charge System
1. Jumping is everywhere
My first game, as my friends on vent can attest to, I was completely schooled by the “jumpers”. I would be riding along on horseback and lo and behold some naked guy with a two-handed axe would jump up into my face and down I went. It was frustrating.
Jumping is also not just for naked men with big axes. I also was safely skewered by some nice people on horseback after coming down from a jump who then promptly launched themselves again.
(Fortunately I did not see any jumping archers. I know that this got addressed via the last beta patches and it appears to be working. All the archers and crossbows I saw were stationary. Good archers still made time for the archer foot dance, but thats OK.)
This is, I believe, somewhat realistic. Somewhat. Clearly jumping is something that may have happened during battles. However, jumping as a tactic when used too often adds an arcadey feel to the game. Removing jumping archers is completely necessary. A balance needs to be struck in melee and horseback to balance the jumping mechanics.
2. What Jumping Accomplishes
The widespread use of jumping, including by myself during the later parts of the evening last night, accomplishes the same thing that jumping accomplishes in every battle-type MMO: it reduces or moves your hit box. I remember in the early days of Battlefield a completely viable tactic was to run straight at someone, jump, go prone in the air, and then shoot. You would be close enough so that your spray would kill the person and you effectively became only the size of your head to the person you charged.
This presents a compound problem in WB. Jumping necessarily moves the hit box around but it also completely skews the WB combat/swing mechanic. Also, when you jump as a melee char, particularly when you jump onto incoming horseys, you open up a previously unreachable hit zone. This presents a problem when your previously unreachable hit zone is beyond my shield or when you have jumped high enough to reach my face.
As I ran (and rode) around the game last night, I noted two methods used to stop me (or used by me to stop someone else) from running down and skewering the hapless foot soldier. 1) the 2H to the horse; and 2) jumping to avoid said lance and releasing into either the horse or riders. Since this is about jumping I’ll stick with 2. I found, and used, the strategy of jumping slightly before the horse comes into me to be an effective strategy. This is completely due to the fact that jumping moves your hit box to a completely unexpected and generally unreachable area. The rider cannot swing the lance around to you fast enough, generally, and you live to see another day.
3. What Jumping Needs to Do: Limit Reaction Time, Limit Swing Power and Have Limited Height.
I should not be able to cock my 2H axe into a full swing, launch myself in a random direction, then go full tilt into your face, back, leg, or horse. I realize we are battle-hardened soldiers but the sheer leg strength required to do this would be far beyond what an average soldier would be able to produce.
OR if I choose to jump that high, say by introducing “jump charging”, limit my swing power due to me choosing to use my limited muscle mass to jump. Hops would be frequent and easy and not have much of an impact. Medium range jumps could have usefulness with reduced combat effectiveness. Full powered jumps would enable evasion while necessarily limiting
Similarly, if I use the jump away from the incoming spear tactic, then I should not be able to automatically turn and swing. In this sense, the jump should be treated more as a “dive” in the sense that I “dive” out of the way of the spear and then have to collect myself before attacking. Obviously using a shield to block the spear would alleviate the “dive cooldown”. Using such a cooldown would also expose you to enemy attacks much the same that (and has I have time and again experienced) getting ganked while standing up from falling off your dead horse. This would introduce a mechanic to dissuade a jumping FFA but preserve jumping as a mechanic and would retaining its usefulness in certain situations.
Combining the two would necessarily entail defining the circumstances where a jump would be considered to require a “cooldown”. I don’t pretend to have the answer to this. Just some thoughts for making the game better.
