Combat suggestions

[ezazenyem]

Exanima, combat. Can you remember the moment when your weapon hits the enemy on the head striking him down to the ground, causing him agonizing pain and your next, perfectly executed hit on the head sends him to the arms of the eternal abyss... (or the very opposite, when you are not careful enough...)

I think due to the great physical system, the combat is the most spectacular, satisfying and unique feature of the game although it is far from perfection.

The combat system reminds me of the Chivalry Medieval Warfare gameplay, simple weapon movements in an environment where you can vary them in an infinite number of ways. I’m sure with some additional tweaks Examina’s combat system can became an all time classic.


A huge amount of threads born from very creative people about the combat and combat system with very viable suggestions, but please let me share my thoughts as a casual rpg player, purely from gameplay perspective. I tried to read as much as I can to avoid repeating others or at least to notice others suggestions. I did my best, if somebody finds his idea below without notice, maybe I didn’t read his/her thread or just forgot to give the credit...
I’m also aware of the fact that it is much easier said than done but we have nothing else to do anyway rather than suggest, talk, argue over the game. (and as you may see by now English is not my native language, so please forgive me if I’m making lots of mistakes)


I’ve made up five points:

- Movement

- Combat skills

- Weapon related skills

- Endurance

- Controls

Movement

In my opinion the character movement is still unwieldy because the body is limited to your steps. It is hard to describe, but I’m sure everybody who played the game knows what I’m talking about. This makes the combat movement lumpish, sometimes unpredictable. It is hard to get the best distance between you and your target even if you are hitting practice doll (at least for me...)

This should be improved to make the characters stride more fluid and the combat more wieldy.

I think this could be improved easily by shorten and speed up the steps (maybe with a passive skill), so the character will be faster, and easier to handle in combat.


Combat skills

The game already has combat skills but I think they should be expanded. Kicking, shield-bashing/weapon-bashing (to push away enemies from very close).

Quick-throwing throwing weapons like knifes, stones, axes, smoke grenades, etc. (previously put them on character in the inventory).

Rolling, backsteping (back-jump) during the combat would offer a lot of other possibilities. Those could make the lighter armors a more viable options, offering defence in speed and dodge.
And thanks for the physical engine, imagine a light armored-dodgy enemy fall off in a chair while stepping back... offering a himself to be viciously murdered.

Roll away and block while laying on the ground (also suggested by zhuliks and Iscander) to avoid the previous situation...

Other fun game mechanism could be the „furniture throwing” in combat. Within a small circle around the character the items could be picked up using the cursor and a button and then could be thrown in the direction of the cursor with a limited amount of force. Again, imagine tipping off a charging enemy with a chair thrown in front of his legs...
Mechanism similar to this exists already, but quite hard to perform it in a combat situation (even with "combat use").

I think, those combat skills could make strategies where the actual surroundings are more essential than ever making the physical engine even more important.


Weapon related skills

I named it skills but can be „grips” as well. My point is that every weapon should have at least two different mode to fight. For example a two handed sword could have an alternative mode, like half-swording, griping the blade and use the sword similar as a smaller polearm, using the pommel and cross-guard for blunt attacks and offering a quicker and more precise thrust.

Or a polearm hold in a different way (like Bullethead suggested), or (when we will have) missile weapons have a (emergency) close combat strike to fend off enemies.

The list could go on for several pages for dual wielding, one handed weapons, etc. but I think you got the idea.

I would also like to see skills making the strikes a bit faster (and a bit more powerful) making fighters and fights a bit different, even with the same weapons.

Endurance

I think the game should do something with fatigue. Running around in heavy armor (which also limits the breathing capability and can overheat the wearer) and swinging a huge sword, parrying should make our character winded. The system similar in the Dark Souls series could be used here. I mean an other colored bar representing the character’s fatigue. Every action in combat would drain it and the character’s encumber determines how fast it refills.

I know the encumber system is not planned, but maybe just for the worn equipment it would apply (again, similar in Dark Souls series).

This would make the players think and teaches them to save their breath during a fighting also making lighter armor more viable choice.

(Maybe the character’s physical state should also improve while adventuring as a result of contiguous training)


Controls

A lot of suggestions about the combat system fails on the controls, how to implement it in the game without making it unplayable.

Here is my version of combat controls:

W-A-S-D - movement

Q - kick

E – pick up environment items (LMB to throw) /use throwing items (like throwing knifes/axes/smoke grenades/etc.)

SPACE – backstep/backjump (left alt -align camera)

F – changing weapon grip/mods


Mouse:
As far as I know the direction of the attack depends which side of the character the cursor is, when performing an attack. My problem with it, I find it quite hard to execute when you are actually fighting with somebody.I don’t know if it is an issue to somebody else too...

I have two suggestion to solve this problem:

First, put slash from left to LMB and right to RMB (although RMB to movement is seems handy but maybe putting it on SHIFT button, when pushed, start running toward the cursor would do the trick as well).

Second, having a faint „T” or „I” shape indicator in front of the character showing us, which side is the cursor actually is highlighting a bit the current one making the strikes more predictable. Quite similar that Satorii suggested. This indicator would also help us determine the impact of an overslash attack, as well as a thrust attack.

I think, the overslash attack would be more appropriate on MMB Scroll-down and thrust (when it will arrives) on MMB Scroll-up. (like in Chivalry Medieval Warfare). Personally I don’t use zooming in battle and I think it would be good at „+” and „-”.

Orbiting the camera with MMB is very useful, especially when the camera is twisting up at the walls.

Personally I find this scheme satisfactory but please tell what do you think!

So, to summarize my thoughts, implement historically accurate movements, duels and general combat seem quite impossible and maybe result unplayable game mechanisms. I only talked about 1vs1, didn’t involve NPCs, team tactics (both NPC and enemy) or mounted combat but I think, these are the essential game mechanics in Exanima.

Making more different moves to all weapons and more movement options in combat would expand the whole fighting experience without making fights less predictable, more challenging and anything but boring without making the controls too difficult.

I’m really curious what do you guys think!

 

[Bullethead]

You obviously put a lot of thought into this post so I will try to reply in kind.

First off, I've read where in SG you will be able to double-tap the WASD keys. This will allow for various dodges and lunges which can be combined with the mouse-based turning and attacking (or not) to create a wide variety of ad hoc moves. I suspect that this feature might end up in Exanima for testing at some point. But anyway, it's likely that this system will cover most of the points you raised in terms of moving and dodging.

I agree with you on having a key to change stance/grip/style for certain weapons. We'd thus have 3 general sets of attack animations instead of 2: 2-handed baseball swing (existing), 1-handed tennis swing (existing), and 2-handed quarterstaff swing (new). And 2 special attacks: overhead chop (existing) and stab (already planned for SG, might see it in Ex at some point). But some weapons can only be used 1 way.

I don't know so much about having to change the entire control system. It's new and different to me, but I'm beginning to get the hang of it. It's like when I had to learn new and different control systems for the 1st 2 of the Witcher games. It took some practice but eventually I managed it (haven't gotten Witcher 3 yet so know if that's different yet again).

I'm not really a fan of endurance/stamina in RPGs because all they really do is slow down the gameplay without adding anything fun or interesting. In RPGs, normally you have a series of separate, small, short encounters and the player controls the pacing by moving from one room/area to the next. Monster in room A, monster in room B, etc. Your stamina must be good enough to complete each one of these individually or you can't win any fights and the game is unplayable. But if you need to catch your breath before opening the next door, all you're doing is forcing the player to sit there doing nothing for however long, instead of letting him keep playing the game.

Besides, in Exanima, we already have non-permanent damage. This functions along the same lines because sometimes you can take a lot of that in a fight without much permanent damage, and you sit there healing it up before seeking further trouble.

 

[Tony]

First off, I've read where in SG you will be able to double-tap the WASD keys. This will allow for various dodges and lunges which can be combined with the mouse-based turning and attacking (or not) to create a wide variety of ad hoc moves. I suspect that this feature might end up in Exanima for testing at some point. But anyway, it's likely that this system will cover most of the points you raised in terms of moving and dodging.

Just to clarify, double tap used to be the default dash command before hold to dash was implemented. You can still select the double tap to dash method in the "Controls" menu. Just take note that some things are not possible using the double tap method such as diagonal movement and quickly reversing directions.

Also, the health bar in Exanima is actually titled the "Stamina" bar. It doesn't deplete from swinging, running etc. and this is quite intentional for reasons Bullethead mentioned: it interferes with normal gameplay.

 

[Don Kanaille]

Movement

In my opinion the character movement is still unwieldy because the body is limited to your steps. It is hard to describe, but I’m sure everybody who played the game knows what I’m talking about. This makes the combat movement lumpish, sometimes unpredictable. It is hard to get the best distance between you and your target even if you are hitting practice doll (at least for me...)

This should be improved to make the characters stride more fluid and the combat more wieldy.

I think this could be improved easily by shorten and speed up the steps (maybe with a passive skill), so the character will be faster, and easier to handle in combat.

Well, I strongly recommend that you have a look at the options menu. You can currently choose between "hold movement key to dash", which is standard, and results in your character making single leaps when you hold the button, and regular movement when you tab the key. You can also choose "double-tap to dash" which reverses this and allows for more precise movement when holding the movement key, but requires double-tapping if you want to get around quickly. Anyone can choose what he is most comfortable with.

Combat skills

The game already has combat skills but I think they should be expanded. Kicking, shield-bashing/weapon-bashing (to push away enemies from very close).

Quick-throwing throwing weapons like knifes, stones, axes, smoke grenades, etc. (previously put them on character in the inventory).

Rolling, backsteping (back-jump) during the combat would offer a lot of other possibilities. Those could make the lighter armors a more viable options, offering defence in speed and dodge.
And thanks for the physical engine, imagine a light armored-dodgy enemy fall off in a chair while stepping back... offering a himself to be viciously murdered.

Roll away and block while laying on the ground (also suggested by zhuliks and Iscander) to avoid the previous situation...

There are many maneuvers which are likely to come, for example being able to roll sideways when you´re on the ground. But a game where physics matter is not one where rolling over your shoulder or doing backflips in combat would get you anywhere. Being "dodgy" mainly comes down to good footwork, which is constantly getting improved. Most of the fancy moves you know from other games and movies require either a scripted choreography or a serious violation of game physics, none of which is likely to be added to this game. However there are numerous other fun features on the horizon, including "Kicking, shield-bashing/weapon-bashing (to push away enemies from very close)."

Other fun game mechanism could be the „furniture throwing” in combat. Within a small circle around the character the items could be picked up using the cursor and a button and then could be thrown in the direction of the cursor with a limited amount of force. Again, imagine tipping off a charging enemy with a chair thrown in front of his legs...
Mechanism similar to this exists already, but quite hard to perform it in a combat situation (even with "combat use").

I think, those combat skills could make strategies where the actual surroundings are more essential than ever making the physical engine even more important.

This sounds great! I´m all for that. I always find it a bit sad that when moving an object around, it is basically only a "ghost" of said object until you release it and if something is in the way, it just resets to its previous position. Actually throwing things around, combat or not, would be awesome.

Weapon related skills

I named it skills but can be „grips” as well. My point is that every weapon should have at least two different mode to fight. For example a two handed sword could have an alternative mode, like half-swording, griping the blade and use the sword similar as a smaller polearm, using the pommel and cross-guard for blunt attacks and offering a quicker and more precise thrust.

Or a polearm hold in a different way (like Bullethead suggested), or (when we will have) missile weapons have a (emergency) close combat strike to fend off enemies.

You´re not the first one to suggest this, the dev´s very likely know about that idea and will see if they can get it in. I´d also love to see this, however it´s likely fairly low on the dev´s list.

Endurance

I think the game should do something with fatigue. Running around in heavy armor (which also limits the breathing capability and can overheat the wearer) and swinging a huge sword, parrying should make our character winded. The system similar in the Dark Souls series could be used here. I mean an other colored bar representing the character’s fatigue. Every action in combat would drain it and the character’s encumber determines how fast it refills.

I know the encumber system is not planned, but maybe just for the worn equipment it would apply (again, similar in Dark Souls series).

This would make the players think and teaches them to save their breath during a fighting also making lighter armor more viable choice.

I have to disagree here. I would really dislike the Dark Souls - type fatigue system in Exanima. Mostly because it is a really "gamey" system. A fighter doesn´t spend all of his energy in a few moments of combat and has to take a break every 10sec to catch a breath. Even an untrained person can at least go on for a few minutes, longer than most fights currently take anyway, and a trained fighter will likely wade through hours of battle before he has to take a rest.
Personally I see such a tacked-on system as a big immersion breaker which just screams "you´re playing a game". And armor, especially well made, doesn´t restrict a fighter nearly as much as commonly thought. While I know this game is not supposed to be 100% realistic, being needlessly worn down so excessively would be too much for my taste.

However, some form armor encumbrance is coming, according to the devs.

(Maybe the character’s physical state should also improve while adventuring as a result of contiguous training)

Oh yes, that´s coming. That super-detailed character creation with seemless transition between body shapes isn´t just for show

Second, having a faint „T” or „I” shape indicator in front of the character showing us, which side is the cursor actually is highlighting a bit the current one making the strikes more predictable. Quite similar that Satorii suggested. This indicator would also help us determine the impact of an overslash attack, as well as a thrust attack.

This is a pretty good idea. While I know that you can just look at how your character positions himself, that can be pretty difficult in an actual combat situation. Would definitely appreciate this!

So, to summarize my thoughts, implement historically accurate movements, duels and general combat seem quite impossible and maybe result unplayable game mechanisms.

It´s a challenge, but BM is quite capable, so I won´t declare anything as impossible yet

Making more different moves to all weapons and more movement options in combat would expand the whole fighting experience without making fights less predictable, more challenging and anything but boring without making the controls too difficult.

Of course it will! There is still plenty to come, this is why it´s in early access

 

[ezazenyem]

In this post, please let me expand my character indicator idea.
I think an indicator would be nice and useful in order to control our character more precisely and id it would be faint but easily recognizable (or even adjustable if somebody prefer brighter, darker, with different color etc.)
The indicator would give you a hint which side of the character is the cursor (so making left or right slashes would be more predictable) and also helping you landing an over-slash attack (and a thrust attack in the future) giving you the angle.
This was my original idea and I think with a nice little circle the height of the slash could be precise.
Let me demonstrate this on an imagine:
(sorry about my terrible graphical skills...)

This little circle could help which height (or body part) you would like to land a hit, putting the cursor in the appropriate piece. The height of the attacks would be determined by the characters height.
Outside the circle the slashes would be random as they are now. And also outside the circle the wide 360' swings would still be and option.
In order to use the circle some practice and concentration will be needed and this could also illustrate the actual concentration needed to land precise hits in a fight. And if somebody doesn't like it, outside the circle the fight would be the exact same with random hits.
For example if you start an attack while your cursor is in the "Upper-right slash", your character would start landing a hit from the right side at the height of your character's head (and between the shoulder and the top of the head the height of the hit will be random). And the cursor needs to be in the circle when you start the attack, you can adjust the wide of the swing moving the cursor horizontally.
So, if a very tall guy would fight against a little one, the tall guy's upper swings may be ineffective due to just hitting the air over the little one.
The circle could also help landing over-slash and thrust attacks giving aimed height to them.

The indicator with the circle could be any color (preferable faint and not very bright not to disturb the game)
In the picture I put the circle at the end of the indicator but it could anywhere.
Also, this indicator and circle could be skill related and the size of the circle could grow with the skill.

But this feature begs for some question to be answered:
- Would be this indicator and circle too interfering? Interrupting our gameplay and stealing our attention from the combat?
- Do we need more precise hits and not the simple random hits?

Well this is it. I don't know about the devs plans for the combat system, so may this idea is not appropriate at all.
But what do you think fellow gamer?
Any idea?

 

[Chris.J0621]

You obviously put a lot of thought into this post so I will try to reply in kind.

First off, I've read where in SG you will be able to double-tap the WASD keys. This will allow for various dodges and lunges which can be combined with the mouse-based turning and attacking (or not) to create a wide variety of ad hoc moves. I suspect that this feature might end up in Exanima for testing at some point. But anyway, it's likely that this system will cover most of the points you raised in terms of moving and dodging.

I agree with you on having a key to change stance/grip/style for certain weapons. We'd thus have 3 general sets of attack animations instead of 2: 2-handed baseball swing (existing), 1-handed tennis swing (existing), and 2-handed quarterstaff swing (new). And 2 special attacks: overhead chop (existing) and stab (already planned for SG, might see it in Ex at some point). But some weapons can only be used 1 way.

I don't know so much about having to change the entire control system. It's new and different to me, but I'm beginning to get the hang of it. It's like when I had to learn new and different control systems for the 1st 2 of the Witcher games. It took some practice but eventually I managed it (haven't gotten Witcher 3 yet so know if that's different yet again).

I'm not really a fan of endurance/stamina in RPGs because all they really do is slow down the gameplay without adding anything fun or interesting. In RPGs, normally you have a series of separate, small, short encounters and the player controls the pacing by moving from one room/area to the next. Monster in room A, monster in room B, etc. Your stamina must be good enough to complete each one of these individually or you can't win any fights and the game is unplayable. But if you need to catch your breath before opening the next door, all you're doing is forcing the player to sit there doing nothing for however long, instead of letting him keep playing the game.

Besides, in Exanima, we already have non-permanent damage. This functions along the same lines because sometimes you can take a lot of that in a fight without much permanent damage, and you sit there healing it up before seeking further trouble.

When you refer to the character's movement being unweildy, just to clarify the topic at hand, are you reffering to the fact that the character only has (essentially) two distances at which he/she can move towards/away from a target: one step (tap step), and one and a half steps (lunge step)? Or, regular step and dodge step? This has bugged me for quite a long time, however, with the changes we've seen in the past few patches towards response being increased biased towards the players input, this isn't as much of an issue, at least not for two handed swords and axes. Mauls, sledgehammers, maces, halberds, glaives, and morning stars (weapons with a small head with which to strike) still suffer in terms of performance in my honest opinion.

I know the animations and movements in general are all procedurally generated and dynamically rendered, but perhaps a slight tweak towards each and every characters "logic" could be introduced: the brain.

The "brain" basically calculates the distance between player A (us) and players B-X (our opponents), and, when stepping (or lunging) our "brain" would optimally adjust (VERY slightly) the distance of our stepping/quick stepping to essentially compensate for any "swinging overlap" to any gaps in between a full, extended swing, and leftover distance (whiffing at the air in front of the opponent).

For example, say we are double tap stepping towards an opponent for a strike with our weapon (let's say it's a flanged mace). As it stands currently, let's say the double tap step moves our character 4 feet. With this "brain" that is constantly analyzing "optimal striking distance", upon double tap stepping, we are instead moved 4.2 feet (or, perhaps 3.6 feet) instead of the even 4 (for example) because at an even 4 feet, we would whiff the air just slight in front of our target, whereas at 4.2 feet, we would strike our opponent in the arm/torso.

This would greatly compensate for the need to fine tune our characters distance & movement without the need for additional controls, and frankly, it makes perfect sense (to me) because in real life, we are constantly evaluating our distance to/from anything. The same would apply were we to engage in melee combat of this sort. The inability to accurately convey how WE perceive how far our character should move for an optimal strike is greatly hampered by the simple inability to fine tune our movement distances per step.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Chris.J0621]

Whoops. Replied to my own post instead of editing.

 

[ezazenyem]

I don't know the behind screen details but I think the distance of the steps are determined by the size of the character and probably the angle how the character turns and steps (I mean if you make a 180 degree turn while stepping)
Without a "lock on" system, I can't really imagine how the character's "brain" or calculation system could work especially when the character' movement is not determined by the enemy.
But, like I said in my first post, I think making the steps a bit smaller and faster could improve measuring the distance.

 

[ezazenyem]

After my last post suggesting a indicator and a circle, I've played thru the arenas again and found my circle idea no very appropriate in the heat of combat.
So, let me suggest an other solution to make the swings with random height to more predictable and have an ability to aim them.
The idea is pretty much the same as the last, but instead of having a circle of selection in front of the character, we would able to select the proper height of the strikes with mouse scroll (or with keyboard).
The selection of the swing heights would be scrolled to one and other and displayed in the middle of the cursor (with a head, torso or legs for upper, middle and lower strikes).
The side of the strikes would be determined the same way like now (or maybe like I said with the help of a faint indicator to make left-right strikes more predictable).
This aim could be skill related making skilled fighters even more dangerous.
I think switching between swinging heights back and forth with a mouse scroll (or with buttons) could make the swings much more predictable and easy to use and also keep the screen neat and clear.

Only one question remains, do we want aimed swings instead of randoms?

What do you think fellow gamers?

 

[Nynuc]

I agree with the movement. Also, Stop the character from crossing their legs! In any martial art it throws you off balance and it's bad news!

I also wish LTR was bound to right mouse button, and F was force powers.

 

[Chris.J0621]

I agree with LTR attacks having its own keybind. As it stands, having to turn as far left as you do to be able to reliably perform that attack direction is just too compromising of maintaining a centered balance and stance towards an opponent.

 

[Anthony Obilor]

I don't know the behind screen details but I think the distance of the steps are determined by the size of the character and probably the angle how the character turns and steps (I mean if you make a 180 degree turn while stepping)
Without a "lock on" system, I can't really imagine how the character's "brain" or calculation system could work especially when the character' movement is not determined by the enemy.
But, like I said in my first post, I think making the steps a bit smaller and faster could improve measuring the distance.

Game characters currently have a way of "seeing" what is around them and perceiving things. This is the way characters are able to block and parry.

I have always thought that characters should account in some way for distance between themselves and what is in front of them when they are attacking. My suggestion is that when the attack button is pressed down the "brain" should take into account the swing (l2r or r2l) and see if an enemy is in the arc of the swing(this allows it to work even against multiple opponents). Characters could have a minimum and maximum range of movement and the brain adjusts this range based on the enemy distance from the player and also the arc of the swing. The problem with this is that what if you want to hit the side of the enemy? What if you want to just use the tip of ur weapon to slash an enemy? If the adjustment is very subtle and minute then it could possibly work.

 

[Bullethead]

I agree with LTR attacks having its own keybind.

The more I play, the more I agree with this. It's just bloody hard to get off an LtR reliably. And when you do, it's slow because of the need to preposition the mouse, which rotates the character so he's doing that animation just when you want to start the swing, and this animation apparently needs to finish prior to starting the swing animation. Or so it seems to me.

My suggestion is that when the attack button is pressed down the "brain" should take into account the swing (l2r or r2l) and see if an enemy is in the arc of the swing(this allows it to work even against multiple opponents). Characters could have a minimum and maximum range of movement and the brain adjusts this range based on the enemy distance from the player and also the arc of the swing. The problem with this is that what if you want to hit the side of the enemy? What if you want to just use the tip of ur weapon to slash an enemy? If the adjustment is very subtle and minute then it could possibly work.

Are you saying that when you press the attack button, if the weapon is not in proper range (but is very close) then the character would automatically take a small step (in whatever direction) before or during the swing to achieve a hit?

That sounds like a reasonably helpful thing, at least in terms of making the game easier for noobs to learn, provided the inevitable target selection issues can be resolved. These would come up in multi-enemy fights or if the player's intent was to knock over some object in the environment instead of hit the enemy. It thus might have to be that this would only work in the arena (1 on 1 in an open area). And I'd make it an option even there. Once a player gets proficient at the game, he'd probably want to disable this so he'd have full control of the character and not have to worry about the AI making it do things he doesn't want it to.

 

[Anthony Obilor]

The more I play, the more I agree with this. It's just bloody hard to get off an LtR reliably. And when you do, it's slow because of the need to preposition the mouse, which rotates the character so he's doing that animation just when you want to start the swing, and this animation apparently needs to finish prior to starting the swing animation. Or so it seems to me.



Are you saying that when you press the attack button, if the weapon is not in proper range (but is very close) then the character would automatically take a small step (in whatever direction) before or during the swing to achieve a hit?

That sounds like a reasonably helpful thing, at least in terms of making the game easier for noobs to learn, provided the inevitable target selection issues can be resolved. These would come up in multi-enemy fights or if the player's intent was to knock over some object in the environment instead of hit the enemy. It thus might have to be that this would only work in the arena (1 on 1 in an open area). And I'd make it an option even there. Once a player gets proficient at the game, he'd probably want to disable this so he'd have full control of the character and not have to worry about the AI making it do things he doesn't want it to.

Not exactly but close, instead when you initiate a swing and then step/dash toward an enemy the "brain" chooses an optimal distance for the swing between a minimum distance and a maximum(e. g. tiny step/medium step/large step).

Also I think I have noticed some improvements to the l2r control in upcoming update.

 

[Bullethead]

Not exactly but close, instead when you initiate a swing and then step/dash toward an enemy the "brain" chooses an optimal distance for the swing between a minimum distance and a maximum(e. g. tiny step/medium step/large step).

Ah, to make the step size vary with the length of the weapon. That is a good idea. But perhaps it wouldn't need any AI intervention. Perhaps just have a set of step sizes and pick the active one based on the weapon in hand. And the mode of using it. I'm still hoping we get to hold polearms in the middle and half-sword with the longer blades.

Also I think I have noticed some improvements to the l2r control in upcoming update.

Well, once the rest of us get it, please immediately jump in with whatever you've learned about it in beta .