Configurable Dash Modifier (Key/Button)

[Gugi]

Hello All,

Since I got addicted to Exanima combat, although I enjoy it tremendously, some stuff does not seem right to me.

First off let me start with the Dash mode, I believe it would be much preferable to have the dash modifier assigned to a mouse button or a key. Say the middle mouse key, or the right (better yet keybound to player's preference). Thus while I am holding the right mouse button key and moving with WASD my character dashes, if not it walks. I believe this would be much better than double tap or hold options, it is a personal preference of course but I would really like to have this as an option.

Let's get to the other issue

I enjoy that the fights are challanging and mastery takes a long time, and I played the arena mod for countless hours with a lot of success in matches, but my main issue is this:

- You cannot simulate the 3D movement of a sword arm with a 2D mouse

And this causes a lot of weird clunky action in combat. Examples:

- My opponents body is wide open, I thrust to their chain shirt? Why not the open face or the neck?

- I perform a L2R swing, opponent moves towards me, I hit their helmet with the hilt of my sword, 0 damage? Why not cut their arm?

With all the drunken movement, and having these issues makes it so that I intend 20-30 attacks in a match and only about 5 of them lands as intended and gives a satisfactory result. Seriously, sometimes I see an opening and do a swing towards their armor, it lands right on their neck with massive damage, but this is not satisfactory it was just lucky, with all the attention to physics and whatnot the combat is most certainly about 85% random. I think this is a serious issue. If I had suggestions on how to fix it, I would suggest them, yet I do not see how these could be remedied, this makes it such that if you parry, backstep and R2L wing all the time, carefully, you will beat every opponent, eventually your swings will land on something.

I know that some people are going to claim that if you have a perfect understanding of the mechanics, calculate the angular and linear momentum of the characters in your head, watch your opponent and their steps you will not come across these issues, let me tell you upfront that I am not going to believe that. You can analyze your combat after the combat is finished all you want (for making tutorials or explaining how the combat works to someone) but after-analyzing is a whole different matter, did you really sidestep and aimed for their exposed neck, or did it just happen to land on their neck? That is the question.

One last issue:

- Weapon movements are also much slower than how they should be, and their impact on character's balance is way too much (maybe excluding poleaxes and stuff like that).

This issue might be remedied, and I do have a suggestion for it, and it is different, how should I call it, sensitivity regions for different weapons?

What I mean is this, you do not need to twist your body 90 degrees and your sword 180 degrees to hurt someone with a sword, and you do not need to throw your body around when using swords and shields, almost all one handed weapons and balanced two handed weapons can be handled easily and you can be very fast with them. The game treats everything like a massive 25 pound object. The sensitivity could be adjusted that only on really extreme extensions of the mouse thee character attempts these over exaggerated strikes? And weapon speeds could be increased overall?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Roryn]

I can see where you're coming from, but don't worry. I think that your concerns are just about matched by every newer player. Naturally, I thought that combat was a bit drunken when first got I got this game, too, and I'm sure I speak for a lot of other people too. With experience, you'll find the combat becomes remarkably real and fluid.

Your character doesn't necessarily exaggerate any strikes - it depends on your mouse movement, as I'm sure you know, but it also greatly depends on your mouse position when you initiate an attack. A lot of the time, when I want to land quick hits to my opponent, I'll adopt a sort of side-stance with my cursor to the left or right of an enemy. When I do this, W+A/D (and sometimes I'll turn so far that A or D alone makes me move towards the enemy) makes me move directly towards the enemy, rather than just W. This results in an extremely fast attack.

I know you said you wouldn't believe anyone who said that you can learn how to aim angles of attacks, but it's not about in-the-moment calculations. I've learned that if I move, turn, and angle myself in a particular way, and also time my strikes properly (the position of your sword as you're parrying or about to parry can be a large factor), then I'll attack high almost every time. It's about figuring out how to make particular attacks, thereby building a repertoire of your own personalised moves, and executing them when you see fit.

It takes some time getting used to, but every experienced Exanima player plays a different way. The standard [wait for enemy to attack, step in, attack, step out, repeat] sequence is something that everyone learns with before they invent their own styles of fighting. That's when it gets really good.

I won't comment on everything in your list, but one other thing I'll touch on is thrusting attack. You actually can aim for the unexposed neck or head - just hover the cursor over that spot. Thrusting doesn't just automatically go for the chest/stomach - you can aim it anywhere. A lot of people like aiming for the unprotected legs.

 

[Gugi]

I won't comment on everything in your list, but one other thing I'll touch on is thrusting attack. You actually can aim for the unexposed neck or head - just hover the cursor over that spot. Thrusting doesn't just automatically go for the chest/stomach - you can aim it anywhere. A lot of people like aiming for the unprotected legs.

Let me start with this part of your reply. I went into the game and noticed that I can actually adjust the height of my thrust. Thanks for pointing this out.

I can see where you're coming from, but don't worry. I think that your concerns are just about matched by every newer player. Naturally, I thought that combat was a bit drunken when first got I got this game, too, and I'm sure I speak for a lot of other people too. With experience, you'll find the combat becomes remarkably real and fluid.

I am not the most experienced player, but I do not think I would be considered a newer player either, I do not play this game that often, but I gathered enough gold in arena to do the beast in master level, get a couple master hirelings and have a couple of master recruits.

My intention is not to bash the game or mechanics, that is usually the first that is assumed unfortunately. While I am playing the game I do not jump in and try to kill my opponent, I try to engage in many different rank/tier combinations and test out the gameplay.

The major issue with the drunken feeling comes from the discrete steps taken by characters. We can easily state that in reality the amount of reach you have, and the swing area you can cover is continuous within two extrema. All influenced by your arms, shoulders, back, and your choice of step size.

I do not know how this game is being programmed, or how the physics is taken into account, but I do not think it is possible to get it perfect. And not getting it perfect is not an issue, that is reasonable given the limitations.

What I am suggesting here is that maybe, just maybe, there might be some ways that would improve the feeling a little.

Your character doesn't necessarily exaggerate any strikes - it depends on your mouse movement, as I'm sure you know, but it also greatly depends on your mouse position when you initiate an attack. A lot of the time, when I want to land quick hits to my opponent, I'll adopt a sort of side-stance with my cursor to the left or right of an enemy. When I do this, W+A/D (and sometimes I'll turn so far that A or D alone makes me move towards the enemy) makes me move directly towards the enemy, rather than just W. This results in an extremely fast attack.

That little red circle in the game and mouse positioning is used to determine too many factors while fighting. There were other games that tried to give the character choice of attack direction, like Silver, and Mount and Blade. Definitely not as realistic as Exanima, but more fluid, at least attacking mechanics are very clear.

The mouse position determining so many parameters is a little bit of an issue really, R2L swings are defaulted to the mouse click. I died to so many opponents while attempting an L2R attack (LMB + Move Mouse Right, while my character is slightly twisted counterclockwise) which resulted in an awkward R2L attack.

I believe that simple modifiers would greatly alleviate these issues.

I know you said you wouldn't believe anyone who said that you can learn how to aim angles of attacks, but it's not about in-the-moment calculations. I've learned that if I move, turn, and angle myself in a particular way, and also time my strikes properly (the position of your sword as you're parrying or about to parry can be a large factor), then I'll attack high almost every time. It's about figuring out how to make particular attacks, thereby building a repertoire of your own personalised moves, and executing them when you see fit.


It takes some time getting used to, but every experienced Exanima player plays a different way. The standard [wait for enemy to attack, step in, attack, step out, repeat] sequence is something that everyone learns with before they invent their own styles of fighting. That's when it gets really good.

I do not think that I will, because if I have a short ranged weapon in hand, and very close to my opponent there is no way I am going to hit their head with my forearm, which happens so often.

As I mentioned before combat will not be perfect (maybe with VR and wii like controllers it might be much better), and that is normal. But let us not see things that are not there.

My fear is that all this realism is going to go down the drain because, in the end, every player will find certain combinations of movements that work and keep executing them non-stop.