Wait, when did we move to the fastest combat setting?

[Gabeed]

I was wondering why I was getting my ass handed to me in multiplayer this morning, and I found the likely cause.  POM and ATS, arguably the two most often populated US battle servers, have switched to the fastest combat speed.  I can just imagine what was going through their heads: "Man, we don't have enough spamming and spasmodic feinting in our servers.  Great long axes and Great bardiches just aren't quick enough.  We also need to alienate new players who will no doubt be unaccustomed to the change  . . . I know!  Let's turn up the combat settings!  Let's turn it up as much as we can, so people get spammed to death more often due to static recovery times, and the devs never balanced the game for this setting to boot!!  Huzzah!!"

I don't want to sound like a bitter old beta player who longs for the days of yore, but what the hell has happened to the online community?  Upping the combat speed and 100% melee friendly fire are two settings that are seemingly generally considered as "pro," and yet are utterly gamey, inane concepts.  I realize that the combat settings were apparently changed weeks ago, and that clan servers can do what they want, and yadda yadda yadda . . . but the reality is that there are only a few US battle servers, and fewer that are ever populated, and if every populated one of them has embraced these asinine notions, then I'll be better off reading a book or playing ****ing Tomb Raider.

 

[inox_ionizer]

I get the impression that European servers generally have medium combat speed and low melee FF, so if you don't mind a bit high ping, that's an option.

 

[Achilla]

Fastest combat is thoroughly entertaining in Singleplayer, however in the multiplayer it isn't a good idea, unless everyone on the server has ping <20 ms (virtually impossible).

What I personally think, server owners or simply people with very decent pings in particular servers lobby for fastest attack speed, because it further distances them from people with worse pings, allowing them to own virtually anyone, regardless of their skill level as long as their ping is substantially worse.

With slowest attack speed majority of people would be put on equal ground, because latency difference wouldn't be that important as it is now, I guess. Plus, it's quite a lame excuse to claim that highest attack speed improves the game or makes it more competitive/skilful ... it doesn't, unless all of the players are on LAN party 10 meters from the server fridge (level of competitiveness depends on player skill, not artificial advantages in form of ping, more frames per second on the screen or better field of view over widescreen ... the less technicalities matter, the more skilful and competitive the game is).

 

[Orion]

It was clear-cut who was "pro" and who wasn't during the beta, since all the servers ran medium combat speed. Seeing as how most clan matches are run at medium and that's as "pro" as you can get, I don't see the logic behind raising the combat speed for more skillful play.

If nothing else it just promotes spam even more, and for players like me with an average of 70+ ping it's very difficult to block the fastest weapons.

 

[Gabeed]

I get the impression that European servers generally have medium combat speed and low melee FF, so if you don't mind a bit high ping, that's an option.

No offense, but I didn't pay $30 to play multiplayer with a constant 150 ping, although I certainly respect that Europeans seem to have a better idea of what multiplayer settings for M&B ought to be.

 

[dhowlett]

While I don't play on american servers oftern. I do find that on some servers a spear completely annihilates me. They charge at me swinging madly but even if I block it they are well on their way to their next attack because the stun after the block is no where near long enough on such a fast weapon. I rarely get more then 1 hit in on them before I go down and I usualy don't manage to block more then 3 of their hits.

 

[Cool Breeze]

I hope that in Europe we will keep our medium combat speed.
Since i am an average player, and since a lot of players are better and faster to swing/block than me, I won't play anymore this game because being pwned in 2 seconds by a good player is not fun at all

Consequently, a lot of players may play bowmen/crossbowmen cause this is their best chance to earn a frag... and run like a Benny Hill as soon as an infantry will target them ! Not an issue for the future of this game I think

 

[Maximo_khan]

tha must suck considering some weapon are already very fast at medium setting lol

attacks from a short 1h that don't have sweat spot and take you with the start of the animation are already so damn fast to block with a 2h  at medium setting, and the spear too.

With faster combat setting  I can't see manual blocking as a possibility even if you want too, leaving just atatck spam as an option

 

[Reapy]

I actually was wondering the same thing gabeed. A bunch of people have jacked up to fastest swing speed, and while the difference isn't THAT much, it is enough to change up the game.

At fastest setting it is just way more punishing to be hit. With a spear in medium speed you can combo sometimes twice against a person before they can respond, on fastest, you can combo sometimes up to 4 or 5 hits before a person can respond after the first hit.

It also changes weapon threat ranges to be a bit shorter since the swing is over with quicker.

So at the end of the day I guess I don't mind for myself, but I dunno, I almost wish all the servers would be grounded at one setting so we can always feel like we are playing the same game.

Sometimes I almost feel like swing speed shouldn't even be a server setting and should be something constant in the game.

 

[Gabeed]

Well, I'm wildly inconsistent, so I suppose the fact that I was getting owned this morn isn't really relevant.  It could just have been me being inconsistent. 

No, the real issue here is that moving to a faster combat speed accentuates all the issues that are already present in this game.  It's just nonsensical.  I have no desire to become accustomed to such a setting.

 

[ares007]

Totally agree.

Perhaps we should petition the server owners to keep things at normal combat speed.


Also, Reapy, it doesn't change range at all, just timing. It doesn't just change the swing speed, it changes the speed for everything including movement speed. So while a swing finishes faster, you can get to your target faster. So the distancing is still the same.

The main difference is that you don't have time to cancel an attack and block and it's almost impossible to block feint attacks in a technical exchange without getting lucky.

 

[Knight of the Rose]

It's not that big of a difference. I personally enjoy the fastest combat speed and I am glad the servers have set it to that speed. 

 

[Berserker Pride]

Spin spam was unbearable at medium speed.  Well this is ****ed I used to like the POM server as it was one of the few regularily populated ones.  Change it back for more skillful defensively balanced play please!

 

[Zues]

Like people have said, people with above average pings of 70+ (like me) notice this a great deal. I'm not the best player by any stretch, but I consider myself to be decent. As a result, there are many times it looks like attacks go through my block, but then I realize it's the ping difference. The more people there are in the server, the higher my ping goes up, and the faster my reaction time has to be.

I do believe that the nK Battle server is set to normal, and AFAIK there is no plan to change it.

 

[Gumpy]

TBH I like fast (maybe not "fastest", but one above medium combat speed) because it's harder to block, but also because it feels more responsive and less clumsy. You have faith in your weapon getting to your opponent without you having to watch it and count the milliseconds that you may have misjudged, which becomes ever more important and frustrating the slower a weapon gets.

When you swing, you swing, there are still fast weapons and slow ones, but less BS about the different speeds; fewer moments when you watch their bastard sword reaching you just faster than your glaive is reaching them, and you die in a rage inducing manner. I use shortswords almost exclusively because they're the only weapons that feel reliable at medium speed

In general though, I simply find the slowness cumbersome, and the speediness fun. Maybe I'm just an arcadey kinda guy.

Upping the combat speed and 100% melee friendly fire are two settings that are seemingly generally considered as "pro,"

I think melee FF should be at most 50%. 100% is flat out annoying.

 

[Trejin]

I see,  I was wondering about the "spear" myself. Glad to know it wasnt just me.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

I haven't really played with the fast combat speed, but I'm predisposed to dislike it.

Slightly off-topic, "hardcore" =/= "pro".

EDIT: Okay, I just tried it.  The entire Sarranid team was using scimitars. 

 

[Seawied86]

I don't play on servers with combat speed on anything other than "Medium." It saddens me to see so many servers move to inferior combat speed settings.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

"Fastest" is bearable, but yes, inferior.

 

[blink180heights]

i don't mind speed on fastest, blocking isn't that hard if you aren't high on weed lol. Plus there are faster rounds and deaths no more waiting forever to play again.