*takingadeepbreath*
a) anticipation
... needs a hint that a certain action would lead to another certain action.
As the time to initiate kicks is small and not only backpeddal but also sidestrave/circling works with kicks, so that in any duel situation there will be unavoidable kicks. Can you anticipate them, maybe, but avoiding them ... hardly. So with 3/4 of movement directions, which can bring the duelists closer together, if more or less in sync, it is not only about spotting pure backpedal. I rarely aproach players anymore in a straight line ... still at some point i want to attack and need to get close.
How "long" is the reach of a kick exactly? 45° degrees angle was said earlier, can that be confirmed? How long is the duration of the kick to have an effect?
In reallife when combatants meet each other, the bodylanguage tells us about hteir intentions, if we would have an additional trigger from what we could concluede there is a kick in preparation ... like an inverted cooldown .. you click the kick button once, a 1 sec cooldown starts and afterwards the kick take place, at the beginning of that 1 sec cooldown we also get a small animation to show us, the dude is planning a kick.
b) 2h/pole vs 1h
As i see it for 2h/pole, while they now also get themsleves already regularly kicked and they are anoyed by it, they still wouldnt argue against kicking, because combined with their weapons range, kicking is predistend for them. Again, the weapons range is one of the biggest advantages in this game, hence why i target ranged players first ^^
damaging and killing stuff without getting yourself in jeopardy.
c) duel no fun
i stopped now playing eu 1 for over 2 years because of the increased ranged, which aint fun to me anymore, and i stopped playing on duel servers, because it aint fun anymore to get kicked "all the time" a few motnhs befor the patch which took away the ability to block while kicking. The only chance to avoid kicks, or only get kicked by chance, is to target switch within crowds, many vs many situations. As soon you get into a duel situation besides eu3, the kicking starts, within confined spaces it is even worse or if the underground is reducing your movement speed ... Yeah Wayhen i get it why you just wait on ladders lying on the ground ^^
I had said it often, i am not one of the best players, though as most players i will avoid situations where i get constantly beaten ... because it is no fun.
If you say i am lacking skill in duelling ... maybe so, for me it is but very simple, no fun = not doing that shit. If a game lacks more and more the fun ... it is tougher and tougher to convince yourself it is worth it.
c) told you so
that this is a trend, that it isnt over with the remove of the blocking. The remove of blocking was nessary, still it is too easy to kick. The timing needs to be narrowed down and the angles reduced by perhaps 15° to 20°. The range would be perhaps ok if the animation would tell exactly the start and stop of the kicks, which but it doesnt so i also pledge for reducing either the range of kicks by 2/3 or fixing the animation.
... one of the first of those 50 0_o