Moderate necro on this thread hello. I read through the whole thing, yes, all 12 pages including some of your **** posts. Thanks to
@chubbychode123 for his questions on combat that led me to this thread.
In anticipation of the soon upcoming patch which will include changes to combat parameters I’d like to give a little bit of personal feedback on how combat in Bannerlord feels to a newb, why the scrub likes Bannerlord, and serve as a reminder to all of you that your input on these forums do indeed persist and are read and appreciated by newcomers. I’d like very much to see a continuation of the discourse I read in the beginning of this thread as opposed to the almost fractured way (good) suggestions are being piled on in the rest of the forums, and hopefully after the patch is applied we can all be excited about how much better the game plays.
I don’t like the combat in Warband. All of the high level videos I’ve seen look, frankly, silly and unrealistic. It’s telling to me that there is an issue if the audience needs to be assured that what they’re seeing is difficult to pull of rather than it being immediately apparent.
Currently, fighting in Bannerlord immediately looks better. You can easily tell that someone is being outfeinted and about to get hit. You can easily tell who has the advantage and initiative and you can easily follow the movements, lolspins notwithstanding.
As it stands, you can apply the most important principle of fighting in Bannerlord, which, as far as I can tell, is impossible to apply in Warband: efficiency of movement. The inclusion of variable block delay as a mechanic makes this an important consideration, is very exciting, and increases the skill ceiling tremendously. My favorite moments in a fight are right before any movements are made. I can actually position myself and make a small plan of how I’m going to attack to throw my opponent off, and it’s like there’s already a fight happening before the first swing is made. The physics based engine allows me to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. In a fight earlier tonight, my opponent was straight up delivering ufc style backhands but with a sword. And they were calculated and precise. We were boxing and it's literally possible to duck and dodge a strike. You can block a down strike by crouching and up blocking. I can’t even begin to describe how exciting this is. This engine, once tuned, will define fighting games for a decade to come.
This game is appealing to me because I can practice a skill, blocking and feinting up, right, down, until it becomes unconscious and I can perform movements without thinking about what my hands are doing. I can build muscle memory and then use it to win. I didn’t play Warband, I didn’t play Mordhau, and based on where posters figured new players would come from and tw’s comments on sport being a factor in development, it seems that people like me were never considered a key demographic.
There are millennia of balancing already done between the sword, bow, spear, and horse. If their behavior is properly simulated then there will be no need to balance classes. And if the behavior is properly simulated, then tuning the existing game modes until they are the most fun to play will complete the game.
And thus I’d like to offer a new paradigm for everyone. I don’t think realism vs fun in the classical game design sense should apply here. I think the focus should absolutely remain
simulating realistic fights because
that is what is most fun.
/soapbox
