Combat targeting

Gameplay
#1

The combat targeting feature is, without any doubt, the most disputable one in KCD. Some love it, others don’t. I find it not perfect, but definitely promising (and also I find sword combos unneeded hassle). Things I wanted to discuss are Combat Targeting and Playing Styles. After all, the game is RPG, right? Right?

I belong to the group of slow thinking players who prefer ranged attacks, stealth infiltrations and actively use fleeing if anything has gone wrong. And that’s exactly where the combat targeting is breaking the hardly developed immersion: if you knock out a sentry and suddenly find yourself confronted by a group of angry iron-clad bandits, and you’re in your dark cloth “armor” and wielding a dagger, it’s needless to say that your only chance to survive is to run as fast as possible. But you can’t, because you’re locked to that blazingly fast big guy with a longsword. And I know there’s a button to cancel the lock, but it works with lags. RIP Henry, you were lacking the lifesaving skills of Skin Thick Shield and Creep And Leap.

Let’s discuss, how is the Targeting interfering with your playing style and what could be done to make it helpful?

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#2

From my experience the default auto targetting is good when you are fighting against 1 or 2 enemies on a clear area. When you’re fighting 8 enemies in deep forest its completely useless and will cause you to die.

Solution for multi enemy combat:
`
wh_cs_playerlockdisabled = 1

and then back to
wh_cs_playerlockdisabled = 0
when there is only one enemy.

PS
I also crave for a possibility to disable the stupid slow motion in combat which pisses me on.

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#3

Group of 8 (even three as for me) is a death IRL. But to make the gameplay more enjoyable, blocking button must work for both targeted and nearby enemies.

#4

yeeep.
And the blocking (at least with shield) works pretty well while not in targetted stance.
Try disabling the player lock.

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#5

thanks, will try!

#6

First I had troubles targeting cause I did not know how to cancel it or swap between characters so I automatically fought what was in front of me and it is especially imperfect when fighting multiple at once. To clarify, you can not wield a dagger, it is only used for secure kills not for sword playing. Another thing you can do is, hold shift and walk backwards or just classically swipe the mouse to side. Holding shift will not regenerate your stamina so there is drawback but you will not auto target nobody. I generally do not like auto locking but there were other games, probably also connected to console versions, where autolocking in combat worked but there were others which made non-lock and it worked even better.

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#7

works best with https://www.nexusmods.com/kingdomcomedeliverance/mods/642
:smiley:

PS
Mount&Blade II (Bannerlord) will show how the combat should look like :slight_smile:

#8

This should work most of the time (there are some restrictions) if the nearby enemy is in FOV. I understant though that it is not reliable.

If you have bow equipted, you are not targeting at all and you are free to run.

You could be faster, it depends what you are wearing f.e.
As long as you are running (SHIFT pressed) you will not targret the enemy at all.

There is no “lag” in the cancellation of the targeting, that is, usually. it will sometimes wait till the animations will finish (perfect block, riposte, master strike). Means that if you are attacked and getting hit you will not able to turn and run.

#9

Using middle mouse button to unlock target so far its perfect for me.

#10

Unlock is only half the battle. The other part is the forced interaction. For example, when the game moves you even though you don’t move the joystick (combat magnetism) and the game ignores your input in order to engage the combat mechanic (rush attacks disabled)

#11

how can I kill with a dagger w/o wielding it? think about it from the IRL point. but in terms of game mechanics - yes, it wasn’t equipped.

thanks, I’ll try it. but the idea is that combat simulation is flawed (has an interesting conception though), and I prefer to have it extended to cover this way of playing instead of getting used to flaws.

#12

without screaming and crying wounded limbless soldiers it won’t :slight_smile:

#13

i keep it light to carry more stolen stuff. so usually only clothes, dagger and bandages.

(i find rather annoying shared containers and the function of “press x to teleport 40KG of poached venison from devil’s furrow to the horse you left back in rattay”)

#14

It won’t be like a Monty Python skit but it will have individual, squad (formation) and battle plan (tactic) ‘AI’

Doubt it’ll be without its stupid bits but conceptually much beyond what KCD is delivering to date

#15

it’s not that difficult to make the game AI better than in KCD :slight_smile:

#16

i have a perception or theory… probably wrong. WH went to great pains to find medieval martial artists of some stature. they taught WH about swordplay etc. and gave motion capture executing their techniques. when you play in 1 vs 1-3, the game is pretty spot on. it does dueling well.

the next level. squad formation [keeping the line, adjusting to avoid flanking maneuvers (i cross the T every time in KCD battles)] and tactics [fighting as a team, using tactical advantage (don’t give up your 2 against 1 to fight 1 vs 1)] is where things are underdeveloped

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#17

combat is important, but the combat is not everything. as a stealth cuman murderer, I must say, non-combat AI is as clumsy as it could be in the eighties. say, we’ve killed a sleeping person, while the sentry was away. after he went back and saw the body, what he does? not sure about cumans, but i would never go sleep near the body of my freshly killed friend. of course, if it wasn’t me who have murdered him. or a cavalry attack, when i gallop through the camp on my horse and kill smb. others went upset, but after a minute get back to what they were doing before. NPCs (all, including civilians) lack the states like fear, alert, surprise and like that.

about the combat AI, a soldier with a sword must flee for cover with a glimpse of a bow. instead, they’re keeping attack me like they’re japan kamikaze and not the coward cuman deserters.

(and i hate the ragdolls)

#18

this to me is design porn to (mis)appropriate a term by WH’s Viktor. might be unintentional or the consequence of a limitation but it’s effect is to create a cheat-like game situation. the game enables you to do something that is more fantasy and less reality

most ridiculous example to me is unarmored Cuman archers. the archer shoots at a bandit/guard NPC at a distance. that NPC dies or flees. the Cuman archer then becomes aware of or focuses his attention on me. i’m on horseback at about 90 degrees from bandit/guard NPC and about the same distance from the archer. the Cuman archer doesn’t draw his bow and shoot at me. instead he puts his bow away and charges me. i just happen to have a Cuman bow 74 equipped. if he shoots his bow, he might have a chance. but no, he doesn’t and so he’s dead meat. this has happened more times than i wish to count

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#19

hah. once I’d knocked out the sleeping cuman and looted his weapons when the sentry has returned back to the camp and called his people to arms.

I jumped on the horse and prepared to battle - but two heavy armored Cumans preferred to surrender and the only one who attacked me was the unarmed cuman in the caftan.

#20

A single Knight, fully covered in plate, on horseback would kill 8 peasants armed with a pitchfork quite easily. So the 1 vs 8 depends on more variables than sheer numbers.

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