I posted this a long time ago. Recently I noticed a lot of new players joining our community so I though it would be a good idea to bring this back one more time.
To you newbs I think you might find this post a valuable resource on how to look at melee.
How melee works in the game: The games melee mechanics work very much in a turn base way.IGNORE THE ABOVE AT YOUR OWN PERILBasic model of how turns work.Think of fighting in warband as pockets of time:
| Your Turn| + | Opponent Turn| = 1 RoundBasic rule to determine who goes first at the start of combat: The Guy with longer weapon or higher agility/faster weapon goes first. <--Means if you have falchion and opponent has poleaxe, let the poleaxe guy swing first, unless you really like to give your opponent a free hit on you right at the start
For shielders most of the time this means the opponent goes first unless you are a high agility shielder. So keep your shield up until your opponent hits your shield then attack.
How long does "your attack phase" last? Depends on your agility compared to your opponents. If your opponent is slow you have a wide window of time for "your turn", if the opponent is fast "your attack phase" is very small.
THE BASICS EXPLAINEDNow lets ignore movement and feinting and just concentrate on two stationary opponents.
Lets say your opponent is the first to launch an attack, you block. This is the end of his attack phase and the beginning of yours. You attack and your opponent blocks. This is the end of your attack phase. Opponent attacks and you block, this ends his attack phase and is the beginning of yours. I am sure by now you get the picture.
But what happens if your opponent chooses to attack again after his attack phase is already over? Answer, if your opponent chooses to try to hit you after his formal attack phase is over, and swings during your attack phase, you will hit him with your swing since this is your attack phase. Even if he has greater wpf and a faster weapon he will not be able to outswing you during your attack phase. Notice, we are still talking about two stationary figures, we will talk more about how to shift this paradigm of his turn, your turn a bit later.
So now you should understand the basic mechanics behind the game. Its very much turn base: Your turn, His turn, Your turn, His turn and so forth. While this is an important concept that we will return to later, if you have played this game for any amount of time, you know that seeing two perfectly stationary figures fighting without feinting are very, very rare indeed.
To understand the game mechanics in a more complete way, we will let our two stationary fighters add feinting to the mix. How would that look:
FEINTINGWhen you feint your are trying to do one of two things:
1.) Get your opponent to misjudge the direction he should be blocking from.
2.) Goad your opponent to attack during your synthetically extended attack phase.
Your opponent attacks, you block. His attack phase is over and yours has begun. You feint, feint, attack, opponent blocks. You attack turn is over and his has begun. Opponent feints, feints, feints, attacks, you block. His attack phase is over and yours has begun. You feint, feint attack, opponent blocks. Your attack is over and his has begun. By now I am sure you get the idea. When you feint you are actually prolonging your attack turn in a synthetic way. This has its good points and bad points. Lets talk about them.
When you synthetically extend your attack phase, you are on borrowed time. You cannot indefinably extend your attack phase, as your opponent can judge your feints and attack you midway feint and hit you. He will be able to hit you while your are feinting in your attack phase because you were synthetically extending your attack turn into his turn.
Movement.This is perhaps the hardest of all game mechanics to explain in words. I hope that I will be able to do it justice.
Movement is the best way to "steal turns".Movement is perhaps the best way of shifting the turn based paradigm of melee mechanics in this game. Noticed I said shifting not breaking, you cannot really break the his turn, your turn paradigm, but you can shift it to work for you.
So remember this was our model of how melee works in warband:
Think of fighting in warband as pockets of time:
| Your Turn| + | Opponent Turn| = 1 Round
Lets break these pockets of time further:
| Your Turn (Movement)+(Feinting) OR (Attacking) | + | Opponent Turn (Movement)+(Feinting) OR (Attacking) | = 1 RoundHow long does "your attack phase" last? Depends on your agility compared to your opponents. If your opponent is slow you have a wide window of time for "your turn", if the opponent is fast "your attack phase" is very small.
When I was first explaining to you the his turn, your turn paradigm all I talked about is attacking and blocking. For the sake of simplicity I did not mentioned that during your attack turn you could actually do two things. You could attack and make a small move all before your opponents attack phase has begun. Now the extent of your ability to move after you attacked is directly linked to the ("Length of Your Turn") agility of your character and the weight he has on him. The higher the agility and the lower the weight the further your character can move before your opponents attack phase has begun.
Now let us give our two stationary, feinting opponents the ability to move.
Opponent attacks, you block. His attack turn is over and your has begun. You attack and move slightly back, you opponent blocks. Your attack turn is over and opponents turn has begun. Opponent attacks, you block. Your attack turn has begun. You attack and move slightly back. Now you are out of your opponents weapons range. To be able to hit you he takes a large step forward and starts to swing, you attack and he dies. Now why were you able to attack him during his attack phase? You just stole a turn (SPAMMER your Opponent shouts, you DIRTY DIRTY SPAMMER) in reality spamming does not exist just good movement.
THE BEST WAY TO USE MOVEMENT, TO STEAL TURNS, IS TO INDUCE PEOPLE TO CHASE YOU.
So if you are newb stop chasing people and instead induce them to chase you. <--Pro TipYou were able to attack him because his attack phase was over when he made a large movement forward to get you into range. Your opponent ate up his turn making a big move forward. When he completed the large movement forward he ended his turn, when he started to attack he was actually attacking during your attack phase, so you were able to outswing him and kill him.
The above example is very important and when you understand it a whole new world will open up for you.
Since this post is already very, very long, lets talk about one more fight and how the turn base paradigm works in the context of distance and timing. Think of two opponents one armed with an Italian Falchion no shield the other armed with a Poleaxe. Since the guy with the Poleaxe has the much longer weapon he will obviously attack first. It might look something like this:
Opponent with Poleaxe attacks first, you block. Opponent moves back slightly. You move forward and begin your attack phase but the poleaxe swings again and kills you. Now why was the Poleaxe guy able to swing and hit you during your attack phase? The Poleaxe guy was able to swing two times in a row without blocking because the size of his weapon in relation to yours meant that during your attack phase you did not actually attack but instead you were forced to move to get him into range. So when you went to swing after moving you were no longer in your attack phase you were in his. For a short weapon to fight a much longer weapon, it might be necessary for the shorter weapon wielder to block 2 to 3 times in a row without attacking just to get into range. Otherwise the short weapon wielder will be violating the turn phase paradigm mechanics of the game and will get hit.
Last Pro tip on Movement -> Look for extreme angles on your opponent, try to get to the opponents extreme left or right side. This will help you in several ways.1.) Against shielders: Get hits to shielders side outside of their shields coverage area even if their shield is up and blocking.
2.) Allows you to steal turns. As your opponent large twist trying to face you costs him his attack phase, letting you attack again. (SPAMMER, your victim cries, SPAMMER)
3.) Partly obscures your swing animation from opponents view, making it harder to judge which way you are swinging. Now I know that the above is allot to cover, but I hoped the above helps people out. Remember the above is theory in progress that can at any time be revised or totally thrown out, we are all human and apt to make mistakes. Before I say goodbye, there is one last topic to cover:
When does the Paradigm described above break down?
I noticed that this paradigm breaks down when there is a huge disparity between two opponents wpf, when there is considerable lag on the server. During high ping times. During high fps times. The better the computer and internet connection the better this paradigm will hold during those times. Sadly I since I am a broke student all the above happen to me regularly.
If, I noticed a further demand for posts like this I might continue this discussion later. But for now, you should know the basic paradigm of how the melee game mechanics work in this game. I hope that you will find this post helpful as you practice fighting.
Cheer, and many happy battles
Formless.
P.S Reapy created a great videos for the vanilla M&B Warband that cover some of what I was talking about in this thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jHcZjWw9U <-- Very good basic tutorial
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. In the meantime here is another poll asking for it.