KickStarter Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Dan Vavra's medieval chad simulator

[PorkyThePaladin]

Base combat engine in KCD is fucking amazing, arguably the best ever melee combat in video games. The only things that ruin it in vanilla are stuff like masterstrikes (needs to be modded out), skills scale too high (also fixable with mods), and ratio of blocks vs perfect blocks vs hits (also easily fixable with mods). Unfortunately, most people don't understand how the base combat in KCD works, being Pavlov trained to spam LMB or roll in significantly inferior titles for decades. With a simple mod setup, KCD combat can be made as close to HEMA as any game ever.

Now as to your point of peasants fighting the same way as knights, there is some truth to that, but from a video game perspective, it can be challenging to implement well. Think about how a peasant would do against a knight in RL: the knight would just cut them down with a single strike. Do you want it to be that way in a video game? It would be kinda boring and anti-climactic. So I am fine with them giving the peasants some moves, just I guess make them somewhat less skillfull than a real warrior/knight. In KCD it actually works because a knight/warrior will have armor, so that fight will take a while, but since a peasant just has his rags, a single strike would put them down, even if you do need to land a combo to get past their defenses.

 

[cvv]

Base combat engine in KCD is fucking amazing, arguably the best ever melee combat in video games. The only things that ruin it in vanilla are stuff like masterstrikes (needs to be modded out), skills scale too high (also fixable with mods), and ratio of blocks vs perfect blocks vs hits (also easily fixable with mods).

Agreed with everything.

Well, not sure the base combat is the best ever... but I think it does have the potential to actually rival FromSoft - complexity and fun-factor-wise - if they iron out all those defects in KCD2.

 

[Robber Baron]

Weapons dont have weight to them. You land a blow with a twohandler from an overhead position on a person blocking it with one hand it and he just deflects it. Repeatedly. Because you need to waggle the directions for a combo to hit. But this is just unclimatic. Only the best fighters should be able to do this. Fights needed to be shorter and more leathal instead of the stupid dancing. Dancing needed to happen only when real swordmaster enemies appear.

 

[NecroLord]

Weapons dont have weight to them. You land a blow with a twohandler from an overhead position on a person blocking it with one hand it and he just deflects it. Repeatedly. Because you need to waggle the directions for a combo to hit. But this is just unclimatic. Only the best fighters should be able to do this. Fights needed to be shorter and more leathal instead of the stupid dancing. Dancing needed to happen only when real swordmaster enemies appear.

Hope they add some big ass swords such as claymores in KCD 2.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

It's a matter of resources. To implement real weapon weights takes a lot of development resources, but how much does it really bring to the table in terms of real weapon combat?

Historically, no one really swung hard with weapons the way they do in movies/video games, because weapons can kill/maim with light strikes (on account of their sharpness), so by swinging hard, you are generally not adding much benefit, but in return, you are slowing yourself down and telegraphing your moves, which would be lethal in sword combat. Like let's say two guys are facing off with swords, and one braces himself for a powerful strike, grunts, and swings really hard. While he's doing that, the other guy will just quickly stab him in the face with the point of the sword, or slash his arm or something. It doesn't work, so that's why no one did it historically.

And if the guy is swinging normally, swords weren't that heavy (even greatswords weighed like 5-8lbs spread over a 6 foot frame), and blocks weren't meant to stop them hard, you could deflect them aside, etc.

So basically, Warhorse would've had to spend a lot of money to implement something that didn't really matter that much in HEMA. Games that implement weapon weights typically (e.g. FromSoftware) have the most unrealistic combat systems anyway. Some dude swinging a bar of metal 100lbs lol.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Haven't finished it back in the day because my rig couldn't handle it and because I was spoiled on the cliffhanger ending
30 hours into my second run and the game is solid good aside from the melee combat. It's half baked, the base system is there but the devs didn't give it enough depth to last a full playthrough. Essentially, every enemy fight is the same. Woodstick peasants, bandits, knights etc all have the same animations and combat logic behind them, it gets stale very fast. They really needed to iterate on the combat system, lower lvl enemies need to have a limited ammout of directions they can fight to show the lack of their combat experience. Skill level needs to be reflected in animations the way it's done in Gothic so different enemies feel different visually.
Thankfully there's an archer thief build so you can avoid 90% melee combat this way

I had a kind of moment of disillusionment when, riding through the forest solidly into the mid-game as a man-at-arms, I came across a couple peasants in rags trying their luck as bandits. I dismounted, drew my sword and gave the first unarmed man a good whack on the forearm that felt like hitting a tree trunk and elicited the same response. Then he locked me in a kind of never-ending hell where he would eternally ‘Mr. Miyagi’ me with Judo Master moves, tweaking my elbows and causing me to smack myself in the face with my own sword or something (hard to tell since the FOV and sensation of motion in the game feels like I’m looking through a periscope).
I had a second one of these encounters, with the only difference being that they tipped me out of the saddle first.

A good game, an important game, but I largely found the combat tiresome.

 

[Robber Baron]

I had a kind of moment of disillusionment when, riding through the forest solidly into the mid-game as a man-at-arms, I came across a couple peasants in rags trying their luck as bandits. I dismounted, drew my sword and gave the first unarmed man a good whack on the forearm that felt like hitting a tree trunk and elicited the same response. Then he locked me in a kind of never-ending hell where he would endlessly ‘Mr. Miyagi’ me with Judo Master moves, tweaking my elbows and causing me to smack myself in the face with my own sword or something (hard to tell since the FOV and sensation of motion in the game feels like I’m looking through a periscope).
I had a second one of these encounters, with the only difference being that they tipped me out of the saddle first.

Yeah situations like that are common because you need to constantly be good at the battle system, because the game doesn't want to make room for enemies also making mistakes

 

[Val Doom]

So far so good, no gamebreaking bugs. When it comes to combat I just send the dog to bite the enemy in the balls and fire arrows. Not very chivalrous but fuck that when you're trying to just stay alive long enough to reach the next town.

 

[Robber Baron]

So basically, Warhorse would've had to spend a lot of money

1. Weapon Skill level tied to the number of directions you can use. Or to the success rate of using selected direction. Same with enemeies - would make sence, less skilled enemies wouldn't parry your every strike.
2. Different idle animations for different skill tier level.
3. Level*x stat check modifier. Yeah simple as. If your level is higher than the enemies you do additional damage based on level difference, same with onPlayer damage.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

And how would this translate into a better game experience? You run across peasants/lowly Cumans/bandits, and one hit them? You think this would be fun? Would it make you feel better about yourself?

If so, maybe you should play Skyrim/Morrowind type games. You can one hit everything there.

 

[Robber Baron]

And how would this translate into a better game experience?

We are aiming at the Gothic experience more or less

 

[Spike]

And how would this translate into a better game experience?

We are aiming at the Gothic experience more or less

"We" - are you a Warhorse dev?

 

[Wilian]

Base combat engine in KCD is fucking amazing, arguably the best ever melee combat in video games. The only things that ruin it in vanilla are stuff like masterstrikes (needs to be modded out), skills scale too high (also fixable with mods), and ratio of blocks vs perfect blocks vs hits (also easily fixable with mods). Unfortunately, most people don't understand how the base combat in KCD works, being Pavlov trained to spam LMB or roll in significantly inferior titles for decades. With a simple mod setup, KCD combat can be made as close to HEMA as any game ever.

Unless you fight anywhere near trees or bushes or general clutter with more than 2-3 opponents especially if the ground is steeper than two degrees because oh boy the amount of realistic 180° spinning animation, camera locking, porting through objects and sudden janky elevation changes really brings out that authentic HEMA feeling.

 

[cvv]

the amount of realistic 180° spinning animation, camera locking, porting through objects and sudden janky elevation changes really brings out that authentic HEMA feeling.

Yeah it's criminal they haven't nailed everything 100% on their first try.

 

[Wilian]

the amount of realistic 180° spinning animation, camera locking, porting through objects and sudden janky elevation changes really brings out that authentic HEMA feeling.

Yeah it's criminal they haven't nailed everything 100% on their first try.

Not what I said, just pointed out its not the second coming of Christ and gift from God with its combat as its made to be; the combat is quite very flawed in some indisputable ways. There is no reason to get triggered.

 

[Froila]

Weapons dont have weight to them. You land a blow with a twohandler from an overhead position on a person blocking it with one hand it and he just deflects it. Repeatedly. Because you need to waggle the directions for a combo to hit. But this is just unclimatic. Only the best fighters should be able to do this. Fights needed to be shorter and more leathal instead of the stupid dancing. Dancing needed to happen only when real swordmaster enemies appear.

Hope they add some big ass swords such as claymores in KCD 2.

For what reason?
To brake polearms? But firstly this game needs "real" polearms, as a mass weapon of middle ages.
Or to make this game more power fantasy than historical novel-like?

 

[ArchAngel]

Ok, so not to spam the sequel topic let me c/p my last post there and continue leaving impressions here:

I played yesterday for few more hours. I had multiple cases of humans standing inside other humans, even during talks with you. Then whenever you talk to people they do not even bother to turn towards you (it was like playing Starfield again :D) and my favorite was when I was exiting one of the yards to the main street my character just fell through the floor under the whole area. Luckily I could jump out from it somehow.

And it does not help that talking to people is almost like talking to clones, almost everyone says exactly the same things if you ask them about the city and their lord. This is one game where full VA is a detriment.
So far the best parts is just going outside on your horse and seeing the sights and sounds and rain and day/night stuff.
Game is basically a cool walking/riding simulator with some combat. Combat so far has been hold block with a shield and then try to do 1 or 2 attacks and back to block. Shield durability seems to be generous and repair prices for shield are not that bad.

Also I am not enjoying the limited save system. If I was playing this on PC I would have found a mod that lets me save anywhere, luckily on Xbox you can suspend your game, shut down the console and later game just continues exactly where you left it.

 

[ArchAngel]

On the other hand I had some beggar woman ask for help and when I stopped ONE bandit with bad gear jumps out and attacks me. Well I didn't know it was just one and since I was on horse I just decided to run away. Then turned around, dismounted and kicked his ass :D
I then tried to run down the woman after that but she ran into uneven ground where I didn't want to trouble my horse to go after her.

BTW, why is Henry retarded? I though it was common sense to not get into arguments with lords, sirs and such. You do not even get an option to be less retarded..

 

[ArchAngel]

So far so good, no gamebreaking bugs. When it comes to combat I just send the dog to bite the enemy in the balls and fire arrows. Not very chivalrous but fuck that when you're trying to just stay alive long enough to reach the next town.

When do you get the dog? At what skill level does bow use become useful and how to train it to get there. I did the hare hunt with that lord and it was extremely hard to hit them even at closest possible range where they do not start running away from you. Just not having any X on the screen is hard and then Henry is hilariously bad at keeping the bow steady..

 

[NecroLord]

BTW, why is Henry retarded? I though it was common sense to not get into arguments with lords, sirs and such. You do not even get an option to be less retarded..

He-he...
I know, right?
A more brutal noble would've cut his friggin' head off...
It was really rather stupid of Henry, but bear in mind that he completely lacked court manners...
Also was wounded and lost his family, so he wasn't really thinking straight, maybe?

 

[Cologno]

BTW, why is Henry retarded? I though it was common sense to not get into arguments with lords, sirs and such. You do not even get an option to be less retarded..

Henry's lineage is not what it seems. Don't know how far you've gotten.

 

[MasPingon]

So far so good, no gamebreaking bugs. When it comes to combat I just send the dog to bite the enemy in the balls and fire arrows. Not very chivalrous but fuck that when you're trying to just stay alive long enough to reach the next town.

When do you get the dog? At what skill level does bow use become useful and how to train it to get there. I did the hare hunt with that lord and it was extremely hard to hit them even at closest possible range where they do not start running away from you. Just not having any X on the screen is hard and then Henry is hilariously bad at keeping the bow steady..

You get the dog from Teresa, right where you sleep at the mill next to Rataje. You need to ask her to get him. You can pick the skill so he will hunt rabbits for you. I don't know how the god damn bow works, I got 5 in bow and still my Henry shoots like he is Blinkin from Man in Tights.

 

[thesecret1]

The better your bow skill, the steadier Henry's aim. And you'll learn where the arrow's gonna fly with practice. Pro tip: don't hold the bow drawn. Release the arrow right as Henry fully draws the string, like the various archery instructors in-game tell you, making it one fluid motion. Idk how it works mechanically, but I found my aim to improve massively once I started doing that.

 

[ArchAngel]

The better your bow skill, the steadier Henry's aim. And you'll learn where the arrow's gonna fly with practice. Pro tip: don't hold the bow drawn. Release the arrow right as Henry fully draws the string, like the various archery instructors in-game tell you, making it one fluid motion. Idk how it works mechanically, but I found my aim to improve massively once I started doing that.

That does not work vs moving targets..

 

[thesecret1]

The better your bow skill, the steadier Henry's aim. And you'll learn where the arrow's gonna fly with practice. Pro tip: don't hold the bow drawn. Release the arrow right as Henry fully draws the string, like the various archery instructors in-game tell you, making it one fluid motion. Idk how it works mechanically, but I found my aim to improve massively once I started doing that.

That does not work vs moving targets..

Try practicing on the river stumps in Ledecko. Bows are hard in early game, but later on, you can downright snipe with them