Do alternative defensive styles work?

[Elrond_Buggard]

So I've recently introduced my dad to this game. He loves it, but uses a pretty old-school cross-arm defensive style (think George Foreman).

I'm wondering whether the game registers this as defending oneself, or whether you need to employ a more conventional upright defence? I guess this depends on whether the player's (invisible) arms/elbows register in the game and can therefore be hit and block punches, or whether it's only the gloves that act as defensive tools.

Similar question for the 'philly shell' style, where you defend the body by horizontally covering it with your arm. Does it work?

[Cry Havoc]

There was a patch a few months ago that added support for arm positioning so that your arms/shoulders now do indeed block punches.

I'm not entirely sure how effective it is, but I do occasionally use the philly shell/shoulder roll defense to some success.

[Ian (Sealost)]

The player's invisible arms/elbows do register in the game, but there are a few limitations. The game doesn't actually know how your arms or body are positioned in the real-world. It only knows your hand and head positions. It has to guess at everything else.

However, you do have direct control up to your elbow. Your arms come straight out from your gloves, so if you keep your wrists straight (surprisingly hard to do while playing) then your in-game elbow will roughly line up with your real-world elbow.

How your body is positioned is a total guess by the game, and it will often be quite a bit off from the real-world. For example, if you lean forward, the game may move your body forward in a crouched position instead. Usually when there are multiple valid body positions that would match your head and hand positions, you end up with something in between.

Your upper arms connect straight from your elbow to your shoulder, and if there's not enough room for them to connect properly then your shoulder will be raised to compensate. Because your body position usually isn't perfect, your in-game shoulders often will not line up with your real-world shoulders and thus your in-game upper arm won't perfectly line up with your real-world upper arm either.

And finally, your body doesn't collide with itself. Your hands and arms can pass through your body if positioned to do so. This can sometimes result in situations where your arm is inside of your body if you defend your body very closely and have your arm even the slightest bit flexed to point your elbow back into your body.

Within those limitations, you can defend yourself however you want. I've found cross-arm works great, and in fact I usually use cross-arm to force body hits or head hits when I'm testing the game. Philly shell may work decently well, but if you're not careful your lead arm may end up inside your body and you make take some hits you feel you should not have while trying to shoulder roll.