Intro:

Really enjoyed this patch. I was very disappointed day 1 and 2 because of the poor melee hit registration, but by day 3 & 4 I was able to adapt and I got use to it. I found my new favorite class as well, thanks to based Vesros and everyone else who helped create the new Alche. I was incredibly impressed at how consistent parries were throughout the build, I can’t remember a single moment where something interacted weirdly with my parries except for Xylvion’s videos. I think I put the most hours into this alpha test.

Alchemancer:

Absolutely love this class, I really can’t explain in words how awesome it is to play this class. His animations are smooth, his voice lines are incredible, I think he is very difficult to play while also being incredibly rewarding. Out of all the classes in the game, I think he has the most potential, maybe Tinker moreso.

I played him primarily as an assassin or janitor. I took fire sword so that I could get LMB, although I think rockets are better in almost every aspect, I just took fire sword because LMB was the best attack this build. I would feint people a ton, with melee and abilities, and often time snipe people from afar. The general pattern was bird–>TP in for the kill. I was punished plenty of times for TPing in, and also rewarded many times for it as well. I felt he was difficult to play consistently well with given his weak defense, but also very rewarding. Using TP to juke people or delay and following up with clutch birds and chaos orbs just felt so satisfying. I really can’t wait to play him more and see what you guys come up with.

Mechanics:

Dodges:

I think it’s becoming apparent that dodges are more of a crutch rather than an option. What I mean is that there is never really any time where you wouldn’t want to dodge, it’s automatically dodge no matter what for me. I know others have suggested that the range be reduced, but I’m not sure if I agree. I think that the poor melee hit registration this build greatly exaggerated the power of dodges. Secondly, when I compare the dodge in this game to the rat’s dodge in chiv, I find that the dodge in this game covers much less distance, although I could be wrong. I feel like if the range was nerfed, it would be useless as it already doesn’t cover that much distance, just enough to avoid some attacks. I think adding a short cooldown to it might be helpful because it really is becoming a crutch, one that I am guilty of. I don’t think increasing stamina is a great idea either, because players can foolishly waste all their stam still and get away with the various mobility spells the game has to offer.

Melee hits:

As I’ve described in the past, it really feels like I’m trying to hit a cricket or something with a tiny needle, it’s just so inconsistent and sometimes impossible. I had several players in my matches mention this as well, they described it in a very similar fashion. I found that LMBs and stabs were the most consistent during this build, and overheads were practically useless. I never comboed attacks either, because they would never hit. I won’t go on anymore as I’m sure you guys already understand the issue.

Parrying was very consistent this patch, I don’t remember a single “WTF” moment for parrying. I was very pleasantly surprised with this. At the same time, the parry box was increased a bit too much. I wasn’t really able to z-stab or waterfall people, and sometimes I even got back-parried. Overall though, I am incredibly impressed at how consistent parries were. I put tons of hours in as well, which makes it more surprising to me that I didn’t have a single shitty parry moment.

Abilities:

As always, I really enjoyed using various abilities because they’re just so satisfying to hear and see. The only ability I really had any major complaints about was surround parry. I didn’t see too many people use it to great success, but in the hands of an experienced player it was absolutely OP. I definitely had to pick and choose, most of the classes didn’t seem to have a “best build”. I could make all sorts of set ups work, mostly because melee is still core.

Misc stuff, weird stuff:

-sometimes I would randomly not be able to parry on Alchemancer, it wouldn’t matter if I was in combat or not, it just randomly happened.

-on day 1 my ping was normal, east was usually around 50-60 and west was 90 or above, normal as always. On day 2, my ping inverted: servers that were west now displayed 50-60 ping, and servers that were east displayed 90 or more ping. I think it was just a display error, as my gameplay felt the same relative to which server I was playing on.

-comboing off of someone’s parry happened very often, very frustrating to play against.

-sometimes my enemy would completely ignore flinch, it wasn’t a trade because it didn’t really happen at the same time. I would hit them in release, and they would windup as they took damage and not be flinched, it happened rarely but was very weird.

-sometimes I can’t do anything on Alchemancer, I just get locked out of being able to melee, to use spells, anything really.

-games would sometime end prematurely, happened pretty consistently.

-audio seems to be a lot better this build, I can better tell where my enemies are approaching from, but it’s still not great.

-did I mention that I love Alchemancer?

Overall great work this build, lots of weird occurrences, but I’m sure you guys will sort them out. Things are looking very promising. Right now it feels like when you’re installing something, and it just sits at 99% for like 5 minutes. There’s a lot of things that are so close to being perfect, but it’s just not quite there.

thx based vesros

@Asgerbaskeren Her survival is mainly her absurdly high health pool. She also has tons of zoning abilities and CC effects. Not to mention how effective her bubble can be. I’m fine with the ability except that you can attack during it. If we stick to the “role” argument, why should be able to survive and also put out consistent damage at the same time? I’d be ok if they actually buffed the spell in some way, but just remove the ability to attack during it. It’s really just a cheese spell, nothing else, not very interactive or fun to play against.

lan god vesros

love the effort justin, very nice post.

I wrote down notes while playing in a notepad, so hopefully I can be more organized this time :)

Melee:

Parries seem to be a lot more reliable this patch, although they are by no means perfect. Ripostes either hit me before they animate, or they seem to go through parries, but normal attacks seem to be fine.

As has been noted, ghost swings are a massive problem with this build. I can’t give an exact number, but I can tell you that it FEELS like 1 in 2 attacks will phase through my enemy. It’s really frustrating when added on with range uncertainty which I will talk about next.

Range Uncertainty:

Even with my many hours in this game, I constantly question the effective range of my weapons. This seems to be the most common with Vypress and Vigilist. If I had a way to explain the feeling of their weapons, it would be pencil-like. I feel like I have a small pencil trying to hit an elusive hopping bunny. That’s exactly what I wrote down in my notes. I want to blame it on release times, because on Taurant it feels fine in most scenarios, although his stab is kind of questionable, but I’m not really sure what it is.

So now to connect the other point: this range uncertainty that I have as well as ghost swings (which I assume will be fixed) makes melee almost impossible for me, at least for consistency. It’s super frustrating to play with, and honestly I feel like I have no range at all.

Being able to correct mistakes:

In Chivalry, if you miss a swing slightly, or make a movement error, you can generally recover aptly given that you didn’t completely mistime a parry or anything. In this game I feel like I really have no room for error. Part of this is also the “pencil-like” feeling I get from some weapons too. The enemy’s hitbox feels really really specific, so I know if I somehow miss my hit I’m just gonna get fucked, and I usually end up missing because I misjudged the range OR I was blessed by a divine ghost swing.

As Vesros and I already discussed, I think the turncap is mostly responsible for this feeling of not being able to recover. I can’t really turn that much while parrying, and I don’t have a lot of room for swing manipulation (dragging, tracking, etc).

Stamina:

I’m only writing about this because some people have had varying feelings regarding this, just wanted to post my findings regarding stamina:

I’m not sure if you guys have done anything to stamina, but I feel like the pool has increased from previous patches, but I’m not entirely sure. I have barely had any problems regarding stamina, I’ve probably been stammed out a total of 2 times during my alpha testing (for this cycle).

Part of this may because I limit my use of dodges and terrain usage. I don’t really care for juking people or turtling via movement in general, I kind of just run in and try and kill people with raw melee skill. So given that information, it is possible that perhaps others have stamina issues because of a difference in play style. If that is the case, I would increase stamina, remove it, or do something because those are intended mechanics that shouldn’t be prohibited by a system that is meant to be anti-cheese.

I played with Zebra as well, an older competitive teammate and he even asked “so is stamina a part of this game?”

Conclusion:

I had been told that #3 is the big patch to look out for, so I didn’t really come in with high expectations this patch. I think the big takeaway is that parries are a lot more reliable, but there is still a lot more work to be done which I hope is delivered in #3. I still enjoy slaying noobs and camping spawn, but it can be incredibly frustrating at times just because it’s inconsistent as in chiv, I can never expect something to work 100% of the time, which is unfortunate but reality for this type of game.

P.S. VESROS PLS REMOVE WHIRLWIND TRADES. Every time I get traded by this ability I want to throw my computer out the window. FDSAFASDFDSdassdasda

P.S.S. Didn’t mention Alchemancer because I was told he is already being reworked. All I have to say is that being able to parry projectiles doesn’t solve the archer complex from chiv.

Keep up the good work!

@Gregs0n Gotta completely disagree with you on animations being better. In their current state at least, animations in this game are far far worse than Chiv animations. I’m sure eventually the animations will be on par with chiv animations, but right now there is absolutely no way the game is “with better animations”. Feints definitely aren’t better as well. They are a lot more readable, but also a lot less punishable, making them more 1-dimensional in my opinion.

Otherwise, I definitely agree. You make a really good point with projectiles and footspeed. I think people go into this game with the mentality that it is Chiv, but it is quite different in various ways. People really just need to dump more hours into the game in order to grasp some of these concepts. When I first started I had very similar thoughts, but the more I played the more I realized certain things.

I also really enjoy that idea of “x amount of seconds before I can use it”. It’s just a lot better functionally for gameplay. Adding stamina costs (to abilities) to the already stamina-hungry combat would be terrible. The stamina system really shouldn’t be looked at as a resource management system, but rather a safeguard against spam abuse. Obviously you do have to manage your stam, but that just occurs naturally through the system. Stamina to me is all about preventing cheese (infinite held shield, infinite feinting, infinite jumping while parrying, etc). Seeing that abilities in this game are in no means spammable, stamina isn’t really required because they are already limited by heavy cooldowns.

Not sure if this is related to what your mentioning - but I always have that feel that the attacks are slow and very readable, but then suddenly hit unexpectedly. I feel this is probably mostly to do with animations and windup/release times. In Chiv, although windup and release vary, obviously, almost all weapons feel really smooth IMO. In this game it goes from feeling like you’re just cruising say 50-60 miles and suddenly you’re going 100 mph or something ridiculous. I’ve had this feeling from day 1, and still have it now after almost 100 hours. The timings or animations in this game just aren’t smooth, to be blunt. I don’t really know how else to describe this feeling, it’s kind of just moderate to super fast.

I can see where people are coming with the lower cooldown idea, but they really need to stay as-is. Killing one person lowers the CD on every ability by 5 seconds when you pick up the blue orb, something people often forget. Spamming carpet, although that would be super fun for a while, would be really shitty. I feel like abilities are at a really good spot right now, and it’s more the melee that needs tinkering, no pun intended.

The animations are really shit atm and I don’t like how they look at all when feinting, I definitely have those moments where I read the feint, but my muscle memory kicks in because of shitter animations and I end up parrying anyway.

Footspeed is fine to me, I’ve been playing for a few months now so I may just be use to it, I don’t really think it needs a change. Technically sprint is still here, it’s just on auto sprint :)

LMBs are probably not as great because, at the moment, there is no weapon diversity. On Taurant I feel LMBs are actually quite nice, but when I try to LMB on a Vypress I feel like I’m LMBing with a dagger, absolutely no range at all.

I’ve brought up the TO variety thing before, it’s pretty early right now, eventually they’ll have more diverse maps (I hope).

+1

There is very much high-pace movement in this game, arguably moreso than chiv. It’s a bit harder to happy-feet in this game, but the mini-dodges you can do and the many abilities like carpet give you plenty of movement options.

Vypress dash attack, for example, is actually my favorite ability I think. If you familiarize yourself with the range of all the weapons, you can use the ability at the right moment to avoid their attack, and then strike back quickly. That’s just one example of many movement abilities classes have to offer, it’s really a matter of dumping more hours into the game.

I definitely understand you from a melee standpoint, sometimes things just really feel off regarding windup/release times. I’m sure you’ve tried all the classes by now, but Vypress seems to be what you’re looking for. Her attacks are pretty quick, her combo times are super quick and she has a lot of utility in her kit.

Pretty sure having cooldowns INCREASES the skill cap, rather than decrease. Not sure where you going with that one.

@Frodiziak Definitely agree that I feel like when I hit someone there isn’t much impact. I feel like it’s mostly audio, but who knows. In Chivalry when I hit someone with a SoW stab, it feels super impactful. Messer LMB is another great example of a hit that just feels incredibly satisfying to land.

Parrying definitely isn’t as easy in this game. In chiv it got to the point where you didn’t have to aim your parry at all, and even backparries were a thing. In this game it’s gone back to the roots of “aim at the tip of their weapon”. I think it’s a good change too, waterfalls and z-stabs should be better, although I’m worried about how they will fair against good players. Parries still more often than not go through parries, and they’re not really in the most perfect condition which is probably why you felt some going through.

+1

@BandOfTheHawk Rank doesn’t matter, but I was a competitive player with 2500 hours.

Shields were either really good, or really bad, it’s a hard mechanic to balance. They ended up being this niche thing that could only be supported by exploits. So they’re not necessarily bad in a sense, but it’s just not a really good “system” as you describe.

Kicks are broken in so many ways, and absolutely terrible. Before they were ok, not as terrible in their current state. You use to be able to jump over kicks and it was a clear counter. The absolute worst part about kicks is that they drain stam, it’s incredibly rewarding for the kicker to kick, and too punishing for the player being kicked. Then there is kicks in a 2v1 situation. If you kick someone in a 2v1 situation, there is nothing they can do about it. Being kicked basically places you in a stun, you can’t parry or do anything. Overall, kicks just became this really irritating crutch to avoid feints, 2v1s, amongst other things.

Obviously it’s your opinion, but most comp players agree that kicks are really dumb. There is a lot of things that could be done to balance them, but I think a game without them is so much better.