Combat, Blocking, and Parrying in 0.4

This sixth spot doesnā€™t need to exist as when you stab no matter what direction you come from it goes to the middle of the body, it would be impracticable to maneuver the sword to the front to slice in the center.

Actually a central stance that is stabbing guard would be nice you cannot stand in that stance without following through with a stab.

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The six spot is imo needed for precise mouse movement alone. The system right now is an imprecise and clunky mess with the mouse due to the lack of a clear point of reference. A sixth central spot would solve that.

But itā€™s not meant as an attackt spot. For attacking you would have to use one of the directional stances. Itā€™s more meant as a ā€œrelaxation spotā€ to spare stamina and to think about the next step in the battle while being able to react to movements of your enemy. Thatā€™s why I called it the neutral stance.

Edit: Could work as stabbing guard as well though, I agree.

I unlocked a lock with controller :smiley: It took me some time to figure out, that I have to do multiple circles with left stick to turn the lock aroundā€¦ keeping lockpick in spot with right stick was fairly easy thenā€¦

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I also play with a controller, so I was talking about holding or tapping the thumbstick. Guess this part still needs to be tweaked.

Anyone figured out stamina costs yet? I need to record some gameplay and check it out. I think dodging doesnā€™t consume much stamina, attacking consumes some, blocking consumes a lot. Not sure about parrying and ā€œwrestlingā€ (not sure how to call that).

Well, we know that behavior of combat rosettes are not completely happy. If i go with my mouse 10 cm to the left and after that (if i need to change my attack direction) 10 cm to the right, its something wrong. This problem has been already resolved, next version will include it already. Thanks for your ideas and contributions, we much appreciate it!

WAR :horse: is better than NO :horse:

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Agreed with Elwin, there is no such thing as a neutral stance in fencing.

The stances WH use are actually fechtbuch correct (even though the fencing itself is not). The stances in KCD used are Vom Tag (roof - sword upwards), Ochs (the ox - crossed arms, pointing to opponents head from above), Zornhut (guard of wrath - sword angled from shoulder, pointing above), Nebenhut (low guard - the opposite of Zornhut from below) and Alber (fool, sword in centre pointing to the ground). In reality, there are various other stances, obviously.

The strikes KCD uses then follow from these guards into other guards, which is correct, but the fencing itself has otherwise no connection to reality. Longsword technique is basically all about wrist work - you would actually never slash with your sword as you do in KCD, and you would always strike to the head (or to elbows/knees in certain special circumstances). Hitting other parts of the body makes no sense in unarmored fencing because once you are hitting the opponent into - say - shoulder, you are being hit to your head at the same time or even earlier. You would never block just to block, every block is moving from a stance to stance guarding your head with the strong of the sword while you are hitting your opponent also with the weak or point of your sword.

In armoured fencing, you would almost always half-sword and get into wrestling shortly after. Armoured fencing in KCD is unfortunately completely detached from reality.

But I find the KCD combat system good fun all the same.

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Dodging costs none and parrying costs none, itā€™s when you counter that it takes stamina. The wrestle or what I call clashing costs none it depends on whether you kick, shove or hit them. Failing to push, kick or hit results in them winning the clash and pushing you. So the act itself costs none but results in you losing stamina no matter what you do.

When clashing if an enemy shoves you, you lose a little, if they kick you, you lose a little but if they hit you, you lose half a bar almost.

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And how do you (during the clash) decide, which action to do? I think stab command will result in pommel strike, kick command should result in a kick (didnā€™t try it yet) and how do you shove?

Also, is there some timing, similar to parrying/dodging? Sometimes I fail to execute the action, even though I have enough stamina, especially if Iā€™m mashing ^^

F (Left Trigger) is push, R-Mouse(Right Trigger) is kick and L-Mouse (Right Bumper) is Punch/hit

Is it a combo that throws the enemy to the ground?

I have had the AI do it to me several times just cannot figure out how to do it on them.

It seems that if you go evade back too much the enemy seeā€™s through this and pushes you. I have tried countless comboā€™s but I canā€™t seem to figure this one out.

Currently I think itā€™s a combo weā€™re not made aware of, that or enemies arenā€™t as predictable as we humans.

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I have recorded a couple of duels last night. Are we allowed to post gameplay videos (this being an alpha and such)?

STAB ATTACK, UPPER LEFT SLASH ATTACK AND WHICHEVER SLASH ATTACK :horse:

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rly, Tobi told me it was STAB + UPPER LEFT SLASH + STAB; but i could not get the enemy to the ground. Now I know why.

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Here is a compilation of a few rather strange moves that the advanced AI pulled on me last night.

Can players perform these moves?

  1. Counter-attack from dodge (instead of parry)
  2. Use clash moves like pommel strike and halfswording during counter-attack (after parry) instead of a normal attack
  3. What was that swirl thing? Did he shove me or is that some glitch? Or some cool move?!

Here are all videos I recorded last night:
Note my fight #3 against the beginner AI, after holding my ground against harder opponents, I got bested by a supposedly easy opponent (I was really trying to win that fight!).
Fight #6 was my first time when I defeated the Advanced AI.

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They seem to be able to perform more attacks.I think they are either not implemented for the player(controls) or weā€™re in the dark about how to perform them.

I really want to be able to do that shove thing,where they push you over.

I believe this is the case.
I also got knocked down once, but apparently I wasnā€™t recording that fight.

Combat in this game is a good step for medieval games. The concept is nice but as already mentioned it has only stances correct from historical fencing. It looks to me as stage fighting. What i miss mostly is counter-cut, it could be initiated same way as blocking when opponent is striking you you could strike into the attack, deflect the blade and hit your opponent. The parry-deflection here is something that is used when enemies are closer to each other. The thing that i dont like mostly is the crossing of swords this is a Hollywood move. Also as sad before the armored combat should be different from non-armored. But i hope this is only due to alfa.

Itā€™s a player who should change the way how they fight against armored oponents. The game already offers various options. I really doubt there will be two different kinds of combat, that doesnā€™t even make sense.

It seems to me that too many people here forget KC:D is supposed to be a reaslitic game, and not a simulator. Itā€™s obvious that the combat will be far from 100% realistic, Warhorse never claimed it to be so, the usual phrase they use is ā€œas realistic as possibleā€ closely followed by ā€œit needs to be funā€. So the complaints that this or that is not how it works in reality are imo pretty dumb. The combat is more realistic than anything that has been done before, Iā€™m actually really surpised how far they went. But the most important thing is still fun, and that requires elements that are not realistic.

I also donā€™t agree that directional blocking is a good idea. The combat is already so complicated that adding another mechanic of this sort would imo only cause troubles. I actually like the current system and itā€™s connection with stamina a lot.

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