Master Striking Ruins The Combat System *Solution found*

[Jaymus]

EDITED POST DISCUSSION: Temporary Solution

Somebody created a mod to tweak/remove master striking. The choice is in your hands now.

https://www.nexusmods.com/kingdomcomedeliverance/mods/284?tab=files

Personally I do not think this is the perfect solution to the problem, but it is far better than playing with Master Strike as it is now *Go skip down to My Suggestions For A MasterStrike Rework *. Master Striking possibly could have been an awesome mechanic in the game to make it cool, challenging, and fun. However, master strike in its current state of now only serves to hinder the gameplay by making the player feel punished and frustrated for trying to use basic core mechanics of the game without cheesing it. I hope this thread reaches out to the developers so that they may clarify the true intention behind Master Striking.

Well it's been a fun up and down hill battle with this thread and the combat system requires more adjusting. I never expected this thread to go as big as it is now. This thread has left me too burnt out to critique other issues. Carry the torch for me my brothers.

Intro

Note: I have stirred some confusion for not noting this. Whenever I say riposte/parry, I refer to master striking, not when the enemy strikes back after "Normally" blocking.

Second Note: If you're not going to take your time to read this entire thread and post something that has already been talked about, then at least read the conclusion to hear my final thoughts on this mechanic.


I want to enjoy this game, I really do. It has exceeded most of my expectations to make it past as a decent RPG game, but I cannot help but be very disappointed and frustrated with the current melee system as it is now. I was first pretty disappointed to find out that blocking is done by just pressing Q instead of directional blocking like in Mount&Blade as it makes blocking feel bland and less satisfying. I chose to accept and tolerate this, but what I could not accept is how master striking works as it renders melee engagements unfair, unviable (Without cheesing), and not fun.

What Is Master Striking?

Master Striking is a mechanic that allows the user to deflect an opponent’s blow and attack at the same time. This is activated by perfect guarding (Pressing Q as soon as the opponent strikes) and there is a chance your character will automatically perform a parry which will deflect the blow and damage the opponent with an automatic unstoppable follow up attack.

DO NOT CONFUSE THIS WITH ATTACKING BACK AFTER A PERFECT BLOCK

Skip to the third minute of this video

https://youtu.be/eNdPuIbWskM?t=3m

What Is The Problem With It?

There is absolutely no counterplay to this mechanic at all rendering melee irritating and unviable. When an opponent Master Strikes your attack, you will become locked in an animation, unable to do anything as you witness your opponent deflecting your attack and then whispering into your ear “Just let it happen” as he proceeds to bopping your head with his pommel, kicking you in the groin, or thrusting his blade into your ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Once your opponent has master striked your attack, you are already dead.

Edit: I may have exagerated the damage of Master Strike, excuse my poor Fist of The North Star Memes. However, I still don't believe this justify free damage.

EVIDENCE: QUOTE FROM BERNARD - Third minute of video above.
"See? I parry and strike in one move. There's no defence against this technique if it's executed well. The thing is to time it right. Block right into your opponent's strike and match your movement to his. One elegant technique and the fight is won."


To make this mechanic worse, master strike is triggered by RNG by the opponent which makes this problem outside of the player’s controls. “Gitting Gud” will get you nowhere. Every time you strike at your opponent, there is a random chance that he will just master strike your attack. Remember of what the game taught you about feinting, attacking the opposite direction of your opponent’s sword stance and chaining strikes? You might as well throw that information out of the window because it doesn’t matter! Parrying God bandits disregard these rules of the game and will trigger Master Strike even if you feint, attack the opposite direction, or chain strikes. The AI is untrickable with an autoguard system with a slight chance guaranteeing to screw you over. This leaves most players such as myself feel cheated.

EDIT: Please do not misunderstand me that i am ok with the player abusing it himself.

EDIT 2: I am not complaining if the player's master strike is RNG, I am complaining that the trigger for the AI's trigget for Master strike is RNG. I do not care if the player's master strike is RNG or not However, I still do not believe that the player nor the AI should have access to such ability that gives them protection and free damage.

The only solutions to counter Master Striking as it is now is to not slash the opponent at all as slashing at your opponent is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. The only true viable way to fight in duels is to have a 30 second staring contest to see who is stupid enough to swing his sword first for the second person to Master Strike. This makes most of the mechanics in the melee system absolutely useless. The other solution is to not engage melee at all in a medieval melee based game! Running in circles like a buffoon while quickscoping/shotgunning people with a bow is much more viable than engaging in melee.

What You May Say

“Git Gud”

You can not. The AI can't do anything about your master strikes nor can you do anything about theirs. The game tells you can't do anything about it.

"See? I parry and strike in one move. There's no defence against this technique if it's executed well. The thing is to time it right. Block right into your opponent's strike and match your movement to his. One elegant technique and the fight is won." - Bernard


Reread "What is the problem with Master Strikes"

“Just increase your stats”

1.I have won master archery competitions with level 0 archering three times in a row by using a bow that I did not have the stats for.
2. solo’d a group of bandits by running around like an idiot by quickscoping/shotgunning them with a bow around level 5.
3. Stolen loot worth more than few thousands of gold without getting caught with stealth and lockpicking below 6.

And I can’t have a decent 1v1 melee experience for a melee system that can barely support group fights unless my stats are above 10? (which they are). Inexcusable.

Edited: Some people has been informing me that the occurance of Master Strike will decrease as your stats level up. I do not believe such artifical mechanic is the right solution to make the player feel progress. Furthermore, people who have 15+ strength/longsword are still encountering the problem of being Master Striked.

Edited Note: By "Decent" I do not mean by my inability to defeat someone in melee. I refer to it as fun, fluid, and climatic. Master Strikes destroys the flow and enjoyment of exchanging blocks and parrys as it is unstoppable and automatic. It is not fun to rely on cheese strats or to one shot your opponent before he has the chance to Master Strike.

Yes, I appreciate the satisfaction of being able to fight properly after hard work of training. But I do not believe such artificial mechanic in which the player has no control over is the correct solution to the feel of progression.

"Just master strike them back or "Insert cheese strat"

Skip down to Conclusion and read the post that I have marked as my answer.

"It's for realism"
I am not critiquing this game as a medieval martial arts expert who watches every single Skalligram video, I am critiquing this as a gamer who happens to be a medieval dweeb.

Yes, a healthy balance between realism and gameplay can create a wonderful game, but how much gameplay are you willing to compromise for realism if the game will turn into a irritating and unplayable experience?

How Parrying Should Be Done

In Mount&Blade Warband, the player can perform a parry by swinging at the same direction of the opponent’s blade. This will cancel the opponents attack and the player who parried the attack will continue to swing his weapon at the opponent. However, the opponent who was just parried is not left helpless to be killed or gravely injured. He still has time to block the parry and move, but just has a fewer fraction of seconds to react to it. In Kingdom Come’s case, the player is 100% doomed to taking a hit after having his attack parried through a master strike. The main point is to give the person who was parried a fighting chance.

My Suggestions For A Master Strike Rework

I am no gaming developer and I don’t know how complicated it is to rework a part of a melee system in which had years of developing so I may not have the perfect solution, but this game is in dire need of allowing players to counter play against Master Strikes.

I could only think of couple of solutions without adding drastic changes to the melee system

1. Master Strike should only be triggered if the attacker strikes in the same direction in which the defender is holding his sword and successfully blocks the attack. This will allow feinting and choosing directions significantly viable. This will add counterplay to master striking and remove the RNG factor. It will be at least the player’s fault if he gets parried and pummeled for choosing to strike in the wrong direction.

2. Dealing and receiving a master strike does non-lethal damage and gives you a severely low amount of reaction time to react to the enemies follow up attacks after (maybe depending on your defense and agility stats)

3. Completely take it out of the game. This is my least favorable suggestion as it is a waste to see those animations go away. However, I would rather enjoy watching flurrying swords back and forth than to see the flow to be interuppted by an unstoppable mechanic.

I appreciate all the work put into this game. Most RPG’S recently have bored the crap out of me but this game has successfully kept me immersed and holding my attention. I really want this game to succeed as much as it can for all of the hard work put into this! But please do not let one single major flaw in the melee system to ruin everything! Thank you for reading and please let me know your opinion.

Post Discussion thoughts *EDITED*

A normal block by an enemy is followed by a normal swing in which the green shield may or may not appear. However the player is still given movement to retaliate.

A master strike is a block followed by an unstoppable animation of the attacker getting hit.
A few signs are:
- Being striked swiftly to the head
- Being jabbed 3 times to the stomach with the pommel of the sword
- Being kicked
- Opponent swiftly moves aside and instantly swipes at your opening

If the opponent follows up with a normal swing then you have not being Master Striked, it was a normal block.

I am stating this to make sure we are not confusing the difference between master striking and normal blocking.

EDITED 3: Wow, I can't believe I forgot to mention this in my argument. This is BEYOND evidence that Master Striking is UNSTOPPABLE and is a DETRIMENT to the game. I have added this to category "What Is Master Strike"

Conclusion and My Final Thoughts *Edited*

I never mentioned that the game is "hard", it just has an extremly flawed combat system. In its current state, it is designed to PUNISH the player for using the games BASIC CORE mechanics which is one of the worst design choices I've ever seen.

A lot of people don't seem to get that I have no issue with WINNING a battle. In fact it's really easy to abuse and I have only died once to master strike due to my unawarence of its presence in the game. The worst it does to me now is making me pay some armour bills and kill my fun.

Yes there are many methods to avoid and prevent master striking but all of these practical methods DISREGARD the BASIC CORE MECHANICS THAT THE GAME HAS TAUGHT YOU. If you think using tactics that disregard the core mechanics of this game is fine then you have not found the solution, you are RUNNING AWAY from the actual problem.

I don't want to use cheap tactics to win nor do I want to be punished due to a flaw to the game itself. I want well fought duels by utilizing what the game has teached me and wants me to use. I don't mind losing due to my own mistake, I want to enjoy playing and adepting to get better at the game. Preventing Master Strikes has no room for effort for improvement of the player as you can't improve what dice the game throws against you without modding it.

Master strike does not test the players melee skill, it tests the players ability on how to cheat it.

If this design is in fact what the developers imagined then why bother making a complex melee system if it's core mechanics are pointless and punishable? They might as well turn this into a turn based game.

Despite the heavy flaw of the combat system, I will continue to play and enjoy the other aspects of it.

This is all I have to say, but I will still be happy to reply to any disagreements you have.

[PartyMaster]

Originally posted by The Villager:

Originally posted by I Just Wanna Hold..You.. Closeee:

..... errr when your high enough level all you do is slash or stab and either hit him or bait out a parry which you can dodge or counter or block and knock them or hit them with a master stroke, or ripsoite.

Use the F button sometimes.

The problem is the game is rather bulying you into the ground, or being trivialized by stats based around this one mechanic. Almost everything you get taught in sword training aside from master strikes are basicly useless. Game doesnt even tell you about clinches, and fients are literaly useless as the AI does not guard based on your aiming. It basicly just auto blocks your attack no mater where their stance actualy is.

yep. At first the combat seems really cool until you play for a while and learn the enemy NPC's literally give no F's about how you attack or anything.

[Evol_Prodigy]

I actually got the encounter with the knight and, by practiced instinct, denied his duel so I could sneak-kill him and steal his ♥♥♥♥. I'm sorry. I'm really trying.

[DCL]

I think my main problem with the AI is that its very easy to tell that its cheating you.

Its combos are faster than you can ever swing, it can guard and repost without its stance even being remotely near your attack, and they never seem to run out of stamina or make mistakes.

Thats not to say that they are hard to deal with. Simply get heavy armor, abuse clinching or master strokes yourself, or equip a mace and instantly win. Trying to engage in the sword combat to be an actualy skilled combatent is a waste of time, as its core defense mechanic is based on RNG leaving you nothing to skillfully adjust to.

At the start of the game where it promises you that with some time, practice, and levels, you can be at equal footing and have epic sword fights, this is fine. Because the illusion isnt broken. Once you learn how to dominate it, its flaws and tricks become obvious, and how lame they truly are.

[PartyMaster]

Originally posted by Aeryk:

I actually got the encounter with the knight and, by practiced instinct, denied his duel so I could sneak-kill him and steal his ♥♥♥♥. I'm sorry. I'm really trying.

LOL!!! why would you kill that guy! just duel him and make wagers on stuff because when you beat him he actually gives you some amazing $h!t. I got like one of the best chest pieces in the game from him and was like WHAT?!

[Hero]

Originally posted by Aeryk:

Ok. Here you go: "git gud"

If you strike, and they counter, you actually can counter their counter. If you don't know this, if you can't do this, it's not the game - it's you.

so: Git gud.

I don't usually say that, since it's a cop-out to a real explanation, but since you've gone to such lengths to explain something that you're entirely incorrect about, I think it fits.

I'm relatively sure the game actually mentions the process of "counter-riposte-counter-" in one of the combat tutorials with Bernard.

Even if you can master strike a master strike, doesn't mean its fun. All that it's based on is timing. For Honor does this better by involving feints, which means that there's a level of mind games thats missing from this game.

[Sudden]

"it is possible to parry a parry."

There is no "RNG", its all timing as I am sure someone must have said already.
Also, this is by far just about the best Sword Fighting in a video game (and yes, I do Western Martial Arts as a hobby).

That's what this was aiming for, more on the Sim side of things, it never tried to hide that. It does a great job it. Sure M&B gives you more of the feeling of, well, moving you weapon from one side to the other. But when sparring, its almost like playing a song, its all in the timing and understanding Tempo, KCD does a very good job at this.

Again, its not One to One, nothing will be with a mouse and keyboard, but this is damn good for what it is.

[Sudden]

And Swank, you can feint in KCD as well >_>

[DCL]

Originally posted by Swank:

Originally posted by Aeryk:

Ok. Here you go: "git gud"

If you strike, and they counter, you actually can counter their counter. If you don't know this, if you can't do this, it's not the game - it's you.

so: Git gud.

I don't usually say that, since it's a cop-out to a real explanation, but since you've gone to such lengths to explain something that you're entirely incorrect about, I think it fits.

I'm relatively sure the game actually mentions the process of "counter-riposte-counter-" in one of the combat tutorials with Bernard.

Even if you can master strike a master strike, doesn't mean its fun. All that it's based on is timing. For Honor does this better by involving feints, which means that there's a level of mind games thats missing from this game.

As some one who was rather good at ForHonor and played alot of its beta/early days, Forhonor had this exact same problem. Perfect parries where too rewarding and basicly gave you undeniable damage. To the point where the only winning move was to never attack. Attacking just made you get parried, and fienting wasnt good enough at the time to counter that. Kindomecome actualy has it worse since the AI doesnt guard based on your aiming/stance, so fients literaly do nothing because they just read your inputs and react at the last second.

[PartyMaster]

Originally posted by Sudden:

And Swank, you can feint in KCD as well >_>

As if it even does anything....

[PartyMaster]

Originally posted by The Villager:

Originally posted by Swank:

Even if you can master strike a master strike, doesn't mean its fun. All that it's based on is timing. For Honor does this better by involving feints, which means that there's a level of mind games thats missing from this game.

As some one who was rather good at ForHonor and played alot of its beta/early days, Forhonor had this exact same problem. Perfect parries where too rewarding and basicly gave you undeniable damage. To the point where the only winning move was to never attack. Attacking just made you get parried, and fienting wasnt good enough at the time to counter that. Kindomecome actualy has it worse since the AI doesnt guard based on your aiming/stance, so fients literaly do nothing because they just read your inputs and react at the last second.

dude the parry system in For Honor is such cancer.....

[Sudden]

Originally posted by Partyma5ter:

Originally posted by Sudden:

And Swank, you can feint in KCD as well >_>

As if it even does anything....

practice, practice, practice. ( Is that better than saying "Git Gud"? )

[DCL]

Originally posted by Sudden:

"it is possible to parry a parry."

There is no "RNG", its all timing as I am sure someone must have said already.
Also, this is by far just about the best Sword Fighting in a video game (and yes, I do Western Martial Arts as a hobby).

That's what this was aiming for, more on the Sim side of things, it never tried to hide that. It does a great job it. Sure M&B gives you more of the feeling of, well, moving you weapon from one side to the other. But when sparring, its almost like playing a song, its all in the timing and understanding Tempo, KCD does a very good job at this.

Again, its not One to One, nothing will be with a mouse and keyboard, but this is damn good for what it is.

timing my ass. Unless you count getting lucky and swinging just as the AI was chosing to swing. It is completely RNG because the parries arent based on your "timing", or swing direction.

also as some one else has pointed out, the NPCs have two masterstrieks. A normal perfect block followed by an attack which can be perfect blocked, and a pure masterstrike which is free damage and cannot. Lower level NPCs tend not to do the later, which is why I believe somany people think that all masterstrikes can be parried. Armored NPCs and guards do this frequently, however.

[k'nt]

Originally posted by Aeryk:

Originally posted by Supersomething:

You can't counter an NPC master strike. It's the same exact animations you do when you get master strike on a perfect block. You can however counter regular attacks after they do a regular block to your attack and try to counter you.

You absolutely can.

Can confirm

[PartyMaster]

Originally posted by Sudden:

Originally posted by Partyma5ter:

As if it even does anything....

practice, practice, practice. ( Is that better than saying "Git Gud"? :praisesun: )

Dude read what people are posting in this thread, feinting is literally useless because of the RNG. the NPC's read your inputs of attacks regardless of what you do and react at the last second and your screwd almost every time. if they regular block all my attacks then I don't care because I'll combo kill them every time. If they perfect block or ripost then I'm going to be fighting them for literally forever because feinting doesn't work.

[Hero]

Originally posted by Sudden:

And Swank, you can feint in KCD as well >_>

Feints in For honor are different, they cancel the attack, giving you the ability to do something else. In this game, they just come from a different angle. The combat leaves a lot to be desired.