Junior Member
After seeing the gameplay footage from gamescom, there is just too much spinning. There is no point in turning your back on your opponent just after you have been blocked in hopes of getting through with exactly the same strike, just a bit harder... Either you get sacked from behind, thrown on the ground and finished with a dagger, or the opponent just lets you do your wild swing, parries with a soft block and runs you through you with a counter attack.
There is no way, you can spin around like that after you have just been blocked and have any reasonable expectations of getting through. Especially with hard blocks, like the ones used in the game, the defender will use his whole body like a spring to absorb the impact and keep the sword from breaking. It just makes sense to block in such a way, if you don't do a soft block to begin with.
Here's the thing: any spring will snap back. Would you turn your back to an opponent, who is standing in a slightly lowered stance after letting himself be pushed back for a slight bit to absorb the impact of your blade? Because that's what will happen: You committed to an all out attack and the opponent used his all to block it and is ready to counterattack with a big one and you turn your back on him? How suicidal can you be? Well, in for honor, it somehow seems to work, because even a perfect block still allows the opponent to chain a second attack. And we aren't talking about small, concise attacks here, we are talking about the opponent drawing that blade, you just stopped all the way back, spinning and engaging in a huge all-out attack, that's likely to overswing by a mile, if he misses.
There is a place for spinning: It's called recovery. If you MISS your opponent, because you misjudged the distance or got sidestepped and this miss causes you to overswing the target(usually, you'd want to stop the sword in a guard position rather than swinging all the way through) you then have the option to, instead of trying to stop the blade and somehow get it back on target in time, just keep on swinging and following the blade all the way around for a second swing. This has nothing to do with any planned action, it's just a way to recover from a fumble. And certainly nothing, you'd do after your attack got blocked or you actually hit the target. If your blade is in the strike zone, you'd want to go for half-swording or grappling... strike them with the crossguard or pommel, just follow with another strike, try to hook their legs with the crossguard and make them fall, throw the pommel at them, I don't know... Anything is better than going for the big guns. You have just hit the target. You don't know how badly he was hit. Maybe he will go down and your proud swing will whiff in the air and cause you to stumble over his body. Maybe your hit didn't affect him at all and you suddenly find your leg hooked in the middle of the spin. Maybe it somewhat affected him, but your spin gives him enough time to recover and step to the side. If you hit him, stay on target and end him rightly. There is no benefit in turning away without even checking how effective your initial hit was in the first place.
And then there's that whole thing about responsiveness and interactivity. If it doesn't matter, whether the strike hits, gets blocked or misses and your followup swing's timing does not get affected by any of those factors, we might as well be beating on wooden practice dummies. Why doesn't it matter, whether we hit or not? Why is the system so rigid and non-interactive, that we get the same result whether we get blocked or not?
Yes, some of those questions may be answered with "pre-alpha build" and maybe I was a bit too harsh, but I don't wanna play ballet simulator 2016, I wanna do sword fighting.
So what I'd propose:
Add another followup attack for strikes that get blocked or hit the target and only use the spin for big swings, that don't make contact with an enemy.
Senior Member
I presume (given your comment in the other thread) that you're referring (mainly) to this video?
If so, I said in the other thread (later comment than yours) that it's all the same attack---an 'up-strong; up-strong' combo---which nobody seems to be picking up on in the match, since he keeps winning---which means it is a single, solitary instance of spinning in all the Warden's moveset, which I don't think should cause such an uproar for 'not being realistic', especially since everyone magically attaches their swords to their backs while climbing ladders and he launches a catapult strike that lands inside a building (1:45).
Otherwise, most, if not all, of the instances of him being blocked and then spinning for the follow up involve him staggering his opponent for the initial strike, which means they weren't using their body to absorb the impact, and they need a half-moment to recover, which would give an attacker enough time to spin, build momentum, and attack again. It makes him predictable, so it wouldn't be recommended, but it's hardly suicidal. Same thing for if the strike connects. The defender staggers, and needs a moment to recover, which again leaves an opening to build momentum; again, predictable, so not recommended, but the onus is on the defender to see the second attack coming and block, dodge, or interrupt it. I think when the game (or the beta) comes out, people will figure out how to counter it, and it won't be used with the frequency people are worried about.
Also, the initial strike can be parried (at 5:07), so the combo can be interrupted, meaning it's even less of an issue if you get your timing down.
Member
