99% block - 0% hit (how do I hit an enemy?)

Gameplay
#1

I´ve got a very special problem with the combat system.
I don´t manage to place any hits and i don´t know why.
I trained all day at the quest were i have to free hans from the cumans.
I have to say i never ever managed to place a singel hit until now. I lost all battles or ran away.

Due to that insane training i´m now able to block (nearly) any attack that comes in.
But i´m totally unable to land a hit. that leads to battles that literally take forever (or henry falls asleep).
I don´t know what i´m doing wrong.
I can swing and stab with LMB and RMB. I can choose the direction i want to swing and i can chain attacks till i am exausted.
but all my attacks get blocktd - and if i say all i mean ALL. I never ever scored a hit. Not with bare hands. Not with a weapon.
I don´t know what i have to do to make my attacks not getting blocked and hit the enemy.
I watched some tutorials on youtube but they mostly are about skills i have not learned yet.

Any ideas what i ´m doing wrong?

#2

Remember Barnard advices:

  • don’t stand still
  • control your distance
  • do not use the same attack twice in a row (at least in the beginning of the game), attack from left, right, down, up
  • change the direction of your attack at the last moment
  • manage your stamina, attack from different directions. once you’re about to be out of breath, step back, let your stamina recover and attack again. do not stay close from an opponent when you’re out of stamina otherwise he’ll counter you on your next attack

I should have answered better than that.

If you’re parrying all the time, you’re harmless, you’re on the defensive. If you can’t hit it’s because you stand still at the same distance and you’re predictable. Being good at parrying is great, too bad, it’s the least useful skill in a sword combat. You need to create the opening, not wait for it. Instead of parrying, avoid the blow, either by moving right or left or stepping back. The enemy will fail his attack and you’ll have an opportunity to hit him. Be patient, in the beginning you’re not doing much damage, especially if you use a weapon that requires stats you don’t yet have, create an opening, strike, then wait for the opponent to attack, dodge the attack and strike again.

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#3

stamina management is no problem.
I do attack chains, mixed stab and swing, from different sides and step back if stamina goes down.

I don´t really know what that “last moment” is, there i have to change directions.
I try it, but the enemy is allways faster.
I hold LMB till the sword is rised, change diretion and release the LMB. but this doesn´t do the job.
I really don´t know how to creat an opening as you call it. sometimes i manage to doge a blow, but even attacking rigght after it did not work.

#4

Then maybe you’re fighting against opponents that are too strong for you.

Difficulty changes depending on where you’re on the map:

Easy: Rattay region
Medium: Talmberg & Uzhitz region
Hard: Sassau & Skalitz Region

Make sure you have the characteristics to use your gear. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind. Check with “Q” each one of your items to see if you meet the requirements to properly use it.
If yes, kill some bandits near Rattay, west of Rattey near the gallows, at night you’ll meet some low level Cumans and bandits. You can also find some peasants pretending to be bandits at the crossroad between the Glade Inn and Talmberg, or between Merojhed and Samopesh on the road along the forest, they have no armor and low-end axes, you should be able to kill them easily. All you need is to find the perfect victim to train a bit. Get the hang of it.

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#5

I´m around Rattay.
I started to practice with bernard, but i really can´t handle him to place just a single hit.
This Combat is just to fast for me.
I´m a 50 year old man and this feels like thouse “Street fighter” games I played when i was young.
I expected this game to be some sort of RPG and not a fastpaced combat game with rapid stick movement and button samshing within milliseconds. My reactiontime isn´t what is was 20 years ago.

#6

:joy: trust me, you will make it. Bernard is a master; he’s supposed to kick your ass until you reach level 15 in all combat related skills. And I encourage you to train up to these levels with him, he’ll teach you his tricks, for money that is (about 5000 groschen). In the beginning you have no skills, it’s normal you will not be able to land a hit every single time, it’s supposed to be that way. But as you train your own skills as well as Henry’s will improve, trust me, you’ll start to have the feeling that you have more time, like if the time is slowing down. These “openings”/opportunities I was talking about will become clear for you. Now all my combat stats are between 15 and 20 and poor Barnard is lucky if he hits me once, he’s pretty much stuck against the fence all the time trying to parry. I spent around 4-5 hours in real life training with him in 5 different sessions. Use the wooden longsword, the longsword gives you a better reach making it easier to land a hit. Keep dancing around him, move all the time. My personal technique is the “circle of death” that I use to start the combat, move in circles around him and get slowly closer, get close to him and press “Q” to punch him, this should give you a clear opportunity to hit him, in a real combat if the opponent has no face protection a single thrust strike with a poisoned sword and the adversary is dead. The perks you choose are important too, and once you reach level 15 he’ll offer to teach you his tricks to punch your opponent in the face and other ways to get an advantage over him (that’s what will cost you around 5000 groschen). Don’t be stressed/stiff on your mouse, be calm, turn around him, dodge his attack, slightly move forward and strike, get back and start to turn around him again, get close on him, use “Q” and strike again. The combat system is hard but if you focus and are calm you will make it. Don’t forget to use “TAB” to lock on him, this helps too. The first time I played this game at release I was pretty much doing random stuff during combat, most of the time I was killed in less than a minute by peasants, then I spent some time with Bernard and things became way simpler.

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#7

4-5 hours ???
I´m training for nearly 15 hours by now and only reached level 6 in just one category (sword).

And youi punch him with “Q”? “Q” is for blocking?

#8

You can use “Q” when you’re close to the opponent, that’s what I do and it does the punch with the sword handguard. Seems to work all the time by pressing this key so I keep doing it to destabilize the opponent. Get close and you’ll cross your sword against your opponent’s sword and press Q to punch him, if you’re too slow he’ll punch you instead.

what??? 15h? something’s not right. You trained 15h with Bernard?
Would you mind writing down your stats please?

  • Strength
  • Agility
  • Vitality

and combat skills:

  • Warfare
  • Defence
  • Sword

I leveled up my Strength and Agility and combat skills mainly by training with Barnard. I haven’t yet done the main story quests in Uzhitz but I already wiped some camps. Here are my stats without bonuses:

Level: 15
Strength: 18
Agility: 12
Vitality: 12
Speech: 12
Charisma: 15

Combat skills:
Warfare: 16
Defence: 15
Bow: 3
Unarmed: 2
Sword: 19
Axe: 1
Mace: 1

#9

My stats are:

Strength 8
Agility    8
Vitality   3
Warfare  6 
Defence 10 
Sword    7 (just got one more)

I started yesterday to train with bernard and today all day. Mainly longsword, some sword+shild.
sure there are no 15h pure fighting as henry has to sleep, eat, etc. and there is time for repairing too but i did nothing else.
So lets say 10h to be sure not to exaggerate

#10

These stats are decent for 15-20h of gameplay, not enough to start kicking Bernard’s ass but enough to be able to kill 3 peasants that ambushed you.

No offense but could you tell me how many FPS you have while fighting with Bernard? Maybe it’s just a technical issue. You can enable the FPS counter in the Graphical settings in the main menu, the images per second will then be displayed in the upper left corner. If your frames per second are too low it might explain why you have difficulties reacting at the right moment to attack. With blocking and parrying the game goes slow-motion so it’s easier.

#11

I´ve got a new PC 3 Weeks ago and have 60+ FPS on max settings. No technical problems.

my total playtime is 26h.
I can´t kill anyone. not even in a 1 vs 1.
As said, i´m a great blocker but can´t hit.
I won one fight outside the city to a single bandit because of a unarmed guy joining our fight and distracting the bandit so i could hit him from behind.
There is no way i ever stand against 2 or more oponents. i cant even handle one.

#12

I’m clueless Olaf, may I suggest that you press Escape the click “Help” and use the left/right arrows until you reach page 4 and 5 and see if you’re missing something while you’re fighting as it’s impossible to tell what movements you’re doing and tell you if you do it right or not. Pressing “N” in-game will bring you another “Help” menu and on the last tab “Tutorials” look for “Combat: Advanced techniques” (or something similar, I don’t play the game in English).

You will need to be able to fight with 2, 3 and sometimes even more adversaries at the same time later in the game, and not only for side quests. I feel like you are me when I first played the game, I was cursing non-stop but I didn’t gave up, read the tutorials once more and ignore Barnard’s strikes for the time being, forget about parrying, try only to hit him on the opposite side of where his weapon is. You really need to get the right timing because the game is just too beautiful not to play it.

1 Like
#13

thanks for all your help. I think i know everything that is written in ingame texts. i´ve read them a dozen of times now.
for the “right timing” if got no clue. if we are dancing bernard simply blocks anything. If he attacks me and i block im off balance and cant hit im fast engouh to exploit his weakness. Even if I manage to dodge i´m simply not fast enoogh.
I win a clich he is pushed out of range and by the time i get there he is back up. I´m clueless

#14

Ok Olaf now that we figured out that there’s no issue either technical or with Henry’s characteristics being too low, we’re sure it’s a matter of timing.

You’re probably 1th of a second to slow. Trust me when you’ll get the hang of it, you’ll tell yourself “Damn, it’s soooo easy, how did I failed”, the exact same thing happened to me. I cursed the game, the devs and then by pure luck I pressed the buttons at the right moment and I knew when to strike. Let’s try to bring you to that point.

  • Try to anticipate: focus on the movements of your opponent, watch carefully his stance, is his sword on his right, low, high?
  • Do not focus on the “star” that shows the position where you’ll strike but on what you do with the mouse and what the result in the game is.
  • Try the “change direction” thing, strike on the side where is sword is, don’t release the mouse button and move the mouse in the opposite direction and release really quickly the button.

You’re really close from making it, you might be holding the mouse button just slightly longer than needed. Try to release the button faster, it doesn’t matter if you fail, that’s probably where the issue is. Choose one side, press the button, change direction and release at the same time. The strike must come from your finger not from your brain.

#15

If trained a lot with bernad and my stats no are

Warfare 11
Defense 18
Sword 14

But i Still have not the slitst chance when an 2 or 3 Bandits Ambush me. As sone as i get in reach I´m Dead in 3 Seconds.
I manage to focus on one and block but anything else is just impossible.

I found a place with two bandits in light armour and made a save, but i can´t do anything as soon as i atack one the other one gets behind me and kills me.

#16

Nice Olaf, now you have good stats. Let’s see what gear you have.

I don’t know if you can upload a screenshot, I never tried but could you try so that I can see what your gear is? Then we’ll move to the perks. Don’t worry if you picked the wrong ones there’s a potion that will let you reset all the Perks. Some perks are extremely powerful, game changers. But first show me your gear please

#17

If got a burgers sword^and a decorated shield. attack values 44.
I don´t have chain or plate but anything else.
armour values are all from 5 to 10.

combat relevant perks:
clich master, tight grip, headcracker, heavy swing, dreadfull
bailman, Dodger, fast striker, light armour
Thickblooded
Feint, bloodletter, furious
perfect block, firm grip, weapon-crusher,well worn

and some combos

i´ll try to get a video of my figths up on youtube so you can watch. perhaps it helps. but if got a new PC and have to install some video software first.

#18

Well 5 to 10 armor value is not much, but it should be enough for some low level bandits.

Perks seem ok too. I suggest you buy or even better brew some “Aqua vitalis” in order to reduce the damage you take to make the combats a bit longer.

Sure, if you can show a video it would definitely help.

Honestly, I’m about to tell you to switch to longsword and keep that shield in your inventory so that you have no other choice but to attack.

#19

Is it possible the game scales the danger with my skills?
I just entounerd 5 or 6 cumans right out of rattay. I´m trying to do some peacefull quests but is seem impossible as i get attacked as nearly soon as i stick my nose out of town.

#20

No, I don’t think so, it does scale the difficulity based on how far you’re in the main story. Don’t quote me on that but that’s the feeling I have.

You can’t do peaceful missions Olaf, the game has specific spawn points where bandits or cumans appear, you will end up in an ambush sooner or later and it’s going to be right after you managed your first kills, found crazy loot and forgot to save.

I’m afraid you have to solve that combat issue first. That said you haven’t taken the easy path with your Light Armor gear, this build require you are confident in your combat skills. I suggest you switch to full plate for as long as you’re not able to kill 4 or 5 low end bandits without dying. And do not do any of the Main quest missions yet.

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