I don’t think the size of the pole arms are the issue though. The only issue Warhorse has mentioned is it not working with their combat system which seems centered around longswords.
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IMO polearms are so historically significant that they’re a must; I can’t imagine them not being in KC:D.
I guess I just don’t understand why they’re so hard to implement. What about adding new defense and offense animations to the combat system for when your opponent uses a polearm?
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From what I know
The combat system is composed of CapMotioned animations for each interaction.
This means that you have to do whole set of animation for each combination of arms (sword vs sword, sword vs hammer, sword and shield vs sword etc.)
when it is longsword vs longsword it is relatively easy as you can find many pictures in old manuals and you can consult with swordsmen.
When it comes to spears I would say that there will be much fewer informations about combat: spear vs sword or other weapons.
And this is just a part of whol problem.
With sword vs spear you have to fight in completely different way, i would imagine that isntead of “Cut and parry” style you will try to manipulate the spear with your sword to take over its control so you can get closer.
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This means that you would have to have different set of actions for your sword when facing spear.
That makes it completely separate fighting module.
I am kind of guessing here so correct me if there is a flaw in my thinking.
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From what I have seen and understand from the issue, the problem is in the physics.
They are making everything respond physically the way it should in real life. this can be seen in the video update about combat.
Its a complex system, and pole arms are rather large and they have many variables when it comes to physical reaction.
All this on top of the Mocap issues mentioned above by @ProkyBrambora I think its easy to understand why its a complex challenge.
I am confident in the WH team and trust that they will try their absolute hardest to make it a possibility, but the reality is that it may not happen at least not in time for Act 1.
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I realized in the fighting scene (the new video demo from E3) there are to guys fighting with sword in the training ground. In the barrels are polearms too. Could it be possible that… ?
Probably just props - at the moment.
The Assets are made we see them in many of there videos but the combat mechanic they are struggling to implement correctly or convincingly.
Now that is a bad news. If such decisions come so early on, one can only guess what else will be slashed off as the time pressure builds up in 2016.
It is bad news, but i can understand that doing a difficult feature that would come really handy only once or twice per game is not what you want to spend time and money on.
But take my words with reserve. We might see spears, but just not being able to use them.
Thats really sad news 
And no, I would not think we would never use them, we would see them as opponent weapons very often, and if we would fight polearm enemies, this is a use of it too.
But I can assume, if there is a proper combat system with enemies using polearms, then its only a short way to make it also useable to the player.
In my opinion polearms are still important and I am a litte bit disappointed if we will not see them. If not at release on Act I than hopefully later with some kind of patch.
The thing is that various sticks (pitchfork, scythe, etc.) are easily accessible and would make great makeshift weapons before you level up with the swords and armor.
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Even if polearms would make it into makeshift weapons, how long do you think it would take you to make it to your first “real” weapon.
Or how long would you be having fun with using pitchfork.
These kind of weapons would just fill situational usages. I doubt you would be successful against fully armed cuman.
So instead of using it short time in battle you would also use it in short time at the beggining of the game.
I am not trying to prove that polearms are bad idea, just that their making does not pay off. Yet.
But I think they are a great weapon for opponents, and if there is a proper way to let them fight with this weapon, than it should be only a small step to let henry also fight with it, because he is only like an NPC but with human controlls, there is nothing special about him.
I’m willing to bet that what they mean by “NPC’s will be able to use them in battle,” they mean the the fight will be scripted. In this case they wouldn’t have to design a completely new set of combat actions for the polearm weapons, but it would also mean that they wouldn’t be able to simply adapt it for player use.
I’d say that there is a pretty nice sum over the last pledge goal without there being a new one. If hiring a couple of programmers is what it takes to have functioning polearms, then I’d say let’s go for it, make it a goddamn pledge goal so that I have a reason to upgrade mine.
Despite being a firearms enthusiast and despite it being grossly historically inaccurate, I can live with Vávra’s decision not to implement firearms in the game (at all or in Act 1). But as it was already mentioned, polearms were the main weapons used at the era, so resigning on them is on par with saying that the historical accuracy won’t suffer much if we add a small dragon and a couple of fairies.
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The Warhorse team was quite clear since the kickstarter campaign that the polearms will not be in the game at least for ACT I. It is not the money issue, but more time problem. Trying to implement polearms would take more time than it is worth. There were some mentions that hopefully for the ACT II or III they will be able to implement polearms, but the issue is not that they are not aware of polearm importance, don’t want to implement them or don’t have money for making them. It is that they don’t have time to do the polearms and release the game in reasonable timeframe.
Yes battles without polearms are not realistic.
But many soldiers carry polearms in videos and such. chances are that they will be there but nu usable by player.
Also this game is not whole based on battles, so if the polearms wont be there it is not a such big harm if there will be just one or two battles.
You should have not backed the game if you consider it such a huge problem. I really don’t get why you all act like if it was new information. The fact that there won’t be polearms was known even during the kickstarter campaign and it has been repeated again and again on this forum and elsewhere.
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I believe they will implement polearms at some point, no matter which Act and no matter if as a DLC in the future, but I know they will just because polearms were part of the main weaponry used at the time they are trying to recreate in the game. Realism is their target, therefore, they will come with a way to implement this.
Looking at the new footage on combat mechanics on Alpha v0.4, I believe polearms are perfectly possible to implement with the system they’ve created.
Thrusts can be parried as stabs and the star movements for each part of the body can simply be done with different movements depending on the weapon used.
Most polearms would have the same type of movements, unless bardiche bladed like polearms which can have some slashing movements. However, spears were used to thrust only, and all polearms can be used that way too.
I don’t know about the physics part of the game, maybe that’s the hard part, but regarding animation, attack movements and blocks and parries with the current system? They could fit right in, in my opinion of course.
Maybe the challenges of applying it to the game with the level of quality they pursue is harder than I think.
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Actually, there’s plenty of techniques for spear that include slashing and striking. And regardless of whether the polearm was bladed or not, ALL types used the same fighting system.
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