Games with good polearm combat?

[deuxhero]

Most games just make polearms long swords and the range advantage is pointless because no one care they got stabbed (when they exist at alll, lol Oblivion).

What games do polearm combat good?

Age of Decadence's implmenetation was great (Stab legs, run away, when they attempt to advance again you may get a free attempt to push them back which still eats up their AP for moving (which is quite costly thanks to the crippled leg).

Temple of Elemental Evil had some OK stuff for gurisame users with tripping being rather good.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Morrowind.

 

[Destroid]

Bushido Blade 1+2.

 

[ironyuri]

Bushido Blade 1+2.

Mount & Blade: Warband, and related mods: Brytenwalda.

 

[Medic]

Demon Souls & Dark Souls

 

[racofer]

The Witcher has many poles in arms.

 

[JrK]

Even in total war 2 the polearm troops were bugged. Annoying crap. It bothered me so much that in Dragon Age the first darkspawn wave could have easily been held off with a spearwall.

 

[RK47]

????????????? Mount and blade???! FFS

 

[DwarvenFood]

Perhaps Blade of Darkness, but I don't recall a polearm per se.

 

[DraQ]

Morrowind.

Morrowind doesn't have good polearm combat, but at least the extended reach does matter and continues to matter even after the first attack.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Morrowind doesn't have good polearm combat, but at least the extended reach does matter and continues to matter even after the first attack.

The fact that it even HAS polearms puts it heads and shoulders above most games.

 

[RPGMaster]

Dynasty Warriors.

 

[Skittles]

I second (third) M&B. Couched lance charges are glorious, netting you hundreds of points of damage if you pulled them off correctly (in a game where the player character and most enemies have between 40 and 200 HP, I think). Damage depends on your speed and whether you can line up the shot as close to directly in front of you as possible without your horse actually running into something first. They're probably the most fun part of the game for me.

They also make enemy cavalry really dangerous. You can dodge or parry lance charges, but if they flank you and you don't see them coming, you're toast. I almost always have to target mounted enemies with polearms first.

Spears more generally were a put underpowered, I think, though I may just never have been any good at them. What's interesting in M&B is that relative velocity matters. If you're both standing still with spears, you do minimal damage. During an infantry charge or against a charging enemy, they could be absolutely devastating (though a nice two-hander usually does more damage, thus the OP remark). What's more, the piercing damage effect is great for taking on heavily armoured opponents.

Longer axes and the like are extremely important for keeping enemies at arm's length in a game where you die if you get outflanked on foot. Period.

Enemies react to getting struck. If somebody is preparing for an attack, you can make them lose their footing, stopping the advance and the attack at once. Hit them hard enough and you can knock them over.

What this partly gets at is that weapon variety matters in this game. I prefer to do it all and have a one/two hander, like a bastard sword, and a lance. The lance is for charging enemy cavalry and heavily armoured units, the bastard sword is for hacking your way out if you come across lightly armoured units. On foot, the lance can help resist a charging enemy, and then I switch to the sword for hand to hand combat. One/two handed for the option to use a shield to deal with enemy ranged attacks. Otherwise, just having on your back provides some defense bonus.

Fuck, it's a good combat system.

 

[deuxhero]

Couched lance is great, but M&B has a huge problem with spear infantry. The velocity mattering is great and all, but it falls into the "no one cares they were stabbed" which makes polearms suck terribly because you are too close to stab a second time if they have even one HP left.

 

[Skittles]

Spears work with tightly packed lines of spearmen. Of course you're going to get cut to pieces if you're one dude with a spear against a guy with an axe or sword. That's why you carry a back up weapon. That's like complaining that crossbows are rubbish in close quarters because you can't reload fast enough to shoot a guy a second time before he gets you. The fact that they suck in CQ is, I think, pretty true to life, but more importantly it makes weapon choice matter. Otherwise, your spear really would just be an extra long sword, as you complain about in the OP.

What exactly are you looking for? M&B's pretty much my definition of 'good polearm combat,' but it looks like we're asking for different things.

 

[deuxhero]

Which is valid given people don't work too well with a bolt stuck in their gut either.

 

[Skittles]

Fair enough, but I think we're wandering into the "HP systems suck" territory here.

But I'm a little confused by one thing, thinking about it more. In M&B, one v. one, you, with a spear, can hit your opponent, stun him, and hit him again before he has a chance to hit you. Is that not your experience? You have to have a polearm with a decent speed rating and your character has to be experienced with polearms, but it's possible. It's more difficult than using an actual close-quarters weapon. Are you saying that you haven't found this to be true or are you saying that it's true but not good enough? What would you expect instead in that kind of game, localized damage and crippling effects, à la AoD or JA2?

Oh, and it was an honest question. What exactly are you looking for, beyond the AoD example? How could it be improved? I'm curious.

 

[Majestic47]

I think he wants wounds to matter. That guy with 1 HP will hit you hard, no matter how bloodied he is. I guess he wanted morale to come into play and wounds to encumber the player, therefore lowering combat effectiveness.

I kinda agree with that.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'll second dark/demons' souls. Aside from the attack animations being quite different, they do appropriate damage types, and against a weak enough enemy you can easily screw them over by making them reel helplessly. You can also screw yourself (or an enemy with a polearm, though, those are REALLY rare) over by being too close to a wall and trying to do a wide swing. You can also opt for either one handed or two handed use, and two handed is appropriately much faster and more damaging, as well as providing different animations. Halberds (or more specifically, a lucerne hammer variant, iirc) were fucking king in demon's souls, because of the range and power when two handed. Dark Souls I prefer a plain spear, since it can be used while blocking- just timid pokes, but those are quite effective against zombies or beasts that won't try to block or parry your attacks.

There's also a game called Bladestorm for consoles. The combat is a mishmash of dynasty warriors special attacks/abilities/powerups and having a large number of troops under your command doing most of the damage (Individually you're not that terribly impressive.) Aside from the whole rock-paper-scissors thing the weapon types have going (and there's a shitload of weapon types) a lot of the polearm abilities or animations reflected their advantages and disadvantages. Pikes can be braced to fuck a charge, trying to stab footsoldiers with a spear from horseback is a pain in the ass if you aren't charging, etc. The main glaring flaw is the lack of friendly fire/clipping with weapons. Guys in tight formation can make big sweeping attacks with something like a war scythe or halberd that make no sense. But then again, the swordsmen fire energy blasts, so griping over realism in a special attack is a bit silly. All their normal attacks are more reasonable poking and such.

 

[Gord]

I think he wants wounds to matter. That guy with 1 HP will hit you hard, no matter how bloodied he is.

The thing is that anyway most HP systems lack the complexity to realistically depict real wounds in combat situations.
A single well-aimed blow with a sword might outright kill you, but just as likely you may survive several similar blows (or an bolt in the guts) without too many problems if you get lucky.
You can of course use hit zones and/or critical hits to try to simulate something slightly more realistic, but still...
And then, shouldn't you add some further complication due to the adrenaline rush during battle and such?

Anyway, I agree that any, even an incomplete representation of wounds/loss of hp would be better than none at all.

 

[Destroid]

Which is why Bushido Blade is so awesome. A single clean blow kills. You could also get disabled arms or legs, but fight on anyway. I can't remember exactly how the accumulated damage system worked.

 

[Skittles]

I think he wants wounds to matter. That guy with 1 HP will hit you hard, no matter how bloodied he is. I guess he wanted morale to come into play and wounds to encumber the player, therefore lowering combat effectiveness.

I kinda agree with that.

I do too, but that's a different question than polearm combat, isn't it?

Darklands' system is decent, where strength = HP, endurance = fatigue, you take damage to both and your ability to perform in melee combat is calculated based on your new strength. Of course in a game like M&B, I can't recall how strength dependent damage calculations are, with powerstrike in there and all.

 

[Father Walker]

Pretty much Mount & Blade. Long Spears and Pikes are cool in CRPG mod. Great to defend against horsemen or support your team mates in melee.

 

[Damned Registrations]

HP systems and detailed combat definitely don't mesh well. The first is an attempt at abstraction and the second is an attempt at simulation. HP works well with something like Doom or a roguelike where you murder a billion thing. Stuff like M&B or Dark Souls would defintiely have been better served with something more complex. Of course, simulations are harder to implement than abstractions, and I'm not sure I'd want to trade any of the existing aspects of those games for development time spent on a deeper wound system.

 

[Skittles]

Yeah, HP system concerns aside, I have to say...

I was inspired to try out the polearms again in M&B: Warband. I grabbed some rusty voulge off of an enemy, and went to town with it using a character with 18 str., 2 power strike, and ~150 polearms. That weapon rocked. It was pretty OP, as a matter of fact. I had basically a full 180 degrees of threat range which means ridiculous attacks of opportunity if people try to move past you or flank you incautiously, with a little finesse you can easily hit an opponent around a anything but a full tower shield, you can aim for somebody's legs from fifteen feet away, enemies stagger from a good blow--a really solid one causes full knockback--it's fast enough that it's easy to get a good hit-recoil-killing strike rhythm on both relatively fast enemies and moderately armoured ones. In siege situations, the polearms are great for the second line of troops. I can stand behind my much better armoured men and jab enemies in the face with some ease.

I've been able to dispatch five sea raiders in mailshirts/byrnies at a time using the voulge and I haven't even invested money or character points into getting the most out of the polearm. If I can more consistently chamber block/parry with the voulge, I'm pretty sure I could take on more so long as I can back pedal. The only real down side to the voulge seems to be tight spaces.

I really wonder if we're not talking about different versions of M&B. The latest Warband has fun and sometimes overpowered polearm combat.