Parrying feels really random

[Nimbal]

I can't seem to parry in any consistent manner. Sometimes, I'm pretty sure my weapon was in the way, but the opponent still slices right through me. Other times, I'm surprised by the sudden slow motion, not expecting to parry that hit. Coupled with the two hit limit until knockout, this makes attempting to parry much too risky when the alternative is to just wildly swing a weapon like the hammer, hoping to knock opponents away before they can take a swing.

Is there any trick to parrying?

[GULES]

I think there might be a trick to parrying that I'm simply not aware of. I can parry very consistently, but because I know about all the invisible "rules" in the game, and because I've played so much, I tend to play slightly differently than a normal player .I've noticed that the way I use e.g. the rapier is also quite different to other people, and because I use it "how it was intended" I rarely have issues with stabbing as well.

The slowmo on parry was added quite late in development, and I just haven't really had enough time to observe people playing with it on to see what's causing a parry not to trigger when the player expects it should. However I might have one small idea that might improve it in some cases.

That said knowing specific situations in which you feel parry isn't working would be quite helpful. What weapon were you using, what weapon was the enemy using, what kind of attack they were doing etc is good information.

[Taurica]

Originally posted by Nimbal:

I can't seem to parry in any consistent manner. Sometimes, I'm pretty sure my weapon was in the way, but the opponent still slices right through me. Other times, I'm surprised by the sudden slow motion, not expecting to parry that hit. Coupled with the two hit limit until knockout, this makes attempting to parry much too risky when the alternative is to just wildly swing a weapon like the hammer, hoping to knock opponents away before they can take a swing.

Is there any trick to parrying?

I get the same thing

[Tantalus]

I'm pretty sure the trick to parrying is that you must hit the damage-dealing part of your enemy's weapon with the damage-dealing part of your weapon. It's easiest to see with the spear. The staff part of the spear has no collision, so enemy swings will go right through it. On the other hand, tap their weapon with the blade part of the spear, instant slo-mo.

As for improvements, well, sadly to say, I think the only way to improve the blocking is to give handles/hilts/staffs collision properties so we can block with more of the weapon. I would also like to be able to block my opponent's arm - I don't need it to trigger the slo-mo effect, but whether they're armored or not and whether I'm armed or unarmed, striking the arm should be a way to stop a swing.

As a stop gap, maybe consider increasing the shield's durability. It's practically useless after it takes two or three hits.

[Mr.Schnitzel]

I've had the same experience as Tantalus here. Tried to block an attack with the handle of mace and the enemey swings right through it, however if you change your stance so you hold the mace facing downwards the enemy will then most likely (not always) hit the ball not the handle therefore resulting in slowmo.

[Psychotic_Frog]

I think the hardest weapon to parry is the flail. Since there's no collision on the chain, it's pretty hard to hit the ball directly. I can parry consistently against blades or hammers, but the flail seems so unpredictable to me.

[Tantalus]

Originally posted by Psychotic_Frog:

I think the hardest weapon to parry is the flail. Since there's no collision on the chain, it's pretty hard to hit the ball directly. I can parry consistently against blades or hammers, but the flail seems so unpredictable to me.

Yup, definitely. It's also the hardest weapon to parry with, but I think that's sort of the way it should be. I mean, yes, you should be able to parry by wrapping the chain around another weapon, but there's no way for them to do that without adding physics to the chain (and that would be very, very messy and cause problems for the flail in general), plus it would mean that it would be an easy way for the player's weapon to become desynched from their controller. In other words, if your flail's chain is wrapped around another weapon, you shouldn't be able to move your controller, but they can't physically stop you from doing that, so your hand will no longer be where your virtual hand is.

[GULES]

The mace's handle and ball are part of the same thing, i.e. both count as the "damaging" part of the object. The visual representation of the object just isn't always an accurate summary of what the weapon is actually doing. Here's a gif of an older version of the mace, it's been improved a lot since this version but still behaves in a similar way: http://imgur.com/a/gV4rm Although far off, the odds of a blow going in between the handle and hilt seems tiny.

But yes, I do consider that hitting the damaging part of their weapon, with the damaging part of your weapon, while they are swinging, to be a parry. Parrying with e.g. the shaft of the spear would make it too strong I feel. I don't feel that I mind that the flail is very hard to parry - it simply means you have to adjust your tactics for fighting that enemy. Similarly, I don't mind that the flail is worse at parrying than other weapons, it's part of its character. Ideally the flail wielding enemies should have another weakness (besides, i suppose, that they are frickin idiots and will almost always hit a teammate) and the flail should have some sort of strength when wielded by the player, which it doesn't really have right now.

I do believe that damaging a gladiator should always interrupt their attacks, I'll check that that is working. I don't think hitting them on an armored part should (unless you are using a weapon that deals damage through armor, like the heavy weapons). This is really the only rule in the game that helps to counter the mindless flailing style of gameplay.

In any case one of the updates this weekend had a small change that might help improve parrying in some cases. Let me know if you can tell a difference!

[TH3_CL34N3R]

Originally posted by Tantalus:

...I think the only way to improve the blocking is to give handles/hilts/staffs collision properties so we can block with more of the weapon. I would also like to be able to block my opponent's arm...

Agreed. This game has the best melee combat available in VR right now, and seeing the enemy's blade pass right through the shaft of my weapon is the only thing that ruins the immersion for me (well, that and smacking the wall and having to pause and check that my controller is ok, but the developer can hardly be blamed for my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ apartment!).

To clarify: I think we should be able to BLOCK with a weapon's shaft, no slow-mo - PARRYING is fine the way it is IMO

Originally posted by raithza:

http://imgur.com/a/gV4rm

This explains a lot. Maybe a second collider coming from the handle part that doesnt collide with the top bit, just to aid with blocking? I've no experience in unity, so I hope that makes sense...

[GULES]

Originally posted by Rrajicard:

Agreed. This game has the best melee combat available in VR right now, and seeing the enemy's blade pass right through the shaft of my weapon is the only thing that ruins the immersion for me

That demonstration is really exaggerated, for the mace specifically that gap is so small that I really can't imagine a weapon passing through there cleanly. I really need to see some video footage of strikes repeatedly passing through weapons so I can tell for sure though.

[TH3_CL34N3R]

Originally posted by raithza:

for the mace specifically that gap is so small that I really can't imagine a weapon passing through there cleanly

I've no problems with the mace collision; it's actually my favorite off-hand weapon for this reason.

The spear has always seemed a little unreliable when blocking, I don't use it much though so maybe something has changed recently, I'll give it another go.

Originally posted by Rrajicard:

...seeing the enemy's blade pass right through the shaft of my weapon...

I mis-spoke here, it's more that the shaft of the enemy's weapon - e.g. mace - appears to pass through MY weapon, and I end up taking a spiked ball to the head - i.e. shaft-on-shaft collisions seem unreliable.


Hell, I got nothing to do today, I'll try and get some video footage showing what I mean. Maybe I'll discover that I just needed to 'git gud'! :P

[GULES]

Right, things will definitely pass through the spear's shaft as the spear is so complicated that the visual representation is often WAY off. Like you can "stretch" the spear but the handle collider doesn't stretch with it. I can improve it somewhat but it's a difficult problem to solve, at least for me, as should be evident going by the quality of the spear thusfar. Also, the flail chain never has any collision.

[TH3_CL34N3R]

Ah, I'll ignore 2-handers for now then. 'Bout to start recording, will try and have a parry-centric gamplay vid up for you later today (couldn't do it earlier because I had to fix my Vive wand after yesterday's onslaught lol). Thanks for the response! (and the awesome game, obv)

[TH3_CL34N3R]

So... my parry-testing video didn't save properly. Anyway, spear handles notwithstanding, parrying and blocking seems to be mostly on point. Maybe this latest patch changed something, maybe I just got gud (unlikely), but I was only able to get a weapon-goes-through-weapon scenario once or twice. Again, this is all weapon shafts, the blades/spikes etc collide perfectly.

But a video was promised, so here's a general gameplay vid if that's any use to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHsCctWS8VU

(weird bug at around 6:55, and another at the very end)