Mount&Blade II: Bannerlord Developer Blog 5 - Virtual Skeletons

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Happy Friday to avid readers and passers by. It has been a little while since our last Bannerlord Blog. In this entry we are once more decreasing the number of unblogged rooms in the office by one. Although some animations are made and polished in various parts of the office, many are captured in our very own motion capture studio near the main door of our offices. The animation hub and thus the associated blog room for this episode.

Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/6
 
I think it would be more likely to break against loose mail than tight, and certainly less likely than against plate.
 
I'm very skeptical that lances would have broken very often outside the tournament. Tournament lances were built to be brittle/hollow so that nobody would get impaled. But If a solid 1-2 inch pole of wood snaps in half while you're holding it still, i think you'd have broken your arm, or at least your hand.

It's already immensely difficult to break a lance by snapping it across your knee (the most efficient use of energy in breaking something), so breaking it while it's couched under your arm, with all the wood grain pointing parallel to the direction of impact, would be close to impossible, under your own strength.

Bear in mind that there are reports of unarmoured men surviving head-on couched lance attacks, and men with chainmail being completely unharmed.
 
Wouldn't the problem of lancers be being unable to stab and retrieve said lance in the same run during a couching charge rather than the lance breaking on them. I know that most of the time, lances stuck to bodies post battle would seem to have been broken because the remaining footsoldiers would hack them down so that they don't have man height fence posts littering the space and to deny the enemy riders the chance to retrieve their lances.
 
Captain Lust said:
Happy Friday to avid readers and passers by. It has been a little while since our last Bannerlord Blog. In this entry we are once more decreasing the number of unblogged rooms in the office by one. Although some animations are made and polished in various parts of the office, many are captured in our very own motion capture studio near the main door of our offices. The animation hub and thus the associated blog room for this episode.

Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/6

Could you please put this animation in the game for a heavy siege crossbow??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziq5zm4uO-Y

But of coarse don't make it as slow as this amateur

Also for medium crossbows maybe this animation could work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxN0FZkYk78

As for the lighter crossbows they should also be reloaded on the ground as well, but be pulled by both hands.
 
It would be cool to have those animations, but I am not sure whether crossbows will feature much considering the time period. They did exist of course, and Taleworlds say that the approximate period that they are using as inspiration for this older Calradia is 600-1100AD, so crossbows wouldn't be out of place at the end of that period, but I would not be surprised if they aren't used in any of the factions' armies (given my impression of the armies of the time and the faction descriptions in the latest blog). Another problem is what to do with the windlass after firing, it might be a very complex animation to do well even if you don't have the windlass being placed and removed from the crossbow and then put back on the belt. Not only would it be time consuming to make such an animation accurately, it would be the only non-weapon object in the game being removed and replaced from the avatar (for example helmets and gloves can't be taken off), so they would have to code in a new feature just for the windlass to be visible on the bowman's belt. Maybe they could just make it disappear between loading.

By the way oorestis, there is a thread for Bannerlord talk in the general discussion board:http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,249537.0.html.

Not that there is anything wrong with posting your ideas here, but that thread is more suited for discussion which isn't specific to the blog topic; besides, something interesting would be a refreshing change in that thread from the dual wielding arguments!
 
It's all sounding great so far, does anyone else think it would be cool to have an animation where you can fall off your horse? say if someone hits you with a 2h weapon from the front while you're riding, theres a chance you'll be knocked off. and if you run into a wall or fence or something you can fall off forwards
 
Kaiben said:
It's all sounding great so far, does anyone else think it would be cool to have an animation where you can fall off your horse? say if someone hits you with a 2h weapon from the front while you're riding, theres a chance you'll be knocked off. and if you run into a wall or fence or something you can fall off forwards

Could be cool, could also be very frustrating. Maybe make it dependent on riding skill, opposed strength and/or agility, opposed encumbrance, that kind of thing. Might not even need an animation, just rag-dolling.
 
Yes falling of a horse would be very realistic and with the parameters suggested  even better . Let me say though that it has to be for AI also not only the human player otherwise it can be frustrating...
May I also suggest a couple of things about horses :
1) Horses should have more charge and throw away an infantryman when the hit on him with high speed. Maybe cause more damage also not just visual effect. this could be more realistic also but it is also a balancing issue that has to be tested .
2) I dream of the day when horses will try to avoid obstacles and don't bump on everything in their way unless you don't do it yourself guiding them. Just think how more realistic would that be.... or how more fun horse archering could result.
 
Jason L. said:
Horses should have more charge and throw away an infantryman when the hit on him with high speed [...] this could be more realistic

It's both unbalanced and unrealistic. Horses in the era warband's depicting were actually kind of small, and not only did they avoid crashing into stuff (including humans), there's no way even a modern horse could knock a person into the air just by knocking into them:
jacobhinds said:
Horses are scary but they're not steamrollers - imagine running headlong into a crowd of 5 year olds. You wouldn't instakill them, and the size/strength difference between man and horse is similar.

Jason L. said:
I dream of the day when horses will try to avoid obstacles and don't bump on everything in their way unless you don't do it yourself guiding them. Just think how more realistic would that be.... or how more fun horse archering could result.

That could also be incredibly frustrating; imagine you're not looking where you're going, heading towards a wall and the horse decides to go left, when you mean to go right. You could end up stuck in a corner or run into a bunch of spearmen. I'll be the first to admit how ridiculous the robot horses in this game are, but it'd be really obnoxious for them to make stupid decisions rather than you, the player.
 
jacobhinds said:
It's both unbalanced and unrealistic. Horses in the era warband's depicting were actually kind of small, and not only did they avoid crashing into stuff (including humans), there's no way even a modern horse could knock a person into the air just by knocking into them:
jacobhinds said:
Horses are scary but they're not steamrollers - imagine running headlong into a crowd of 5 year olds. You wouldn't instakill them, and the size/strength difference between man and horse is similar.



That could also be incredibly frustrating; imagine you're not looking where you're going, heading towards a wall and the horse decides to go left, when you mean to go right. You could end up stuck in a corner or run into a bunch of spearmen. I'll be the first to admit how ridiculous the robot horses in this game are, but it'd be really obnoxious for them to make stupid decisions rather than you, the player.
1) did you ever see a real horse in your life? Even not the biggest ones I mean...
2) frustrating but realistic after all ... Do you suggest that it is normal that if you don't look out your horse just stops against a tree ? I mean when did you see this happen in real life?
3) Who said anything about "instantly killing"?
 
1. Horses nowafays are big but you still need immense amounts of force to kick something into the air by hitting it. For example a medicine ball is about the tenth of the weight of a person, but running blindly into it at top speed isn't going to make it fly into the air or even roll very far. Medieval total war isn't an accurate portrayal of physics.
I see horses all the time, there's a stable down the road from me. But even at their largest they're not much more than 3-4 times the mass of a human being. If people can survive being hit by cars at much higher velocities, a soft, narrow horse from a time when horses were tiny isn't going to do much more than knock a person aside.

2. When realism makes a feature frustrating, it's best to remove it. There are countless unrealistic features in warband, like the unkillable player and the ability to passively block stabs. If they got rid of those for the sake of realism, warband would suck.

3. Neither did i, i was just in a similar discussion a few weeks back and couldn't be bothered to retype. :razz:

tl;dr Cavalry's overpowered in this game as it is, no need to give them free damage from just running into you.
 
Yeah, humans are very strong. It's unfathomable that something as puny as a horse could do them lasting harm.

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A post I made about horses in another part of the forum:

"Most people who talk about cavalry, really know absolutely nothing about horses. Having grown up around them at my grandfather's farm, they're a lot more capable at doing things than what modern historians frequently say about them. The whole "horses won't charge into a solid object" is absolute bollocks. Horses can be trained to do these sorts of things. Horses spook easily with things they aren't familiar with. But you can train them out of this behaviour and get them familiarized with things. It's how horses have been trained to work with firearms, or how the horses for picadores have been trained to charge bulls in bullfighting and to have no fear of their horns or of getting gored (despite the fact that it happens very often).

In regards to whether or not cavalry can charge "solid" objects, I'd suggest reading Marcus Junkelmann's third volume of "Die Ritter Rome", where he explains you can train horses to run into, and bully into a line of formed men shouting and waving spears and swords and other weapons. The issue with horses not charging into a mass formation has nothing to do with the animal's nature, because you most assuredly can train this out of them. The issue is with the men riding the horses. Do they trust themselves and their horse and their long pointy weapon to be able to break the enemy's ranks and their long pointy weapons. Sometimes you don't even have to train the horse, they'll do it on their own: http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/untamed-uncut/videos/horse-charges-into-crowd.htm That horse would have without any coercion or force, trampled those people standing in a relatively tight group at around 1:05 if it hadn't tripped.

This link is also a good resource for studying the shock charge: http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php

Stressing this: "It is the resilience of that interface between lance and horse that determines the amount of energy put into the impact. Thus the amount of the horse's mass that could be effectively put behind the lance was directly determined by the rider's size and strength. In other words, a larger, stronger horse does not mean a harder hit, while a larger, stronger rider usually does. In fact, in a joust I am more concerned about a large rider on a small horse, than a small rider on a large horse. Velocity can increase or diminish the relative force of the impact. This is true both in terms of hitting and being hit."

Horses from even the best breeding stock are useless if they haven't been properly trained and blooded in battle. Chaucer writes that a destrier was 200 times more than a plough horse, and while some of that cost might be in relation to breeding stock, the training aspect of that horse is would also be factored in, and that training is far more important.

We can also look at the Strategikon where Maurice deems it very important that cavalry retain their formation, and that a cavalry charge ends up broken more by human psychology rather than animal psychology. Or even Tacitus and the Roxolani cavalry, where he alludes to the fact that not even infantry or cavalry could stand against them (having completely wiped out 2 auxilia cohorts in Lower Moesia), and only in poor conditions (heavy mud, combined with snow, when they were caught returning from a raid by third Gallic legion) were the Roxolani cavalry no match for infantry.

As for resources, Kelly DeVries is good, as is Anne Curry's book on Agincourt, and Andrew Ayton's "Knights and Warhorses". I'd stay away from Ann Hyland, who is rather biased and doesn't appear to have much knowledge of cavalry warfare.

So how vulnerable was infantry to cavalry? Pretty vulnerable if they cannot either convince the riders of those horses that making a charge is folly, or disrupt the momentum of the charge (most effective is through field works/prepared ground, and natural terrain features), or make the riders hesitate as they are committing to a charge. "
 
To ThegnAnsgar : Where have you been all this years that it felt like being the only one saying those things? God bless you!!!! There is a numerous community, in this forums, made of people who simply like to "fight" on foot and so they continuously ask for horses to be nerfed, fall over people like feathers, and drop ded as soon as you hit them with a stick ......
 
Well, I don't think horses should be as tanky as they are in vanilla, but they are rather hardy animals. So native horses could probably do with some kind of a nerf in some way. The problem with cavalry in games is that the depiction has to sacrifice things for gameplay elements.
 
The "reality feel" is one of the defining characteristics that puts M&B in a class above its competitors.  If community input is important, I would really like to see a sense of weapon weight in swings as well.  Most hack and slash games make swinging a 30 pound maul feel about as weightless as a bamboo stick.  I realize bamboo is more convenient for motion capture studios so as not to bust equipment but I request that you use some lop-sided, heavy props every once in a while to add a sens of "heavy weapons" vs "light weapons".  Instead of restricting use of a weapon based on strength, you could take a 10 pound axe, for example, and use a slow, sagging swing animation for a weak character and a faster, cleaner swing animation for a stronger character.  That way, weak people using heavy weapons incurs a speed penalty but they can still pick it up (as in real life).
 
Limehill said:
The "reality feel" is one of the defining characteristics that puts M&B in a class above its competitors.  If community input is important, I would really like to see a sense of weapon weight in swings as well.  Most hack and slash games make swinging a 30 pound maul feel about as weightless as a bamboo stick.  I realize bamboo is more convenient for motion capture studios so as not to bust equipment but I request that you use some lop-sided, heavy props every once in a while to add a sens of "heavy weapons" vs "light weapons".  Instead of restricting use of a weapon based on strength, you could take a 10 pound axe, for example, and use a slow, sagging swing animation for a weak character and a faster, cleaner swing animation for a stronger character.  That way, weak people using heavy weapons incurs a speed penalty but they can still pick it up (as in real life).


Gods forbid. Hiring actors who know what they're doing, using befitting props? Inconceivable!
 
I am not sure this would be good. Weapons dont differ that much in weight (max. 3 or 4 kg) as far as I know. It would be far more important that players stats such as strength etc. should matter more. This RPG myth of some weapons are slllooooowwwww is actually pretty dumb.
 
ThegnAnsgar said:
Well, I don't think horses should be as tanky as they are in vanilla, but they are rather hardy animals. So native horses could probably do with some kind of a nerf in some way. The problem with cavalry in games is that the depiction has to sacrifice things for gameplay elements.

In single-player, the effectiveness of horses can be justified by their cost and scarcity. In Bannerlord's quasi-Dark Age setting, I guess pre-stirrups, heavy cavalry would be markedly less effective than Warband's medieval setting.

It's more difficult in multiplayer with the Warband system, where cavalry is supposedly equal to range and melee. Although the effectiveness of all those classes will always depend on the battlefield and the organisation of both sides.

I'd quite like to see a multiplayer mode where you can upgrade your equipment over a "career" rather than per match - not necessarily replacing the Warband system, just an alternative. Horses could be justifiably powerful in that mode if you have to save like hell to get one.

Coming from someone that worked at a riding school, I personally don't think they're overpowered in Warband relative to real life. On the one hand, they shouldn't be able to canter for hours without tiring, and they should sometimes bolt, rear or buck. On the other hand, they should do much more charging damage (usually knocking the victim over), and they should spin, kick and bite when trapped in combat. And they shouldn't run into obstacles without a player looking ahead to guide their every movement.
 
will be grait the ultamite would be to get the fighting as close to assasinscreed1 as possable it was the most fun sword play ever the most fun was the counter attack holding right mouse button and when aponent atacket  push left mouse buttun for a grait looking kill move was always my dream to have that sistem in a big open battle but its just my dream the anamation was grait.
 
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