In Exanima riposte gives you about half a second timing advantage. This is quite a small window, if you wait to see what happened before reacting you've likely missed it entirely, you need to act predictively. It's not a guaranteed win, it's a timing advantage that may be circumstantially useful. You're unlikely to riposte a longsword wielder with a maul, for example, the longsword wielder naturally has a huge speed advantage.
In the expert arena you have some skilled opponents with well balanced weapons, gaining a clear timing advantage over them won't be easy. You will need different tacticts against different ones. Being cornered by someone with a heater shield and an arming sword is something you want to avoid, not something with an obvious solution.
Fair points Mr. Madoc, I have no objections in this matter and fully understand the design behind this idea, makes sense and its cool because it forces you to use different strategies agaisnt different opponents. And you are doing a amazing job in this, as it feels really different to fight a shield person and then fighting a spear, or halberd guy. Even fighting 1h sword, then fighting 1h hammer/blunt weapon feels different and you must adapt!
Also, in your posts you seem more focused on the parry's inability to stop the weapon than it failing to intercept it completely. While we rely on actual collisions to determine whether a parry is successful, if the weapon retains enough force to push the parry aside or slide off it and connect, it is still counted as a parry and does no damage. This is the artificial mechanic I was referring to. You'll still hear collisions against armour or the body, but it doesn't cause damage and counts as a parry.
Yes! Thats part of my point, parrying doesn't stop the opponent's weapon, especially if it is some sort of sword. Axes usually are pretty damn hard to parry because the axe head seems to hit you in the arms/chest more often then not. Also axe overheads when you are using a polearm are a nightmare fuel, because they don't really stop the weapon and usually something really gruesome happens to your face.
In the upcoming update parries more reliably intercept attacks, and are also better at stopping their momentum. There are also other changes, such as a more pronounced difference in the effects of weapon balance and weight in parrying. This will likely all need some tweaking, but the fundamental way things work won't change.
This makes me real happy man, that's the best way to "fix" parryies imo, making them intercept attacks more reliably and better at stopping momentum. My first suggestion, about parryies redirecting attacks, was to help in the momentum problem!
I would also note that parrying does not work like in Chivalry where you aim at the opponent's weapon or any particular direction, there isn't a way to trigger it beyond getting you weapon or shield in the way of theirs. In most cases facing you opponent head on works best, but the exact positioning that works depends on various circumstantial factors and notably what weapons are involved.
In my experience Mr. Madoc, the way to make parryies work best is to kinda manipulate their animation with the mouse, creating some force behind the parry animation while it is active, so you kinda stop their momentum and redirect a bit the attack. Its goddamn hard to pull of correctly in my opinion, because you have to consider the timing of the parry animation, the timing of the attack + the mouse movement you must do. You know thee animation polearms do when deffending from a right-to-left attack? You can "hook" that animation on people's neck and throw them on the ground lmao, I can't reliably do it though, still need to git gud but it seems possible.
Have in mind Mr. Madoc, that I mostly (only) play with polearms, so all I say about parry animations and these things are mostly related to polearms.
What do you think about this thing, of manipulating the parry animation using the mouse? You told me that the most effective way is to look straight to your opponent, but what if we, the players, could make parrying better by manipulating the animation with mouse movement? In polearms seems quite possible, maybe if it was easier to do it you know, like a animation that allows easier manipulation, or just more "weight" or strength in said animation, it could add depth to the game! As you would be able to react to a attack by manipulating the parry animation! So it would have the same thing attacks has right now: if you time it right and make the right movement with the mouse and footwork, you make a strong as fuck attack that hits like a truck. If you timed the parry right and made the right movement with the mouse + footwork, you could throw your opponent offbalance, giving you a big opportunity to attack him with a well landed riposte! This way a maul man could use ripostes agaisnt 2h sword guy, IF he is skilled enough in manipulating the parry animation!
The problem here would be stabs and overheads I guess. But then, going back to my first suggestion, if the animation to parry a stab or overhead was a generic swap like animation, that the player would have to adjust using mouse movement and footwork to make it really effective, it could work I guess. But then, technical limitations and what not right, wish I understood this thing better tbh, probably I wouldn't waste your time with this shit lol. I'm sorry man
Ultimately this is a game that you can't learn by memorising patterns and mechanics, it's something that just takes practice and muscle memory, you'll be good at something when you stop realising you're even doing it. Everyone learns to play differently, and excel with different weapons and tactics.
Yes Chivalry is also like this Mr. Madoc, there is no magic recipy for victory, you must master the mechanics to the point you don't think on what you are doing, people take about 300h to do that in Chiv, but have mastered the mechanics doesn't mean you are a good player, as you must learn how to outplay people, and tbh this is the hardes part. Depending on your opponent, you need more then 1k hours of experience under your belt to say "yes, I can beat this guy".
In Chiv we have a nice mix between reactive and predictive gameplay. Both happen at the same time, you are always predicting and reacting to things, thats how you outplay someone. I feel like the deffensive reactive part in Exanima is limitated, as most of your deffensive reactions will be backward dodges.
)
