There is no counter-play against kick-slash

[szymczak1503]

Kick slash is currently broken because there is no reliable counterplay against it, whereas kick-slash is a reliable strategy against your opponent.
The game moves towards making feints until the opponent starts blocking these potential attacks which make his feet movement slower,
then walking up to him, kicking him, and straight-up attacking. You will always win against an opponent with slower movement.
You could potentially try to avoid it by going sideways or backward but your player movement in that situation is slower so you become vulnerable for kick slash again.
You could try chambering these potential feint attacks but chambering is not reliable enough right now to pull this off. But in that situation, you have to take a risk where your opponent just performs a reliable kick-slash strategy.

Risks on the current pusher/attacker side:
1. He only risks being kicked but that can be easily mitigated by not getting too close to your opponent. You are walking forward so that is simple to do since you have quicker movement. You can fake walking up to him causing him to try to kick you which makes him unable to perform kick again for the next few seconds which in turn put you in the comfortable position of performing a reliable kick-slash strategy.

Risks on the current defender side:
1. He risks being kick slashed when trying to block feints causing him to be slower.
2. He risks being hit when dropping a block in order to kick and survive the potential kick slash.
Both points can be heavily abused by the pusher/attacker by holding an attack and walking up to your opponent waiting for him to either drop the attack->you attack him or if he does not do anything then kick slash him.

One possible solution against such broken mechanics would an allowance to kick while holding block attack, right now when doing block+kick we trigger bash attack.
If we were allowed to choose separated keyboard shortcuts for bash and kick, the opponent would be able to reliably kick me while I push at him making feints.

 

[Mushbeast]

It can be hard to pull off, but there's people who have mastered the kick slash and it can be really frustrating. Saying that too, I feel like they should stay in one form or another especially as a technique against turtling shield men. Maybe down-blocks should naturally block kicks though you'll probably have to give a bit more wind-up on the kick to make that feasible.

I voted yes, even though it's not a massive issue in the modes I play, but I still see some legends that will kick-slash the **** out of you and it can really break the flow of fights.

 

[Varadin]

Explain how would you like to counter a kick slash ? Did you mean something like when you are kicked that you can kick back or what ?


In warband if you hug enemy , there is a good chance that a guy who is being pushed gonna kick and slash his opponent and only way to "counter" it is not get dumb and charge into enemy.

 

[szymczak1503]

Explain how would you like to counter a kick slash ? Did you mean something like when you are kicked that you can kick back or what ?

I did not mean counter play the kick-slash itself, you should not be able to do anything when being kicked/stunned.
I meant counter-play the possibility of performing such a strategy in the first place by giving the blocker means to do it. Right now there are no reliable ones (because you are slower and your the blocker has to drop the block if he wants to kick the attacker) whereas the kick-slash is a very reliable strategy. I explained the solution above, by giving the blocker a way to kick the attacker without dropping the block and not forcing them to do the bash.
I am talking here about 1h only, not 1h + shield.

In warband if you hug enemy , there is a good chance that a guy who is being pushed gonna kick and slash his opponent and only way to "counter" it is not get dumb and charge into enemy.

Yes, it is more reliable in wb because you don't have to drop you block to kick someone. There is no auto-bash when doing right click+E.

 

[Horatius]

What I find bs is that when you s key you can be kicked by someone in front of you.

This was not possible in warband and doesn't make sense, when I walk back I shouldn't be able to be kicked from the front. If this would be adjusted then I think kicks are in a good place.

 

[Mabons]

Oof, didn't think I'd read a kickslash nerf thread after kicks got changed a lot already. I think if chambers were a little more reliable they would work nicely as a way to save yourself but I don't think we need to see any changes other than that.

 

[Silvernj]

I'd say kick+slash is fine. It's just lack of chambers or block delay after attack release that doesn't allow to fight back properly.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

Explain how would you like to counter a kick slash ? Did you mean something like when you are kicked that you can kick back or what ?


In warband if you hug enemy , there is a good chance that a guy who is being pushed gonna kick and slash his opponent and only way to "counter" it is not get dumb and charge into enemy.

That's the difference though, in Warband kicking is a defensive move, not an offensive one except in situations where the person is trapped and very predictable, even then it is a risk.

The reason for this is that kicks are much slower, the animation is longer, and you're left vulnerable for longer so a missed kick leads to a free hit for the opponent almost every time. But if you did land a kick, it led to a very long stun on the enemy and a free hit. It was high risk high reward.

In BL, the kick is still very quick (although slower than before) and you recover from it quickly too. However, a landed quick only gives a reliable free hit if combined with a held attack most times. This leads to it being used to pressure and then get free hits on people trying to be defensive.

We can debate whether it's better to have more offensive moves (maybe it is), but it's not true that kicks in Warband had no counter; they were much weaker and more considered overall.

 

[Hans 77]

The game moves towards making feints until the opponent starts blocking these potential attacks which make his feet movement slower,
then walking up to him, kicking him, and straight-up attacking. You will always win against an opponent with slower movement.

Despite the dubiousness of another kick nerf thread, you actually do bring up a good point with this.

What you describe in the above paragraph is something my teammates and I have been doing for a while now. We feint spam, forcing the opponent to shield/block for an extended period of time, and then we kick them when we catch up to them. This tactic has brought us a lot of success in scrims and tournament matches. And despite the gripes of other people in this thread, you're also right about there being no real counterplay to this strat -I would know (been doing this for months now). The only possible counterplay against someone trying to use this technique on you is to gamble and spam while they are feinting -which is not a counterplay so much as simply rolling the dice and hoping for the best -not really precise or clinical gameplay if you ask me.

But this brings us to the big question: How would you fix this? What counterplay do you think there should be?

My take on the issue is this: The problem lies not so much with kicks, but rather the messy attack/feinting animations -which are hard to tell when they start/end, causing players on the receiving end of them to play defensively. Not to always go back to the Warband well, but in Warband the attack animations were tight and concise, with feints having a clear and definitive start and end (and accompanying sound effect!). This way you could judge and time when to counterattack or spam your over-feinting opponent. Bannerlord affords us no such luxury because the animations are admittedly sloppy, blurred, and all around wonky.

I don't think making kicks slower or less rangy would solve your issue OP. Nor do I think increasing s key speed even further is the right call. I do however think better optimized swing animations (and the ability for the other players to read them!), less swing delay, and more overall responsiveness would help mitigate the issue.

Let me know your thoughts.

I feel like they should stay in one form or another especially as a technique against turtling shield men

I'm a big fan of kicks, but I was never a fan of this train of thought. Actually, it was Taleworlds' similar sentiments on this issue that caused the nightmarish pre-1.5 kick meta in the first place. There was never a need to reinvent the wheel, and the best way to get around shields would have been to make them more breakable (like they were for a decade in that other game). Instead, Taleworlds used a ton of circular logic to work around a very (obscenely) fixable issue -which was shields take too long to break. Instead of simply lowering shield hp, we got a convoluted scheme of using kicks to overcome habitual shield users. I personally would have much more enjoyed breaking their shields to pieces with my weapons instead of wearing out my e key.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

My take on the issue is this: The problem lies not so much with kicks, but rather the messy attack/feinting animations -which are hard to tell when they start/end, causing players on the receiving end of them to play defensively. Not to always go back to the Warband well, but in Warband the attack animations were tight and concise, with feints having a clear and definitive start and end (and accompanying sound effect!). This way you could judge and time when to counterattack or spam your over-feinting opponent. Bannerlord affords us no such luxury because the animations are admittedly sloppy, blurred, and all around wonky.

I agree, I think some of this comes from the length of the animations as well which I raised a long time ago: the arcs of the swing attacks are very long, the starting point is almost right behind the player and the ending point quite far on the opposite side as well. This means that in order to not feel slow and unresponsive, the release speed is actually very fast, so the result is the player can do a lot by morphing the different windups, but is always threatening as they can release their attack at any time.

I'd love to see animations reworked to be shorter and less wide in their arcs, encouraging a bit more accuracy and consideration over timing.

 

[Younes]

I hate kick slash for the simple reason you need to time the slash, instead of just having to simply attack

 

[szymczak1503]

But this brings us to the big question: How would you fix this? What counterplay do you think there should be?

My take on the issue is this: The problem lies not so much with kicks, but rather the messy attack/feinting animations -which are hard to tell when they start/end, causing players on the receiving end of them to play defensively. Not to always go back to the Warband well, but in Warband the attack animations were tight and concise, with feints having a clear and definitive start and end (and accompanying sound effect!). This way you could judge and time when to counterattack or spam your over-feinting opponent. Bannerlord affords us no such luxury because the animations are admittedly sloppy, blurred, and all around wonky.

Already explained, by letting the defender do the kick while holding the block button (and therefore not trigger the bash attack) which in turn will make the defensive kicking easier for people to pull.
Right now, defensive kicking does not really exist since it is too complex and risky right now, because in order to counterplay the feint+kickslash you have to:
1. Counterintuitively drop your block when the attacker makes feints exposing yourself to being hit, then try to kick your opponent, and then attack. The whole operation involves 2 risks(dropping your block and trying to kick the attacker/pusher)
So it is generally easier to just do the risky straight attack in point (1) avoiding the whole process of performing additional defensive kicking risk because that involves just 1 risk (being hit by the attacker before my attack animation is finished).
So as an attacker you have only 1 risk (by being kicked) and as a defender, you have 2 risks(drop blocking and being kick-slashed)

If we remove automatic bash attack when doing holding block+kick, we are removing the "Counterintuitively drop your block" part out of the risk equation leaving us with only 1 risk.
That will put the attacker and defender at equal changes when fighting.

I don't think making kicks slower or less rangy would solve your issue OP. Nor do I think increasing s key speed even further is the right call. I do however think better optimized swing animations (and the ability for the other players to read them!), less swing delay, and more overall responsiveness would help mitigate the issue.

I agree with you that making kicking slower, less rangy, or increasing s speed is not going to solve the issue.
Better swing animation and the ability for other players to read them will help mitigate the problem but will not solve it (because we still end up with 2 vs 1 risks),
it will just let you perform another complex unreliable counterplay against the feint+kick-slash (waiting for the accompanying sound effect of feint and do the straight-up attack, which will make it another risky move, which could be done only by experienced players with good timing and low ping)

 

[nerburg]

One thing that may help but isn't the be-all-end-all of this thread that I haven't seen mentioned is that even though you need to drop your block to kick, this is only for a fraction of a second as you can restart your block during the kick animation immediately after triggering the kick. Generally the window on release-block > kick > re-block is quick enough to happen during enemy feint-spam and prior to their attack landing, in my experience. This at least allows for some defensive kicking.

 

[WMorton]

I use alot of kick/slashes but thats mostly because I fight alot in 1vmany fights. Also I would say that 70% of my attempted kick/slashes fail because people are able to get their shield or block up. So I don't think its a very pressing issue. Someone with experience should know to watch their positioning and know if they are giving their opponent the opportunity to pull some sneaky ****

 

[Hans 77]

I think some of this comes from the length of the animations as well which I raised a long time ago: the arcs of the swing attacks are very long, the starting point is almost right behind the player and the ending point quite far on the opposite side as well. This means that in order to not feel slow and unresponsive, the release speed is actually very fast, so the result is the player can do a lot by morphing the different windups, but is always threatening as they can release their attack at any time.


I'd love to see animations reworked to be shorter and less wide in their arcs, encouraging a bit more accuracy and consideration over timing.

Seriously, there's not enough people bringing this issue up, and I feel it's a very important (albeit understated) one.

I eagerly await the phase of Bannerlord's development where the devs start tightening up the swing animations -especially as you pointed out, attacks actually begin behind the player and their natural arc travels a near 270 degrees. Ridiculous.

That's the difference though, in Warband kicking is a defensive move, not an offensive one except in situations where the person is trapped and very predictable, even then it is a risk.

The reason for this is that kicks are much slower, the animation is longer, and you're left vulnerable for longer so a missed kick leads to a free hit for the opponent almost every time. But if you did land a kick, it led to a very long stun on the enemy and a free hit. It was high risk high reward.

In BL, the kick is still very quick (although slower than before) and you recover from it quickly too. However, a landed quick only gives a reliable free hit if combined with a held attack most times. This leads to it being used to pressure and then get free hits on people trying to be defensive.

If think if kicks are to be further reworked in the future, it would be to increase the vulnerability window of a missed kick. Right now I can just straight up whiff embarrassingly bad on a kick -missing by a mile, and still have more than enough time to easily block my opponent's punishment swing.

Pretty much the only time I get punished for missing kicks is when my opponent just happens to be swinging at the same time I throw my kick. Considering that missed kicks are still pretty difficult to punish, an increase in the time between kicking and being able to block again would bring this game to an even better balance.

 

[Surreal120]

I wouldn't say they're as broken as they used to be, but I agree with the general consensus in this thread.

My take on the issue is this: The problem lies not so much with kicks, but rather the messy attack/feinting animations

Hard agree here, but I think there's even more to it than that. There is no real way to force a kill in this game. You can feint but if your opponent is skilled he will not fall for it. This pretty much leaves the kick as the only other thing you can do, as chambers are laughably unreliable and shields have seemingly limitless hit points. Despite using kick slash a lot myself, I hate that it's the meta, but there are no other tools to use with the current state of the game

 

[Thistle]

Don't get kicked

 

[Aprikosenmann]

there is a consistent counter. know when its coming and switch move direction. works.

 

[hoonii]

From what I see recently two handers can't technically kick-slash, the opponent will have enough time to block but 1handers still can kick-slash.
Just sidestep lol, don't hug the enemy.

 

[Mabons]

From what I see recently two handers can't technically kick-slash, the opponent will have enough time to block but 1handers still can kick-slash.
Just sidestep lol, don't hug the enemy.

Yes they can, I can do it even with Menavlions.

I don't think kicks will be a massive problem if they make infantry with shields faster, which is what everyone is asking for anyways. It's a little too easy to kickslash enemy infantry with shields.