cRPG
cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: CaptainQuantum on April 19, 2011, 01:23:46 pm
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Well I play a melee 2h character, I am currently using 18/15 str/agi build at level 24. The first comment I know will be 2H are spammers, so to stop that I am a skilled manual blocker who never spams and I come out with a K:D ratio on siege servers of about 2 on average. This post however is not about 2H, but instead about the polearm the hafted blade. I have noticed on several occasions that the hafted blade can spam faster than recovery after a hit, meaning 1 hit on you effectively makes you useless. Also after the stun from a polearms on manual block I don't believe the speed this blade can be spammed is balanced, I have seen many time a person using this able to continue spamming through parries even on the cooldown of a heavier weapon stun.
I have seen many people use this weapon to great effectiveness just through spamming, spamming is irritating but can usually be overcome by manual blocking, this is not the case unless you are a god at it, since blocking through feint spams on top of this weapons speed is impossible to me. Anyway I ask for other people's opinions on this weapon as it could just be me not seeing the whole picture.
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I used hafted blade and I can't even beat 2h spammer :)
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Are you talking about the Long Hafted Blade or the regular one? I would guess it's regarding the long one, because I can't remember seeing anyone, besides myself, using the regular one. Also, I have no problems with the LHB, and if you feel you can't counter it, you're doing it wrong (except for the polearm stun which gives another free hit regardless of what you do).
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go test it yourself before second guessing. Even masterwork long Hafted Blade is so slow. There is something wrong with Polearm swing animation The regular hafted blade can spam like a 2 hand, but comes with low reach and damage.
Another comment: lvl 24 is a bit low vs lvl 30+ polearm users.
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Well my problems with countering it are:
1. It is easily feint spammed and with it's rapid speed it's harder than a katana to discern strike direction.
2. It's speed is faster than recovery time after a hit, so one mistake means you have no chance at all.
The 2nd is not even a grey area of whether it is skill, that is just way too fast for a fair weapon. The 1st is more subject to skill, but my point here would be that it takes an enormous amount of skill to beat it, but not much skill to use it.
AgentQ I see why you say to go and test this, normally I would but I have seen many people complain about this weapons speed in game, a spam speed faster than recovery speed does not need testing on my behalf, I have seen it happen to me and others, that is evidence enough. At level 24 I have 144 WPP in two handed weapins and 6 PS, so level is not a problem here.
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Well my problems with countering it are:
1. It is easily feint spammed and with it's rapid speed it's harder than a katana to discern strike direction.
2. It's speed is faster than recovery time after a hit, so one mistake means you have no chance at all.
The 2nd is not even a grey area of whether it is skill, that is just way too fast for a fair weapon. The 1st is more subject to skill, but my point here would be that it takes an enormous amount of skill to beat it, but not much skill to use it.
Your topic is about balancing, what's the OP about HB again?
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Simply put: the speed. Sure if the speed was nerfed on the hafted blade then it would be a terrible weapon, I would advise an increase in damage. Just the current speed is far too high and just encourages spamming, it doesn't even give a chance to those who try to manual block do to the polearm stun. Overall I would say the weapon either needs a reduction in speed with an addition of damage, or a reduction in weight to stop the stun induced from blocking.
By the way I was not sure what you meant by your comment since it is surely inherent in the post about what I think is OP about the hafted blade.
Sidenote: I will not be checking this post for around 30 minutes, I need to finish this electromagnetism exam paper, which is more important at the moment.
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Hmmm im using the Long Hafted Blade and its not that fast. Not when seen in regards to its damage. I would say all the people complaining about the speed just dont block fast or well enough. The range compared to twohand-thrusts is inferior, too...
And the swings compared to 2handed swords like Greatsword are pretty even...
The people complaining about the speed also get killed by fast and skilled onehanders.
Or lolstabbing twohanders.
I would even go so far as to say that 2handed-swords have an advantage in duels over them...
Im regularly on the duel-server and when i count the people that are on top of the scoreboard i see maybe 1 Polearm-User and four stabbing 2handed-user... ;)
You really should try it out, instead of raging because there is someone who plays better than you.
And keep in mind that the really good people k/d-wise who use that weapon have it in the Masterwork-Version and are pretty skilled, too.
As of now everyone skilled with a masterwork-weapon has an advantage above the average player...
If this post was about the Hafted Blade instead of the Long Hafted Blade disregard my arguments. I have no experience with the Hafted Blade. But i never found it OP when fighting against it...
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2. It's speed is faster than recovery time after a hit, so one mistake means you have no chance at all.
That is simply put: not true. Try it out yourself...
again: you just dont block fast/good enough.
Like i said i am on the duel-server almost every day for one or two hours. I use a mw LHB on level 30 with 18/21. And i was contemplating to switch to 2handed because a skilled blocker has an advantage over you with the stab and speed of 2handed swords. But i have invested so many hours in Polearms (including to learn proper piking) i will stay with that...
Overall I would say the weapon either needs a reduction in speed with an addition of damage, or a reduction in weight to stop the stun induced from blocking.
The Glaive or The Great Bardiche are pretty much what you suggested there...
And when im duelling with a skilled Glaive-User i find myself pretty much on the same terms with him.
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There's a simple way to overcome polearm stun:
Block twice.
There. Fixed. The stun is only for attacks and not for blocks, so you're fine when you just block after that initial hit.
IMO, the danish/german great swords are a lot faster and deadlier.
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IMO, the danish/german great swords are a lot faster and deadlier.
this.
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Ok I have finished my electromagnetism exam paper, I can start maintaining this again. Now BlameMeForTheNoise forgive me if I get the wrong tone from your post but it seems angry, I am in no way QQing so there is no reason to blame my skill for this. I believe you have misinterpreted my use of the term recovery time, my meaning of the term is the knockback/interruption you get when taking damage. When I say the recovery time is longer than the spam time I mean that I haven't actually got out of this knockback before the next block has hit me, that is not dependant on skill at all, so you cannot claim it is. That is just a game mechanic which no matter how skilled you are you can overcome if you cannot block then it (which you can't whilst in knockback) you won't be able to block the attack, this has been used with the hafted blade on me on several occasions and many others have also backed me up when I asked of this in game. Sure my part 1 of my argument is subject to skill but I explained why that could still be an issue. Of course the hafted blade has terrible damage but damage doesn't matter if the first blow will allow you to spam without problems without chance of a loss.
"The Danish/German great swords are faster". I don't see this at all, I have absolutely no problem blocking blows from those swords or any two hander other than the katana for that matter. So that seems like unsolicited information to me.
Oh and spawny I know how to stop stun blocks, I have read the entire Warband manual on the game mechanics, so that is not an issue.
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Now BlameMeForTheNoise forgive me if I get the wrong tone from your post but it seems angry,
meh. Thats why i dont like conversations on the interwebs. No im not angry, in no way whatsoever. *smiles*
Just Block two attacks, like Spawny said. It works. (At least against me... :))
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Well I have no problems with the block twice, I can do that fine on any other weapon. Just I don't think having the necessity to do that with how fast the weapon is, is actually fair. My main problem is that if the weapon hits you, you can't recover to block since before coming out of knockback the weapon has retriggered the knockback on the next hit again.
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too bad, it's part of the game. all polearm has this feature. Just like 2hand stab.
have you seen tin cans stunned to death by 3 quarter staff?
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Okay i just got confirmation from the irc-channel:
You can stun as many times as you want. But you have to hold your attack for every time. Holding attack takes time.
Secondly the stun only affects attacks. You can block freely.
Basically that means you are able to block two times. You will just not be able to attack for stunned period of time. Obviously.
So it clearly is really an issue on your side... (no offence meant :))
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Yeah polearms can stun for a second hit, and pretty much all polearms can get in that second hit. Long Hafted blade is the prime target for criticism because everyone uses it. If you want to nerf an OP weapon. You should try looking at the glaive. Little less speed but lots more damage and length. Or maybe the long spiked mace. That weapon is ridiculously OP. Even with 0ps on my archer alt it 2-3 hits people, is incredibly spamable and has decent reach. Also in regards to spam. If you get spammed, its your fault because spam is easily countered. There is not such thing as spam, only bad footwork.
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Nobody has addressed the 2nd issue still, the fact that the spam speed is faster than recovery from knockback, if this is a problem with other polearms too then forgive me since I have only noticed this on the hafted blade. And of course the is such a thing as spam, just because it's combattable doesn't mean it doesn't exist, that logic is equivalent to saying that an infantryman doesn't exist because they can be defeated, silly logic is in use.
Stop going on about the stun block, I know how it works, it's all in the game manual. By the way there is a slight misunderstanding of what was explained over IRC. You can have multiple stun blocks in the same fight but not one after the other. The stun block has a cooldown, so you can't get it two blocks in a row. I have already stated I know how it works so there is no need to explain. I have not referred to stun block individually being overpowered, I have talked of it being overpowered on a weapon that fast at swinging, realistically theres a problem with that too, the heavier a weapon the more stun you will get, the heavier the weapon the slower it will get. So the weapon should really be able to be very fast without stun on block or relatively slow and have stun on block.
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I never noticed something like the spamspeed being faster than the discovering speed. I will try it out after work. If it is so, i think this should be changed after all.
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Its more noticeable on the war spear and quarter staff and awlpike users who intentionally max out their agility with minimal strength to be able to polearm stun their opponents and get free hits until they die because they keep getting polearm stunned again by another hit before they can recover enough from last hit to even be allowed to block. (Seems pretty common in North America, maybe less so in Europe that you guys don't notice it??) Its a problem in general with polearm stun in a cRPG engine where agility stacking allows unlimited hits and destroys worries about manual blocking opponents.
My personal opinion is that it should be limited to stabs only as that actually makes sense. How does side swinging a great long axe rather than a 2handed war axe somehow differ to justify a polearm stun or any of the poleaxes for that matter?? One of the dirtiest things to see now is someone witha masterwork bec de corbin 1 hitting most people and if you are lucky enough to survive the first hit you still get polearm stunned even on a side swing making it significantly more likely you will get hit again.
Not sure if this is right place to put it, but does anyone know for sure if the poleaxes will become unbalanced with next patch?? Because elegant poleaxe has to be one of the most feint-spammy weapon in the game and its a fricken huge pole with an axe at the end being twirled like a toothpick.
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It's good to see I am not the only one noticing this, since from this post nobody has supported my experience. If it is a problem with most polearms then I guess it's a general problem and not just the hafted blade, so hoepfully there will be a tweaking already in production for the next patch.
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Its more noticeable on the war spear and quarter staff and awlpike users who intentionally max out their agility with minimal strength to be able to polearm stun their opponents and get free hits until they die because they keep getting polearm stunned again by another hit before they can recover enough from last hit to even be allowed to block. (Seems pretty common in North America, maybe less so in Europe that you guys don't notice it??) Its a problem in general with polearm stun in a cRPG engine where agility stacking allows unlimited hits and destroys worries about manual blocking opponents.
My personal opinion is that it should be limited to stabs only as that actually makes sense. How does side swinging a great long axe rather than a 2handed war axe somehow differ to justify a polearm stun or any of the poleaxes for that matter?? One of the dirtiest things to see now is someone witha masterwork bec de corbin 1 hitting most people and if you are lucky enough to survive the first hit you still get polearm stunned even on a side swing making it significantly more likely you will get hit again.
Not sure if this is right place to put it, but does anyone know for sure if the poleaxes will become unbalanced with next patch?? Because elegant poleaxe has to be one of the most feint-spammy weapon in the game and its a fricken huge pole with an axe at the end being twirled like a toothpick.
You rage about lawlpikes, then propose polearm stun be for thrust attacks? Err...
The 'Great Axe' on a stick is rumoured to become unbalanced, and has a weakish thrust. I hear you though, why should the polearm stun and not the great axe?
Have you used an elegant pole axe Kesh? It is about the least spammy polearm there is. It is shorter then it looks, being slightly longer in effect then a bec, and slower. It is not a huge pole (that's what she said) and there are not a lot of weapons you can safely out range with it.
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I never noticed something like the spamspeed being faster than the discovering speed. I will try it out after work. If it is so, i think this should be changed after all.
Then you have obviously never been stunlocked by Pullys overhead spear :D
As for the LHB, when i get hit in my heavy armor set (transitional, tounament helmet, gauntlets) id say i get semi-stunlocked about 50% of the time wich makes blocking very very hard. I think the other 50% who dont are either low lvl or to slow. Sometimes i get permastuned but that is rare.
So yea i think the stun/stagger duration should be tweaked a bit.
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Your problem is that you don't have enough athletics/footwork skill, if a person is feinting alot they usually are unsure about their ability to block so hit them as they are feinting, and if they block you block them. Usually a feinter who is also a spammer when they block once they go for an attack without a feint. Block this attack and return fire. You shall win and if you don't wanna gable the stun, block twice. I myself don't bother feinting if you block me you block me, that means i have to block you and then the attack process returns. Always think of your next step and their next step, never the now. The now is only used as your way to the next step. With this you shall beat them.
P.S. All this comes from an English Bill user, so don't complain about spamming. I ONLY HAVE TWO POINTS OF ATTACK!
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Then you have obviously never been stunlocked by Pullys overhead spear :D
As for the LHB, when i get hit in my heavy armor set (transitional, tounament helmet, gauntlets) id say i get semi-stunlocked about 50% of the time wich makes blocking very very hard. I think the other 50% who dont are either low lvl or to slow. Sometimes i get permastuned but that is rare.
So yea i think the stun/stagger duration should be tweaked a bit.
I agree polearm stun is rampant, I say every polearm attack should have 2h or blunt weapon stun, except the thrust. It makes sense on this in the fact that at close range and min damage(or just beyond whiff distance) represents the polearm as being used to push the foe back out of range and knocking they off balance. Other then that, I say polearm stun is rampant, too long(in duration), and needs changing.
P.S. I say stun should go with weapon weight. If you disagree please say so.
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You rage about lawlpikes, then propose polearm stun be for thrust attacks? Err...
The 'Great Axe' on a stick is rumoured to become unbalanced, and has a weakish thrust. I hear you though, why should the polearm stun and not the great axe?
Have you used an elegant pole axe Kesh? It is about the least spammy polearm there is. It is shorter then it looks, being slightly longer in effect then a bec, and slower. It is not a huge pole (that's what she said) and there are not a lot of weapons you can safely out range with it.
I disagree, I have killed a select few of elegant users, then use their axe and found it to be much more effective then the bec at spamming it has just enough range to be deceptive and also it does work at a well set range. Agreeable it is a bit more difficult to use then the auto pilot bec but it is a better weapon then the "autopilot" bec. In this i say. If you are a bec, YOU ARE A NOOB, WHO SHALL STAY A NOOB FOR AS LONG AS YOU USE SAID WEAPON!
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I disagree, I have killed a select few of elegant users, then use their axe and found it to be much more effective then the bec at spamming it has just enough range to be deceptive and also it does work at a well set range. Agreeable it is a bit more difficult to use then the auto pilot bec but it is a better weapon then the "autopilot" bec. In this i say. If you are a bec, YOU ARE A NOOB, WHO SHALL STAY A NOOB FOR AS LONG AS YOU USE SAID WEAPON!
What is noobish about using a polearm that is outranged by everything? Curious actually, as the thing with the 2 attack direction weapons seems to be abuse the stab mechanics.
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Heirloomd hafted weapons can stun you and with the extra speed can attack you again while you are in stun animation, it's quite silly. Make one mistake or fail block and it's all over.
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What is noobish about using a polearm that is outranged by everything? Curious actually, as the thing with the 2 attack direction weapons seems to be abuse the stab mechanics.
That's because it only has two attacks, You have to do a complete up motion in order to do an overhead, and the bec is a face hug weapon with ungodly pierce, pretty much it can do min damage and still hurt like you got head shoted by an xbow. It also holds alot of phantom range, it by far holds one of the top ten phantom range spots. The weapons with two attacks are a bit crippled agreeably not completely but you just have to learn the motions for blocking them if you have good enough athletics you can stay within their whiff range, and really screw them over. And if they try to spin stab you, then don't blame the mechanic and actually learn to block down. Or even better learn to chamber it.
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P.S. I say stun should go with weapon weight. If you disagree please say so.
What you're describing with weight is commonly referred to as 'weapon stun' and is already in place. It happens with every weapon, not just polearms, and is most noticeable when using a one-hander with no shield.
Polearm stun is best described as a stagger, and it is indeed annoying. The obvious solution is to remove it and increase the speed of certain polearms, but I don't think that'll happen until the devs start messing with the hard code or something.
That said, while there are many weapons in this game that cause concern, ultimately, we're standing on a pretty balanced era here, and the hafted blade is fine in my opinion.
The long hafted blade and similar polearms could use some work, sure, but they're not weapons you should have any trouble with if you're a balanced or agility build.
Essentially, I believe the most annoying issues with them come from playing a character that is gimp'd toward them- such as running around with a one-hander and no shield or playing a heavy strength character, or, if you're feeling exceptionally masochistic, both.
However, these builds are excellent in almost all other situations, and so I think it's a trade-off.
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I agree on that, in the fact that most of the time I am usually raging/whining about idiot team mates with these spam weapons, cause most of the time I end up dying do to them no through tk but through rampant horrible team slashes.
In fact I'm gonna change my sig quote from "Wanna see a donkey show to." "I wear armor to protect myself from team mates."
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That's because it only has two attacks, You have to do a complete up motion in order to do an overhead, and the bec is a face hug weapon with ungodly pierce, pretty much it can do min damage and still hurt like you got head shoted by an xbow. It also holds alot of phantom range, it by far holds one of the top ten phantom range spots. The weapons with two attacks are a bit crippled agreeably not completely but you just have to learn the motions for blocking them if you have good enough athletics you can stay within their whiff range, and really screw them over. And if they try to spin stab you, then don't blame the mechanic and actually learn to block down. Or even better learn to chamber it.
A load of codswallop. Whiff range is non existant vs proper lolstab, which has been around since beta, so I WILL blame game mechanics. Don't give me that shit about blocking down when the fucking spin stab can go around the block and hit you in the ass.
EDIT
Also consider this possibility:
Weapon collider is allready past the block before the attack begins, unfairly negating the chance to block. Perhaps the whiff mechanic is some sort of culprit, perhaps something is misaligned, perhaps lag compensation is not working or has been removed.
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Heirloomd hafted weapons can stun you and with the extra speed can attack you again while you are in stun animation, it's quite silly. Make one mistake or fail block and it's all over.
Well really, most (all?) polearms have a chance to do the stun, or stagger, regardless of whether they're heirloomed or how fast they are. It's a chance, a semi-random chance. There's no way to guarantee a stun, as far as I know, though some weapons seem to do it more often than others. Some of them are even slow enough that you do have time to react before getting hit twice, though probably not the ones in question that everybody keeps bringing up. I know for one thing that the thrust animation can be readied so swiftly if it hits a target that it's hard to time a block correctly for the second hit (you see this a lot against an awlpike, even when it doesn't do the stun, since they're nearly always stabbing and decently fast). But still, It's not an automatic two hits for every one that lands, as you're saying.
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Don't give me that shit about blocking down when the fucking spin stab can go around the block and hit you in the ass.
As far as I can tell, the "around the block" spin thrusts are preformed from positions where overhead and side swings would also have hit. I have not been able to produce conditions in which a thrusting weapon could be spun into the side or rear of a blocking player's hitbox by virtue of the weapon's collider not fully extending back to the attacking player, something that only occurs with the pike and only near the end of the thrust animation.
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I'm inclined to agree with the OP. Just look at the number of people using LHBs either as a primary weapon for polearm specialists or as a backup for archers - obviously a lot of people have faith in this particular polearm. They also seem extremely fast: when I was still playing cavalry, my horse god killed by a LHB user and the instant that happened my finger was on the right mouse button, naturally, but even so, he managed to hit me three times before my shield "materialised". I've not seen any other weapon do that.
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Pro Katana users, Elmetiacos. They can hit you even four times, if they are really pro 8-)
Don't take it too serious, not every cavalry is stupid enough to come to an infantry for the length of Katana's blade xD
But the part about hitting four times is true.
OK, back to topic:
LHB isn't really OP. When every polearm (this one, too, of course) will be 2 slot, you won't see LHB that often anymore.
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As far as I can tell, the "around the block" spin thrusts are preformed from positions where overhead and side swings would also have hit. I have not been able to produce conditions in which a thrusting weapon could be spun into the side or rear of a blocking player's hitbox by virtue of the weapon's collider not fully extending back to the attacking player, something that only occurs with the pike and only near the end of the thrust animation.
The only way I have gotten to glitch a thrust around someones block with a stab is with a 1 wpf heavy lance [speed = 75] in very heavy armor. Your stab will be so slow in extending you can in fact bend it around the side of someone and drag it into their side with a thrust. It is extremely difficult to do due to the narrow timing window and it can still be blocked if they turn towards where it will come from.
I have practiced trying to exploit the hitboxes a LOT with CanYouBlockDown. I have managed to do some retarded stuff, although none of it is practical.
on topic of the hafted blade.
The thread is referring specifically to the shorter/ not long. The short hafted blade has less reach than most 1handers due to animation, although it can stun lock you on a ultra high agility build with proper footwork. If you know what the "castor swing" is, which is a footwork & side-spam combination, with that you can easily stun lock an opponent to death.
However, if you block twice and don't let yourself get footwork spammed, you'll one hit the agility character trying to pull it off when they think they can spam you.
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I used hafted blade and I can't even beat 2h spammer :)
well that means you suck :wink:
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Well I play a melee 2h character, I am currently using 18/15 str/agi build at level 24. The first comment I know will be 2H are spammers, so to stop that I am a skilled manual blocker who never spams and I come out with a K:D ratio on siege servers of about 2 on average. This post however is not about 2H, but instead about the polearm the hafted blade. I have noticed on several occasions that the hafted blade can spam faster than recovery after a hit, meaning 1 hit on you effectively makes you useless. Also after the stun from a polearms on manual block I don't believe the speed this blade can be spammed is balanced, I have seen many time a person using this able to continue spamming through parries even on the cooldown of a heavier weapon stun.
I have seen many people use this weapon to great effectiveness just through spamming, spamming is irritating but can usually be overcome by manual blocking, this is not the case unless you are a god at it, since blocking through feint spams on top of this weapons speed is impossible to me. Anyway I ask for other people's opinions on this weapon as it could just be me not seeing the whole picture.
you're right the polearm swings stun you all the time. but I don't think it's only the hafted blade, the glaive is way more OP. like: I picked up a glaive without wpf and without agi (str only build which sucks) so I was a slowpoke and I could still make a killstreak of 7.... cause it has epic reach, too fast animations and it stuns your opponent. so I say nerf'em!@
greetz, Berend