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TorakFade posted:GOTY for all years
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Sep 13, 2017 08:50
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OK got a few minutes of play in, and as expected, I let my team down by managing to die all the time and not killing anybody. But the game is, so far and considering it's the very first alpha build, everything I hoped for. The Chivalry 2.0 vibe is strong, and it looks really difficult if not impossible to pull off exploits and shenanigans. The game is both slower and faster than I imagined, you move at what seems to be a snail's pace even with no armor, but you die quick since strikes are fast (relative to weapon of course) and lethal: I've been oneshotted A LOT. That might be me sucking or the people currently playing being sperglords with 2000 hours in chivalry, or both. The fact that it's deathmatch / team deathmatch / skirmish only for the moment doesn't help the newbies of course, you get ganged up on easily if you're not careful. It will take a long time to get used to all the different kinds of weapons and their quirks. the 240° system is clever but a bit complicated to execute in the middle of a frantic melee, especially with a joypad (I know I know), and that might be the joypad's fault too but turning speed feels very slow; I probably have to fiddle with the settings, try out the "fixed attacks" mode and/or give up gaming on the couch in favour of M+K on my desk. On the technical side of things, an AMD FX6300 @3.9Ghz + 8GB ram + HD7870XT runs the game pretty fine at high settings (actually the game pre-set my graphics to ultra but it wasn't smooth enough for my liking), so any computer bought in the last 3-4 years should do the trick, especially after future optimizations. It's pretty clear that the game is not in a final form at all, but the experience is there and besides some tiny graphical glitches, everything looks and feels good. I've definitely seen released games less polished than this alpha... The thing I'm missing most is more game modes (which devs confirmed will be added sometime during alpha). Deathmatch is fun but only takes you so far, something with proper objectives, or progression, or even just some kind of duel mode would go a long way towards keeping you hooked. Am I gaudy-looking enough? For sure I won't need a helmet because I have one made of HAIR AND BEARD  also, this loading screen has a Monty Python quote 
TorakFade fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 13, 2017 |
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Sep 13, 2017 19:10
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TorakFade posted:OK got a few minutes of play in, and as expected, I let my team down by managing to die all the time and not killing anybody. But the game is, so far and considering it's the very first alpha build, everything I hoped for. The Chivalry 2.0 vibe is strong, and it looks really difficult if not impossible to pull off exploits and shenanigans. So, is this finally the melee-based game that fixes whirling death tornados and aiming at the floor to get around shields?
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Sep 13, 2017 19:26
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Shima Honnou posted:So, is this finally the melee-based game that fixes whirling death tornados and aiming at the floor to get around shields? Based on my very limited experience with both this game and melee games in general, it would seem so, except that actually aiming around/above/below your opponent's parry or shield is a legitimate tactic: to parry succesfully you have to roughly "aim" at the enemy's weapon tip, so you're going to want to try and outmaneuver your opponent to get some strikes in. If this is open to exploiting, I have no idea, I literally played just 15 minutes.
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Sep 13, 2017 19:37
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This game really hates shields or being a beefy knight in general so far  Spawn into the middle of a melee, whoops better bring you shield out-oh too late. Switch to a backup one handed weapon to throw a dagger or axe,-oooh whoops the act of throwing it unequipped your shield, and hammering your keyboard to bring literally anything up to defend yourself won't save you even though you nailed the other guy right in the face with your throw (I've had a whole sword sticking out of my face before, after all). Maybe you can shield bash-oh whoops, it's not letting me bash OR kick with my shield up? Hope it's a bug, and not intentional. Get into a block/parry match where you keep bashing your mace into a guy's sword while he keeps bopping your giant kite shield with his big fuckoff sword-oh whoops he just knocked your huge kite shield out of your hands while you still had over 1/4 stamina. Looks like swords can block more attacks than shields, on top of as usual being able to recover and parry after bouncing off your shield anyway. Throw in how sprinting may as well not exist unless you are half naked with your weapon of choice (even 'all light armor' feels sluggish), and I'm hoping this is just "very early alpha" issues while it feels like slower Chivalry except I can't have fun being a knight anymore. But I'm still seeing whoever can curl their swings and overhands around to hit your shoulders best wins, even if there is nobody trying to helicopter my ankles off. EDIT: It can't be overstated how much 'no true helicopters' matters. Things are certainly in a better spot than I expected even for an early alpha making sure the game doesn't explode rather than delve into the screaming match that is 'PvP balance'. But it is already gravitating towards the old standard of whoever can aim for the top/back dude's shoulders best while people insult eachother over the feint button even in the 90 minutes I've played so far. Section Z fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Sep 13, 2017 |
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Sep 13, 2017 20:26
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For anyone just starting I'd suggest playing a few matches on Local Play (against bots) to get the hang of the combat. That said, the bots are actually not that bad. I only managed to win by the second match: Note how there are three bots named Ivar the Boneless, they might need to increase the number of bot names a bit. I'm getting a better feel for the movement and animations, but I'm still struggling with 240. It's so drat hard to reliably get off an overhead during combat. I always end up doing something completely different. I do think it's going to be amazing when I finally get the hang of it. In terms of stability, I'm going to echo TorakFade and say that it's very impressive for the very first alpha build. I've had no crashes and no glitches to speak of, except maybe these two bots locked into an eternal stand-off: 
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Sep 13, 2017 20:50
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Phlegmish posted:For anyone just starting I'd suggest playing a few matches on Local Play (against bots) to get the hang of the combat. That said, the bots are actually not that bad. I only managed to win by the second match Oh, there are bots?  well that would surely be easier to cut my teeth on, rather than going against the general public which right now is 90% Chiv veterans who kill me VERY dead within 3 seconds.Joking aside, while I've been totally ineffective, I could feel that I was getting wasted because of my utter lack of skill - and maybe some lack of weapon balance, guys with zweihanders and greatswords seemed to dominate the K/D charts in the server I was in - and not because of something wonky with the game mechanics. Phlegmish posted:I'm getting a better feel for the movement and animations, but I'm still struggling with 240. It's so drat hard to reliably get off an overhead during combat. I always end up doing something completely different. I do think it's going to be amazing when I finally get the hang of it. From what I've seen, the buffer that records your movement and decides the strike direction is only active before clicking and gets cleared insanely fast, so if you click before flicking you'll get the standard right-to-left swing, and the same if you click just a tiny bit too late after flicking. I'm guessing either we're all too new at this to get consistent results (but the same complaint is echoed repeatedly on the official forum) or this is one of the first things they'll balance because being able to consistently execute the attack you wanted to do is a pretty basic thing. Also the 240° attack is kind of misleading, from repeated tries I only managed to get 7 directions of attack: low-to-high, side, high-to-low from either direction plus the stab (why is the stab bound to a separate button?). Never managed to get a straight overhead downward swing, not sure if it's not in game or if I'm just not pulling up straight enough. It's amazing nonetheless and gives far more freedom than Chiv or M&B with the ability to morph attacks, feint, chamber etc. Phlegmish posted:In terms of stability, I'm going to echo TorakFade and say that it's very impressive for the very first alpha build. Yeah if everything proceeds smoothly I can see them actually launching as intended in (or around) March 2018, 6 months of testing and polishing should be enough to get it out to the masses! Edit: some guy on the official forum tested walking/running speed for the various armors: quote:For these tests I walked or sprinted for one side of Contraband to the other, same spot every time just in case. Here are my results in seconds: according to this, assuming you go all in with a single type without mixing it up, there's literally no reason to go with no armor instead of light since the difference is barely half a second, and the extra speed of medium instead of heavy doesn't look that hot too. I'd like more pronounced differences in speed to further differentiate the "classes" (light armor being 3-5 seconds faster to cross a whole map than heavy doesn't really make up for getting oneshotted by almost any powerful weapon, since the extra speed doesn't make dodging significantly easier), but that will probably come with balancing passes. Someone also claims that armor affects turn rate, which would explain why I felt like I was submerged in a vat of molasses when I was trying to turn around with a heavy armored knight. For sure weapon type affects the turncap, heavy/big weapons make you turn slower, confirmed by a dev. TorakFade fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Sep 13, 2017 |
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Sep 13, 2017 21:10
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Is that weapon creation system in the alpha or not yet? If it is, what kinda hijinks can it get up to? I love me some sabers and scimitars and poo poo.
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Sep 13, 2017 22:52
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TorakFade posted:From what I've seen, the buffer that records your movement and decides the strike direction is only active before clicking and gets cleared insanely fast, so if you click before flicking you'll get the standard right-to-left swing, and the same if you click just a tiny bit too late after flicking. I'm guessing either we're all too new at this to get consistent results (but the same complaint is echoed repeatedly on the official forum) or this is one of the first things they'll balance because being able to consistently execute the attack you wanted to do is a pretty basic thing.  Given the controls menu and the loading screen tips that "if you are having trouble, bind a button to a swing type!" I don't think there is anything but left vs right skewed attacks. Even the default bound thrust is "Right thrust". From a design standpoint I can understand the goal for such. Try and cut down on noscope near perfectly vertical headshot swings ala Chiv. Though that's only an issue for normal sized weapons. Hand somebody a zweihander or polearm and raw size means wiffing a top of the dome head splitter isn't much of a problem because your swing is ever so slightly skewed to the left or right. As for more fiddly bits of the system. The fact R will "Shift your grip" on stuff you cant throw would probably see more usage if it didn't pause your stamina regen, even if so far it doesn't seem to be making much difference in the few things I've tried it with yet. "Okay, if I hit R with the battle axe, I'll grab it directly under the head so I have... worse range, so small I wonder if I'm imagining it speed difference, but hey it only takes 15 stamina instead of 18 stamina to swing right?" Though it's an interesting idea beyond "One hand or two hand toggle", if one I get the feeling may get the same reception as the feint button because it plays against robotic memorized MLG reflexes. Certainly more straightforward with stuff like the Warhammer though "Flip it, now you hit with the pointy side!" which is always fun regardless of damage type rock paper scissors. EDIT: You flip your longsword upside down and use the blade as the handle to beat people with the handle  Shame grip modes don't carry over if you switch between weapons though."Okay, so Bastard sword is 'switch to two handed', but only if the shield is put away. What happens if I pull out my shield while it's in two handed mode-oh it stows your weapon, of course it does" Section Z fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 02:27
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Section Z posted:EDIT: You flip your longsword upside down and use the blade as the handle to beat people with the handle
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Sep 14, 2017 08:32
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Nordick posted:Trivia: This is the so-called "Mordhau grip" the game is named after, and is an actual historical thing. Your sword can become a mace? 
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Sep 14, 2017 08:49
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Can you throw your pommel yet?
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Sep 14, 2017 08:51
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But can you end him rightly?
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Sep 14, 2017 08:51
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Nordick posted:Trivia: This is the so-called "Mordhau grip" the game is named after, and is an actual historical thing. Ayup. Swords weren't all that useful against armour, so you had to get pretty creative. Another option was grabbing your sword high along the blade and using it like a short spear to target weak spots like the joints in the armour:  I'd really like to see the numbers behind the weapon stances. Would be neat if half-swording with the zweihänder or axe gave you extra damage to thrusts or something to simulate that. Also, they just dropped a tutorial video on their youtube channel. Just covers the very basics, but might still be helpful. I wasn't aware that "morphing" was a thing, for example, which might come in handy against chamber-happy opponents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZrnLPnWcpc
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Sep 14, 2017 09:03
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Swordfighting in 14th century Europe wasn't the hack & slash style of combat you see in most movies and video games. Plate had advanced to the point where a well-armored soldier could deflect blows from even a very sharp blade. The swords of the period were precision tools designed to stab opponents in between the joints of their armor, and it was commonplace to grip them relatively high up on the blade for more precise attacks. Conversely if you wanted to crush an opponent's armor, you'd want to use the bluntest and heaviest part of the weapon, that in many cases being the pommels themselves which were designed for this exact purpose. Carefully poking dudes is admittedly way less cool than big dramatic decapitating swings however, so some artistic liberties must be taken.
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Sep 14, 2017 12:31
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Video about half-swording, including demonstrations with a sharp blade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwuQPfvSSlo
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Sep 14, 2017 14:02
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exquisite tea posted:Swordfighting in 14th century Europe wasn't the hack & slash style of combat you see in most movies and video games. Plate had advanced to the point where a well-armored soldier could deflect blows from even a very sharp blade. The swords of the period were precision tools designed to stab opponents in between the joints of their armor, and it was commonplace to grip them relatively high up on the blade for more precise attacks. Conversely if you wanted to crush an opponent's armor, you'd want to use the bluntest and heaviest part of the weapon, that in many cases being the pommels themselves which were designed for this exact purpose. Carefully poking dudes is admittedly way less cool than big dramatic decapitating swings however, so some artistic liberties must be taken. Yeah, the devs outright said that while they like realistic medieval combat and draw inspiration from it, they're absolutely willing to compromise in that regard for smoother and more fun gameplay. Good thing, too, as otherwise everybody would be running about in full plate armour and nobody would bother to bring swords. Speaking of the devs, have they made any more recent announcements w/r/t the beta and being able to buy into it? The last I heard on the topic was just that they planned to have a beta at some point early 2018 running until release, but no Steam Early Access and being unsure about opening up orders again before release. Because at this point I'm absolutely sold enough to take the plunge at the next opportunity. Perestroika fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 18:06
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Perestroika posted:The last I heard on the topic was just that they planned to have a beta at some point early 2018 running until release, but no Steam Early Access and being unsure about opening up orders again before release. Because at this point I'm absolutely sold enough to take the plunge at the next opportunity. AFAIK that's the last anybody heard. I guess they'll be concentrating in fixing the first few bugs and steadily churning out new versions to test more and more stuff so beta won't be high priority for a while... I just played some more and the game is tons of fun even in this state. As said I'm not particularly good, and the 240 system results in me mostly doing random strikes, but that seems to catch opponents somewhat off guard at times I have yet to try the fixed binds, I think that would be MUCH easier to get off during a frantic battle. Was thinking of LMB=right side strike, scroll up=right overhead, scroll down=strike from below, mouse thumb buttons 1 and 2 = stab and invert attacks to come frome the left respectively.In team games I surely don't shine, even if I'm starting to get the hang of it and racked a few assists and even a bunch of kills, but in deathmatch ... I almost won one game (even if with a K:D ratio of 27:26 or something like that deathmatch games get won by the first to get 30 kills by default) by getting into the swing of the zweihander, literally: swinging it right to left to top right to low left, and on and on and on.... and you just chop everything in half. I had a kill streak of 5 kills which left me feeling like a total badass, the *chop* sound when you hit someone is epic and with a zweihander you can cleave people's chests in twain diagonally leaving giant pools of blood  I'm really bad at dodging but I was using heavy armor so that might have something to do with it. Also I'm very bad at aiming stabs, even with my mouse set to lowest DPI (which is almost unbearable in windows, 500dpi) I tend to get jumpy and "twitch" the camera too much, that also happens when I get scared and try to block / turn towards an unexpected enemy. It's probably to do with some in-game sensitivity settings because even at such low DPI I found I could swing around easily 180° without having to move the mouse too much. I couldn't chamber a single attack except by sheer luck, but hey. So. Much. FUN. I really hope they keep pushing on, make this even better and get beta/the game out ASAP, and I can say I'm glad I gave them 60$ to see this game get made 
TorakFade fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 20:40
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Third changelog is out: I'm really surprised at how fast these bug fixes are coming in, I didn't even get the chance to screencap the second changelog. Just in case anyone else is using an azerty keyboard, there was also a post from marox saying they're looking to fix that particular problem by making the emote commands rebindable. I can personally attest to bots being afraid of heights:  I also got a nice decapitation:  I'm starting to get the hang of 240, I have a reasonable chance of succeeding when I try to do an overhead now. One thing I find a little worrying is how high average skill levels are. It's amazing how good some players already are, after just a few days. In combination with the non-standard combat, I can see this turning off a lot of new players come release.
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Sep 15, 2017 21:30
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Phlegmish posted:Third changelog is out  3 builds in 3 days, that's really impressive. -Netcode improvements all across the board due to much more accurate lag compensation -Mouse directional angling is now more accurate and does not reset to LMB on its own after a short window these changes in particular look pretty huge (assuming they work as intended, but I have no reason to doubt it) quote:I'm starting to get the hang of 240, I have a reasonable chance of succeeding when I try to do an overhead now. One thing I find a little worrying is how high average skill levels are. It's amazing how good some players already are, after just a few days. In combination with the non-standard combat, I can see this turning off a lot of new players come release. Well it was to be expected, many of those who shelled out for alpha are Chivalry veterans and the skill curve will feel much gentler to them, someone who played a melee slasher for 2000 hours will readily adapt to a new, better melee slasher I'd guess. I'm concerned about the turning off of new players too, but come release there should be a competent matchmaking engine and even assuming everything is reset at start, veterans will quickly skyrocket to the top of the charts and newbies will be in much more even matches. Also sometimes it's good to get crushed, it's a big learning experience if it doesn't happen literally all the time. Speaking of which - I really, really need to git gud, and going against the current crop of really good players in random servers isn't helping much since they seem to have a huge bloodlust and just murder me repeatedly without me understanding why or what should I do differently. I mean of course I'm still learning, but kind of slowly... I could go against bots but it's kinda boring already (not because they're bad, actually they're around my "comfortable" skill level and I had plenty of fun in a local game, but you can -see- they're fake and you'll probably pick up bad habits). Are there "training" servers where people can show you the ropes instead of just beheading you repeatedly and laughing?
TorakFade fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Sep 15, 2017 |
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Sep 15, 2017 21:59
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