[suggestion] Huge street-cleaning swing attacks and turning into attacks?

[ares007]

That's right, what we have now in the way of sideways cuts are huge street-cleaning swipes. I've often clipped a stray horse that happened to run behind or to the side of me and did no damage to the enemy in front that I intended to hit (needless to say I died after that ). I've had teammates run into my attacks from behind and  stop them allowing the enemy a free chance to hit me.

Another problem with the current sideways attacks is the spinning, yes the spinning. It didn't really bother me before, but now with 1-handers so fast, people will turn into their attack causing the weapon to hit you at the very beginning of the animation giving you extremely little time to respond for the block.

Well, what do I propose? Two possible options

Option 1

New animations.

I know it's a tall order, but the developers have already changed the animations up so much throughout beta, it doesn't seem like it would be a huge burden (of course I could be wrong. Only the devs really know I guess).

The new animations?

I think the sideways cuts should either be cuts delivered from a "hanging guard" position, or should be diagonal like they were with 2-handed weapons early in the beta. Basically, the animations should have strikes that focus on the enemy in front.

hanging guard cuts (swerchhau):
Basically the hands are held high and in front (in a position generally referred to in German swordsmanship as "Kron") with the hilt higher than the head. The attack is a sideways attack that comes from above head height and angles slightly down to the opponent's head. Think of it as a helicopter rotor angled slightly forward. This means that the strike only has a good chance of hitting something relatively in front of you and turning sideways into the strike won't mean an early hit but more likely a miss. It will give the defender the chance to look at the strike coming and get the block up. An example of these types of strikes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwYi_uOwGtY

Diagonal cuts (zornhau):
Basically much more like what we had early in the Beta. These would be good because if you turn into them too much, you'll completely miss the opponent by swinging over his head. Of course, the ready positions we have now for 2-handers will work for a diagonal cut, but the ready positions for the 1-handers would need to change (maybe the ready positions for sideways cuts on horseback would work?). An example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC1SN5ierO8

note: animation changes for polearms could also fit these two criteria.


Option 2

Substantially increasing the importance of keeping your opponent in front of you by way of the speed bonus. As of now, you lose some speed bonus by not keeping the opponent centered. I would propose to substantially increase this loss of speed bonus so that you do virtually no damage to your sides (btw, the speed bonus basically determines how much  damage you do).

The down side to option 2 is that you could still get caught clipping horses and teammates that leave you open to an enemy attack.

 

[Urist]

Option 2b
Additionally if attacks with a big negative speed modifier get blocked, it should stun the attacker for a long time,
making it impossible for him to throw another attack for a second or 2 while still being able to block.
So people would still have the option to do a weak & quick, turned in attack, but it comes with a risk for them.
This would simulate a hard parry against a weak attack. To prevent that, the attacker has to keep the side turning down,
centering the opponent.

Furthermore, if the attacker turns so far that he hits the block with the very beginning of the attack (< -90% speed "bonus")
there should be an even harsher penalty, like stagger(can't block for a short time), knockdown or even disarment(the last 2 things maybe only with a big weight mismatch
of the weapons, like scimitar getting blocked by a warhammer).

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Good ideas. I think diagonal cuts would be best. As far as axes and mauls go, I think they should use polearm animations anyway.

I like Urist's ideas as well. A committed attack should be vulnerable to stifling.

 

[ares007]

Option 2b
Additionally if attacks with a big negative speed modifier get blocked, it should stun the attacker for a long time,
making it impossible for him to throw another attack for a second or 2 while still being able to block.
So people would still have the option to do a weak & quick, turned in attack, but it comes with a risk for them.
This would simulate a hard parry against a weak attack. To prevent that, the attacker has to keep the side turning down,
centering the opponent.

Furthermore, if the attacker turns so far that he hits the block with the very beginning of the attack (< -90% speed "bonus")
there should be an even harsher penalty, like stagger(can't block for a short time), knockdown or even disarment(the last 2 things maybe only with a big weight mismatch
of the weapons, like scimitar getting blocked by a warhammer).

My goodness! I didn't think of that! Great idea! That would really make it much better! I really hope the developers see this.

And yes, Papa, I like the zwerchhau a lot, but I think that diagonal would be best for the game.

 

[Night Ninja]

The diagonals are definitely the best option. You'd actually have to aim with them, for one.

The suggestions to discourage striking with the start and end of the swing are excellent too. I'd suggest that the actual attack be completely ineffectual past a certain window. You don't swing the sword very hard when you recover into a guard after a strike, so the damage dealt during the latter part should be minimal or a bare touch.

 

[Plazek]

As you said the problem is that you can turn into a strike and hit someone before you have even begun to swing properly. Or do so to a person behind you accidentally.

Well, I kind of think the best solution to that problem is making that not work. ie. The best solution is solving the problem you described, not a load of new mechanics/animations/whatever.

They just need to implement "weapon hot zones" and "strike hot zones" better.

 

[Berserker Pride]

I figured this thread should be bumped.  Especially with the recent ff bug that may become a feature.  If any form of ff gets in the game the huge street cleaning attacks will add nothing but frustration to the game.  At the very least the overhead chop could be removed and replaced with two separate diagonal attacks as you have described.  And I 100% agree about attacks hitting too early in the swing being both much lower damage and come with a huge delay in your next attack if they are blocked.

 

[Orion]

Marnid approves of diagonal animations for horizontal swings. You get gravity working for you that way as well, so it's more practical.

Marnid would also like to see the right-to-left one-handed swing changed. It looks goofy. Diagonal would help there as well.

 

[armagan]

Ares:
Many thanks for the suggestions and feedback. I agree with these points in general. My fear with diagonal attacks is that, players will still be able to turn into their attacks by looking downwards to negate the diagonal-ness of the swing.

Urist:
Tying stun amount to weapon momentum is a very good idea...

 

[ares007]

Ares:
Many thanks for the suggestions and feedback. I agree with these points in general. My fear with diagonal attacks is that, players will still be able to turn into their attacks by looking downwards to negate the diagonal-ness of the swing.

Urist:
Tying stun amount to weapon momentum is a very good idea...

Thank you so much! You are fast becoming the best developers to me!

I would definitely like to try out Urist's idea. I hope we get to 

(it is a pleasure to beta test with developers like you)

 

[armagan]

The pleasure is all mine to develop the game with such wonderful players.

 

[Phallas]

Increase cool-down phase, Atm all you have to do after an attack is click and its instantly in ready position.

When a 2 hander is blocked, often the 2 hander is ready to strike before the shield users 1 hander, this is absurd.



Instead of the ill conceived pole arm mode , which overpowers long axes further.

For the long axes
There should be 2 mode,

1. Long mode, The axe is swung like its a mop (like it is ATM) t. This mode would have a massive cool down phase for returning the axe back  to ready position

2. Quick mode, Hands are held up the shaft closer to the axe head, This is more a of a nimble stance, effectivly turning it into a 2 handed,  one handed axe.

 

[Night Ninja]

Look up the manner in which they were used before shooting your mouth off, Phallas.

 

[Urist]

Do you guys roleplay Belkar and V, or why do you jump at each other in every thread posted in this forum?

 

[Night Ninja]

Phallas as Vaarsuvius? That's the best joke I've heard in a long while.

 

[kingofnoobia]

I would suggest another change to the animations, I've suggested it a couple of times already. I would like all animations to be like the 2h overhead: as you release LMB, the overhead is first drawn back, further over the head, before it's released. I suggest all attacks to do that, but as compensation the swing itself would be faster, so the entire swing/stab should be about the same speed. This way the efficiency of spinning will be seriously decreased, probably the immediate stab problem would be solved by it too, while the feel of combat would stay more or less the same.

 

[Night Ninja]

It would make it a lot harder to read an incoming strike, though. Unlike in RL situations, the defender will have minimal time to perceive the direction of an attack.

 

[kingofnoobia]

It would make it a lot harder to read an incoming strike, though. Unlike in RL situations, the defender will have minimal time to perceive the direction of an attack.

As I said, the entire animation would take about as long. So you'll have exactly the same amount of time to block it.

 

[ares007]

I would suggest another change to the animations, I've suggested it a couple of times already. I would like all animations to be like the 2h overhead: as you release LMB, the overhead is first drawn back, further over the head, before it's released. I suggest all attacks to do that, but as compensation the swing itself would be faster, so the entire swing/stab should be about the same speed. This way the efficiency of spinning will be seriously decreased, probably the immediate stab problem would be solved by it too, while the feel of combat would stay more or less the same.

I think this is actually quite a good idea. It would mean that you'd have to use better timing in your attacks and that you'd get little to no advantage by "spinning".

 

[Vornne]

This is slightly off topic, but continuing from the last posts...

I think the correct change to stop the repeated attack spamming with fast weapons of this patch, is as others have said, remove or lessen the time it takes to block after doing anything.

The most common way I die lately (I play with from 100 to 300 ms ping time) is another player with a 1h sword or similar repeatedly attacking faster than my character can block. Often I have clicked the button to block in the correct direction, but the delay means it seems I can't possibly block at all no matter how good I am, I just have to stay out of range and hope to step in between attacks somehow - which I think is a perfectly valid technique for the slow weapons, but I seem to be required to do that in a lot of situations currently. I enjoy manual blocking

I like it fast, I don't think the attack speeds / animations should be slowed down; instead the block speed should be increased to give players more of a chance to defend successfully, making combat more interesting. In any case the motion needed to block something is much less than that needed to perform the attack, so the balance probably just needs tipping slightly towards blocking (or parrying).

As for the suggestion to make attack animations draw the weapon back a little at the start, I think this only needs to be applied to the stab attack; for the sideways slashes it doesn't seem necessary, as has been suggested elsewhere the start of the swing needs to deal no or very little damage, if possible smoothly increasing while the animation gathers speed.