MP Stances, proper stance attack animations, options for inverse + hotkey

[Welcome_To_Hell]

Trying revive @Silen excellent old stance thread with more suggestions on their true utility

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/stances-and-their-utility.407684/

My opinion, please comment
- "Correct" stance check in the current code should not add any "Correct/Incorrect Stance" block stun penalties
- Animations for blocking in specific directions from a certain stance are already slightly faster (aka left stance block left or right stance block right) but it is a "slight" not an overwhelming advantage
- Stances should be a tool in a players tookit to gain a directional advantage by attacking from a slightly diffrent angle (see animations below)
- Stances should be a tool in players toolkit to confuse the opponent (read below)
- Stances should have an option to be toggled by a hotkey (lets say Q). Pressing the key should swap stance even if the player is in the "Attack Ready" positon, example of confusing the enemy would be to switch stance while "attack ready" than attack or faint, having the animation swap than attack come from the opposite shoulder.
- Menu options would be, by movement (A&D keys), default, by inverse movement, by Hotkey (Q)
- Thrust / Overhead, animations for 1h and spears are lackluster and could be improved in such a way the character actually switches the shoulder he attacks from


Example 2H sword (Proper Thrust / Overhead Animations for both stances)
Thrust:

Overhead:



Pike / Polearm
Thrust:

Overhead:


As you can see the character does not swap where he holds the weapon, resulting in an awkward attack animations in left stance. Ideally the Left Stance animations would be a "mirror" of the right stance with the character swapping lead hand on the polearm

1h
Thrust:


Another case of awkward left stance attack animations for thrust / overhead. As you can see the character does not switch sides of the thrust / overhead directions, it would be really interesting to see the character thrust and overhead from the left side with the right hand giving the player an alternate set of attack vectors.

 

[LeRoux]

- Stances should be a tool in a players tookit to gain a directional advantage by attacking from a slightly diffrent angle (see animations below)
- Stances should be a tool in players toolkit to confuse the opponent (read below)
- Stances should have an option to be toggled by a hotkey (lets say Q). Pressing the key should swap stance even if the player is in the "Attack Ready" positon, example of confusing the enemy would be to switch stance while "attack ready" than attack or faint, having the animation swap than attack come from the opposite shoulder.
- Menu options would be, by movement (A&D keys), default, by inverse movement, by Hotkey (Q)

I very much agree with this. The stances right now feel random, they don't add alot to the combat except for confusing yourself (as opposed to confusing your opponent).
I think make stances toggleable would be a major improvement. It would allow players to actually investigate the usefullness of the different stances in combination with footwork/feints/... That would, in my opinion, be a worthwhile contribution to the BL combat system.
Ofcourse, probably best to immediately add a slight punishment to toggling stances. If it's instant without delay, I imagine it can lead to alot of bull****.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

I advocated the same in thread Stances with toggle key (interest poll) . It seems that the general interest is pushing aside this "default stance system".

 

[Welcome_To_Hell]

I am of the opinion it is better for the gameplay to take out stances alltogether with LeftStance foot fwd animations and different attack animations, and all of the block penalties.

IF
1) The player has no combat-useful control over how the feature works.
2) Playerbase does not understand what the feature does and how those calculations affect combat.

 

[LeRoux]

I am of the opinion it is better for the gameplay to take out stances alltogether with LeftStance foot fwd animations and different attack animations, and all of the block penalties.

IF
1) The player has no combat-useful control over how the feature works.
2) Playerbase does not understand what the feature does and how those calculations affect combat.

Once again, I agree. But the devs seem set on keeping the stances in the game, so I think a toggle like you (and others) suggested would be a good middle ground.

 

[h1zchan]

Imo the devs misunderstood what the left foot forward and right foot forward stances are for in sword fighting. Speaking as a hema longsword fencer there are two kinds of stances in fencing, the retracted stance and the extended stance. In the retracted stance swinging from the right is done from the left foot forward posture, and swinging from the left is done from the right foot forward posture. From this retracted stance when swinging the sword the rear foot passes forward to follow the sword to boost the range of the attack but also so that the body doesn't end up in a silly contorsion when the swing reaches its end position. The retracted stance gives more mobility, more attack range and possibly stronger power but also slows down attack slightly, so it can only be done from out of range. Once your in range of opponents attack you should generally speaking switch to the extended stance. In the extended stance all attacks are done from the right foot forward posture. From here all attacks are launched with snapping motion in conjunction with a lunge. Modern FIE fencing is all done from this stance because when you only need to touch to score, speed is the only that matters.

As far as in game control is concerned Instead of using strafing direction to control stance switching, what the devs should have done is having a dedicated button to allow player to switch between the retracted stance and the extended stance at any moment, and in a fluid manner, in other words make sure it works while moving/blocking/attacking. This way the player can intuitively control swing speed and reach instead of having to remember which stance the body is in.