About the parry mechanic:

[Vanguarda]

yeah, im come from M&B where you have to move like a fucker to swing fast. Bad habits =D.

Also the block fails, yes, but taht doesnt mean the Blocking doesnt work. If you make a feint and the AI takes the bait, it will try to make a reaction, but since the reaction comes right before the next blow then it hasnt time to recover to recibe the attack.

Ill try to make a video with my best movez, but that might take time S=.

Do make the video man! Take your time, I find really nice to see how other players deal with the combat mechanics!

I haven't really had some of the problems you described, not to say that they don't exist just that I think it depends on the situations we're in. I've occasionally had parries fail but that was only up against people using polearms, I managed to parry and hit their pole but the head of the polearm is still close enough to whack me some.

In general I find that moving away from an incoming attack isn't always the best move. If you're in a really bad position and don't have time to get away I usually block while moving into their swing. If the block doesn't work it still mitigates the damage somewhat as you intercept the hit before it reached it's full power.

I find the parrry more unreliable when I'm using weapons that has polearms set of animations. The worse one is the animation to parry left-to-right attacks, where the parry animation is your char kinda raising the weapon in a funny angle, and the head of the weapon goes down to his feet. Seriously man try it out, idk how to make that parry animation work, I try to angle my char with the mouse + footwork but that only seems to make things worse.

As I played more, I see now that range is a big thing in parrying. Most of the parryies that work, are against attacks that would hit me with the very tip of the weapon. Also the attack must not be aimed at my body, but at my arms/weapons. This situation is also where the "chamber" technique usually works.

Idk man, in the end I feel like we should have a bit more of control over the parry you know. I want it to be MY fault that a parry didn't work, not the game deciding for me when my parry should work or not. Feels arbitrary sometimes.

 

[MegaFarinato]

The more I play the more I feel like you control your weapon with mostly you feet, which is how it is supposed to be irl. Dance, Vanguarda! DANCE!

What I mean by this is you will turn effectively deflecting/parrying a blow if you step away (glently press the movement buttons in todays gaming standards) from the attack. This will make the inertia of the body of your character stay in the center of gravity, to express it in a more technical ways.

 

[Vanguarda]

I'm gonna try it!

Mate I just found a way to play in slomo: play with a character that has long hair full of physics, against another person with long hair. Seriously my pc can't handle it properly as it is a potato, so physics lag causes the game to go slomotion. Beautiful tbh

Oh man I wish so bad we had a way to put the game in slomotion full time, I feel like the speed of the game hides a bit of its complexity, and slomotion would be ideal to see what is really happening, what are the real effective ways of using the parry mechanic etc.

 

[MegaFarinato]

Arent we specting a way to record ingame? Insiders have the slow-mo as a feature for themselves )=, i wish i was an insider )=

 

[Parco]

Arent we specting a way to record ingame? Insiders have the slow-mo as a feature for themselves )=, i wish i was an insider )=

Madoc is looking into ingame recording, i dont know if its actually planned or just an idea so far. we havent been given a slow mo feature, so we have to slow down the game ourselves.

 

[MegaFarinato]

Madoc is looking into ingame recording, i dont know if its actually planned or just an idea so far. we havent been given a slow mo feature, so we have to slow down the game ourselves.

i might have missread somewhere S=. But recording tools could be great for some really good guides, and entertaining videos.

 

[Vanguarda]

Madoc is looking into ingame recording, i dont know if its actually planned or just an idea so far. we havent been given a slow mo feature, so we have to slow down the game ourselves.

How do you do it Mr. Parco?

 

[Parco]

Cheat engine for example, it got in inbuilt slow/speedup tool

 

[Vanguarda]

Cheat engine for example, it got in inbuilt slow/speedup tool

Thanks a lot Mr. Parco, I'm a noob with these things you know, I'm gonna try it out!

Thanks!

 

[MegaFarinato]

real men dont use slow-mo

 

[MindSliver]

No you can't. If you do it its simply luck, I have done it a few times not only with overheads but with horizontal swings as well. If you play to win, or being as efficient as you can, you won't even use parryies as they are already too unreliable, imagine this chamber thing that is not even intended, its like asking to eat a medieval weapon lol.

The actual game meta is dodge backwards and attack, I haven't found one single tactic that is more efficient then this one. Its the safest way to play in my experience, no matter if you got 1h, 2h sword/mace/hammer or a polearm, just dodge backwards and attack.

Believe it or not, chamber blocking in Exanima is one of my "go-to's" especially against a good strong right->left attack from my opponent. I find that if I face them directly and allow the parry animation to move my sword into the correct position, then just before it connects I start a quick left->right attack I'll beautifully sweep their weapon off to my left side and land a strong hit on the right side of their head before they can react. extremely reliable actually haha. Now to be honest that's with a 2 hand sword. You say you generally fight with polearms and to be honest that may be part of your problem with ripostes. Pole arms are big powerful weapons with lots of range and power... great for smashing. not great for parry/riposte work. I particularly enjoy fighting single sword with no shield and no armor. Parry/riposte is the name of the game and it's quite effective.

Question for you Vanguarda? do you fight with weapons in real life? historical reenactment? fencing or anything like that? because I've been doing it for years and let me tell you... parry's fail all the time in real life XD. A slight miscalculation and your boned. It seems that you are a very experienced gamer, particularly chivalry where you have a very good static (on/off) parry mechanic. Either you hit the parry or you missed the parry. and if you hit the right timing in the right direction you're 100% safe. But that's just not how things work in reality.

In real combat a person that goes into the line of fire expecting to parry and for that alone to keep them safe is going to get owned by anyone that knows how to fight. Controlling your range and not allowing your opponent to attack you in such a way that you MUST parry is absolutely essential to staying alive. In this, Exanima is particularly realistic. Wading into the danger zone without controlling your measure is suicide.

 

[Scully]

But at the end of the day this is a video game, and lowering the chance for completely arbitrary failure that you have no control over should be a goal.

I'd love to see a video on those reliable chamber blocks you're doing, if it's true I'd love to learn it as well.

 

[MindSliver]

But at the end of the day this is a video game, and lowering the chance for completely arbitrary failure that you have no control over should be a goal.

I'd love to see a video on those reliable chamber blocks you're doing, if it's true I'd love to learn it as well.

Don't get me wrong, I've had a few situations where I've seen an attack coming (in Exanima) and done everything I should have done to properly parry and still been mashed in the face. It happens. But I think it's more the exception than the rule. Usually it's the system pointing out that we may not have been in as good a position as we had thought.

I've never seen a more elegant solution to the complex problem of offending and defending with weapons as we have here in Exanima. Though we may be able to make parries slightly more reliable I tend toward not making them 100% reliable. That would actually be less realistic than Exanima is now. Good defense is a combination of obstruction, tempo AND measure and making obstruction an absolute on/off defense would be make the other two meaningless.

I'll make a video for those chamber blocks when I can. I'm having some issues with my video card at the moment so it may have a to wait T.T

 

[Vanguarda]

Using slomotion, what I saw about Chamber blocks is that they only "work" when you are already out of the way. If the attack is on a good range and arc (normal bot swings for example), the windup animation doesnt have enouth power to deflect the attack, neither it provides a "parry" script for your weapon or your character, thus minimal contact with your hands or body will result in damage.

Parrying is reliable, if you and your weapon are completely still and balanced. You must angle with the cursor to help the parry, and must use it with footwork (only small dodges, big dodges fuck parryies) against heavy weapons, so the parry effectivelly works agaisnt them. Gud right? Yeah, but when can you be perfectly still and balanced?

If you attack, miss and try to parry for example, big chance of parry fuckup. Sometimes your weapon is wiggling a bit because of small mouse movements you make and bam, parry doesnt connect.

With polearms, agaisnt right to left attacks, instead of turning left to aid the parry, you must turn right; this makes that the safest posture to parry with a polearm, is to stay with your character turned a bit to the right with the cursor, while facing your opponent. Really counter intunitive if you ask me, also VERY "sensible" parry: minimal movements and it will fail.

So yeah the parry works, but its very hard to make it happen 100% of the time, you can do it though. This causes the Dodge spam we see, because its easier and hás about the same, if not better, effect. Parryies could be a bit easier to perform and ripostes a bit stronger timing wise imo. Or just ripostes to be stronger, because right now the risk is too high for a really low reward. Maybe give some sort of balance boost while riposting, because with dodges, not only you can make big strong as fuck attacks, as they also allow you to be safe while performing it.

If the parry animation could endure harder player movements, it could work better imo. The "iddle" stance while moving could be more stiff, probably would help idk

Also I dont get this argument of "on and off" parry thing you say about chivalry. Here it is exactly the same, either you parry it or take a hit. The problem here is that who control your parry animation is the game, and under some circunstances the game fails it, even you doing things right. Game is too severe on the parry subject imo, as minimal imbalances ir movements already make it fail.

Swords have OP animations tbh, every attack is great, parrying is easier and more intuitive.

 

[Vold]

Playing the upcoming patch (currently available for beta testers), I can tell that the combat has improved a lot (it's much more challenging). So, hang in there, it will be out soon (I have no idea whatsoever related to the release date).

 

[-Tim-]

[...]
If the parry animation could endure harder player movements, it could work better imo. The "iddle" stance while moving could be more stiff, probably would help idk [...]

Very decent analysis. One of the more important changes the next update brings, is more stiffness to the upper body and arms.

 

[Vanguarda]

Thanks you Mr Tim!

Upper body more stiff will probably make things a lot better really. The iddle animation needs to be versatile, as in its a solid ground for attacking or deffending. In my peasant build the iddle animation is too fragile, making parry fails sometimes.

I was thinking here, slomotion is fucking amazing. You can do half-dodges (big or small ones), this adds só much depth to dodging man. I feel like the game is really too fast for the amount of information you have to deal with. I mean its the câmera, to get a nice angle só you can aim properly, the physics of your own body, the attack you are going to do and how you will manipulate its trajectory (left to right swings for example, if you crouch at the right moment, it gets a fuckload of energy and a nice angle), your opponent, etc.

Maybe I'm just slow, but I did things I think its not possible to do reliably in normal speed, like controling half dodges. I feel the skill ceilling would be higher if the combat was somehow slower. Half dodges are amazing, its like you half step in and out to avoid a attack and make your's land beautifully. Feels like you have much more control over everything. Game is complex man.

Maybe the difficulty settings could affect the combat speed, só noobs like me can learn how things work without having to use cheat engine.

 

[MindSliver]

What I mean by on/off parry mechanic is that in games like chivalry, war of the roses and mount and blade, if you see someone attack and perform the appropriate parry you are 100% guaranteed to be safe. I haven't played a huge amount of chivalry but I have put some 900 hours into war of the roses and let me tell you there were guys in there that could stand there without ever moving their feet and parry every single attack, trace every single feint and were just sooo good at hitting those 4 buttons that they basically had an impenetrable field around them. I wasn't as good as all that, but I was good enough that if you didn't have at least 600 hours under your belt it was pretty unlikely you'd hit me. The reason I bring this up is that simplifying the parry mechanic to these four directions and slowing down the game so that it's easier to read (as opposed to real life speed which is far faster than any game) gives a false sense of surety when it comes to parrying. It's unrealistic to think that through the use of your weapon alone you should be able to keep yourself 100% safe.

Not to say there isn't room for improvement, I too would like a little bit more stiffness in the arms and upper body, crisper parry's, different stances. I'm just saying that I do like that things aren't always certain. It's more interesting.

 

[Vanguarda]

What I mean by on/off parry mechanic is that in games like chivalry, war of the roses and mount and blade, if you see someone attack and perform the appropriate parry you are 100% guaranteed to be safe. I haven't played a huge amount of chivalry but I have put some 900 hours into war of the roses and let me tell you there were guys in there that could stand there without ever moving their feet and parry every single attack, trace every single feint and were just sooo good at hitting those 4 buttons that they basically had an impenetrable field around them. I wasn't as good as all that, but I was good enough that if you didn't have at least 600 hours under your belt it was pretty unlikely you'd hit me. The reason I bring this up is that simplifying the parry mechanic to these four directions and slowing down the game so that it's easier to read (as opposed to real life speed which is far faster than any game) gives a false sense of surety when it comes to parrying. It's unrealistic to think that through the use of your weapon alone you should be able to keep yourself 100% safe.

Not to say there isn't room for improvement, I too would like a little bit more stiffness in the arms and upper body, crisper parry's, different stances. I'm just saying that I do like that things aren't always certain. It's more interesting.

Well at least in my experience, it is kinda 100% sure you will parry a attack in exanima, as long as your balance is ok and you use the mouse to help the parry animation save you, and the game is in slomo só you can really control the wiggling idle stance.

Also if you just parry in chiv you are dead, you must use footwork and timing as well to make it 100% and even só it will never be 100%. Feints fuck with parryies big time, also swing manipulation. If you think about it, exanima is just like this as well, you must use footwork to make the parry stronger, swing manipulation and timing can fuck with parryies. Also exanima adds the balance factor.

The problem is: in exanima, using footwork alone can be more effective, rewarding and much more safe then parrying and riposting. Its better to step out of attacks at the right timing while attacking, then parrying a attack and create opportunities from there. As I said up there, dodging can boost your attack speed, strengh and angle while keeping you safe. Parry is much more situational compared to backward Dodge, and ripostes are weak and easily parryied by bots.

 

[MindSliver]

I think I'm still just a little lost on the argument you're making XD

You complain about dodging being more effective than parrying... well... yeah!

In fencing (historical not modern) we always say your best defense is distance. Why on earth would I want to parry if I can just step outside of the attack range and counter attack. Parrying is dangerous and to be used when your opponent was able to overtake you despite your efforts to step out or to the side. I'm sorry but it just seems like you really really really want to parry more and dodge less, which is kind of inverse of reality.