Got switched to R.

@Badass_Ben said:
When was the last time you ever saw a hold-block shield used in Ranked?
Hm?
Equipping a shield ONLY helps in Frontline
Taking a shield 1v1 is suicide as you simply CANT win the stamina war

Didn't people abuse Kite + Heavy Handaxe in EU Elite if they didn't implicitly have a gentleman's agreement not to play really tediously? Only takes 1 more stam damage from parries while outweighing most 2hers in stam drain so I think you still ended up outstamming most people first, especially if you get the first hit or they tried something silly like feint to kick when it used to stun. As for current implementation, ripostes are super cheesed by held block, so held shields would probably still be used in a no-ban $1000 duel tournament lol.

My suspicion is that the entire shield will act as an active parry hitbox for the entire duration of riposte, i.e. you won't have to worry about being hit from your left side during the entirety of your riposte. This would be massive in 1vX and teamfight survivability, you can essentially tunnel on one guy so long as you aren't surrounded behind you.

The new shield hold function is niche, but incredibly powerful in select situations. It's really good at holding the spiral staircases in Grad protecting the Commander for instance while teammates poke with spears from above, managed to hold for like 15 minutes in a pub with this lol. Also synergizes greatly with Engineer structures to force chokepoints at more open spots (e.g. so you can play doorman, probably want Fireproof perk so you don't get rekt by fire).

Spots I've found where kite shield is strong:

• Spiral staircases in Grad
• Paths to Warden in Grad
• Underground entrances in Feitoria
• Noble houses in Feitoria

Haven't touched Mordhau in forever, but I am pleased that the team is starting to finally starting to experiment with big gameplay changes like this (other notable examples to me being blunt slowdowns, billhook's massive slow, and spear rearing horses).

This implementation is quite close to what I've proposed. However, if I'm not mistaken, kick stun against shields is still in, which kills a lot of what would make this new held shield useful. The idea is to be a super sturdy human barricade for doorways and narrow chokepoints and such (e.g. think of guarding the tunnels in Grad while your teammates spear from behind). Now that held shield mode is very chokepoint/objective-oriented and not so good in direct combat, I think kick stun has to go.

I believe increasing the length of active parry during shield ripostes would be the best way to make shields a worthwhile defensive buff for team play.

If it doesn't already, having the shield model's hitbox become a part of the active parry during a riposte could be interesting as well, providing you with left-side protection in a 1vX. Constantly positioning yourself to "duel" the guy to your right without letting yourself get stabbed from the left during your ripostes, sneaking in a few target switches and staggers here and there when tempo allows for it - now that sounds like an exciting reason to take up the sword and board.

I'm not able to play right now, but it sounds like the implementation isn't quite perfect/feeling right yet, but this is a step in the right direction because there's much more potential for shields to feel unique and usable at all skill levels now.

@Jax said:
We obviously care about the game and we're working on updates, if we wanted to jump ship with the money we wouldn't be making big updates and working super hard on content and features.

Everything is true except this part: obviously, which is the crux of the problem. This isn't because you guys aren't working on the game (I understand that new maps and mechanics take forever), but because nothing is being communicated and immense problems that do have a quick or already finished solution aren't implemented in a timely manner (horses, Crossroads temporary removal, the TKing and spawnblocking issue, etc.). To me, this indicates an issue with the development pipeline and someone in the private Discord chat theorized that whatever version control is being used disallows the team from releasing such hotfixes on an older, stable live version.

When people return to the game and give it another try, they want to see change, not just with new maps and skins but with the team's development process and attitude. To see "shields now have bigger kickbox lol" in patch notes and hear that a rework is never coming does the opposite of this.

The current model is not working. And it was frustrating and mindboggling to deal with in alpha too. Jax, I suspect that you're the lightning rod of abuse when it's probably not even your fault. You were admonished by the team for trying to show Frontline to the rest of us in the alpha. When I heard about that, I couldn't help but ask myself, WHY??????? Why was the #1 priority to "not show anything, to build up hype for our alpha players"? Why weren't we allowed to actually see the mode for ourselves and give input months before release so that perhaps the team could be directed into making a more fitting and better gamemode before it was too late? I feel as if the rest of the team is tying your hands and gagging you all the time. When you stream, I'm always hearing "...but I can't talk about that" from you.

Honestly, think of it as a relationship. You don't talk to your girlfriend one day and then just stop texting her for two weeks... that doesn't get people hyped. She's just gonna dump you. People are just gonna quit playing. Absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder... possibly one of the worst trite sayings being passed around as common wisdom. At the very least, it does not foster a healthy relationship.

And that's exactly what it is. The relationship between player and the devs is souring. The biggest problem isn't the melee combat; probably the opposite, that is its greatest strength and it's very obvious to release players that that is what the devs focused on 90% of the alpha. The new maps will alleviate the "lacks content" problem, but it's kind of like buying a new purse for your girlfriend - it's not a permanent solution if the root problems of your relationship aren't fixed and addressed.

The devs need to be able to find a system where they can hotfix and incrementally release smaller patches while simultaneously working on the big loads to come every month or so. That would be communication by showing good and timely acts. In the absence of patches, smaller engagements (text messages saying I love you with the cute smiley faces and shit) are needed. Right now that girlfriend doesn't feel loved, the guy's never texting her, he promises her that he's gonna land this huge deal and they're gonna get so much money and they're gonna move out to a better house and get a dog and it'll all be better, but what that girlfriend is asking for is to feel loved and present.

OP said:
Let's face it - the developers don't care what any of us want, and they never have to again. Mordhau's surprise success made them all millionaires overnight. Why on earth would they want to spend any of that money on a game that's already the overwhelming majority of money's it's ever going to make? If I were in their position, I'd say fuck Mordhau and enjoy early retirement.

Revenue =/= profit. Steam's cut, Unreal's cut, payments to employees around the globe, working with those foreign laws, and taxes. Let's imagine that Mordhau sold 2 million copies at an average cost of $29 (the game's price depends on the region and the means in which it was bought, e.g. first week sale, the 3000 kickstarter buyers, etc.).

2,000,000 x 29 = $58,000,000

Cool, but now Steam takes 30% off of that
58,000,000 * 0.7 = 40,600,000

Then Unreal takes 5% of that
40,600,600 * 0.95 = 38,570,000

Taxes vary immensely across the various countries... but European taxes are generally a lot higher than American taxes. I don't know how corporate vs personal taxes factor into all this, but my guess is that you take that above number and reduce it by the corporate tax rate, then it is again taxed by the personal tax rate.

Corporate Tax of 20% (Slovenia at 19%, but I'm not sure how this works with Triternion having people around the globe)
38,570,000 * 0.8 = 30,856,000

This is assuming 2 million copies sold, which I don't think is the case. Over a million is confirmed, which would be $15,428,000. One and a half million would be at $23,142,000, which is probably closer to reality.

This isn't even factoring in any of the loans and debts that marox and co. almost certainly had to undertake. There was a huge rush before release to push the game out due to "money". The devs had to live somehow with $0 income from Q4 2014- Q2 2019. Mordhau had some very strong guerilla marketing around release, whether they had to pay the big bucks for it or not is unknown cause it's quite literally none of our business.

Then as marox allocates that ~$23,142,000 to the 11 members of the team, each of them is taxed differently based on the bracket. I think that this tax rate can be as high as 50%, so even if you were a relatively huge contributor to the team and were about to receive $1 million, that could be reduced to $500,000 that you actually get to take. This sounds like a lot, but considering you weren't paid for 4.5 years, this averages to an annual income (not gross revenue) of $110,000. Certainly still good by most people's standards, but you weren't able to spend any of that for 4.5 years + this isn't your income anymore unless Mordhau miraculously sells at a static rate of 1.5 million copies per year. Certainly far from being able to retire. If I'm grievously wrong about how taxation in this scenario works, please feel free to call me out on it.

Chances are that the team members didn't evenly receive $2 mil as their gross income, not all members joined at the same time and some comparatively have easier jobs. People who aren't the CEO tend to get salaries and compensations based on their job.

"So is marox hogging all that gold for himself?"

He can, but I highly doubt he would given that he took the immense risk and trouble of developing Mordhau in the first place and continues to develop it (even though 99% of that process is currently hidden...). The dude has a PhD and several published papers in Computer Science... he could've become a CTO or some big shot elsewhere making a regular $250+k a year without all the stress and risk of developing a massive game.

Why on earth would they want to spend any of that money on a game that's already the overwhelming majority of money's it's ever going to make?

Because investment into a company fosters good will and a stream of revenue for the future. This is what Torn Banner didn't get and what a lot of short-sighted, greedy companies in general don't understand (and unfortunately, companies and politics in America is filled to the brim with that). Mordhau has room to reclaim big playercounts and grow beyond even that. If marox doesn't believe that, then yes, he should just take the money and run. But I feel as if he is motivated by things other than money considering he started Slasher alone, already has the skills to make very steady and good money, refuses to implement microtransactions, refused to find a publisher that would've made this whole process 100x easier, etc.

If I were in their position, I'd say fuck Mordhau and enjoy early retirement.

And that's probably why it is unlikely you (and most people including myself) would ever be in that position in the first place.

"Dude, if marox isn't hogging all the gold and didn't pay each of his employees a gorillion bucks, then that means they just have like ~$20 million lying around! Why aren't they getting more employees?"

As already mentioned, chances are that Mordhau already made of the majority of the amount of money it will ever make (unless it explodes again with some significant patch, which is possible and hopefully what happens - CSGO erupted with the skins update, Blizzard games had expansion packs which are just today's version of 2.0.1 and 3.0.1 patches, Minecraft took a few years to truly explode, Rainbow 6 Siege was more successful quite a bit post-launch than on release). The income of the company isn't $20 mil per year, but probably rather low now that the game has settled down and dried out. Yet, the salaries of all 11 employees must still be paid. In addition to that are server and upkeep costs.

Expanding the team and obtaining a studio has a double whammy in increasing these costs. Even expanding to "just" 20 employees means that those millions will dry up really fast if the team isn't making massive headways. It also doesn't have a guarantee of making processes faster but could potentially make things slower. New coders need to be trained up to speed, which is a long term process and investment. I don't necessarily agree with the team's stance on such matters, but for perspective's sake I mention all this. I do believe this is their general reason for not expanding yet + they still want to keep "the integrity of the game" in tact, so to speak.

But all that being said, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I am very open to being educated and corrected by someone more knowledgeable about such matters. This is all a crapshot.

Tournament-only or not, it would be an even bigger PR shitstorm if he was allowed to pub lol. Good official riddance of him I say, even if he technically can still play on a new account anonymously.

Chiv 2 looking better and better lads

Chivalry 2's art direction (though not necessarily graphic fidelity) looks nice. But everything else surrounding Chivalry 2 still looks way worse. If you think Triternion's bad, well, Torn Banner is doing almost everything else worse lol. What they've shown (and refuse to show) indicates an even huger disconnect and a lack of learning from the past, whether it's the weird choppy animations shown in what's supposed to be their huge big hype reveal or everything they refuse to comment about. "We won't show you or talk about anything of substance, but please believe our outrageous claim that this will be the most hype melee game ever!" The same arrogance preceded Diablo 3's launch, Lawbreakers, Artifact. Luckily for Blizzard, they sold so many copies straight out of the gate (because... pre-2010's Blizzard) that it was a commercial success and they were able to salvage the situation later on. If you think Triternion is arrogant... TBS is on another level.

But back on topic.

To be honest I'm not even sure we can give them props on this aspect of the game's development. Most of the hard work involved in the conception of a melee system was done by the foundations of the system Torn Banner had already created.

Fair point. I was mostly referring to the meticulous coding behind the mechanics. The melee design itself is indeed imperfect in some regards.

TO confirmed to not exist in the first place during alpha/development was tolerated by us because this mysterious Frontline mode absent from alpha was supposed to be superior. The criticisms they gave of TO were fair and correct, which were centered around the fact that it is not the best mode for competitive play or spectatorship. Yet, that is completely irrelevant for public play, and it's not as if we've got a proper competitive mode now lol - now we're lacking both a good casual and comp mode. Release players often say "I get the feeling that the maps were just made willy-nilly and then objectives slapped on last minute as an afterthought". Well... we did get to see Grad being developed in just that manner. Funny that it ended up being the best FL map though.

What really worried me is when one of the devs mentioned that the objectives in TO... well, "they're basically just fancy circles you stand in to fight". So by that logic, the experience of standing in literal circles to fight in Frontline will be the same, he predicted. This really highlighted a disconnect from players to me, that the video portion of video games which is so crucial to immersing players is not being taken into consideration. Frontline was revealed in beta and lacked penultimate objectives (it was just circles until the finale). Objectives were added due to criticism, but their origin as an afterthought is obvious: they don't mesh well with the gamemode itself, the risk/reward is skewed because you are punished for pushing hard rather than turtling the tickets out, and the difference in difficulty was pretty harsh (Taiga barrels vs barricades, Camp bomb towers vs cart, etc.), and they don't do their job of galvanizing players into swarming or working as a team due to a combination of aforementioned FL problems + lack of storytelling.

You know what that reminded me of? Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite. The game didn't have the fucking X-Men. As a response to the shitstorm from fans that this decision ensued, a dev responded with: 'If you were to actually think about it, these characters are just functions. They're just doing things. Magneto, case and point, is a favorite because he has eight-way dash and he's really fast, right? Well guess what, Nova can do the same thing, Captain Marvel can do the same thing. Ultron can do the same thing.' Dude, we want to play as fucking Cyclops just like we were able to in MvC and MvC2! We want to play as fucking Magneto because, well, he's fucking Magneto! Likewise, I want to pillage towns and raid peasants, siege castles as a knight, and slay the king! I don't want to play as some bootleg Nontondo characters even if they are "the same function", I want to play as Fox McCloud and Mario!

The interesting thing about MvC:Infinite is that it's often lauded as having excellent core game mechanics, but the bad graphics, art direction, and the really poor decision to omit a huge part of why people loved the franchise in the first place (X-Men characters) had the game end up as a flop. Though not a one-to-one analogue, I do see a similar thing with Mordhau where the devs didn't understand why TO was beloved in the first place: story, immersion, clear objectives and flow, attack/defend dynamics.

What I'm hoping these criticisms are NOT being taken as is this: "wow the devs won't listen to me in #private_feedback". You'll see that my criticisms aren't generally grounded in the melee mechanics (the most often talked about topic in the channel) or weapon balance but rather the more macro aspects and decision making/direction of the game. And to their credit, private_feedback does have people identifying the correct problems, but often offering pretty bad solutions in return. It's not that devs have the final say that's troubling, it's what they're not budging on and the reasons provided that are worrisome.

"Will good TO maps shut you up?"

Well, there's still other big things to address: BR, Horde, health regen, a proper competitive mode, the points system, the perks system, melee mechanics, etc. And this isn't addressing the lack of communication.

My optimism has faded.

Recently, an interest in a shield rework was expressed, then decided against because devs believe it would do more harm than good to the game's playerbase with shield crutchers being deprived of hold-RMB. When the playerbase has shrunk so much, it's really strange to me that they are so afraid of taking a risk when by their own admission they say held-shields will never be fun and forever be fundamentally broken and clunky.

The stance on BR is unmoving. When I try to explain that the reason BR feels bad for the average player is because they wait minutes for a game to start, only to have it end in seconds, and that even a victory lasts just four minutes, the reply I get is - "if BR was any longer, no one would play it", missing the point of the criticism. Suggest a team-focused BR and you get replies of "that's not a Battle Royale like the book" or "we don't want to be like every other BR." ...The social aspect is 90% of the reason we even played games like PUBG, that we can squad up with our friends vs the world. Shows a disconnect with the casual players who don't just want a loner solo repeated random-weapon duel simulator.

I foresee a similar phenomenon for ranked 1v1 with the planned BO5/FT3 format for it. "The point is to have fast matches." Trying to explain the lack of time to adapt to cheese, and that the perception of not having enough time to adapt (whether it's a valid belief is NOT the most important factor here) to such things, falls on deaf ears. Their fear is that "losing 0 - 5 is going to feel slow and terrible for noobs". Isn't that what ELO is for? "No one wants to play a 9-round game". Except plenty of people would be glad to play a neck-to-neck bo9/ft5 that goes to 5 - 4... people of all skill levels love close matches... I really don't understand this part.

Frontline's story, map designs, and black ops development as a whole... this has been covered extensively by release players enough already.

I had high hopes Horde's potential and enjoyed its flow in Taiga in alpha (well, beta). But releasing it as is, especially with ladders and all, really struck me as odd. This and the fact that minute-job player clip brushes on Taiga trees were never added despite doing a rework on the bridges (which takes more than just a few minutes) also really strikes me as odd.

Weapon balance is the smallest offender imo. Everything's generally useable. Things like unreadable accels, broken stabs, and stamina warfare duels are problems with other systems, not the weapons and their values themselves. Even the purportedly overly safe low risk high reward weapons like Zweis and Halberds and Spears would be balanced if they were highly compelled to wear mail torso or forced to give up helmet + lvl 2 legs entirely if they wanted plate torso (so that even a BS/LS can one or two shot them with precision).

Even the expectations for their own game feels low. "It was naturally going to fall to a regular 5k, the genre is too niche." At the same time, they are so undermanned that that may be a realistic assessment rather than a sabotaging self-fulfilling prophecy. It's hard to say though. But what I do know is that, beyond just the core melee mechanics, there is some unrealized potential gestalt of a game that so many of my IRL friends who have never touched Chivalry (or have sub-10 hours) were really hyped for. We played a boatload of Mordhau, were disappointed by things like lack of team BR and the FL maps, but had a blast with dueling, farming pubs, seeing people get ballista'd and catapulted while yelling, etc. It used to just be the lack of manpower that, while saddening, made me understanding of the devs' limitations and timelines. However, I can no longer be naively optimistic about decisions irrespective of time that being made. There seems to be some sort of disconnect with players both current and prospective, as evidenced by the level designs, modes being released in their state, comments on game modes, etc. Mordhau is a strange experience where extreme love and detail is evident in things like the melee system, and then utter detachment and lack of direction is palpable in other aspects. Highly detailed and beautiful maps outfitted with boring lighting and horrendous, worse-than-Team Fortress Classic early maps' chokepoints and design choices.

Maybe these two new maps and 1v1 ranked mode will be awesome. I won't be around to try myself for their release assuming it's coming this quarter. Mordhau has a base that can take it back to 30k+ concurrent players on the regular imo. Whether or not that can be realized before SDK, and whether or not it ever will, I guess I'll see when I randomly check up steamdb a couple years later.

tbh a "Laserswords" mode would be able to circumvent a lot of the problems even the combat system of this game is bound to.

Wall jumps, as an advanced analog movement option, which helps immensely in not getting surrounded in 1vX and adds enormous dynamics and verticality. It was one thing Mirage did really right: constant movement and outmaneuvering. Force play in general just has high potential if it's analog, highly controllable, and most importantly, not too floaty.

Stormtrooper projectiles, slower than arrows and much noisier both visually and aurally, making them much easier to react to and thus parry so they feel less cheap. In return, these are blasters you can repeatedly shoot (unless sniper), and shooting against other blaster bros is more akin to traditional FPS. Basically, a lasersword guy is untouchable if you're using a blaster in a 1v1, but have two blasters from different angles and he has to be much more tactical about his positioning now. Adds actual strategy and tactics rather than just being ranged annoyance.

part 2: https://mordhau.com/forum/topic/19472/lets-face-it-mordhau-is-dying-and-we-all-know-why/?page=3#c50

The mode would be primarily for holding down chokepoints really hard. While you yourself can't attack, your teammates behind you can. Ideally in this mode, your playermodel bubble would decrease for friendly players, so they can get close to you physically. Imagine Reinhardt + Widowmaker, but medieval: shield + spear. Do note that kick stun on shield would no longer be a mechanic.

I can think of a few spots where this can already be applicable:

• The entrances to Taiga, very narrow and would be hard to take advantage of the limited turn cap if he's got polearm buddies
• The square tower stairs and doorways in Grad
• The farmhouses and stables doors in Grad
• The stairs leading up to Smithy on Grad
• Probably not too good in Camp and Mountain Peak, way too open as maps with no crucial narrow chokes
• Bridge, plank, and ground level Blue hole entrance on Crossroads

Basically, anything to do with holding the door.

Reducing chokes that aren't necessarily single-man-width to be even narrower is still really powerful with polearm support. Taiga's entrances are the main ones I think of. There is counterplay available in firepots, and there is counter-counterplay from a teammate's smokepot. Axes and mauls would make quick work of a shield, but are more vulnerable to spear support poking them due to their short range. An enemy spear can poke away at a shield, but it'll take a while.

I do believe the future maps are supposed to have more general level variety and indoor sections, hodor has even more potential there.

I mean if 100ms is too much, it can be adjusted to 75 or 50ms. 1h'ers without shields are kind of lacking compared to the 2h'ers in teamfights. Their problematic nature in duels tends to be from the state of stabs right now (unreadable, always have to try to chamber), which gives stab morph strikes mixed with morph feints incredible power.

Frontline Rework

Beginning of match, both teams fight to capture midpoint as normal. 0 tickets.

Winner becomes Attacker, loser becomes Defender.

Attacker receives 120 tickets. Attacker must complete objectives. Defenders must defend until tickets run out.

Attacker receives tickets for partial objective completion (e.g. smashing barrels in Taiga, bombing towers in Camp). Ticket drain halts while contesting cart or point.

Once tickets run out, teams swap roles. Defenders become Attackers and receive 120 tickets. It is their turn to recapture any lost points, recapture mid, and work on objectives.

As the game goes on, the defending team's respawn times start getting longer and longer while the attacking team's respawn rate remains the same. This is to break stalemates and eventually make seizing an objective through attrition more possible. Eventually, defenders can have a respawn time spanning over a minute, but this only occur in exceedingly rare matches where both teams are unable to win.

The team on the backfoot can finally be creative with their defense. The attacking team can finally get a true sieging experience without having to worry about backcaps and such.

After the beginning midpoint skirmish, control points have two checkpoints at 1/3 and 2/3. This is similar to Overwatch's 2CP. Once the attacking team's capture bypasses either mark, progress decays no further than that checkpoint if they are forced off the point. This is reset if they fail to take the CP when tickets run out. A held attack that managed to get up to 2/3 progress is close to taking it, but they'd better do it before tickets run out.

A control point is immediately captured by the attackers once neutralized, the time it takes to fully capture the point gives the defenders downtime to set up before attackers begin spawning from the new location. Spawn timers are also back to normal during this capturing process for the defenders so that stragglers are not met with the extended spawn time. During this time, defenders can press [Loadout] to spawn back, just like F1 in Chivalry. Anyone already dead with a respawn time longer than 5 seconds has it reduced to 5.

So long as even a single attacker contests the CP outnumbered or not, ticket drain halts and defenders may not spawn in that CP's spawn point. On the flipside, so long as a single defender stands on the point, it cannot be fully neutralized (it will stay on 99%). Control point capture rate starts to increase as the game lingers on to increase volatility and prevent stalemates.

Games only end via finales, no more boring stalemate ticket drain victories. Comebacks are always possible for the losing team if they manage to hold, then continuously take objectives and CPs. Increasing defender spawn disadvantages and increasing CP capture rates ensure that a long game can be explosively taken by either team quickly.

Note: This was really meant for the 5CP maps (Camp, Grad, Taiga), Crossroads should just be called KOTH or something and Mountain Peak could maybe use a midpoint to determine who attacks first, then it vanishes.

Emphasis on locational play for shields was first tested in Alpha patch 14 and it didn't really work out. It turned out to be really weak and even tougher to deal with attack manipulation than feints, drags, and morphs. Put the shield in a 1v2 and it was game over. Adjust it just a hair and then shields become the forcefields we have right now, one more notch and they're tougher than a NASA interview. There really wasn't a happy middleground that was satisfying to play as or against, and there ceases to be one today.

The main issue I have with shields is in 1vX fights when a noob is stopping your cleave guaranteed even if you baited the rest of the people with a micro feint or whatever.

This is the reason for the windup + the severe movement penalty when holding up the shield. You'd see it telegraphed a year ahead, and it would take him forever to position himself in a spot to block you if you're footworking as you normally would in a 1vX. He's basically turning himself into a tree stump that you can just walk away from while dealing with his buddies.

The Underlying Issue

Everything you mentioned here is exactly what they're working on for the next patch.

Now, for some dev news; PLEASE NOTE, this is not the final say and you are hearing from me rather than the dev himself, nothing you hear is final or even guaranteed to be worked on. Just need to get that formality out of the way.

One of the devs mentioned that RMB held blocks will almost certainly be removed because, as testing and the current release have proven, it's basically impossible to have it be fun. Theoretically we could have it be very well balanced and counterplayable... but what does that matter when it just won't be fun? It won't feel like what most of us think Mordhau melee should feel like.

In exchange, the bonus that the big shields will be getting are something like an additional 100ms duration to the parry window, which would make them quite powerful against drags. Bucklers and targes would presumably have better stamina negation. Perhaps costs would be altered.

Held block would be its own mode just like I mentioned in the OP. Rather than have a shield health, it would just simply play off of stamina and shatter if stammed out (while disarming if stammed out via parry). I don't know about windup, but it would have a recovery time so that you can't just attack out of it willynilly. Extremely harsh movement penalty was mentioned, "to a crawl". Extremely limiting turncap is also mentioned. All of these really cement the held block's purpose as a defensive Stonewall Jackson brick wall with zero offensive or counterattacking melee capability. When not Hodor'ing, the shield user will have to play the same melee game as the rest of us.

I'd probably have it be Mouse4/5 by default, and current players already using it could easily bind it to Z, X, C, V, B, or whatever free button they have.

I'm also sad that @Lionheart Chevalier hasn't replied yet.

This is one big reason why the upcoming TO and attack/defend mode is going to be cool. Frontline discourages this because it's a losing move to buckle up and defend if you don't control the tickets.

This is a known idea, but the lack of mention in the devblog makes me think we'll have to wait longer.

I updated main post: https://mordhau.com/forum/comment/220835/find/ . Old, posting for legacy purposes. Also has my take on health regen, huntsman rework, etc.

Symmetric maps involve both teams playing as one color for attacking, the other for defending. Thus, both teams will be progressing through the same levels and objectives as an attacker, just as both teams attack as Mason and defend as Agatha in Stoneshill.

Asymmetric maps means that Iron Company and Free Guard each have their own unique objectives and levels to traverse through. Thus, a team plays both attack and defend phases as Iron Company or Free Guard.

Beginning Phase: This is a skirmish in a neutral area with no respawns. First team to wipe out the enemy team or fully capture the skirmish point (cannot be captured so long as even a single enemy is contesting it, even if he is outnumbered - this point functionally exists to combat stalling) wins the initial fight. After this skirmish, the game enters a preparation phase. Beginning phase only applies to asymmetric maps, otherwise the matchmaking system automatically determines who attacks first.

Preparation Phase: A ceasefire of 20 seconds, where players can set up defenses, swap loadouts, move up siege engines, etc. Just like the F1 forward respawn in Chivalry, during the preparation phase, a prompt comes up where players can press their Loadout/Team hotkey to immediately respawn at a position of their choosing (convenient for engineers). The ceasefire is enforced by disabled friendly fire damage, visual indicators (gates, barricades, spikes, etc.), and, if you bypass these, no-go zones (you will be relocated back to your spawn selection screen).

Once the preparation phase ends, all the gates start rising up, ceasefire fortifications break down, and the winners of the beginning skirmish go into attack phase with the losers defending. Attacker starts with 120 tickets that deteriorate at 1 ticket/sec.

TO progress adds tickets.

Examples:

• Rescuing a hostage adds 15 tickets
• Killing a peasant in a village raid adds 10 per peasant
• Standing on cart as an attacker, whether or not it's being pushed or halted by the enemy, halts ticket deterioration.

Deaths do not remove tickets. However, each attacker has 2 lives and an individual 6 second respawn timer. Without lives, he cannot spawn in. Defenders have infinite lives but have 12 second individual respawn timers. This attacking phase ends once tickets expire or all attackers' lives are forfeit.

Completing a checkpoint objective extends the phase by 120 tickets, and each team has their lives reset. Spawns are shifted accordingly. Ticket deterioration is temporarily halted if the objective completion animation takes some time (e.g. Darkforest plague cart dumping, a giant door being falling down to make way for the attackers, etc.). The spawn relocation prompt pops up for both teams upon completion of such a significant objective. Deaths within 15 seconds of completion do not take away from your life counter in order to prevent cheese where someone dies shortly after the reset and plays the new phase with one less life.

After the attacking phase ends, the teams now exchange roles as attackers and defenders. Any remaining alive attackers automatically enter a cowardice/yield emote a la TF2/Chivalry end-of-TO defeat for 7 seconds, where defenders are free to slaughter them as they like (adds more roleplay/BM opportunity and flavor to the game). After this slaughter phase, the game enters a preparation phase again, with players able to choose their spawn and prepare accordingly.

There is a big importance of the preparation phase for asymmetric maps where you don't take turns swapping between Red and Blue but instead stay playing as the same team the entire match. The preparation phase, ceasefire, and being able to choose spawn exist so that the team swapping from defending to attacking doesn't have to make a tremendous trek just to reach the objective. For instance, if blue was defending their final objective and pushed the enemy to their final objective as well, the physical distance would be huge between these two points. Instead, defenders after successfully holding off the enemy's attack phase get to slaughter and celebrate in the victorious slaughter phase, then immediately spawn to the appropriate forward spawn. The preparation ceasefire ensures that the round begins with a neutral start as well, so nothing like mistimed spawns and other unlucky factors favor one team, which was sometimes the unfortunate case in Chivalry and still persists in Frontline. This also serves as downtime for teams wanting to make strategic preparations and for players to mentally recollect themselves, much like buytime in Counter-Strike.

Win Conditions:

• Symmetric Map: One team has finished the finale on their n'th attack phase, the other team has failed to do so in their respective n'th attack phase. For example, Team 1 has finished the map on the 13th phase while Team 2 got held on 80% progression on 13th phase. Team 1 is the winner.
• Asymmetric Map: Whichever team finishes their finale wins on the spot. Thus, winning the beginning skirmish to get a first attack phase lead is quite important. For example, Team 1 won the beginning skirmish and attacks first. Team 1 finished their finale on phase 12. Team 1 wins on the spot, Team 2 is not given a phase 12 to attempt.

Here are various proposed changes to the game's currents mechanics and items, some specific to the mode, others universal to the game. One big game mechanic change for the game mode would revolve around health regeneration for this gamemode specifically:

• Hostile melee attacks and bear traps deal permanent damage, so no natural health regeneration from these attacks. Maps will have designated healing stations that take 5 seconds to fully heal you, but they aren't always conveniently placed - bringing bandages and health packs is highly recommended, and ammo boxes tend to be in more accessible spots. Use of these stations and healing items is the only way to recover permanent damage. Note that damage from projectiles, fire, and friendly attacks are not permanent. Instead, they would leave a dark red bar on your health bar, visually indicating how much health you can naturally recover. Tag team fighting games use a similar visual cue to indicate how much health is recoverable if you tag out that character.
• Projectile damage against players with quivers (i.e. archers) is also permanent. This makes archer versus archer be much less dependent on the current Huntsman perk's implementation, which revolves around one-shotting torsos because otherwise such archers just hide and regen. Huntsman is reworked: still deals increased projectiles damage and one-shots plate helmets (unless Recurve), but does not one-shot plate torso armor (and mail torso for Recurve). Instead, enemies tagged on the head/torso are left with the Huntsman's Mark. This means they cannot heal beyond 50 health until they reach a healing station; bandages and medpacks will not get rid of this mark. For the hurt player, this is visually indicated on their healthbar with a gray stripe pattern on their missing health. This means that once an archer survives a non-leg hit, they stay one hit away until they retreat to a far off healing station, essentially taking them out of the fight if they opt to never re-peek again. Melee players who just pick up a bow and fire away will not be able to inflict this debilitating mortal strike on archers. This reworked Huntsman prevents cheese like a teammate dropping a healthpack by the archer for infinite hide-and-heals. Archers are now incentivized once again to go for headshots, but two-tapping is also now a possibility.
• Rather than just END'ing, a person caught in a 1v3 still has incentive to live and fight back for a chance to deal some permanent damage to his enemies or at the very least forcing healing resources and time to be expended.
• Health packs now only heal a total of 300 health, and only one can be active indefinitely per player (or 2-3 if he has 2-3 medpacks in his loadout. This rule excludes dropping your healthpack, using an ammo box, and then picking it back up. Trying to drop them both would have the first one despawn). The owner of the health pack can pick it up by tapping E, or hold E to heal (this dynamic is already in use with picking up weapons). Enemies can no longer use friendly health packs that have been set. Health packs now have team color indicators and change when swapping ownerships much like shields and pavises.
• The encouraged use of bringing bandages and health packs would shake up the meta on loadouts quite a bit - perhaps we'll see many more using mail helmets (e.g. 232 ES Bandage as opposed to 332 ES) and mail torsos (Zwei, Spear, and Halberd players are now even more conflicted on armor choice). Additionally, the Scavenger perk would be a great tech pick in a meta where a majority of players carry healing items - you could continually steal and heal, be it through bandage or health packs.
• +hp on kill still remains for QoL factor, fun factor, and 1vX clutch factor. Bloodlust would be quite the high risk/reward monster.
• For attackers, each ammo box can only be used once per life. For defenders, each ammo box has its own unique one minute timer, but it is reset upon death. This makes choices like dropping a bandage for a teammate -> using ammo box or double downing on firebombs when you're only carrying one more costly since you won't be able to use that same ammo box for quite some time.
• Bandage now has a Right Click, which can be channeled on a teammate. You are still slowed as with normal bandage use, the teammate must remain in front of you or the channeling will break. They can still wiggle a little, kind of like how rescuing hostages in Grad still lets you move around a bit.
• Tenacious now has hostile melee deal recoverable damage, but costs 2-3 points and no longer heals at the accelerated +66% rate. Projectile damage is still permanent if you have a quiver/are an archer. Excellent for melee sustainability, but bandages are still faster when you need healing ASAP.
• Healing stations require 5 second hold on E to use.
• Engineers can construct makeshift healing stations for 6 ammo. Makeshift healing stations do not get rid of the Huntsman's Mark.

Concerning stalemates...

What should NOT be used as a tiebreaker is the time it took to reach the objective. Stopwatch is inappropriate for competitive formats that aren't racing imo; we don't penalize the team who took longer to score two goals in a 2 - 2 tie in soccer/football, we don't hand the win to the team who had shorter Terrorist rounds in a 15-15 tie in Counter-Strike. Different teams employ different strategies with different tempos. Instead, we will prevent draws and stalemates with two mechanics: Sudden Death for symmetric maps, and Battle Fatigue for both symmetric and asymmetric maps.

Sudden Death: In a symmetric map, it is possible for both teams to have completed the finale on the same n'th phase. In such a case, we enter sudden death. The map resets, and contestants do a re-do with some different rules. Both teams have one life per player. Comparisons are made after both teams have completed their attack phase to determine a winner rather than after one or both teams end their finale within their respective n'th phases. Any checkpoint objective secured resets both teams to one life per player again rather than rewarding two (in addition to normal ticket gains). If both teams tie in progress % during their attack phases, then the game proceeds onto another phase. Keep repeating this until a winner is determined. In practice, % draws should be incredibly rare considering the "granularity" of many objectives like cart push %, # of health remaining on barricades, # of peasants killed, etc., so it's realistically about who can progress the most with just one squad from the start. The lack of respawns and innate health regen adds a larger Sudden Death and clutch factor intensity to this overtime.

Battle Fatigue: If after 3 rounds neither team has reached the finale, the defenders begin to accumulate disadvantages. The defenders now begin with 3 lives per phase rather than infinite. After 3 more phases, this then drops down to 2 per phase. Attackers and defenders now have equal lives. This can now be considered the "midgame" of the match, much like how Counter-Strike eventually settles into rifle/fullbuy rounds. After another 6 phases, this is then limited to 1 per phase. Finally, after another 3 phases, attackers gain 3 lives per phase. This system is put in check to faciliate a certain type of tempo to the match's progress. At first, the game favors the defenders quite a bit due to the respawn limits. Then after 6 attack phases (so 12 phases in total when factoring both teams), the life counts are equal, and winning by player elimination becomes a much more valid option rather than trying to progress objectives as hard as possible between bouts before the endless horde of defenders eventually eliminates you. Most matches should have a team finish the finale within this phase. If still there is no completion within another grueling 6 attack phases, then the defenders enter a sort of soft sudden death and winning by elimination becomes far more feasible for the attackers. Lorewise, this can be describes as the besieged defenders running short on supplies and manpower after so many days of fighting.

Summary of Defender Lives
Phase 1: Infinite
Phase 4: 3 per phase
Phase 7: 2 per phase
Phase 13: 1 per phase
Phase 16: Attackers now 3 lives

Phases 1-6 have the attackers more concerned with eeking out as much progress on objectives as they can. Phases 7-12 has both teams on equal footing, so winning by elimination is a much more appealing option for the attackers, but they can swap to ratting out objective progress if they find themselves on the backfoot. Phases 13 and beyond really favor the attackers, the game should end pretty soon no matter how "impossible" the objective is.

If after attack phase 20 the game still has not ended (this would be nearing 2 hours of gameplay time - [120 tickets + 7 slaughter phase + 20 preparation phase] times 20 times 2 / 60 = 98 minutes, not including ticket gains from objective completions which would lead to phases longer than 120 seconds), for symmetric maps, the match determines a winner by comparing objective progression. In asymmetric maps, the match is just simply declared a draw. Entering attack phase 16 should already be exceedingly rare in its own right. Entering a draw after phase 20 should practically never be seen without both teams deliberately planning to throw from the start.

Map Design Principles:

• Maps should be designed in such a way that teams should take a reasonable amount of phases to complete the finale. For instance, a map that's always completed within 3 phases is far too easy and probably lacking room for clutch plays that will differentiate each team's progress. In symmetric maps, a map that is too easy and often has both teams completing at the same n'th phase means the match will practically always be determined by Sudden Death. When designing the map, take the differing tempo throughout a match due to Battle Fatigue into consideration as well. Remember, even the most defensible position will crumble to 1-life-per-phase versus the attackers' 2 or 3 lives - every random casualty your team has in an otherwise victorious teamfight is now permanently out of the fight, and healing between fights requires giving up either loadout points and resources or ground.
• Ammo box and health stations placements are of utmost importance. Typically, players should have to weigh between being in position for objective play or retreating to a station/ammo box to receive healing and being in better shape for a fight. Defenders without sufficient healing items may have to leave the objective and retreat back to a station or an ammo box if they lack healing items, leaving the defense one man down or prone to being ninja'd if he does so at a bad time. Trickling can sometimes be the smart move against a team continually deprived of healing, especially with isolated objectives, tickets, and differing respawn times involved. Harder to defend objectives can have stations and ammo boxes conveniently reachable for the defenders (though this ammo box would also double as allowing attackers to easily sustain themselves after winning a fight near the objective too), while objectives that heavily favor the defenders can have no resupplies within the vicinity. A defending team that has won a pyrrhic victory may be forced to retreat and concede the ground in order to heal up before the next wave of 6s respawn time attackers come in, whereas a defending team that has solidly won the fight can continue to hold that position.
• Partial objectives should reward an appropriate amount of tickets proportional to the amount of difficulty or time it takes to complete. For instance, could an attacking team with only 30 tickets left continue to keep attacking given the bonus tickets acquired from continually progressing and playing perfectly in fights? There should be considerations such as +3 tickets per hit on a fortification objective rather than dumping +45 tickets altogether in one go to allow for more stalling/clutch ability in low-ticket scenarios.

In practice, the format is intuitive and simple for the player. Beginning: kill enemies. Attack: play offense TO. Defend: defend objectives. Depending on success, continue doing the same thing, or switch sides. Simple. This is easy enough to understand as someone just watching as well.

The format should be the best for spectatorship. There is significance and excitement in the skirmish determining who goes first. Just like in basketball, the shot clock is on the attackers via tickets, incentivizing them to attack and make plays in a timely manner rather than turtle. Every attempt in gaining progress and additional tickets is exciting due to the race against limited tickets rather than just watching it slowly tick down from 1000. Individual lives matter, so each pick and kill counts and is exciting unlike in Frontline and even Chivalry TO.

The devs already have a lot on their plates and the SDK takes precedence over a main 6v6 competitive game mode. I make this post as a blueprint for community mappers once the SDK is released.

Riposte accels and drags are scarier than raw accels and drags because of how they're animated + slightly altered timing.

Ripostes are gamble-proof, so they are very safe in that sense. Because of this, riposte is a great time to buy yourself space via backpedal or diagonal strafing if needed.

+1

Team colors for teammates only
Team colors for enemies only

would also be neat.

Phoenix granting a massive speed boost would be super interesting, as an alternative or in tandem with Fireproof. Straight damage boosts are boring, and one that will never see action because people back away from fire is pointleas.

4 seconds is REALLY long... Even in WoW, a 2.5s cast time is asking to get interrupted. Mordhau is a much faster game in comparison. 2s slow is more than enough to hamstring an enemy so that your teammates can surround him, which itself is a death sentence with proper teamwork and play. 2s is long enough to be useful, just short enough that it's not obnoxiously annoying for the victim.

Severe changes to core combat mechanics should generally be avoided for perks.

Bigger hitbox means it's easier to leghit and harder to headshot, lol. Also, you wouldn't be able to fit through essential chokes like all the doorways. The hands wouldn't fit the weapon model correctly, and your reach would be longer due to longer limbs anyways.

Coward would be really obnoxious, anyone who skirts onto 10 health would frankly be unkillable. It's not about balance, it's about whether it adds or detracts from the game, especially in the fun factor.

Hunter's Trick, Highlander, and Hard Worker have potential.

Hunter's Trick should last shorter and be more expensive as stauxie mentioned. But that would give Recurve Bow, Throwing Knives, even Rocks a big utility.

Highlander would be the ultimate Frontline meme challenge perk. If/when they add a penalty for carrying overburdening equipment (e.g. 333 Zwei Longbow Bloodlust), Highlander should be exempt. The main way in which Highlander would be immediately annoying is when he gets 1 kill for 102 HP, then gets headshot by something like a Zwei or Maul for 100 and survives it. But it is a 9 point perk, so it can afford to be that way.

Hard Worker would be funny overall, I think I'd just have it be a generic "increases efficiency with tools" and change stam parry negation for 2h, windup speed for 1hers. Hard Worker + Smith + mallet/blacksmith hammer would be neat.

Scout one-shots heads while the M4 doesn't, therefore the Scout is a better weapon.

But seriously, DPS is an irrelevant stat for this game unless we're talking about destroying structures. HTK and the likeliness of hitting is what matters. Dagger stabs have a higher DPS than almost any 2hander lol, does this mean anything? No, because parrying and chambering exists, which puts a halt to your "muh dps".

Also, mace 2-shots on the torso.

Mace 2-shots torso.

Mace 2-shots torso.

Mace 2-shots torso.

Mace 2-shots torso.

Mace 2-shots torso.

It's fustrating to use and it's only upside is stab spamming, which is lame, boring and probably broken.

I don't disagree with you there lol. Things about it feel off, to use or fight against. I think getting a headshot + body shot kill nerf + 500ms windup stab nerf + 575ms strike buff + 500ms release buff would make it feel better and closer to the Chivalry Flanged Mace (which was a good feeling weapon and very nice against knights and vanguards, but weak against other MAA).