Mount & Blade Warband Infantry Primer

[MrDrudy]

really helpfull.
i wonder one thing though.
when playing online, is the swing supposed to be slower than ingame singleplayer?
if i start swinging a right side swing, the sword pauses a short time before swinging.
its very annoying and i cant seem to get a good hit, beacuse im always to slow.
is it lag or what?

 

[Ganaris]

Heavy Footwork,huh...Yeah,that's what I'd doing most of the time.Actually I'm more like a rogue with the pole axe ,since over 60% of my kills are backstabs.I've been playing this game for a while now,but I still suck at blocking or feinting,and I'm not really interested in improving.That's why I mostly rely on cheap tricks and catching my opponents off guard.It's surprising how many people almost never expect you to change the mode of your throwing axe into melee and go berserk on them, etc...I'm not going to reveal all of them here..

In other words I suck in 1x1 duels,but I still usually manage to be the guy with the most kills on the server

 

[shaheen1]

Awesome post, keep up the good work!

 

[Reapy]

really helpfull.
i wonder one thing though.
when playing online, is the swing supposed to be slower than ingame singleplayer?
if i start swinging a right side swing, the sword pauses a short time before swinging.
its very annoying and i cant seem to get a good hit, beacuse im always to slow.
is it lag or what?

Sorry I didn't see this sooner, don't get online as much during the day for forum trolling as much as I used to .

The swing speed of your SP and MP char is set by your character stats. In SP as you improve a proficiency and AGI I think the weapon goes faster, not 100% on which stats do what. In the MP game there are mp troop types that have stats. I think their proficiencies are around 115ish or so but you can hunt down a post or use the troop editor to see them.

If though you are releasing the swing and there is a lag before the character responds and you have a good ping, I think that might be server CPU lag. When the CPU of the server can't handle the load typically you start to feel like you are moving through molasses and your character is not responding very quickly to your clicks.  When your ping is bad, the lag is more like you go to block and still get hit through your weapon, or you swing and it looks like you hit someone on screen but your weapon travels through them.

Though if you are used to playing a 300+ weapon proficiency char in single player it might seem really slow at the MP speeds.

 

[Joe Friday]

hmm... i just read something that i had no idea about.  Does manual blocking still work with the shield??  If so, do you have to "reset" the shield each time if the attack comes from a different angle??

not for sure if that made sense or not 

 

[Reapy]

For a time in beta they tried a manual blocking scheme with it reducing damage to the shield, but ultimately threw it out. So basically you just need to hold the block button now and face the incoming attack, there is no need to reset or anything, just hold down the button.

 

[Minutus]

Nice addition, Reapy! I think you hit the nail on several topics, like priority of attacks and mind games behind a melee duel. At first I felt the structure in this one was too "loose", but I can see why it was written the way it was. It's an evolving subject to talk about, as players push the limits of the game and still try new things alltogether. Good stuff, and much appreciated, as the Primer guide only covered melee aspects to a certain level. I found myself nodding to this one.

As constructive (hopefully) criticism, I'd say some mechanical aspects of the game could be covered more. Stun is one that seems to puzzle a lot of people atm., and it would be nice to have more up to date material about it for everyone. I don't think stun charges forever btw., but only to the point that damage gets increased (which probably is the very reason for the longer stun time) - I don't remember how much charging time this is in milliseconds, but most good players have it on muscle memory. Stun applies only on charged swings, but it is not limited to only overheads - you can "sidestun" with a great weight difference (+often a blunt dmg stun boost) as well.

This leads to the topic of different weapon types - you can't duel similarly with an awlpike as you would with a short sword. The more experienced players you fight with, the more the small differences between weapons start to affect on the styles. Reach and speed, but also dmg type (if it's an unarmoured duel, mainly because of stun differences), weight (even a slight difference between arming sword and short arming sword can make a difference) and of course balanced/unbalanced tag are something that has different meanings in higher level duels than in inexperienced ones. One good example is doublehitting with a spear, which is a combination of priority in positioning/speed/angle (affected by turning into swing) of the second swing and blunt dmg "hitstun" (not the stun that disallows attacking, but the small timeframe that disallows blocking after being hit). These are typical "wtf that can't be right" kind of situations when we move from inexperienced players to those who already know the stuff mentioned in the Primer guide. It's pretty fascinating that there are still some uncovered aspects in the very core mechanics of this game - something that definitely keeps it interesting. Besides differences in weapons also differences in controls affect the style of a player. If you play duels a lot you start to recognize if someone is using keys to block or inverse movement to attack (mirror body movement in attacks), for example.

But I guess the main joy of this game is, that even after all the differences/"restrictions" in the mechanics there's room for imagination. And for understanding those styles the concepts pictured in this guide are imho very helpful. Well done!

 

[Mr.X]

Stun does have a cap. 99% sure.
Anyway, the addition was nice, but I don't agree with some of the multiple people tactics.
1) In the one about a left and right swing coming at the same time, I think you meant to write left block, but you put down :s
2)If it's say, 4 v 1, I say kill the noob in front. Don't let him live. Physhologically, it screws people up when someone starts winning a 4v1.

 

[Joe Friday]

Stun does have a cap. 99% sure.
Anyway, the addition was nice, but I don't agree with some of the multiple people tactics.
1) In the one about a left and right swing coming at the same time, I think you meant to write left block, but you put down :s
2)If it's say, 4 v 1, I say kill the noob in front. Don't let him live. Physhologically, it screws people up when someone starts winning a 4v1.

you mean TK the noob in front!?!?

 

[kekn06ab]

@Mr_X: I agree, I've made the same mistake over and over again in fighting multiple enemies, that is going for the strongest player and killing him fast so to quickly get the upper hand. The result is, of course, that I will fight against a greater number a lot longer, instead of taking them on from the other end of the scale. You need space and focus to take down the best of them, so always target the low armored/inexperienced opponent first. Reducing the number of enemies is a priority, because it narrows your focus.

Usually I see 2 takes on how to fight multiple people. 1) go inbetween them, swing wildly and get them to attack eachother, create confusion and 2) try to keep only 1 person in front of you, keep backtracking, use the closest as a shield from the rest. The first one is a game of chance, imo, and the second is so hard to pull off, because every one of them will try to flank you!

I'm messing with the idea to combine the two by adopting the 2nd stance and quickly at the right moment pass between them and take the fight to the other end of the small pack. Risky, but let's face it, the more time you spend backing away from them, the more time they have to surround you properly. You can't back away as fast as they approach. At one point or another you will have to "get out", so it's better to choose this very time yourself when the situation favours you. Haven't gotten it to work the way I want it yet, though!

 

[Mr.X]

@Mr_X: I agree, I've made the same mistake over and over again in fighting multiple enemies, that is going for the strongest player and killing him fast so to quickly get the upper hand. The result is, of course, that I will fight against a greater number a lot longer, instead of taking them on from the other end of the scale. You need space and focus to take down the best of them, so always target the low armored/inexperienced opponent first. Reducing the number of enemies is a priority, because it narrows your focus.

Usually I see 2 takes on how to fight multiple people. 1) go inbetween them, swing wildly and get them to attack eachother, create confusion and 2) try to keep only 1 person in front of you, keep backtracking, use the closest as a shield from the rest. The first one is a game of chance, imo, and the second is so hard to pull off, because every one of them will try to flank you!

I'm messing with the idea to combine the two by adopting the 2nd stance and quickly at the right moment pass between them and take the fight to the other end of the small pack. Risky, but let's face it, the more time you spend backing away from them, the more time they have to surround you properly. You can't back away as fast as they approach. At one point or another you will have to "get out", so it's better to choose this very time yourself when the situation favours you. Haven't gotten it to work the way I want it yet, though!

When I fight multiple opponents I'm constantly switching between enemies. It's a lot harder to keep track of, but if you can do it, it works great.

 

[KaZZaP]

I personally feel I fight better outnumbered then 1 on 1 lol. I'm constantly switching targets and weaving in between them. This causes FF sometimes but I do this mainly for the openings to land my own hits. When people have you outnumbered their style and skill will drastically drop as they don't want to FF. So I just switch back and fourth as often as I can using the ~ key to look for openings. Sometimes things are just too chaotic to use ~ but I will still just quickly spin around and switch targets. More often then not you will land a hit. One last thing, aim high. When your taking on multiple opponents you don't want to take 3+ hits to kill one of them. Head shots kill fast.

 

[CrimsonShroud]

When outnumbered, just take what your opponents give you.  As mentioned, generally people become much more careless when they have numbers behind them and make mistakes such as holding a chambered attack while closing in on you, while you're backpedaling.  Most doing this won't suspect a sudden lunging attack on your part, and you can score a hit or kill with good timing.  The weave/dance thing works well too, if the enemy is being reckless with their swings.

In the reverse situation, when you are one of many bearing down on a lone enemy, you want to be patient and try to surround them.  As room is tight between you and your allies, you need to either deliver thrusting or overhead attacks and be precise with them.

 

[Trifler]

Just wanted to mention that for Blunt damage, you didn't mention that in the campaign it knocks people out rather than killing them so you can take them prisoner. With other damage types there is a small chance they'll survive after the battle, but with blunt it's supposedly guaranteed.

 

[Mr.X]

Just wanted to mention that for Blunt damage, you didn't mention that in the campaign it knocks people out rather than killing them so you can take them prisoner. With other damage types there is a small chance they'll survive after the battle, but with blunt it's supposedly guaranteed.

This is generally for multiplayer.

 

[Kitten-mew!]

Long Hafted Spiked Mace, if it didn't have blunt on every attack type, would be a very bad weapon. Thankfully, knockdown capacity makes it a much, much more effective type. Too bad it has to compete with javelins, the spear/warspear/awlpike, the two scimitars, various bardiches, and kite shields for a slot.

 

[Lenton]

I like 2h spamming with the long hafted spiked mace sometimes. It's actually quite effective. Better swinging bash than spear, but it does lose some stab on the spear. Though its thrust is really good against cav.

 

[drunkhobo]

Can someone actually verify if throwing axes have the bonus to shields? I've heard yes, but I checked with the manual, and it says weapons that have the bonus will say so.

Has anyone taken a look at the actual in game file code?

 

[randomeclipse]

Great read, thanks for taking the time to compile it all.

 

[Father Rabbit]

Thanks Reapy! I read this when I was new and it really helped a lot. Unfortunately I freeze about every 7 minutes of so so i cant get a very good score. I am getting my computer checked out soon........