Question about Dodging

[Jean Plassy]

A question for you Warband beta guys, are you actually capable of "dodging" impacts? By this it means not doing the old trick of moving forward then backing up from an AI attack, but actually preventing a hit from ducking or avoiding attack as in "reality" by twisting the body and so on... Has there been any work on this sense, or will you still get hit every time you don't use your shield or block?

 

[Darkness]

A question for you Warband beta guys, are you actually capable of "dodging" impacts? By this it means not doing the old trick of moving forward then backing up from an AI attack, but actually preventing a hit from ducking or avoiding attack as in "reality" by twisting the body and so on... Has there been any work on this sense, or will you still get hit every time you don't use your shield or block?

Well, we dont control that fine of movement. If you want to dodge, strafe left or right so the horse goes past you.

 

[Moss]

I've done some practise on this with the Calradian Academy of Arms group. It's quite possible to dodge to the side of overhead swings and thrusts from pole arms and two handed weapons if your timing is good.

Dodging backwards also works, but is a little more difficult unless you're right on the edge of their reach. There's no magic "Dodge" button that'll make an otherwise perfect blow miss you, but moving in the opposite direction of the blow to lessen the speed bonus of the attack and dodging the blows that you can works well enough. Generally speaking though, if you can block an attack, then you'd have to be an idiot not to.

 

[SteveO]

There's another game I play where double tapping any directional key does a short hop in that direction so as to dodge.  Seems like that might be useful?

 

[Booya!]

if you move away from attacks as they hit you i think it makes them do less damage. i usually can squeeze an extra hits worth of health doing this when i'm not wearing armor but it could just be luck

 

[ares007]

Hi Moss! Calradian Academy of Arms represent!    I still need to edit the dodging drill in the post for Basic Melee Skills.

Moss pretty much covered it. You mostly dodge by sidestepping. Downward attacks and thrusts can definitely be sidestepped; today I was dueling with True_Soul (Tru_Soulja) and I was able to sidestep a downward cut and get him with a cut from the left.

When it is a sideways attack, you can pretty much only dodge backward. There is an exception with most 2-handed weapons that go diagonal from top to bottom when you do a sideways attack. It is very difficult, but if you sidestep toward the attack soon enough the attack may actually pass over your head giving you a chance to quickly counter attack (this is especially true if your opponent turns a lot with his attacks).

Of course, while you can't do the formulaic step-forward-step-backward thing that tricks the AI, you can still backstep an attack and quickly step back in to counter. This takes a lot more timing and distancing than against the AI though.

Warbands definitely isn't the Matrix if that's what you're asking 

if you move away from attacks as they hit you i think it makes them do less damage. i usually can squeeze an extra hits worth of health doing this when i'm not wearing armor but it could just be luck

this is true. Unless I have reason to do otherwise, I always move away from the attack when I block in case I miss the block or something. There are cases when moving towards the attack is beneficial though