What is the rationale behind allowing parries while recovering from a swing?

Makes sense that you’d want to hold it high but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s much more obtrusive than the heater or kite shield but offers substantially less coverage.

The animations in first person aren’t the same as third person either, so it could still potentially be tweaked to block less of your view.

Anyone else experiencing this? I’ve had many non-laggy players initiate their attack immediately after being hit by mine.

What I’d like to see is an actual buckler rather than the medium-sized wooden shield in the game. The “buckler” model obstructs vision way too much for its limited blocking ability, it’s a massive handicap compared to being shieldless.

What if sling projectiles could penetrate shields and hit for a fraction of the original damage? Not completely unrealistic because the smaller, shaftless projectiles would be more likely to pass through a wooden shield than an arrow, and it’d give them a unique purpose.

Wow. People are really quick to jump to conclusions about why they’re playing differently.

@Hellvern:

Archers: I feel this ‘knives can block’ system is just horrendous. They can now block blows from huge two-handed weapons (virtually impossible feat) now

They could always do this.

As has been mentioned by others, “parrying” is more about redirecting the enemy’s weapon than absorbing the full force of the blow so it’s not entirely unrealistic. Lighter weapons already experience greater stamina loss when blocking heavy weapons. Archers are sufficiently disadvantaged in melee by poorer reach and damage so if you died to an archer in melee you were clearly outplayed, which is exactly how it should be.

Man-At-Arms: These guys have become so quick, whereas before, in the hands of someone decent they felt challenging (which is a good thing), now they are just extremely hard to kill unless you get a good hit as they charge.

Movement speed was not changed at all in the update.

when playing as a Vanguard, even after I’ve smacked the MAA 3 times with a halberd.

Two hits of any attack with a halberd will kill a MAA, unless you hit them in the leg with two slashes (weakest attack + reduced damage) or let them regen between attacks.

@dem0n:

Vanguard attacks and even kicks are just too slow, even though I use the claymore, which before the update was a great alround weapon.

Kicks were slowed down but also buffed. The claymore was not changed in the update except one of its combo windups was sped up slightly.

It’s in the patch that is due to be released in a few hours.

@vi:

To keep the choice of attack interesting, there should be some drawback added to stabs, perhaps in the form of higher wind-up and/or recovery. My personal suggestion would be to make it such that the aim cannot be adjusted after initiating the stab, allowing the stab to be sidestepped as well as ensuring that the smaller hitbox of a stab actually becomes a tangible drawback and making aiming the stab more important.

I think this is a promising idea.

@Winterspawn:

So you denie that there is flinching in the game? And I know that you can avoid them, I barely die from them when playing with my helbard, but this just annoys me like crazy, those little suicide attacks, when using a spear they’re impossible to stop when they have a shield.

So, anyway, if you don’t think there is a stun-lock (flinch-lock if you like that term), I want to see a video of you attacking, kicking or blocking when being facehugged.

Flinching is when your attack is interrupted by being hit during the windup. Are you trying to attack spam while someone is in your face rather than parrying and counterattacking? It sounds like you’re doing it wrong.

Fighting a facehugger is supposed to be more difficult when you’re using a polearm and let them get close. That’s the tradeoff for being able to stab people at range with impunity.

Blocking with a shield is too powerful given that it negates an entire game mechanic with little effort. I think there are a few things which could be done to fix this.

• Reduce max stamina when a shield is equipped (dependent on type of shield, of course).
• Reduce stamina regeneration rate when shield is equipped
• Reduce movement speed when shield is equipped

Reducing stamina would force shield users to prioritise defense or offense, rather than being much more powerful defensively with no consequences.

The buckler is also worse than useless in that it blocks too much of your vision for how small the coverage is. It’s practically a death sentence against anyone decent.