[Suggestions] Differentiating a good block from a bad block.

[Night Ninja]

The main thing I want to accomplish with this suggestion is to encourage people to block early and jam their opponent's attacks while they're being charged. To do this, I was thinking that we could have a system when blocking the opponent's weapon early in their attack arc gives the opponent a very slight amount of stun.

There'd also be a penalty for blocking late i.e. at the optimal point of the opponent's attack arc. The defender should receive a small amount of stun, and if the attack is sufficiently powerful or the block was very late, the attack will blow through the defense and inflict a significant wound (the dreaded block crush). 

This makes complete sense (and is commonly used) in RL swordplay, and it makes sense from a gameplay perspective as well. It rewards a more proactive defense rather than waiting for the last minute to avoid committing a block against a feint. As an added incentive, getting the crap stunned out of them should be ample disincentive for people who love to turn into their attacks.

Another possibility is imparting a bonus to the defender if he blocks and steps in the direction of his defense. This could increase the threshold needed for the attack to blow through, since the weight of the defender's body is behind his sword as well.

I'm not sure how hard it'll be to implement (my guess is that it'll be pretty bloody hard), but this could go a long way towards making the defense less passive. Right now a competent manual blocker can stop an attack at any point in its arc and not suffer penalties for it, which I think is bloody ridiculous.

EDIT: ****ing spelling error.

 

[Manitas]

Nay for stun of any sort, except that resulting from being hit in the head with a heavy object.

 

[Night Ninja]

While I dislike stun, there really isn't much else you can do to represent a weapon being knocked away by a proper displacement. I'm open to suggestions on that.

 

[Qwertyman]

I liked that idea they tried a bit ago (i think it was bugged so they removed it)  where you had a block and a parry.

A block is simply putting your blade in front of theirs, done by the current method,  this blocked as is now-  and allowed yourself to be blockcrushed by heavy weapons.

A parry was deflecting your opponets blade,  where you tapped block at just the right moment (had a cool animation too) which gave the enemy a slight stun (just attack stun, they could still block) wich varied depending on how heavy their weapon was.  (i think the window for a successfull parry depended on your own weapon speed and weight,  for example its much easier to parry with a shortsword than a warhammer)

Timing i think was similar to chamberblocking,  where you start the parry as their attack starts-  not as their chamber starts.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Nay for stun of any sort, except that resulting from being hit in the head with a heavy object.

The game already uses stun - you get a short stun after your attack is blocked. I believe NN is saying that this stun could be longer if the attack was blocked close to the start of its arc.

 

[Night Ninja]

That's exactly it. Damn you people and your concise summaries!

 

[Manitas]

The game already uses stun - you get a short stun after your attack is blocked. I believe NN is saying that this stun could be longer if the attack was blocked close to the start of its arc.

I'm aware of that, and I already think it's wrong, fake substitute mechanics, hence I don't support anything taking it into account.

While I dislike stun, there really isn't much else you can do to represent a weapon being knocked away by a proper displacement. I'm open to suggestions on that.

How about weapon being actually knocked away by displacement?

Okay, on a serious note, i got a feeling people tend to exaggerate the effect, probably one reason may be bad animations.
You don't block by placing your weapon's blade perpendicularly towards oncoming blow, that's the worst thing you could do. Normally you keep it pointed towards the opponent, and your weapon intercepts blows at an angle, which makes them deflect and slide rather than taking full energy head on.

Blocking early on is good.
Blocking late is better, because your opponent's arm are outstretched, and he has to pull them back to prepare for the next action, while your arms are close to the body ready for a counter attack.

 

[Night Ninja]

Blocking early on is good.
Blocking late is better, because your opponent's arm are outstretched, and he has to pull them back to prepare for the next action, while your arms are close to the body ready for a counter attack.

Blocking late is extremely bad for your health, since your opponent's attack can simply blow through your defense. Generally, you want to stop his attack before he gets his weight and energy behind the weapon.

Also, you really don't need to pull your arms back again. Many techniques are designed to be used at the point when the blades cross, but that's really not applicable to the game.

How about weapon being actually knocked away by displacement?

Stun represents that instant fairly adequately IMO, though an actual animation and mechanic to represent the weapon being knocked aside would work far better. Have to work with what we have.

 

[Manitas]

Blocking late is extremely bad for your health, since your opponent's attack can simply blow through your defense. Generally, you want to stop his attack before he gets his weight and energy behind the weapon.

...in addition to bad blocking animations I mentioned before, your impression may come from bad attack animations. All of them are effortful committed blows on fast forward, including polearms. Normally before you could execute such a blow with a hafted weapon against a prepared opponent you'd end up with a blade in your gut. With swords, block crushing is nonexistent, unless of course for same reason you choose to defend with the tip of your sword placed perpendicularly, like wb animations suggest.

 

[kingofnoobia]

Good suggestion, fights between two good blockers regularly last for 2 minutes or so now. Fights that last that long are no more than waiting for your opponent to make a mistake, and it would be nice to have some kind of mechanic to allow the player to actively try to break through his opponent's defense.

I can picture some abuse though. It would probably be fairly easy to, say, run/turn to the right while chambering a right-to-left attack, so it would be possible for an experienced attacker to constantly hit his opponent at the end of his swing, regularly block-crushing him without giving the defender any opportunity to interrupt this. But I think this can be solved by making speed bonus a major factor in the block-crushing/stun calculation (to make sure simply running away isn't too effective), and by re-introducing a turn limit which would only be activated while holding/swinging an attack. Especially while swinging, turning should be very slow, imho.

 

[Night Ninja]

Manitas, the idea is to 'jam' the attack before or very shortly after your opponent starts a passing step to add his weight to the blow. You're basically defending before he gets to power his strike properly.

Good suggestion, fights between two good blockers regularly last for 2 minutes or so now. Fights that last that long are no more than waiting for your opponent to make a mistake, and it would be nice to have some kind of mechanic to allow the player to actively try to break through his opponent's defense.

I can picture some abuse though. It would probably be fairly easy to, say, run/turn to the right while chambering a right-to-left attack, so it would be possible for an experienced attacker to constantly hit his opponent at the end of his swing, regularly block-crushing him without giving the defender any opportunity to interrupt this. But I think this can be solved by making speed bonus a major factor in the block-crushing/stun calculation (to make sure simply running away isn't too effective), and by re-introducing a turn limit which would only be activated while holding/swinging an attack. Especially while swinging, turning should be very slow, imho.

You'd want to land the attack in the middle of the animation, when the sword is in Warband's loose approximation of langen ort. This ties in with the sweet spots suggestion as well, since there's not much power left at the endpoint of the swing.

EDIT: **** sentence structure at midnight.

 

[Manitas]

Manitas, the idea is to 'jam' the attack before or very shortly after your opponent starts a passing step to add his weight to the blow. You're basically defending before he gets to power his strike properly.

I got it, that's simple enough.
I just don't agree with what you suggest to happen when you defend otherwise. It's not so easy to crush a proper block as you might think.

Oh, and on a side note, in WB an opponent does not pass a step to add his weight to the blow, he runs circles and spins, and blows are in fact area-effects spells known from other games hurting anyone within a certain radius, except without colorful particle effects.

 

[tylertfb]

doesn't chamber-blocking already kind of cover this area? It is pro-active and gives the defender a pretty good advantage over the attacker when he pulls it off

 

[Mabons]

I don't really like this idea sorry. Some people are just trained to block late.

 

[Elthore]

this is a great idea!

I agree with OP!

 

[Night Ninja]

doesn't chamber-blocking already kind of cover this area? It is pro-active and gives the defender a pretty good advantage over the attacker when he pulls it off

It does, but it's unreliable at best, and most of the time it's triggered accidentally by spammy buggers. There are only two or three people I know who can get off chamberblocks on a fairly reliable basis, and even then they prefer to use manual blocking.

At the least, you could consider stunning people who turn into the attack. If an attacker has his attack blocked before a certain time frame, he'd suffer a significant amount of stun and be open to attack. It helps to deal with the spinners and helicopters, and people would actually let the animations take their natural course for once.

 

[Seawied86]

interesting idea.

I voted nay for the following reasons:

#1) This is going to exaggerate the number of ping related deaths. M&B has always been a game to appeal to even outdated/underpowered computers, and I feel that this tradition should continue in multiplayer as well. A player with a poor internet connection, or a slow wireless network shouldn't be overly punished against someone with a fiber optic network connection. Obviously, there is only so much you can do towards this goal, but it is an important goal to keep in mind at all times.

#2) Stun-lock. While I've seen some games offer similar mechanisms with good success, it would be very tricky to get this done just right with M&B's different weapon speeds coupled with weapon skill abilities.

#3) Over-emphasis on weapon speed. Faster weapons will consequently be safer, due to the fact that they won't leave as vulnerable to being stun locked, and they will carry some block crush a fair amount of the time (if I read your original statement right, correct me if I'm wrong on this point.)


This is by no means the worse idea I've heard suggested, but it would require an exuberant amount of fine tuning to get just right, and we already have spent a lot of time smoothing out weapon speed balance to get it just about right

 

[Night Ninja]

#1) This is going to exaggerate the number of ping related deaths. M&B has always been a game to appeal to even outdated/underpowered computers, and I feel that this tradition should continue in multiplayer as well. A player with a poor internet connection, or a slow wireless network shouldn't be overly punished against someone with a fiber optic network connection. Obviously, there is only so much you can do towards this goal, but it is an important goal to keep in mind at all times.

Oh, but he is. I regularly play with 250 ping on the oceanic servers, and the difference is extremely obvious. Just ask around, most people will tell you that any player with a ping above 100-150 is greatly disadvantaged. He can play, sure, but it's like trying to run the 100m sprint with an ivory peg leg.

#2) Stun-lock. While I've seen some games offer similar mechanisms with good success, it would be very tricky to get this done just right with M&B's different weapon speeds coupled with weapon skill abilities.

How would it be very difficult? You could simply have a timer built-in for each attack (modified by proficiency), and if you get blocked before this timer expires, you get stunned. There are probably far more elegant ways to go about doing this, if the engine allows it.

#3) Over-emphasis on weapon speed. Faster weapons will consequently be safer, due to the fact that they won't leave as vulnerable to being stun locked, and they will carry some block crush a fair amount of the time (if I read your original statement right, correct me if I'm wrong on this point.)

As it should be. Faster weapons are quicker to recover and attack and are thus more versatile and adaptable. Block crush will only occur if the attacking player has a massive speed bonus and/or chambers his attack fully against someone who only just got a block up in the nick of time. The 'oh ****' block should not stop a full force strike from a competent fighter, and a regular strike should be easily stopped by any decent defense.

 

[Seawied86]

I'm not talking about 250 ping, I'm more emphasizing the 100-150 ping range. I feel that 250 ping is beyond playable for any modern combat game.

Well, lets put things this way about the stun concern: it will become a waiting game. Whoever attacks first between great manual blockers will lose the match. Imagine neih or test fighting. Manual block is nothing to them. The second you throw an attack up against them 1 on 1 they have the block ready without fail. Eventually a lot more players will reach this level of skill and it will become the norm.


Additionally, what about sword and board style playes? This will inherently put them at a disadvantage as they will be unable to stun their opponents, but the opponents will be able to stun them.


Lastly, with a new emphasis on speed, then you have to rebalance the weapon system. Weapons like bastard sword, and short sword will become the best in the game, while the top tier more expensive ones will become greatly weaker.

Too much upset in balance in my opinion

 

[Night Ninja]

I'm not talking about 250 ping, I'm more emphasizing the 100-150 ping range. I feel that 250 ping is beyond playable for any modern combat game.

Glad to see that we're in the realm of hard fact.

I still run at an average ratio about about 3 kills to 4 deaths, so this must mean something.

Well, lets put things this way about the stun concern: it will become a waiting game. Whoever attacks first between great manual blockers will lose the match. Imagine neih or test fighting. Manual block is nothing to them. The second you throw an attack up against them 1 on 1 they have the block ready without fail. Eventually a lot more players will reach this level of skill and it will become the norm.

This is why there's footwork. Learn to keep distance until you're ready to strike, and don't prepare a blow while you're within range of your opponent. If you're honestly attempting to hit someone with a bastard sword while he's rubbing his nose against yours, you deserve whatever you get.

Additionally, what about sword and board style playes? This will inherently put them at a disadvantage as they will be unable to stun their opponents, but the opponents will be able to stun them.

You could adapt the same stun to the shield, but I believe many players will complain about yet another advantage for the 'force field'. Still, a shield user should act in in a similar manner, though he'd have more room for error. A block crush on a shield would definitely be less painful and risky.

Lastly, with a new emphasis on speed, then you have to rebalance the weapon system. Weapons like bastard sword, and short sword will become the best in the game, while the top tier more expensive ones will become greatly weaker.

Too much upset in balance in my opinion

Isn't this what you're here for? To test and provide feedback on the new features and tweaks?

Also, as I mentioned earlier: distance control. You don't want to facehug and spam people to death with twirly AoE strikes of doom with this. You want to keep in optimal striking distance with your weapon and attack only when ready. Instead of having two people spinning like ballerinas, you'd have fights that look a lot more like real combat. And last I checked, Armagan wanted to make this a medieval combat simulator, not some JRPG arcadey game.