2h thrust rage thread

[Palurgee]

Ladies and gents, scumnerds and scrubs, I give you the LOLSTAB:

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Here we have a 4^1/2 lb. sword extended outward to create a reach longer than the wielder is tall (we're pretending that this wooden sword is the danish great sword, which is 7 units longer. I'm not made of money).

I did some testing at home with a device (a 4ft wooden dowel with two 2^1/2 lb. weights on it positioned accordingly) and doing this thrust with any power is simply not happening. I know you aren't all fans of anecdotal evidence so I won't get into much more detail with that unless you request it.

Here is a list of problems with this thrust:

1. Strength. This thrust would require incredible, almost inhuman strength to perform effectively.
2. Grip. The hilt grip is so unbalanced that a light knock or gust of wind could pull this weapon right out of its bearer's hands, else in a completely different direction.
3. Speed. This thrust is ridiculously fast with very large hitbox.
4. Reality. This is not how thrusts were performed with a two-handed sword. In fact, almost none of the double-handed swords in cRPG are accurately wielded. In reality, the European double-handed sword was not often held with both hands on the hilt, particularly when in confined spaces. When you press "X" with a double-handed sword, that is how they were meant to be held. Look at some of double-handed swords in history:

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In these images, I've drawn arrows pointing to a structure that is constant on all three pictures. These are called quillons, specifically the upper quillons. A bearer would grip the sword at both the hilt and beneath the upper quillons and then use the sword as a short, bladed spear. When delivering a thrust, the bearer had options; he could push against the pommel while holding the upper hilt and deliver an overhanded or underhanded thrust. He could remain holding the hilt and upper hilt and do the same. But he never took the sword at the hilt with both hands, brought the pommel over his shoulder and lunged forward extending his arms as far as he can. If a knight tried to do this in battle he would quickly find himself dead on the ground. If GrannPappy tried to do it he would find his back thrown out.

I posted this in game balance discussion for a reason, and that reason is the two-handed thrust is imbalanced. A Longsword thrust outreaches the War Spear thrust. A thrust with a Danish Greatsword comes near to the length of a Long Spear.

Suggestion: give two handed weapons better animations, if the time can't be taken to improve the animations then just give them the polearm animations while retaining the use of 2h WPF. Thank you for reading and please don't give me too much infamy.

EDIT: a point brought up by Thomek:

Actually agree here..

Nerf the thrust damage, and buff the polearm mode to compensate..

A much more realistic solution than changing the animations, though I'd like to see the polearm mode still use 2h wpf.

[Tzar]

[Smoothrich]

[Daunt_Flockula]

It has actually been bothering me ever since I got in crpg. How on earth can 2 handers keep triumphing over polearms when it comes to reach?

There is also the issue of damage inflicting range. 2 hander stabs seem to deal full damage all the time even if only the tip of the weapon barely touches you. I would like to see these two problems fixed. The way they are now, they bear the stench of being broken.

[Palurgee]

Hate to go with this approach, but fighting pig corpses is not the same as fighting (armored) men. Furthermore, nothing in that video disproves what I said about thrusts -- except for whatever the fuck is happening at 3:53, and that is definitely not applicable to cRPG. Right; double-handed swords CAN be used with both hands on the hilt. Perhaps in the original post I overlooked that a lot for the hand-and-half grip. The grip shown in the video brings out more power than the hand-and-half grip but is not usable in closed spaces, whether that be in the midst of a battle or indoors. The double-handed sword was designed in most European countries as a formation breaking weapon, designed to get amongst the enemy quickly and then disperse them. That is why we see the quillons on most European double-handers, because the long reach of the weapon quickly became a disadvantage when you were in a tight enemy formation. This is what the Lankschnets did, though their reputation did much of the work for them. The only weapon that more-or-less accurately depicts close-quarter double-handed sword combat is the flamberge. Meanwhile, all of the other swords in cRPG are bladed the entire way up, which was rarely true for even Japanese swords -- in short, hiltslash. I'm just rambling at this point but I'm really beginning to despise two-handers, particularly the thrust, and I'm sure myself and many others would like to see a change.

[Nehvar]

Actually, if you do a little youtube research for European longsword techniques you'll find the current animation to be pretty close to spot-on for a hilt-grip thrust.  They really did have that kind of reach.  Gripping the blade below the quillions is just one form of half-swording and is not the only way to thrust with a two-handed sword.

It has actually been bothering me ever since I got in crpg. How on earth can 2 handers keep triumphing over polearms when it comes to reach?

There is also the issue of damage inflicting range. 2 hander stabs seem to deal full damage all the time even if only the tip of the weapon barely touches you. I would like to see these two problems fixed. The way they are now, they bear the stench of being broken.

The problem with polearm reach in Warband is that they are all held the same way, in the middle, all the time.  With some polearm techniques, mainly spears techniques, one would shift their grip toward the butt of the weapon during a thrust to gain reach.  I don't know if it's possible to add this to only certain polearms and not the whole lot however.

Another issue is that people compare the "weapon length" stat of weapons between weapon classes as though it were a universal "weapon reach" stat.  That just doesn't work because all three types of melee weapons use different grips.  i.e. The warspear may be 150 length while the greatsword is 120 but the warspear is gripped towards the middle of the shaft while the greatsword is gripped at the hilt.  So they end up having pretty close to the same range on swings with the greatsword pulling ahead by a fair margin on thrusts due to the different animation.

[Swaggart]

Medieval greatswords were used mainly for cutting, not stabbing. Smaller swords are more ideal for stabbing, so if anything the damage on greatsword stabs should be decreased, and increased on smaller two handers.

But then again inserting realism into this game would break it.

[Thomek]

Actually agree here..

Nerf the thrust damage, and buff the polearm mode to compensate..

[Vodner]

I would rather just see 1h/non-hoplite polearm stabs buffed. Ideally I would like all the classes to feel as nice and smooth as 2h.

[Legs]

This thread is a joke. I was watching a movie on the right half of the screen and I actually paused it and maximized this window just so that I could better explain just how wrong you are. Full autist.

The chambered thrust position used in M&B is actually based on historical sources. In the german school of longsword fencing this guard is called "ochs" or "ox" because it's reminiscent of an ox's horns. It's a high thrusting guard (whereas "pflug" or "plow" is the low thrusting guard) which threatens an enemy with your point while protecting your head. You can absolutely deliver quick and powerful thrusts from this position. It also maximizes your reach, since you're extending from the shoulder and adding the length of your arms as well as the full length of the blade. On the other hand, polearms are generally gripped partway down the shaft of the pole. Realistically the ability to vary the length of your weapon depending on the distance to your opponent was one of the bigger advantages of using something like a spear, although this isn't very well represented. Quillons were generally only present on greatswords to protect the lead hand when halfswording in tight quarters. In this sense the way that the flamberge, the longest 2h sword, uses some polearm animations is actually accurate, although the proper high thrusting guard was also used depending on distance.

The 2h thrust could be tweaked slightly to make it less wonky and exploitable but definitely don't change its animation.
P.S. Nehvar is the only person ITT that knows what they're talking about.

[Smoothrich]

Actually agree here..

Nerf the thrust damage, and buff the polearm mode to compensate..

katanamy old friend agrees, nerf 2hand thrust, thread closed

[Rumblood]

The problem with polearm reach in Warband is that they are all held the same way, in the middle, all the time.  With some polearm techniques, mainly spears techniques, one would shift their grip toward the butt of the weapon during a thrust to gain reach.  I don't know if it's possible to add this to only certain polearms and not the whole lot however.

I think that this is the real issue.

[Berserkadin]

Pikes got fixed for being borky and "unrealistic", but ofc, 2h masterrace can never be really nerfed (fixed). The 2h stab got some kind of magic, when the tip touches an opponent the 2h masterrace magic is unleashed.

[Latvian]

Pikes got fixed for being borky and "unrealistic", but ofc, 2h masterrace can never be really nerfed (fixed). The 2h stab got some kind of magic, when the tip touches an opponent the 2h masterrace magic is unleashed.

how did pikes got fixed? you still can roflcopter( used to be worse) stabb people and you can stabb someone right infront of you with longspear, if that is fixed than i am south african flying albino cyclops bull shark

[Berserkadin]

how did pikes got fixed? you still can roflcopter( used to be worse) stabb people and you can stabb someone right infront of you with longspear, if that is fixed than i am south african flying albino cyclops bull shark

Pikes and long spear got nerfed tough. Then 2h heroes was happy.