Hi, I am a seasoned player from the mount and musket era of mount and blade, and I really loved the classic fighting style of the game. I'm not just a nobody, I recently won a 1v1 NA duel tournament
for the Best Duelist in North America.
Therefore, I know what I am talking about. <--- scrub idiot
http://captiongenerator.com/5110/Havoc-Rages-About-the-PatchAnyways, when NW first came out, it had a great, if not better combat system than Mount and Musket. However, with successive patches, the combat was altered in a way that made the game very broken and abusable in mine and many others' opinions. The first patch came out a long time ago and I can't exactly remember all that it changed, but I do remember the immense rage that ensued from the older playerbase. It seemed that, in general, the combat was slowed down, blocking was made easier, and feinting was made extremely slow. Further patches led us to the current state of melee in NW and here is a list of "game-breakers" that I have compiled.
Note: if any developer would like me to show the following tactics ingame just message me on steam: Havoc
I have the avatar showing Rondell Sheridan, the black guy1. Block Stuns: Originally this was a random occurrence where a player would up-stab another player who then blocked it. Then, the first player would be frozen and unable to block a down-stab attack. Eventually, a few players (myself included) were able to replicate this attack over and over again until players learned to "autoblock" downwards after using an up-stab. However, this glitch still occurs to those who suffer from poor ping. Another countermeasure to this attack was chambering the other players down-stab after being stunned, but this tactic is only usable by players with good ping, or if the other player was far enough away for the stunned player to have time to be unstunned. This is still probably one of the most annoying inherent issues with NW because it slows combat down tremendously.
2. Uncounterable Chambers: I would like to point out that I find this the most annoying because I can never do it; people always manage to block or chamber me but I ALWAYS get uncounterable chambered. It completely has to do with ping. Anyone who has had experience with chambers knows that it is possible to counter chambers with good timing. In the past this was true, but now there is a way to cause uncounterable and usually unblockable chambers. This is generally an unknown tactic, and it is also very hard to master. I won't go into how to do it, but what happens is when your attack gets chambered by a player in a certain way, the attack in uncounterable unless the player uses a combination of
split-second timing and there being a distance between the two players to allow for the first player to be unstunned. This stun is generally used against the up-stab, but can be used against the down-stab with a little less success, but at a very close range, but not close enough to glance, the down-stun-chambered can be completely unblockable.
3. Glances: I understand that glances are realistic in close quarters when a player butts the side of his musket against another, but when you stab a player from a long to medium distance in the head with your bayonet, I believe the other player should take some damage... Therefore, I would really like to see the true range of the bayonet re-calibrated because in an intense duel a glance can be all it takes to end another players life, despite the fact that they may be spamming the right-click button in an attempt to block, but nothing happens.
4. Ghost Reach: The previous topic leads me directly into this topic, because it relates to the ambiguous range of bayonets. Ghost reach occurs when a player is hit by another player's bayonet when, visually, the bayonet should not have reached that far. This can easily be replicated by maneuvering the bayonet, but I will not describe it here.
5. Kicking: Kicking in NW is way slower, and way more inaccurate than kicking in Native. I believe if kicking was a little more faster and precise, then there would be a whole new level of skill to melee in NW. What I want to see from kicking is kicks that are faster and more precisely calibrated to where you intended to kick (hard to explain but its buggy). However, by more precise I do not mean that I want kicks to hit people when the shouldn't have visually.
6. Speed Stabbing: The only problem with momentum and spinning causing attacks to be faster (which i believe to be an important tactic) is when lag causes the animation for the attack to be skipped, making it very hard to block in time or otherwise tricking the player into believing that they will be able to beat the other player in timing because they haven't even pulled their musket back yet.
7. Wobble Stabs (XX Stabs): This is a definite glitch caused by tapping the "X" button twice while holding a stab and then moving the mouse in a direction to cause the frames to skip and your stab to immediately change direction with no for you the player to detect where the stab will go. Although the player can tell when another player is wobble stabbing by the telltale wobble of the musket, they can not determine if they will stab in a different direction or the same direction, and if they stab in a different direction they must have blocked way beforehand to block the attack. If they choose wrong, then they will not be able to block that either.
8. Stabbing stuns: Rarely occurs when a player is stabbed by another player who then attacks the first player again using a speed stab that the first player is unable to block. This can also be related to groupfighting where a player is stunned after being stabbed and is unable to block a secondary attack from a 2nd attacker. This also occurs when the player is stunned after making a successful block, but cannot simply move the bayonet up a few inches to block a second attack. I believe if a player could block based on his active timing, without being annoyingly stunned), then the game would be far more intense, quick, and skill based. Right now, players win groupfights by spamming another player in different directions. Obviously it is a different story if the 2 attackers attack in different directions at the same time. I just believe that the way too long 1 second stun should be lowered dramatically to allow for faster, realistic combat.
9. Spamming = Teamkills: https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=6190.new#new10. Bad hitboxes: This happens when one teammate stabs an enemy causing a stun stab. You can tell it is a stun stab because the players hitbox lags and if a second player attacks directly afterwards then their bayonet will go right through them. You can only hit this person if you wait the same amount of time as if you were the first player stabbing again to kill after stun stabbing someone.
11. Backwards blocking: You stab some in the back and they block even though they are seen facing the other way
12. Getting blocked by a person behind you when you aren't even facing them: Self-explanatory
That's the end of my current list. I realize that many who used to share my own sentiments now call me a crybaby, rage-quitter, and whiner, but I truly believe that this game could be way better than it is if the combat system was restored back to its old state. If not, then I can only hope to bolster support for old-school melee servers.
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