The only way I can word this is, I think the fighting should be a mix between Bushido Blade 2 and Chivalry Medieval Warfare. Lethal, stance based attacks. Maybe the player can only take a few more swings if they or their opponent has mroe high level armor equipped. i guess this doesnt help much… but it would get rid of the cursor…, the stance dictates the swings. blocking and parrying should occur regardless of sword position. as long as the sword is aimed at the others’ (like chivalry) but each strike that isnt blocked should be LETHAL!
Ok, before I give my 2 cents worth on the combat system, I would like to preface this by says I am both a gamer (been playing Chivalry and M&B for years) and a Historical European Martial Artist (for the past five years).
The combat system as it stands is the most realistic I have encountered in terms of simulating sword technique.
The player can apply real world sword-fighting principles (like distance, timing etc.) and the system has the five basic cuts and the thrust which you will find in most European sword systems from the Middle-Ages to the Renaissance. The combos are simply stringing these cuts and thrusts together, which is in fact what most real life combos really are. The animations are also spot on in that the cutting line for the cuts is between ‘shoulder to hip’ and ‘ear to knee’ (of course, the overhead is up and down). This is unlike the horrendous chest-level horizontal cuts you get in most games but in a real fight you would never do lest you want your opponent to whack the flat of your blade and knock your sword out of your hand.
The parry system is curious and requires study. I have found there is a direct effect between which attacking guard you are sitting in (the attack direction you have chosen on the star) and your ability to parry in each direction. i.e. the further the sword has to travel to get from the attacking guard to the parry, the slower the parry will be and the less chance of success. In other words, each guard has its strengths and weakness against different opposing guards. This is also realistic as in a real fight, you change your guard in reference to your opponent.
The system takes time to learn but after a while one picks it up. It takes practice and the player needs to develop tactical awareness.
However, I agree the system in its currently form is glitchty and needs to be tweaked and refined. There are some bugs to be fixed and some refinements to be made, to which I am confident Warhorse will attend. I believe the following tweaks are critical:
- Locking On: The locking on the opponent feature makes sense (even in a real fight with multiple opponents you can only attack/defend against one opponent at a time) but the player needs the ability to switch the ‘lock’ quickly and fluidly on demand. Currently, fighting multiple opponents is a nightmare as breaking lock is difficult and disorientating, and accordingly, it is very easy to get flanked.
EDIT: Played the beta further and found this not an issue. I discovered that holding down MMB temporally disables your lock and lets you place it on another foe. Fighting multiple opponents was viable using this method. ‘Shift’ (Run) also does this but I found that unwieldy to use. My bad for not reading the instructions.
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- Stamina: I don’t believe the players needs a bigger stamina pool (let me tell you in RL doing a real attack doing a combo of 4-5 actions [attacks & parries] is about everyone’s limit before they have to retreat out of measure) but the recharge rate has be substantially increase. In a real fight, you don’t stand there for 10 seconds out of measure between exchanges because you are out of breath. You may stand there for that time to asses your opponent if your opponent is not aggressive and lets you. In other words, the pauses in combat due to waiting for Stamina to recharge are simply too long in KCD.
- Damage & Health: Swords are sharp and should be able to cut through a guy wearing a gambeson or a jacket (with a little resistance). The swords in game seem a bit blunt. Now against a guy in mail or plate, I can understand it taking a few hits but it takes too many hits to down a foe who is wearing only a gambeson or shirt. The weapons need to be more lethal especially against targets with no to light armour. This is critical for fights against multiple (lightly armoured) opponents as the player’s only chance is to down enemies quickly.
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All this said, I believe Warhorse is on the right track and I look forward to using a refined version of this the combat system at release.
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I personally believe that the combat mechanics are spot on and just need polishing. The system is intuitive and doesn’t take much time to learn. I played M&B a lot, so this kind of combat system fits right in and is only a bit more complex in reality. I do believe it would be worthwhile if they made it so that there was a full and simplified combat system to appease different people. For example, a simplified version of the combat system could just eliminate the need to press a button to block and block based on the strike direction. Regardless though, I am very pleased with the combat system in the beta, but I’m not saying they shouldn’t continue to improve the system and provide alternative combat modes.
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I’m with you on this, but wanted to point something out to devs - combat seems to be too “pacifistic” to me, that is it doesn’t feel like guys are trying to kill each other. For example there are nice moves with pommel strikes or shield bashing that get your opponents out of balance but there is no follow up to try and kill him. The game doesn’t let you follow up a successfull combo with final killing blow or somehting like that. Instead it just puts you back intpo a stance.
Also, the swings and stabs are too “soft”, it doesn’t feel you’re using any strength to cut or stab someone to death. I guess the actors did what they could, but developers need to tweak it now to make the swings look like they could actually hurt. That is the swings should look as if they were meant to go full force through a person, at the moment they look like their stopping point is just outside of the opponent. Plus grunts while swinging should be like someone is putting some strength into it.
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Agreeing completely on all this. From what little practice I’ve had with actual blades myself, I would also say that thrusts are too slow. A medevil sword was ultimately a stabbing weapon and could do so incredibly fast. These thrusts feel like they’re moving through mollases.
Yes, one more point - short sword should be using less stamina and be much faster than bastard sword, maybe? It does less damage, so there has to be some kind of benefit in using one.
So far I use it in the training ring to test fencing skill progression and also to make me last longer in the ring. My opponent with short sword doesn’t do too much damage.
But the sword doesn’t feel lighter or faster. I’m not sure how much of a difference there is in real lifre in wielding short sword vs. bastard sword, maybe the weight the same? Bu it would be nice if it was lighter and faster, would make for interesting duels and sword work in the game.
I’m being honest here and try to be somewhat amusing while this is serious…
it never occurred to me that the 2 cryengine game projects I backed via kickstarter would have equally atrocious combat, while the two are in completely different genres 
yes I’m talking about star citizen and this game, as they both are today in alpha/beta state, the combat in these 2 games are just bad; especially when compared to similar games to their respective genres.
you can’t compare games in production and games in their first beta stage. It’s simply misleading.
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In real life, Longswords (and Bastard Swords) tend to be just as fast, if not faster than, Shortswords (which in RL and KCD means single-handed swords). Having two hands on a longer hilt allows you to generate extra speed and power because a) you have an extra arm powering the sword and b), most importantly, leverage. Also note that while Longswords are heavier than Shortswords, the difference in weight is not as substantial as one may think.
That said it is certainly true that Longswords hit significantly harder than Shortswords. For example, the amount of power you can generate with what English swordsmanship calls a ‘quarter blow’ is phenomenal.
Further, in my experience, using a Longsword is more tiring than using a Shortsword by itself, but not that much more. It may interest you to know that out of three systems available to us (Longsword, Shortsword by itself, and Shortsword & Shield), in RL, I finding the Shortsword and Shield to be the most tiring.
Note: when I say Longsword I don’t mean two-handed only swords like the Spadone, Zweihandlers etc.
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Makes sense. The longsword is manipulated around it’s center of gravity primarily allowing the blade to cover considerable distance with minimal effort (especially from 2 arms and torso movement), and the extra lever-arm of it’s length provides cutting power that the short sword has to match via brute force.
Swinder36 thank you, I realise all your points are valid in RL, I just don’t see any benefits to wielding short swords in the game.
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Agreed. The Longsword is a really good all-round weapon in game (pretty good in RL too). I get the impression you could use it and nothing else in the game and do really well.
About the only advantages the Shortsword has over the Bastard Sword in game are:
- It synergises better with the shield. i.e. better protection. But one can defend themselves quite ably with a Longsword and your opponents will die faster due to the better damage.
- It is slightly faster and hence redouble attacks (combos) are faster.
- Without a shield, it also has a lower encumbrance which may be of benefit to players using stealth characters.
That said, for RP reasons I prefer the Shortsword (it being more a weapon for artisans and the Longsword being the weapon of the knightly class), even if it isn’t the smartest choice. 
Besides, in RL, even though I know how to use Longswords, I am much better with a Shortswords.
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Hi guys,
I have been playing beta for about 4 hours, and so far loved it (as much as one can love a low FPS laggy beta-state game ).
One of the things that bugs me in combat is that stabbing someone in the chest with a sword doesn’t kill them fast.
It should be very dangerous to anyone. So far I was able to determine that it makes them bleed faster - stab someone in the ring and then just block until they drop.
another thing I noticed is that tool tips on skills don’t tell us what to do to improve them. For example sneaking - how do I sneak, and what do I need to do to improve it?
And the last, but very important - controlling direction of your swings in combo is almost impossible because the aiming point is moving all the time. Let’s say I want to do a simple combo - stab-slash from left-slash from lower right.
I start stabbing, then when I go to slash from left my enemy moved and by moving he made my aiming point to be to the left of my center, making my slash the right one instead of the left one. Please fix it 
Also, while I’m at it - vendors do not refresh their inventory, so if I buy all the food from them in one day, and come back in 3-4 days their inventory is empty. I can’t buy food anymore. Please fix it.
Sharpening my sword is impossible, because when I start the smith tells me to put the weapon away or he will call the guards.
That’s it for now
I agree with all your points entirely, can confirm all these issues 
Especially the inability to do this simple combo is puzzling…
Shooting people with high power modern ammunition doesn’t instantly drop people that often. Standard “lethality” criteria are a 30 second to disablement time.
History is full of people being mortally wounded in duels and battles and continuing to fight, sometimes killing their opponent in reply.
I think they should offer a locked and unlocked fight. The unlocked fight is better in fast and surprising situations (or fight entry) It would also work better in big battles. It would be a more risky fight and just for easy enemys. On a big part the stats could decide if your able to kill somebody. It would be also a alternative for people which dont like too complex combat systems. But that unlocked fight need several realistic animations. Locked fight is better in duelling situations and against heavy enemies.
Hello,
i have a short question
b) Will we be able to set our keys manually? Blocking Q is a bad choice because i have to give up A (movent to the left) in order to press Q.
Is there any way how to get out off fight when enemy runs away? Well first I runned away from two cumans, later I wounded one that chased me and he runned away. The other one stopped chasing me. Or am I supposed to search whole forest upside down to find and kill that cuman that ran away when we were both one hit close to death? I can’t sleep and heal myself now.
PS: still getting familiar with figths, slashing enemy’s hand 3 times and backing up to regenerate works quite well. Blocking seems to work, but I have to realize when to strike back if I even can, enemies are perhaps running out of stamina slower as I play diplomat.
PPS: there are actually two sleep related bugs - being in combat and inability to sleep with no reason given.
How to kill guard next to Talmberg?
Hit him as many times as you can, run away, wait for him to draw bow, run to him and kill him.
AI seems stupid when it comes to combat.
Then again I’d love to have realistic combat system but this one feels and specially LOOKS weird and clunky.
After watching some videos it seems people often have issues with correct combo execution. I haven’t played beta, but after some short experience with one of the earlier alpha versions I think I have an idea why is that.
I don’t think the lock on system in itself is wrong, but the camera work needs some overhaul. If the targeting star stayed in the middle of the screen all the time, it would make it much easier to change the direction after each strike, but it doesn’t. It moves around unpredictably with each movement, changing the highlighted direction randomly without you even moving the mouse. So while executing combos, you have to not only select the correct direction, but you have to compensate for the unpredictable changes the star jumping around makes for you due to clunky camera work.
It makes it feel very random and uncontrollable, which isn’t something you would want to have in functional skill based combat system.
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