People are still playing warband yet this is a niche genre

[Bilge]

Mordhau has 827 players right now, while 5,554 people are playing MB Warband as I write this. There are also tons of people playing Kingdom Come, Conqueror’s Blade, etc. This game died because of EXPLOITS, bad game design, and a lack of content combined with boring maps. Every map has the same 'push the cart' objective. Give me a freaking break, no one wants to push that stupid cart.

How can most Mordhau players be so delusional? This is not a niche genre; people are leaving because of the EXPLOITS, not because this game has a high skill ceiling. Casual players APPRECIATE and ADMIRE good players who have a deep understanding of game mechanics. They laugh and appreciate the beauty when a skilled player dodges their attack using body movement such as leaning or crouching.

They cringe so hard when they see a beautifully crafted, gorgeous Zweihander generating heinous drags, and they uninstall the game. That’s it. Not because they got their ass kicked or because they don’t enjoy medieval games

[Zyenu]

I left because of exploits and facing the same players every day, servers were getting empty. Yet about twice a year I come to this forum in hopes of a Mordhau 2 (fingers crossed for no accel/drag BS)

[DrunkDwarf]

You do not seem to understand what Concurrent data represents, how it differs from total unique players, and how it is influenced by the way people play the game. Your conclusions are flawed as a result, because the comparison it's trying to derive from is flawed.

Mordhau is a round-based multiplayer game, with only horde as it's PVE mode, and that mode has very few players compared to the multiplayer modes. Average length of sessions across players is very low, typically a single round. This results in a massive turnover of unique players over the course of a day across the globe. Players join for a round, they leave, another player comes in to fill that slot next round. This results in a low concurrent value but high unique total players.

Warband is a (primarily) singleplayer game with a campaign mode, and a lot of singleplayer campaign mods. That changes the behaviour of players. This results in players playing for longer sessions, because they're happily left to their own PVE experience. Longer sessions means there are more individual players playing the game at the same time (meaning higher concurrency), but less overall unique total players because they aren't swapping in and out of a multiplayer lobby constantly.

Hopefully I explained that clearly enough for you, if not I can rephrase it in another way. But in short, this means you cannot draw a meaningful comparison between the concurrent values of vastly different styles of game. You cannot compare the concurrents of a singleplayer game with a round-based multiplayer game to make claims that it represents something meaningful about interest in the genre.

Multiplayer melee slashers are a niche genre, and yes, they face very unique challenges of being a competitive PVP environment that a mostly PVE game does not have to worry about.

For most players you cannot really play Mordhau without being online, and without having to interact with other players. This is the factor that causes low concurrents, and it does not matter what the combat mechanics really are because players will ALWAYS attempt to dominate other players and abuse whatever game mechanics are available to them. If there is a chat, there will always be toxicity. There will always be cheaters and exploits. These are not issues unique to this genre.

[Bilge]

You are wrong. I'm not saying that Warband, Kingdom Come, etc., are exactly the same as Mordhau. Yes, Mount and Blade is about conquering castles, building an army, and diplomacy, while Kingdom Come is a story-driven RPG. However, they share something in common: they are medieval games with deep combat mechanics. Some of these games have really complex and sophisticated combat systems, while others are more intuitive and not as deep.

There is no reason why someone who likes Kingdom Come or Mount and Blade wouldn't like Mordhau. I get it—someone might say, "I don't like Mordhau because it's not an RPG," or "I want to rule an army, but I can't do that here." But that doesn't mean they dislike the genre because it's supposedly "niche."

Multiplayer melee slashers are not a niche genre. Right now, there are only two active melee games: Chivalry 2 and Mordhau. If a melee slasher existed without drags or an equivalent mechanic, it would easily be in Steam’s top 100 most played games.

I remember Mordhau's release even though I wasn't there myself, every big streamer was playing it. Major FPS streamers were playing it despite having never played melee slashers before. At its all-time peak, it had 60,204 players.

Mordhau sold a lot of copies. If this were a niche genre, it wouldn’t have sold that much.

>and it does not matter what the combat mechanics really are because players will ALWAYS attempt to dominate other players and abuse whatever game mechanics are available to them. If there is a chat, there will always be toxicity. There will always be cheaters and exploits. These are not issues unique to this genre.

Yeah, I agree that’s why exploits shouldn’t be the foundation of the game's combat, lol.

If there's toxicity in the chat, mods should ban or mute toxic players. They shouldn’t say, "Oh, actually, being toxic is a chat feature, so it's cool," lol.

If there are exploits, just fix them. Don’t try to brainwash the player base by saying, "Oh, actually, they add depth to the game."

TL;DR: Mordhau is not a game of a niche genre, it sold many copies and had the potential, but most players left because of exploits like drags, and some left because of the lack of content. That's it.

[DrunkDwarf]

Originally posted by Bilge:

You are wrong. I'm not saying that Warband, Kingdom Come, etc., are exactly the same as Mordhau. Yes, Mount and Blade is about conquering castles, building an army, and diplomacy, while Kingdom Come is a story-driven RPG. However, they share something in common: they are medieval games with deep combat mechanics. Some of these games have really complex and sophisticated combat systems, while others are more intuitive and not as deep.

There is no reason why someone who likes Kingdom Come or Mount and Blade wouldn't like Mordhau. I get it—someone might say, "I don't like Mordhau because it's not an RPG," or "I want to rule an army, but I can't do that here." But that doesn't mean they dislike the genre because it's supposedly "niche."

People like medieval games, absolutely, especially PVE ones where they don't have to worry about other players being sweaty and competitive. Everyone wants to be the hero of the story, not the nameless peasant being slaughtered in the background of someone else's story.

This is where the huge difference comes in for multiplayer melee slashers, which makes any comparisons to other medieval games that aren't multiplayer games irrelevant.

That someone enjoys being a medieval knight in a singleplayer game has very little bearing on whether they want to play competitive PVP modes against other players. The gameplay and mindset is entirely different, it's no longer a factor of theme. Some people enjoy both, but they enjoy them for their gameplay first and foremost.

Originally posted by Bilge:

Multiplayer melee slashers are not a niche genre. Right now, there are only two active melee games: Chivalry 2 and Mordhau.

Two games currently in the genre is exactly the definition of being niche. I'm delighted that there are so many potential melee slashers in development to expand upon that, because then it might some day not be considered a niche genre.

Originally posted by Bilge:

If a melee slasher existed without drags or an equivalent mechanic, it would easily be in Steam’s top 100 most played games.

Chivalry 2 resolved drags by having held parry, making them not effective and not a significant part of the game, and yet, it's not in the top 100.

You are making a claim with zero evidence to back it up, we've yet to see ANY multiplayer melee slasher popular enough to make claims about what would make this genre that popular, it's an unknown factor.

Sure, you can just make ♥♥♥♥ up about what you THINK would make the genre explode, but until someone actually makes that happen, it's all theoretical and without evidence. I hope we see it, I really do, but none of us can make any claim yet as to what actually WILL be the secret sauce to mainstream success for the genre.

Originally posted by Bilge:

I remember Mordhau's release even though I wasn't there myself, every big streamer was playing it. Major FPS streamers were playing it despite having never played melee slashers before. At its all-time peak, it had 60,204 players.

Mordhau sold a lot of copies. If this were a niche genre, it wouldn’t have sold that much.

I've already tried to explain how concurrency works, and what that 60,204 CONCURRENT players value represents. You do understand that concurrent players and unique players are two very different values right? The proportion of one to the other is the result of average session length.

- Longer average session length = Lower concurrent to unique ratio. Meaning the concurrent and unique player total is closer together.

- Shorter average session length = Higher concurrent to unique ratio. Meaning the concurrent and unique player total is further apart.

Multiplayer games especially experience surges of concurrents when it first releases because it is new and a lot of people are trying it out at the same time, because it just released and a lot of the players of the game are playing it within that first month. This results in longer play sessions.

Two games, or two moments in time for a game, can have the exact same amount of unique monthly users and yet have VASTLY different concurrent values. Do you understand how that is possible from what I've explained?

Originally posted by Bilge:

Yeah, I agree that’s why exploits shouldn’t be the foundation of the game's combat, lol.

They aren't in Mordhau's case, but that's an entire topic of discussion of it's own.

Originally posted by Bilge:

If there's toxicity in the chat, mods should ban or mute toxic players. They shouldn’t say, "Oh, actually, being toxic is a chat feature, so it's cool," lol.

Moderators do take action to mute those abusing the chat, every single day.

Originally posted by Bilge:

If there are exploits, just fix them. Don’t try to brainwash the player base by saying, "Oh, actually, they add depth to the game."

Many exploits have been fixed over the years, whether combat exploits, map exploits, toolbox exploits, or any other.

Even some specific unintended ways to exploit drags have been resolved previously, most notably fixing some ways to exploit underhand drags. This is why underhands are more prone to glances now. Some ways to drag can be an exploit, that doesn't mean all drags are exploits.

Originally posted by Bilge:

TL;DR: Mordhau is not a game of a niche genre, it sold many copies and had the potential, but most players left because of exploits like drags, and some left because of the lack of content. That's it.

The reasons why people left Mordhau are considerably more varied than any one thing, so you can't just make up statistics or claim to know the reasons of the majority. You simply don't have that data, and any claims are therefore unfounded. I may have my own theories for why Mordhau's population dropped off, but I have zero evidence of those either.

[Bilge]

>Two games currently in the genre is exactly the definition of being niche. I'm delighted that there are so many potential melee slashers in development to expand upon that, because then it might some day not be considered a niche genre.

Lol, you admit it, it's not niche. Something that is niche is always going to remain niche. People can't change what they love; if you don't like this genre, you don't. If you do, you do. You don't just wake up one day and say, 'Oh, Mordhau is actually great!' No, it doesn't work that way.
Drags are actually niche. Ask somebody who left Mordhau 9 out of 10 times, they will say drags

>Chivalry 2 resolved drags by having held parry, making them not effective and not a significant part of the game, and yet, it's not in the top 100.

This is an embarrassingly bad argument, completely wrong. Drags in Chivalry are arguably even more effective. So yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about. Your reasoning is laughable at best, delusional at worst

>You are making a claim with zero evidence to back it up, we've yet to see ANY multiplayer melee slasher popular enough to make claims about what would make this genre that popular, it's an unknown factor.

>Sure, you can just make ♥♥♥♥ up about what you THINK would make the genre explode, but until someone actually makes that happen, it's all theoretical and without evidence. I hope we see it, I really do, but none of us can make any claim yet as to what actually WILL be the secret sauce to mainstream success for the genre.

No, I have evidence. Mordhau sold a lot, and many big streamers played it. Did you even read what I wrote, or are you not capable of comprehending?

Let's assume Triternion releases Mordhau 2 with better maps, improved graphics, etc. Tons of people would buy it, and most streamers would play it. People would play for a certain period until they eventually leave because of drags. If Mount & Blade released a multiplayer-only game with more complex combat, people would buy and play it. Yet, somehow, this is still considered a niche genre

>I've already tried to explain how concurrency works, and what that 60,204 CONCURRENT players value represents. You do understand that concurrent players and unique players are two very unrelated values right? The proportion of one to the other is the result of average session length.

Are you having trouble grasping things? I'm not talking about concurrent players right now. I'm saying this is not a niche genre by pointing out the fact that Mordhau once had 60K concurrent players. If it had 60K concurrent players right now, it would be 23rd on Steam's most-played games list, right after DayZ. How could a niche game have had so many concurrent players?

>The reasons why people left Mordhau are considerably more varied than any one thing, so you can't just make up statistics or claim to know the reasons of the majority. You simply don't have that data, and any claims are therefore unfounded. I may have my own theories for why Mordhau's population dropped off, but I have zero evidence of those either.

Duh, they left because of the drags, that's it, it's the main reason. I'm not making statistics up; you don't need to be all-knowing or conduct scientific research to understand why people left Mordhau, lol

[Kush_Kamper]

Originally posted by Bilge:

Mordhau has 827 players right now, while 5,554 people are playing MB Warband as I write this. There are also tons of people playing Kingdom Come, Conqueror’s Blade, etc. This game died because of EXPLOITS, bad game design, and a lack of content combined with boring maps. Every map has the same 'push the cart' objective. Give me a freaking break, no one wants to push that stupid cart.

How can most Mordhau players be so delusional? This is not a niche genre; people are leaving because of the EXPLOITS, not because this game has a high skill ceiling. Casual players APPRECIATE and ADMIRE good players who have a deep understanding of game mechanics. They laugh and appreciate the beauty when a skilled player dodges their attack using body movement such as leaning or crouching.

They cringe so hard when they see a beautifully crafted, gorgeous Zweihander generating heinous drags, and they uninstall the game. That’s it. Not because they got their ass kicked or because they don’t enjoy medieval games

i definitely agree that the maps and lack of content and bad game design in the sense that they wasted a lot of time and energy "fixing" or "balancing" certain stuff years ago and then reverting it later or changing horde mode from what it was killed pretty much the whole PVE part of the community it took them an average of 5-8 months to release an update only for it to maybe have a single weapon or a few skins and some more changes nobody asked for while ignoring bugs like the one where it straight up didnt give you any gold after a game and it was in the game for years or the crashing problems that kept coming back for years. most people wouldnt wait 3 months let alone 5-8 for a single weapon and maybe a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ map, sure these are all things that drained the people from the game over the years but swing manipulation and other so called "exploits" werent it it was constantly trying to get both the hardcore fans who liked the game as is and the noobies who were getting their balls stomped on but better players and crying about it and then not playing again, sometimes you have to get good and learn how to play this game doesnt have SBMM so if you keep running at the level 250 in golden armour swinging a big ass sword maybe go find someone who looks more like you instead of running into his blade and getting your head cut off lol and in most the servers i play they have like maybe 20 real vets and everyone else is level 70 and lower lost being around 1-32 so its not like you cant find someone closer to your level lol but honestly since ive been back the lower levels gameplay has really leveled up its almost as if all the cry babies who couldnt handle the initial whipping are gone now, or maybe you would think that its more believable that they are all hacking or smurfs because it would make you feel better about yourself and thats fine just dont go about crying about people exploiting the game just because you havent tried to learn like the rest of us lol

[Kush_Kamper]

Originally posted by DrunkDwarf:

Originally posted by Bilge:

You are wrong. I'm not saying that Warband, Kingdom Come, etc., are exactly the same as Mordhau. Yes, Mount and Blade is about conquering castles, building an army, and diplomacy, while Kingdom Come is a story-driven RPG. However, they share something in common: they are medieval games with deep combat mechanics. Some of these games have really complex and sophisticated combat systems, while others are more intuitive and not as deep.

There is no reason why someone who likes Kingdom Come or Mount and Blade wouldn't like Mordhau. I get it—someone might say, "I don't like Mordhau because it's not an RPG," or "I want to rule an army, but I can't do that here." But that doesn't mean they dislike the genre because it's supposedly "niche."

People like medieval games, absolutely, especially PVE ones where they don't have to worry about other players being sweaty and competitive. Everyone wants to be the hero of the story, not the nameless peasant being slaughtered in the background of someone else's story.

This is where the huge difference comes in for multiplayer melee slashers, which makes any comparisons to other medieval games that aren't multiplayer games irrelevant.

That someone enjoys being a medieval knight in a singleplayer game has very little bearing on whether they want to play competitive PVP modes against other players. The gameplay and mindset is entirely different, it's no longer a factor of theme. Some people enjoy both, but they enjoy them for their gameplay first and foremost.

Originally posted by Bilge:

Multiplayer melee slashers are not a niche genre. Right now, there are only two active melee games: Chivalry 2 and Mordhau.

Two games currently in the genre is exactly the definition of being niche. I'm delighted that there are so many potential melee slashers in development to expand upon that, because then it might some day not be considered a niche genre.

Originally posted by Bilge:

If a melee slasher existed without drags or an equivalent mechanic, it would easily be in Steam’s top 100 most played games.

Chivalry 2 resolved drags by having held parry, making them not effective and not a significant part of the game, and yet, it's not in the top 100.

You are making a claim with zero evidence to back it up, we've yet to see ANY multiplayer melee slasher popular enough to make claims about what would make this genre that popular, it's an unknown factor.

Sure, you can just make ♥♥♥♥ up about what you THINK would make the genre explode, but until someone actually makes that happen, it's all theoretical and without evidence. I hope we see it, I really do, but none of us can make any claim yet as to what actually WILL be the secret sauce to mainstream success for the genre.

Originally posted by Bilge:

I remember Mordhau's release even though I wasn't there myself, every big streamer was playing it. Major FPS streamers were playing it despite having never played melee slashers before. At its all-time peak, it had 60,204 players.

Mordhau sold a lot of copies. If this were a niche genre, it wouldn’t have sold that much.

I've already tried to explain how concurrency works, and what that 60,204 CONCURRENT players value represents. You do understand that concurrent players and unique players are two very different values right? The proportion of one to the other is the result of average session length.

- Longer average session length = Lower concurrent to unique ratio. Meaning the concurrent and unique player total is closer together.

- Shorter average session length = Higher concurrent to unique ratio. Meaning the concurrent and unique player total is further apart.

Multiplayer games especially experience surges of concurrents when it first releases because it is new and a lot of people are trying it out at the same time, because it just released and a lot of the players of the game are playing it within that first month. This results in longer play sessions.

Two games, or two moments in time for a game, can have the exact same amount of unique monthly users and yet have VASTLY different concurrent values. Do you understand how that is possible from what I've explained?

Originally posted by Bilge:

Yeah, I agree that’s why exploits shouldn’t be the foundation of the game's combat, lol.

They aren't in Mordhau's case, but that's an entire topic of discussion of it's own.

Originally posted by Bilge:

If there's toxicity in the chat, mods should ban or mute toxic players. They shouldn’t say, "Oh, actually, being toxic is a chat feature, so it's cool," lol.

Moderators do take action to mute those abusing the chat, every single day.

Originally posted by Bilge:

If there are exploits, just fix them. Don’t try to brainwash the player base by saying, "Oh, actually, they add depth to the game."

Many exploits have been fixed over the years, whether combat exploits, map exploits, toolbox exploits, or any other.

Even some specific unintended ways to exploit drags have been resolved previously, most notably fixing some ways to exploit underhand drags. This is why underhands are more prone to glances now. Some ways to drag can be an exploit, that doesn't mean all drags are exploits.

Originally posted by Bilge:

TL;DR: Mordhau is not a game of a niche genre, it sold many copies and had the potential, but most players left because of exploits like drags, and some left because of the lack of content. That's it.

The reasons why people left Mordhau are considerably more varied than any one thing, so you can't just make up statistics or claim to know the reasons of the majority. You simply don't have that data, and any claims are therefore unfounded. I may have my own theories for why Mordhau's population dropped off, but I have zero evidence of those either.

rare mod W i dont tend to agree with Mods but you go girl tell em whats what gamer

[Kush_Kamper]

Originally posted by Bilge:

>Two games currently in the genre is exactly the definition of being niche. I'm delighted that there are so many potential melee slashers in development to expand upon that, because then it might some day not be considered a niche genre.

Lol, you admit it, it's not niche. Something that is niche is always going to remain niche. People can't change what they love; if you don't like this genre, you don't. If you do, you do. You don't just wake up one day and say, 'Oh, Mordhau is actually great!' No, it doesn't work that way.
Drags are actually niche. Ask somebody who left Mordhau 9 out of 10 times, they will say drags

>Chivalry 2 resolved drags by having held parry, making them not effective and not a significant part of the game, and yet, it's not in the top 100.

This is an embarrassingly bad argument, completely wrong. Drags in Chivalry are arguably even more effective. So yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about. Your reasoning is laughable at best, delusional at worst

>You are making a claim with zero evidence to back it up, we've yet to see ANY multiplayer melee slasher popular enough to make claims about what would make this genre that popular, it's an unknown factor.

>Sure, you can just make ♥♥♥♥ up about what you THINK would make the genre explode, but until someone actually makes that happen, it's all theoretical and without evidence. I hope we see it, I really do, but none of us can make any claim yet as to what actually WILL be the secret sauce to mainstream success for the genre.

No, I have evidence. Mordhau sold a lot, and many big streamers played it. Did you even read what I wrote, or are you not capable of comprehending?

Let's assume Triternion releases Mordhau 2 with better maps, improved graphics, etc. Tons of people would buy it, and most streamers would play it. People would play for a certain period until they eventually leave because of drags. If Mount & Blade released a multiplayer-only game with more complex combat, people would buy and play it. Yet, somehow, this is still considered a niche genre

>I've already tried to explain how concurrency works, and what that 60,204 CONCURRENT players value represents. You do understand that concurrent players and unique players are two very unrelated values right? The proportion of one to the other is the result of average session length.

Are you having trouble grasping things? I'm not talking about concurrent players right now. I'm saying this is not a niche genre by pointing out the fact that Mordhau once had 60K concurrent players. If it had 60K concurrent players right now, it would be 23rd on Steam's most-played games list, right after DayZ. How could a niche game have had so many concurrent players?

>The reasons why people left Mordhau are considerably more varied than any one thing, so you can't just make up statistics or claim to know the reasons of the majority. You simply don't have that data, and any claims are therefore unfounded. I may have my own theories for why Mordhau's population dropped off, but I have zero evidence of those either.

Duh, they left because of the drags, that's it, it's the main reason. I'm not making statistics up; you don't need to be all-knowing or conduct scientific research to understand why people left Mordhau, lol

as someone with 300ish hrs in M&B i hate to inform you that A) you can hold your block and B) you can in fact perform drags and accels lol no mans sky sold a ♥♥♥♥ ton in the beginning too didnt mean it was popular it means it had hype D&D and how tabletop games used to be niche yet have become mainstream rock and roll and metal were the same how can you say something that is niche will always be niche at this point you gotta be trolling right? plz tell me your trolling theres no way somebody could be this ignorant

[Bilge]

Oh, I forgot that expecting draggers to comprehend even the simplest concepts is like expecting a cockroach to solve calculus, it's pointless, laughable, and frankly, a waste of time. Nobody hates drags because they're bad; people just want to play a relatively fair game. Nobody wants a combat system based on hoping for an instant accel that forces a red parry or relying on ugly, lame drags to connect. No one is trying to lower the skill ceiling or anything

[[‡]=Storky=[‡]]

Originally posted by Bilge:

Oh, I forgot that expecting draggers to comprehend even the simplest concepts is like expecting a cockroach to solve calculus, it's pointless, laughable, and frankly, a waste of time. Nobody hates drags because they're bad; people just want to play a relatively fair game. Nobody wants a combat system based on hoping for an instant accel that forces a red parry or relying on ugly, lame drags to connect. No one is trying to lower the skill ceiling or anything

Look at the time waster here, lmao
Karen, who considers KCD as a balanced melee game

[Bilge]

Duh, I literally spelled it out for you, yet you still failed to comprehend. Some of these games have deep and sophisticated gameplay, while others do not have that, but have intuitive-based combat. Try learning how to read before making an even bigger fool of yourself

[[‡]=Storky=[‡]]

Originally posted by Bilge:

Duh, I literally spelled it out for you, yet you still failed to comprehend. Some of these games have deep and sophisticated gameplay, while others do not have that, but have intuitive-based combat. Try learning how to read before making an even bigger fool of yourself

You made "an even bigger fool of yourself" by comparing KCD against Mordhau 💅

[Bilge]

Oh God, you are you are beyond hopeless, Do you even possess basic reading comprehension? They are both medieval games, one is story driven-rpg one is all about combat. Medieval sword fighting is not some obscure niche, some like that with a story and rpg elements some don't care about that but only combat. Try keeping up before embarrassing yourself further

[[‡]=Storky=[‡]]

About the difference between single player and multiplayer game DrunkDwarf has already explain u.
Your Tantrum is about melee system, in the first post you complain about exploits. So KCD has incomplete unbalanced melee system and weapons, meanwhile Mord has it.

[Bilge]

That guy lives in an alternate reality, he actually thinks I'm criticizing the low concurrent player count, lol.

Yeah, Mordhau's combat system is absolutely flawless and perfectly balanced, I totally agree. Anyone who dares to criticize it must be a noob crybaby who doesn’t even know how to read drags, right? Give me a break