Its about time to kill, you die once your shield breaks, not before.. at least if you are solid in melee and play it well.
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There is no counter-play against kick-slash
- Thread starter szymczak1503
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Shields broke in about 5s of consistent hits, and more often people tried to hit back because they knew it was a losing situation unless they took an opportunity. The Xv1 thing is just such a bad argument. There was, arguably, too few ways to open people up in 1v1, for sure, but I'd take a slightly longer and more defensive meta in 1v1s over something that breaks the flow of melee in all aspects any day.
Well it all comes down to that someone dislikes this mechanic, and someone is ok with it. IMO it is not ruinning the gameplay but just makes it different and I definitely don't find it stupid that you need to step back while you are blocking and run forward if you are attacking. Everyone has their own picture of how the game should look like and I also see some changes that could make the game better in my opinion, but with kicking I think the game is fine and it just gives you a slightly different experience from what it was in warband
Well sure, it makes it 'different', in that it discourages pressuring people in melee and encourages ranged play, kiting, and using overwhelming numbers to win a fight. I don't think these are improvement but I admit it's possible someone might (I wouldn't want to meet them).
Arguing until the end of times it is then
It's not a response to the poll at all. Some people like the mechanic, others have gotten used to it and simply accepted it as part of the combat. People vote "yes", but I don't see anyone desperately clinging to the mechanic as their lifeline. I'm saying that the important thing is to not remove stuff without considering the bigger picture of combat. You come in here with a drive-by spouting some condescending, misinformed **** about the competitive community.
Believe it or not I didn't read your conversation with OGL but I saw that my boy @szymczak1503 (brilliant old warband duelist btw) made a thread about kickblocking being absolutely broken a few months ago. I decided to check on it today to see the poll results are absolutely baffling.
Some see it as a poor mechanic that could still be changed, did you notice we're in Early Access?
just a little recurring joke for you there! I'm not as misinformed as you think I am, in fact I could say that the likelihood of this poll having any impact is at highest 1%. And the likelihood of you smashing that kick button is about 99%. Who said anything about removing kick slash?
I can get used to my WASD switching function every 30 seconds too but that doesnt make it a good idea.
Knew this would turn into a warband players vs bannerlord players eventually ?
Knew this would turn into a warband players vs bannerlord players eventually ?
![[BRE] Roudrac](/data/avatars/m/90/90111.jpg?1604778059){kind=avatar}
Is it strong? Yes. Is it broken? No. I think kick-slash rewards initiative, precision and timing. It requires skill and training to be used efficiently. Therefore I don't think it's a bad thing if it is quite strong in terms of gameplay.
As others have pointed out too, the big issue at the moment is the unreliability of chamber blocks. Once (or if) they are reworked, a lot of the gameplay will be more balanced.
As others have pointed out too, the big issue at the moment is the unreliability of chamber blocks. Once (or if) they are reworked, a lot of the gameplay will be more balanced.
Things I like about Bannerlord kicks:
- They are much snappier than Warband kicks.
- The actual kickslash timing is narrower so it's more difficult to pull off.
- You have to lower your block to start the kick or you do a bash giving people a moment of vulnerability.
- Cooldown between kicks is basically nothing, I seem to recall it being longer in Warband.
- The hitboxes are wonky(I pointed out in the other thread that left kicks have a larger hit radius than right kicks)
- The kickthrow and kickshooting is still here and while it's harder to pull off it's still just as stupid.
- Movement differences mean that a heavy infantry with a shield gets kick slashed much easier than say an archer or shock inf class does(To the point that they can be walking backwards and still get kicked).
- You need to get too close to stop someone being able to throw/shoot, which puts you in kick range.
- Shield vs Shield combat is incredibly boring as it stands, so everyone throws out kicks to get it over with.
Not sure about this one, three steps and you can try again so its not like you can really spam them
Obviously this is concerning Xv1, as I don't think anyone is naive enough to try and argue there weren't dozens of ways to force kills in a battle scenario, but there were still ways of forcing Xv1 kills. For one, you could literally stun their block if you had a heavy polearm and did a held overhead attack with it - a risky move at it opened you up to archer fire, to being switched on and hit by the person you are trying to stun whilst you are focusing on getting the timing on your stun right, to missing if the person has good movement, to getting your attack chambered etc. Even though shield stunning with polearms was a powerful move in Xv1, the person at risk of getting stunned did have a few cards to play if they could pull them off. Anyway, the point is that you could force a kill that way. Shields broke much faster in Warband than they do in Bannerlord, so the X could just keep hitting the shield of the 1 and break it relatively quickly. They could also try and get around them or keep them focused on them whilst turning the enemy's back to cav or archers. There were ways to force a kill in Xv1 and it was very rare for the 1 to clutch or actually survive very long, at least in a matchup of equally skilled players in Div A.
This is quite absurd frankly. Many of the things we were discussing in the alpha and early beta period are still prevalent issues in Bannerlord right now and have hardly been addressed at all. Chambers are worthless, holds have an extra delay, you can get inside other people, you can push other people around and create a "sliding" or "on-ice" feeling, kicks are too infrequently punishable, cavalry have STILL not been nerfed (hopefully soon), attack delays in general, being unable to attack immediately after getting kicked or bumped, huge swing arcs which deny precise melee play, the vile and detestable stance system continuing to add RNG elements into group combat, xbows deal enormous damage, in 3rd person ranged the arrow drop is already accounted for, weight on shields is too much, the gameplay is kite-y as a result of the difference in movement speeds and how easily players can disengage by moving diagonally and attacking with a longer weapon, poor class and faction balance resulting from the class system etc. etc. etc.
There are literally dozens of ways in which Bannerlord is poorly balanced or has issues with its gameplay, so much so that I didn't even have to stop and think to make a sizeable list of some major problems. These are also almost all the same issues we were discussing in June-December 2019, which was when I was playing the beta every few weeks to try the new updates and give my thoughts. People like Shema, and the hundreds of competitive Warband players who tried Bannerlord but don't play it at the moment, were also involved in discussing those issues or have complained about them as reasons why they don't enjoy Bannerlord. Recently I've joined RM and although I'm enjoying playing clan scrims and matches with them, I cannot stand playing public Skirmish or Duel for very long before the game's glaring issues force me to stop playing.
What OGL wants is a scenario in which two players being engaged in active melee with one another does not mean both players are keeping their distance and constantly ranging/kicking. This is undeniably the meta at the moment in Bannerlord. Obviously that doesn't mean infantry don't get close to one another, as scenarios force this and you have to get close to kick them, but it does mean that the kind of intense, close-quartered fights you frequently had in Warband don't happen in the same way in Bannerlord. A meta based on kiting, range-play and kicking is an anti-melee meta in my opinion, a sentiment which I know many Warband players share, and it really detracts from the enjoyment that someone interested in a melee-focused experience can get. Now, obviously in a Skirmish or Battle scenario there's going to be some degree of kiting going on from infantry who are accounting for threats posed by archers or cavalry during the fight, but even in a 1v1 scenario or a small groupfight situation there is a lot of kiting and ranging going on. This is driven in a huge part by the threat of getting kicked and the desire to bait someone to move towards you so you can move into them and kick them.
In a video like this one, you can see several situation where I am in a 1vX scenario where my opponent don't try and kick me. In Bannerlord I'd have been kicked for sure and denied the 1vX potential, although also basically all of the moves I use would not be viable in Bannerlord. You might notice that although I use left swing spam on several opponents, it never happens to me. Curious, almost like it's a skill-based mechanic and you can prevent anyone from using it on you if you use proper movement and return with your own swing quickly enough.
Alternatively, or preferably additionally, you can watch this video and see how it was viable to get close and use offensive techniques with limited risk of getting kicked.
In this video, the clips at 4:40 and 5:10 really demonstrate how infantry had a bigger role, or at least had the potential to have a bigger role, in each scenario. And that wasn't achieved by kicking or throwing weapons, but by the game facilitating precise attacks with its swing arcs and more refined mechanics.
Bannerlord needs to refine its melee mechanics so that players can be more precise and can use more techniques to force kills. This needs to be done at the same time as increasing the window in which a player is vulnerable after kicking, meaning that other moves take its place and a more melee-focused meta can develop.
While this is true it's one of those things which functionally isn't - it is harder to do, but it is easy enough to learn when shown once or twice. So effectively while requiring more knowledge, this is not much of an obstacle to people doing it in say, competitive or long term play. We can see this by how quickly it spread through the community like a coronavirus. In reality it is therefore just harder to learn for new players, casual players, and is counter-intuitive.
What i see from these melee clips is that Infantry feels way more rewarding and Cavalry are nowhere near as overwhelming as they are in Bannerlord. This looks WAY more balanced than Bannerlord. Cavs seems way slower and easier to follow.
^ There is some credence to this. ^
Warband had a very aesthetic ebb and flow to the combat. There was a smooth rhythm to the inf fights which made the gameplay enjoyable and honestly quite addicting.
In Bannerlord, the pre-eminent combat centered around kicking -while the most effective approach, has culminated in a meta of players neurotically tip-toeing around one another and attempting again and again to bait out their opponent's swing. And to reiterate, while this is the "correct" way to fight, it really has become a joyless way to play.
Yeah, and now that I think about it the stronger kickslash doesn't even really help speed up 1v1s considering most people know to play around it by ranging. All it really does is make numbers advantage in groupfights snowball way more than it already did pre-buff.
Although I think the stance system can be fixed eventually (stance change button) and I personally welcome the implementation of directional blocking; I quite agree with Gibby Jr 's comment. I wish Betalords tests could still be run on the MooT community server; the progress would be immense today in the fan-dev synergy. Too much time spent on making the decision to change a value....
OGL is not alone, there are a lot of people who want pure melee engagements that are worthwhile; I include myself. With this abuse of kicking it's as if the player is a fighting cock, always looking for an opportunity to spur the opponent on.
