Dual wielding

[Octo]

Dual wielding. Is it still to be included? How will it work?
We haven't seen it since the Kickstarter pitch video, and it seemed that you don't have much control over the swings.
What do you think about using LMB for the left hand, and RMB for the right hand (or vice versa), so you can control each weapon separately and in a controlled fashion?

I would even suggest making that consistent, not only to weapons, so adding some functionality to shields or whatever you are holding in each hand is controlled with LMB and RMB respectively.
In the example of a shield that could be a pushback or a shield hit, or even just move/angle the shield actively so you don't have to turn your entire character and rely completely on the autoblock.
If you held a dagger it would be a stab...once thrusting is in, etc.
It could really add for some even more tactical combat once more weapon variations are in...say a gladiators net in one hand and a sword in the right.
I know RMB is supposed to be used for thaumaturgy, but it's no big deal to remap that for such a natural control scheme imo.

While I'm at it..why is there no unarmed combat, just a right/left punch if this system was to be used?
It would add some fun options with no real downsides.
I realize this thread didn't end up very well thought out, but maybe it could spark some interest.

 

[Madoc]

Dual wielding is indeed still coming, unlockable through a close combat skill technique. We do plan to eventually allow some basic fist fighting but it will never be very effective.

We abandoned the idea RMB for thaumaturgy quite a long time ago, I've mentioned this a few times but it hasn't stuck with people yet. Once we began testing the game more in tight and cluttered environments we decided that a mouse button dedicated to movement all the time was just essential and any control scheme that tried to do away with it was worthless. As it is RMB to move is here to stay and we don't have any plans to make it reassignable. It's actually really nice to use in more open environments too, esp when fighting multiple opponents or really dangerous ones like ogres, what we need to do now is make some aspects of in combat RMB movement more responsive.

 

[Don Kanaille]

Oh, dual wielding. Something I am certainly not a fan of. There are only very few useful dual-wield setups in the real world and given that this game runs on simulation, not numbers, it could prove pretty hard to make something useful in your game which was rarely useful when real people did it.
Personally, I would have been absolutely fine if you just cut dual-wielding completely. There seem to be many way more common, useful techniques and setups you could spend your precious time on implementing. Oh well, now that you are actually working on it, I´ll just hold my thumbs and hope for the best


But I am happy to see punching


I had no idea you changed your mind on the control scheme. Well, now I know.

 

[Cpt Dave]

The problem with dual wielding is that it's very unrealistic.

It was never really used by any military. Mostly because a shield is superior in almost every way,
and the other reason is that to effectively wield two weapons you need exponentially more training than a single sword, let alone a pointy stick.

It was just for fancy dueling and some martial arts. The most common form was using a parrying dagger in your offhand while fencing.

Having two weapons does not double your damage. And if you're untrained it's quite the contrary. I can't even use a pen with my left hand.

Even if it gets implemented at some point, here's a list of features I would rather see first, in order of importance:

Spoiler

-Thrust attacks.
-Shield bashing.
-Projectile/thrown weapons.
-Charge attacks. (Right now you can't swing and run.)
-Disarming*
-Less level levels.
(Right now everything is perfectly flat. It would be nice to have some stairs, maybe some flooded sections, fighting in knee deep water and such.)
-Physics based traps/dangers (pitfall, walls crushing you, spikes.)
-Jumping.
-Grabbing and shoving people.
-Sheathing.
-Versatile weapons.
(Some weapons can be wielded with one or two hands, the war pick has a pointy and a blunt side.)
-Mounted combat.
-Unarmed combat.
-Bleeding and dismemberment.
-Maps.

But right now I feel like extra content would be more important than these features anyway.

*edited

 

[Rod_Lightning]

The problem with dual wielding is that it's very unrealistic.

It was never really used by any military. Mostly because a shield is superior in almost every way,
and the other reason is that to effectively wield two weapons you need exponentially more training than a single sword, let alone a pointy stick.

It was just for fancy dueling and some martial arts. The most common form was using a parrying dagger in your offhand while fencing.

Having two weapons does not double your damage. And if you're untrained it's quite the contrary. I can't even use a pen with my left hand.

Even if it gets implemented at some point, here's a list of features I would rather see first, in order of importance:

Spoiler

-Thrust attacks.
-Shield bashing.
-Projectile/thrown weapons.
-Charge attacks. (Right now you can't swing and run.)
-Less level levels.
(Right now everything is perfectly flat. It would be nice to have some stairs, maybe some flooded sections, fighting in knee deep water and such.)
-Physics based traps/dangers (pitfall, walls crushing you, spikes.)
-Jumping.
-Grabbing and shoving people.
-Sheathing.
-Versatile weapons.
(Some weapons can be wielded with one or two hands, the war pick has a pointy and a blunt side.)
-Mounted combat.
-Unarmed combat.
-Bleeding and dismemberment.
-Maps.

But right now I feel like extra content would be more important than these features anyway.

I think jumping and mounted combat will never happen. ESPECIALLY mounted combat. That would turn the entire game upside down in terms of balancing alone not to mention implementing horse-based combat. Yikes.

All your other suggestions I am very much looking forward to as most are planned to be in the game

 

[Cpt Dave]

Well I don't see the problem with jumping. You press and hold right click until you have accumulated enough speed, then you press a different button and jump 2-3 meters, maybe depending on your weight, in the direction you were running. No control mid air, no backflips or wall running or any other fancy stuff. I don't expect to jump vertically or climb, and I don't want to. It's certainly more realistic than dual wielding.

But if you can't cross small distances horizontally, that makes most physics based hazards unavoidable. Examples would be a few missing steps of a stairway, missing pieces of a rope bridge, or a relatively narrow chasm/ravine.

Of course if there will be no such obstacles, jumping is obsolete, and not a priority.

And about mounted combat, I feel like most things are already in place. More momentum is more damage dealt, just like in real life, there is not a lot of need for balancing there. The difficulty is having decent looking, well animated and controllable horses.

 

[Hedgehog-of-Fog]

The problem with dual wielding is that it's very unrealistic. It was never really used by any military.

Emm... Maybe you also think that Porky is very realistic? Or zombies, thaumaturgy, portals, etc?
I think DW will be very-very-very interesting practice in such world and with such physics - and it have right to be implemented in game.

 

[Don Kanaille]

That argument is bullshit, sorry. Meaning something has fantasy elements does not mean any other logic has to go out the window.
We´re not saying "don´t use dual wield because it is not historical", we are saying "duel wielding does not work well at all unless you change human anatomy or the laws of physics, and that is why it was not used historically".
Exanima emulates real-world physics, and this fighting style simply does not work too well within them.


And I also agree on mounted combat, it doesn´t seem to far out of the question given that all the systems of momentum, swinging, physicality etc. are already there. You need to animate horses and attack animations, but the satisfaction of landing a sword blow with the momentum of a horse or impaling someone on a lance would be glorious.

 

[Cpt Dave]

Yes, you have the right. And I have the right to facts. Realistic combat and realistic settings are two different things. And it might be interesting, but it's also unpractical for the above mentioned reasons.
I think the time is better spent implementing other features and even better spent adding more content.

And I don't see how you will control your second arm with the current control scheme. Maybe you will grow a third arm and use a second mouse? Or maybe motion control would work.

 

[Hedgehog-of-Fog]

That argument is bullshit, sorry. Meaning something has fantasy elements does not mean any other logic has to go out the window.
We´re not saying "don´t use dual wield because it is not historical", we are saying "duel wielding does not work well at all unless you change human anatomy or the laws of physics, and that is why it was not used historically".
Exanima emulates real-world physics, and this fighting style simply does not work too well within them.

Come on... if you can take rapier in one hand and a dagger in other - will the whole world spin in another direction? No. How it will be implemented in game - that is the question, but it's question for BMs.

And I don't see how you will control your second arm with the current control scheme. Maybe you will grow a third arm and use a second mouse? Or maybe motion control would work.

Nice technical decisions but in first videos BM show us dual wield - an it was really not bad at all - so it's possible. Maybe, it is some pre-programmed chain of strikes which are depending on mouse movement (three directions) and 4th - by double-click, I don't know...

 

[Cpt Dave]

Right now, blocking is automatic, but only if you're not attacking. For dual wielding to be meaningful, the combat would have to be significantly reworked. You would have to be able to simultaneously parry/block and attack. Which would be nice, definitely harder to implement.

The only advantage of dual wielding would be that you could perform an offhand attack that deals damage while parrying with your main hand.

On the other hand, the shield is usually more reliable, requires less training, and blocks projectile attacks as well.

Most of the time when people used two weapons it was either for entertainment, or improvisation because they had a free hand with nothing better to do, as you did not carry your shield on yourself all the time (they can be pretty heavy). But I'm pretty sure if someone knows that he will most likely be getting into combat, he will chose a shield over a dagger any day.

 

[DragonSlayer436]

People seam to have misconceptions on what dual wielding is. Is a boxer's fist a weapon? I'd say it is, especially if it is a pro boxer. Does a boxer use only one of his hands to fight? No, because that would be inefficient. So boxers use two, possibly deadly, weapons to fight with. That was one of the reasons boxers and other marital artist had to register their hands a deadly weapons.

In the marital art that I am studying in they do not call the hand that does not a weapon in it an "unarmed hand," they call it a "live hand." That shows that the hand with not weapon is an active participant in the fight. Also using weapon in you offhand is not that hard to learn. If you have no marital arts training then it would be just as hard to learn to use your right hand as your left. Dual wielding does not appear just in eastern marital arts, it is also in the manuscripts written during the Renaissance. Those manuscripts are the foundation on which Historical European Marital Arts is based upon.

Knights needed to learned how to use their non proficient hand so that they can adept to the situation as need. When their main hand gets tired, you switch hands, doing the same drills they just learned in their offhand.

Not the best example, most castles have a clockwise direction for most if not all stairways. The reason being is that the attackers would have a harder time attacking, while the defenders would have an easier time defending. It works because the attacker would have the stairway itself to handicap his sword arm, at the same time the stairway adds additional protection to the defender. Knowing how to use your left hand to fight is important, especially if you lose your right hand in combat or it is incapacitated in any form.

As a side note, writing requires a very complex muscle control of mutable small muscle in your hand and forearm. It may not seam like it considering how common it is, but if you have any of your old first attempts at writing you'll see what it mean.

 

[Don Kanaille]

Come on... if you can take rapier in one hand and a dagger in other - will the whole world spin in another direction? No. How it will be implemented in game - that is the question, but it's question for BMs.

Okay, I can agree with you here. "Sensible dual-wielding" is not something I object to. But I have a hard time believing it will work decently with the game´s combat system while at the same time hoping for the contrary. Some of the reasons why were mentioned in the posts above. And there are probably way more common and useful moves/techniques which should be added before that.

 

[Cpt Dave]

Let's say that it's equally easy to learn how to use a weapon with your left and your right hand. That doesn't mean it's just as easy to learn how to use two weapons at the same time. And I'm pretty sure that at the end of the day, you will still be more proficient with one hand than the other. Also I'm sure there is a good reason why it was not widely practiced. (Shields being more practical.)

I feel like I've exhausted all my arguments. I'll let you have your 7 feet tall barbarian who has arms the size of cars, wielding two double-sided battleaxes. And you can have your unblockable attacks. But that kind of seems unfair against an enemy who is wielding his shield, logic, and rationality.

 

[DragonSlayer436]

I'm not saying that having another weapon is superior to a shield. All I'm saying it is a realistic and is not impossible to learn. To efficiently fight you need to know how to coordinate your body with your strikes. Dual wielding just adds another layer to that.

 

[Cpt Dave]

Okay. It is by no means impossible to fight with two weapons, it's just harder to learn, less effective, and not really historically relevant. It's just very popular since it's overly romanticized in games and movies.

If you want to handicap yourself, but also look cool while doing it, dual wielding is the way to go.

 

[Faelivrin]

Combat is not really my thing, and i haven't researched as much. But id the novel-film "Captain Alatriste" have some of history accuracy, Spaniards soldiers in Battle of Flanders used to be equipped with a sword "espada de cazoleta" and a dagger "vizcaina". Or maybe i am being a victim of the spanish hollywood lol? @Tiny_lampe correct me if i am wrong plz!

http://www.unapicaenflandes.es/tercios-de-flandes-armas.html
-Vizcaína. 'Se baten espada en mano, no retroceden jamás: paran el golpe con el puñal y cuando hacen con él el gesto de tirar al cuerpo debéis desconfiar de la cuchillada: y cuando os amenazan con la cuchillada debéis creer que quieren alcanzaros el cuerpo'. Los soldados españoles acostumbraban a portar espada ropera en una mano y una daga mediana en la otra. En concreto, la daga usada por los españoles era de hoja triangular y con la empuñadura protegida por un triángulo de metal abombado en forma de vela."

 

[DragonSlayer436]

It is hard but not any harder than learn any other new skill. As I said dual wielding is in historical documents written by master fencers during the Renaissance and was taught to the student learning form them.

The reason why I prefer dual wielding is simple because it is how I am being taught it from my martial arts instructor.

 

[Cpt Dave]

Yes. That's a rapier and a long dagger. It is historically accurate, if we're talking renaissance era. And mostly in civilian situations, dueling, not on the battlefield. And then we have to add muskets and cannons to the game as well.

As far as I'm aware, Exanima is set in a medieval era, in which the battlefield was mostly governed by shields, polearms, projectile weapons, and heavy armor. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[DragonSlayer436]

You should be correct. Though I believe pole-arms and projectile weapons did not die out during the Renaissance. The main point I was making with mentioning the manuscripts was that dual wielding has been done and taught historically. They also use two rapiers, hence the term case of rapiers. From the way the people at HEMA talk the buckler was also consider a weapon.
I do not know how credible this is but from someone I know who that is very interested and knowledgeable in this kind of stuff said that their was a Dutch mercenary company that use an axe and sword combo. I do not when this was and my googlefu has not helped me in finding anything about it.