@rob_owner said:
okay so from what i found, if you join a server that was empty and up for a while (theres probably a reason i dont know for why this happens but those two qualities were both consistent when i tested), theres a chance that the server tracers are not synced with your tracers/weapons, and stabs will hit SLIGHTLY early, so will everything else. This is different from regular instahits (which are already pretty brutal) and it looks like thats whats happenin in some of your clips.

i tested on Nal's server with the commands m.drawtracers 1 and the showauthtracers 1 command, you need to be logged in as admin to see the server tracers, but if you join a server that was up and empty for a while, chances are they will be desynced, it was consistent when i tried it. If you just change the map it will fix it. If you set the server speed with slomo to like 0.2 or 0.5 it becomes extremely overt.

pretty sure devs already know and are working on it among other things

Nice! This isn't something we were aware of. Any idea how long they were up and empty? Are the desyncs consistent, do other people get them as well?

Due to how Unreal handles world time and how it computes delta time between frames from that time, this might be caused by deterioration in floating point accuracy. I've feared this for some time after initially looking over the engine source, but couldn't really believe Epic would leave such a rookie mistake in for so long. This would require the map to be running for quite a while, but it would fix itself on map change, so it feels like it could be responsible, I'm just not entirely sure it's the culprit. It would easily be fixed by making the map change itself after a while regardless if the server is empty, but I'd prefer to tackle the root of the problem as well.

There are some issues with the servers in this patch, not entirely sure what's up, but we're trying to get to the bottom of it. Might be related to the animation optimization on dedicated servers, might be just our host Vultr acting up.

As for the delayed sound/hit, the effects of the hit are split into two stages that could potentially be delayed. These will eventually be brought together into a single packet to reduce the chance of this occurring. Right now what can arrive split is the flinch animation and in the other stage the sound & hitflash & particles. The health updates completely separately from these, so the health bar is not a reliable indicator in any case, but it might be a good idea to preemptively show it in the same frame even though it doesn't tick down.

I think some of the death sounds are alright, they just seem really quiet sometimes. I know sound had problems with equalization early on so maybe it's similar to that.

Hit sounds are definitely pretty weak. Slashing onehanders sound like paper bags, pffwht pffwht pffhwt oh that's actually 80 damage. Blunt onehanders could use a little more thwack. Stabs should sound like they rattle through the armor a little more. Sometimes they sound empty or identical to slashes.

I think we could use sounds for throwables. Might be corny but I think small weapons should make really fast pwfpwfpwfpwf sounds when they fly through the air, while maces and hammers do a whoosh whoosh whoosh. Near miss sounds would be great too

Ambient sounds on maps would be great too but that's more of a level design thing I guess. I'm talking about birds, wind sounds, whooshy tree noises, rain sounds, just little things you can hear while you're not actively fighting.

I will continue my ancient meme suggestion for whistling arrows as a high end archery customization unlock

@GIRUGIRU said:
Stamina play should have a bigger impact within the future as currently it does not due to Stam and hp on kills and the disarm working the way it does.

If you have a 3v3 with extremely skilled players you cannot deny that chambering will make a massive difference - stamina does matter and high level play will require you to chamber

The only buff I can think to chambers is that they drain your opponent stamina in some way, rather than buffing their offensive power.

EDIT:

feints are weak currently because the anims are very easy to read, this will - as far as i am aware - change with the animation update and they will become more intimidating, which i imagine would include chamber feints

The only person that I've encountered to actually try counter chamber feints is Coutsalivis.

Yeah let's buff chamber feint even more, to improve your playstyle, it's not like chamber feint is already the meta or broken, chamber feint animation are completely readable, right.....

-remove chamber feint / so everything in the game is readable / stop the stupid meta / make fight better since you have to mix again, using drag etc, not just chamber

This will make chamber weaker ofc but for the best

-so buff chamber with something else, more damage or stamina buff or something else.

Peacerer, you're the biggest elitist on these forums. Next time try making an actual argument instead of bitching about the playerbase.

@GIRUGIRU said:
I'm not 100% sure but i think all your windup values are affected by your ping, so unless you tested it on a local server its gonna be janky af values

good job though nevertheless, there NEEDS to be a spreadsheet like this i have no idea how triternion expect to balance without one

All testing was done in a zero latency environment. Timings are frame by frame measurements recorded @60fps/@120fps. Each timing was tested 2-6 times each. With the exception of the billhook and the greatsword. These timings were done around 30-50 times each.

good job though nevertheless, there NEEDS to be a spreadsheet like this i have no idea how triternion expect to balance without one

Remember that they are not focused on balance atm. These alphas are meant for testing core functionality. I do this because data testing is just something I enjoy.

@Edy_Nelson said:
From what I heard all numbers have been put in by hand, multipliers might not even exist.

Also, would it be possible to re-arrange the numbers in a way to be more readable?
Right now it's very messy.

The data is organized to be pulled from for equations being done on separate tabs. For a more organized datasheet, standby and I'll have one that pulls from this database. Or you can also wait for the first of my data overview videos.

i think faints bad .. remove ...

Agree with most of what's been said here.

• There definitely needs to be some kind of queue for attacks, would help massively in chambering fast weapons. Sometimes you input the attack a tiny bit too early and get caught out because of this. Another thing with chambering is that if you get hit by a fast weapon and they combo you, you probably won't be able to chamber the second attack because you're still flinched. I wonder if flinch duration could be proportional to the speed of the weapon you got hit by - that would make things a lot less frustrating when playing against a spammy weapon.
• Leg hits feel way too strong ATM, it just makes you very difficult to chamber and you have to put a lot more effort into parrying than you otherwise would. But more importantly it makes the game look pretty silly, what with everyone groundsniffing around the place in order to aim for the legs. The obvious solution would be to increase the vertical parry and chamber angle so that you don't have to look as far down to deal with them.
• Whether you get a slow kick or a fast kick feels a bit stochastic (although maybe that's just me not being used to it). There are definitely situations where I feel a bit cheated by getting a slow kick.
• Absolutely agree with the team flinch / team damage / projectile rape criticism. Nothing worse than getting smacked by a teammate in official servers who can't aim. I know these things will improve over time, but it's still worth mentioning as being annoying in the short term.

@GIRUGIRU said:
queue windows are abit awkward, i input a riposte but sometimes they come out later than i want them - i'm guessing that it's because i queue a riposte before my parry connects and if i time that slightly wrong i wont get an active parry when it feels like i should have riposted. I think that's slightly unfair because its very difficult to consistently input a riposte with like 100ms accuracy of when your parry is going to connect with the realtime swing system. My solution suggestion would be allow you to queue a riposte a hundred ms before your parry has connected

To expand on this, a settings option for customizing input queue windows would be really nice. Besides opening the path for a lot of potential future control schemes, it would make the 240 control scheme feel a lot cleaner.

Right now, there are some things that feel clunky if you try to purely use the 240 control scheme without a single pre-set angle binding.
The most awkward ones I've found so far:

1. Convincingly faking accels into drags and vice versa
2. Turning and winding up an opposite direction attack in one smooth motion.
3. Not accidentally telegraphing your own attack with your camera movement (lol)

Customisable input queue windows would make these actions feel less painful and clunky.

Jump attacks are way too fun to perform, they shouldn't be removed or made totally ineffective. It's once again merely a question of visuals. Improve the jumping animation and possibly add a new animation for jumping during windup, and you've solved the issue while retaining the fun factor and skill ceiling.

I don't think team damage should go down before the release cancel on team hits is implemented. It's already too effective to shank a low-health enemy through a teammate, now imagine the same thing with no drawback of teamkilling.

This suggestion's deserving of its own thread with the nuances explained better, but for now I'll drop it here. Projectile flinch should depend on armor tier. It would be completely unsatisfying and unintuitive to throw an axe at a naked enemy and not have him flinch. For many people projectiles are basically a dealbreaker and a source of constant frustration, so it would be a good addition to remove projectile flinch (and greatly decrease damage) on plate armor. This would greatly differentiate the armor tiers from each other and make full plate a frightening sight. Of course full plate would have to have significant drawbacks via the perk system. Some projectile weapons, such as crossbows and javelins should still flinch, and all projectiles should flinch upon a headshot no matter the armor tier.

Skillful throws would still have a place, but even just equipping plate on your torso would greatly increase the difficulty to meaningfully hurt you without good aim and timing.

User Interface - The UI in Mordhau is simple but accurate it would be nice if you could reposition things like in CS:GO so your config has a more personal feel to it.

Customization - Colors could be fleshed out a bit more for example if you like a certain shade of blue you can't get that shade consistently across all pieces of armor and as for the looks and quality of the individual pieces of armor they all look very impressive and there is a ridiculous amount of choice when making a new loadout.

Animations - Overall animation quality is great but certain weapons like greatsword lookdown ripostes occasionally feel very instant and hard to see/parry and windup animations are still somewhat deceiving for example on the halberd it can be hard to tell the attack angle on windup alone so any further improvements in the windup department are greatly appreciated.

Movement - The movement in Mordhau feels very skillful good movement definitely makes dealing with other players much easier for example dodging an attack after you fall for a feint usually nets you a kick or at the very least forces your opponent to CFTP

Armor Balance - recent speed modifier change makes light feel way more rewarding to use and all other armor types already felt good initially and the addition of a perk/proficiency system will most likely improve the armor balance.

Weapon Balance - Isn't perfect but the addition of a perk/proficiency system will definitely make it a lot better.

Active Parry in Riposte - For those who dont understand this mechanic if you riposte in a 1v2 for example and someone attacks into your riposte you have a parry box around you which parries incoming attacks while the mechanic is needed to make 1v2/3/4 possible it doesnt have good visual feedback as of right now and it can be hard to tell if you have been active parried which results in some confusing situations where you get hit before you realise you have been active parried.

Feints - Feints are the general strength between all weapons if you can feint with it then even objectively weaker weapons always have viability the readability of feints right now feels pretty good they're definitely readable and can be punished easily with kick or a chamber attempt but feints are not weak and purposeless and need to be used against better players in order to secure quick and efficient kills.

Kick - While it's definitely not perfect atm it has a genuine useful purpose for punishing mistakes such as bad feints and misses but it can feel cheesy when you get kicked in the hand hitbox from what feels like a mile away or getting kicked during a riposte in 1vX.

Chambers - The balance between risk/reward for chambers right now feels very good for the most part chambers are rewarding to land and most certainly save you in a lot of clutch situations or just give a slight stamina advantage which is enough to win a lot of duels alone but they aren't so common that they take away from the rest of the games combat mechanics. chambers could use some more visual feedback for example sparks flying when you chamber someone or they chamber you.

MFW

With September just around the corner, we unfortunately have to announce a short delay in getting the alpha out to you all. This one's not going to be long, it's one to a maximum of two weeks into September. We simply couldn't get everything done in time to hit August. These weeks before launch are incredibly hectic and sometimes there's just not enough hours in a day (or week, or month). Given that there's over 3000 of you (both scary and exciting), we want to make sure things work properly.

At Alpha launch, you'll be able to play on these 4 maps: Camp, Grad, Pit and Ruins. There are more maps that will be added during the Alpha period, but these were our most polished, so we decided to include them first. Check them out below:
http://imgur.com/a/V4Xlx

More weapons and armors are being added to the game constantly, check out these two-handed maces that you'll be able to wield soon:

Stay tuned, won't be long now!

This month's update contains shots of some juicy new gear!
imgur album

First one of the bunch is the bill polearm category, made out of 2 parts with 3 choices for each (head and handle).

Our first alternate skin for a weapon category is the norse sword skin for the arming sword. A skin is simply an alternate set of parts for a weapon category. Alternate skins have no gameplay effect, and are just for looks. The parts can't be mixed with other skins, allowing us to restrict the combinations to something tasteful, i.e. the end result still looking like a viking sword.

More armors are making their way into the game, including a fancy, flashy landsknecht set. This outfit offers light protection, but good mobility.

And of course, more helmets, because there's never enough of those!

A knight sporting one of the new helmets, the bill, a brand new brigandine & a pair of new shoulderpads:

A new breastplate worn with other gear.

Until next month :)

The first phase of the IndieDB awards voting process for 2016 has started. Make sure to cast your vote for Mordhau by clicking below:

Let your friends know, too!

Many of you have been asking us what's up with our kickstarter campaign. We're still working diligently to get everything ready as soon as possible, but it's not there yet. Regrettably, we won't be able to hit 2016 as we'd have hoped. We know this is disappointing to some of you, and we apologize for missing our mark. This is in part due to some delays on our part, in part due to December rearing its ugly head, with holidays and spending sprees that would invariably take away attention from the campaign. Put simply, we've only got one chance to do this right, and we don't want to blow it -- and we know you don't want us to, either. The campaign is coming, and we'll keep you updated, but we'll let you know once we're 100% sure we can hit a specific date.

Among other things we've been working on a new environment to show off, this one's a larger map with a small village and a castle (not in view), and a cozy little stream.

A catapult which you can push around the map, to find that perfect spot to rain destruction from. Or just be an ass and drive it off a cliff.

And some prototyping work on character aging. Just another thing you can customize. Here's how it looks inbetween:

Before we get to the good stuff, we would like to remind you that IndieDB is running the "Indie of the Year" awards, if you feel like supporting us, we'd really appreciate your vote! Just click here to go to our IndieDB page and then click vote. You may need to be registered on the site.

Over the last month we've been joined by two more developers. Grator has joined us as a 3D artist, working for now primarily on weapon models, whereas crush will be helping out with level design and animations. Both of them have previously released content on the Chivalry workshop, which has subsequently made it into the base game, so you may be familiar with some of their work already!

Here is some of the work Grator has already completed for Mordhau, the arming sword and halberd customizable sets rendered in real-time inside Unreal Engine 4: