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[JimboM12]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/629760/

i didn't see a thread for this when i did a quick search, so i decided to start one

i was strolling through streams when i saw someone playing this game. a player was jamming hard on their lute, playing something that sounded very closely like "The Last Stand" by Sabaton. every player in the area rocked out and no violence was happening. then some noob (im guessing, i dont know the communities stance on dedicated lute players) ran up, listened for like a minute, and then stabbed the awesome lute player in the face with a knife. a massive brawl ensued as someone killed the noob and then was promptly smashed in the spine by someone with a mace.

thats when i knew, i should probably buy this game.

for those that don't know, its a medieval combat game with huge 64 player matches and the combat is great except for the usual internet pratfalls of lag and disconnected strikes. it also boasts great character customization and a variety of weapon types and styles.

[Folly]

Some absolute Chad named Sans Undertale was playing Megalovania on the lute and a good portion of the server gathered around him cheering, dancing, and being merry until a man that looked like Guts came up and decapitated him then a all out brawl started. that's when I realized that this is a very good game

The second review on Steam reads almost identical to your summary.

Anyway, I looked into this game about a week ago and seriously considered buying, but a lot of the feedback sounded like there are major issues with weapon imbalance, lack of map variety, and a lot of combat glitches. Sounds like it needs more time to bake.

[JimboM12]

i was wrong in my assessment. this isn't a medieval combat simulator, its a medieval lute simulator with violence attached.

Some absolute Chad named Sans Undertale was playing Megalovania on the lute and a good portion of the server gathered around him cheering, dancing, and being merry until a man that looked like Guts came up and decapitated him then a all out brawl started. that's when I realized that this is a very good game

The second review on Steam reads almost identical to your summary.

i get this feeling this happens every other match or something. someone will jam hard and someone will try to shut them up and trigger a slaughter.
perhaps this is the traditional ceremonial way to start a battle?

[Nighthawk]

I looked into this game about a week ago and seriously considered buying, but a lot of the feedback sounded like there are major issues with weapon imbalance, lack of map variety, and a lot of combat glitches. Sounds like it needs more time to bake.

Not gonna try to convince you that it's perfect (it's not), but it's more fun that I expected it to be. The fun is heavily dependent on how willing you are to dig in your heels and really learn the combat mechanics, though. Until you get some experience under your belt, you're liable to be zweihander fodder within 20 seconds of leaving spawn.

I am happy to report that there's no one weapon that just decimates the meta, though. Rapiers are annoying, but beatable. Shields are annoying, but beatable. Shields PLUS rapiers are extremely annoying, but still beatable. There are little annoyances, but most things can be countered if you're willing to switch gears and change your tactics. Or if you're just really good. I've seen people with frying pans outplay three opponents wielding two-handers, so anything can happen.

The game also has enough weapons and customization that you're practically bound to find a little niche you enjoy if you experiment long enough. Here are a number of options I've discovered:
- An engineer who fixes fortifications and builds ballistae at key locations
- A frontline mad lad who rushes enemies with a two-handed weapon and hopes for a kill to instantly recover full HP (there's a perk for this; it's pretty cool)
- A cackling trap master who sets bear traps in key locations and waits for unsuspecting prey to walk into them
- A peasant possessed by the god of destruction who does nothing but chuck firebombs everywhere
- A ninja turtle who wears a large shield on their back to block arrows, throws a smoke-bomb at enemies to confuse them, then cuts them down
- A scavenger who pours all of their points into armor and perks, then uses whatever weapon they find on the battlefield (very entertaining)
- An axe-obsessor who hurls throwing axes into people's heads, then charges in with a regular one-handed axe to finish the job (personal favorite)

... And I'm sure there are a dozen more you can come up with given time and creativity.

I'll reiterate once more as a sort of tl;dr: it's definitely fun, but you absolutely must get the hang of it first. I was having a pretty bad time until the game clicked and I started actually getting a decent (decent in my case meaning a 1:1 ratio) K/D. Not that K/D is everything; the score system factors in damage, assists, team healing (there's a medic bag), repairing, deconstructing, and objectives, so there are plenty of ways to help out.

[Flying Dice]

I've been having some fun with it. Here's my perspective, coming from years of Warband Siege multiplayer:

1. Horses are still abused, busted bullshit. The only good things are that there are a limited number on any given map, billhooks rip riders straight off, and builders can set up spikes to fuck over the horses.

2. The passive out-of-combat health regen is excellent. It takes something like ~5-7 seconds to start, and is stopped by doing basically anything except walking or crouching.

3. Animations are pretty smooth overall. Most of the core mechanics are present and flow smoother without being as arcade-y as Chivalry was. All attacks cap your turn rate by differing amounts, so you can't beyblade around; strike acceleration/deceleration is about manipulating timing only. Attacks are tracked in realtime, so if you know what you're doing you can curve attacks around blocks and parries. This also means that with the right camera angling and crouch timing you can duck under or turn away to dodge attacks. Despite most of the basic melee mechanics of M&B being turned into discrete mechanical elements rather than skillful ways of manipulating the relatively simple base system, it feels like there's more nuance to it.

4. It sucks that they didn't use M&B chambering (in the sense of "holding" attacks rather than how Mordhau uses it); that helped deal with some of the annoying footwork games people would play.

5. Archery is vastly improved in both senses. The animations are much, much better, but as you can parry and bat projectiles out of the air (even with your own projectiles) there are ways to deal with enemy archers beyond "carry two shields" or "die".

6. The alternate weapon functions are amazing. Full stop, this mechanic needs to be in Bannerlord.

7. They've put this idiotic lunge mechanic in, where every melee weapon will give you a massive range boost if you're walking forward while attacking. It's genuinely stupid, and if you're coming from M&B it will confuse the shit out of you when attacks that clearly shouldn't hit do, simply because the enemy player got to advance an extra meter or so for free near-instantly. That, and a couple other mechanics (vastly reduce backpedal speed, massive speed reduction if you turn around too fast, &c.), make basically anything except pure ranged builds and heavy armor 2H builds pointless. You'll get one or two-shot through light armor, and the speed bonus means nothing because full heavy armor players can still chase and catch you.

8. There's this other moronic decision that made strikes almost universally faster than stabs, even with a heavy weapon vs. a light weapon. That, combined with bad network design (even extremely close servers will put everyone on 80ms+ ping) means that there's next to no value in doing anything but spamming attacks with the best weapons, since most players in Frontline are scrubs who do the same thing. Try to reactive-parry? Sorry, you missed the timing window because of bad connections. Prediction-parry? Sorry, you missed the timing window because bad connections. Try to chamber? Sorry, you missed the timing window because of bad connections. Morph your attack to bait a parry or chamber attempt? Sorry, they just mashed R1. Feint to bait a parry or chamber attempt? Sorry, they just mashed R1. Use an accelerated attack to land a hit before their R1 spam? Sorry, bad connections meant their R1 hit you serverside before you even input your counter. &c. Literally the most effective tactic 95% of the time is to just go full aggro. It's like how Planetside 2 used to be, where you always wanted to go full aggro in CQB because the attacker always had corner-rounding advantage (where they'd get around the corner, see the enemy, and shoot before the defensive player even saw them on their screen).

It could be great, but the connection issues across every single server + the massive buff for aggressive play turn it into a spamfest. At least they did mouse-directional attacks instead of movement-directional attacks as the default.

[Nighthawk]

8. There's this other moronic decision that made strikes almost universally faster than stabs, even with a heavy weapon vs. a light weapon. That, combined with bad network design (even extremely close servers will put everyone on 80ms+ ping) means that there's next to no value in doing anything but spamming attacks with the best weapons, since most players in Frontline are scrubs who do the same thing. Try to reactive-parry? Sorry, you missed the timing window because of bad connections. Prediction-parry? Sorry, you missed the timing window because bad connections. Try to chamber? Sorry, you missed the timing window because of bad connections. Morph your attack to bait a parry or chamber attempt? Sorry, they just mashed R1. Feint to bait a parry or chamber attempt? Sorry, they just mashed R1. Use an accelerated attack to land a hit before their R1 spam? Sorry, bad connections meant their R1 hit you serverside before you even input your counter. &c. Literally the most effective tactic 95% of the time is to just go full aggro. It's like how Planetside 2 used to be, where you always wanted to go full aggro in CQB because the attacker always had corner-rounding advantage (where they'd get around the corner, see the enemy, and shoot before the defensive player even saw them on their screen).

It could be great, but the connection issues across every single server + the massive buff for aggressive play turn it into a spamfest. At least they did mouse-directional attacks instead of movement-directional attacks as the default.

I have... never had these problems, after 40+ hours of play. I still think stabs come out too fast on most weapons, actually. If you spam stab with a one-handed axe, for example, you'll be doing garbage damage with each hit, but your attacks happen so quickly that it's ridiculously hard to deal with if you get in your opponent's face with it.

I agree going full aggro is oft rewarded, as it nets you kills that you sometimes don't deserve, but it's worth noting that a player spamming horizontals is countered by literally any single person in their range keeping their cool and parrying. If the opponent tries to mindlessly swing spam against a parry and riposte, they will eat a hit every time. Most players are smart enough to know to back off a little once they get parried, but those that don't will get utterly destroyed by people with even a basic understanding of the mechanics.

I've had bad connection make parries fail maybe once every 200 attempts, and I'm also around 80 or so ping, so I can only assume you have ingrained instincts from other games and you're trying to parry really late. The window for parries is pretty generous; against single opponents who don't feint or morph, I have almost never missed a parry. It gets tougher when there are multiple enemies, of course, and way harder when they get smart and fake you out.

You'll get one or two-shot through light armor, and the speed bonus means nothing because full heavy armor players can still chase and catch you.

If the game allowed archers to shoot you, then run away from you ad infinitum and continue peppering you once at a safe range, it'd be the most annoying thing in the world. If you're running directly away from a fight without any teammates to support you, you've basically already lost. The speed bonus for chasing fleeing players is there to help prevent Mordhau from turning into an annoying game of tag, and I think it was a good decision.

It's worth noting the speed bonus also applies to regular movement while swinging and walking, so having lighter armor benefits you by allowing you to close distance and create it more easily even if you're not sprinting. I have a heck of a lot more success punishing somebody's whiffed swing in medium or light armor than I do in heavy, and it's one of my favorite ways to land some damage when people get overconfident.

Also, if you're sick of heavy armor users, try the mace. It's a 4-point one-handed weapon. It can't swing spam like a sword can, but if you're landing body or head shots (which you will be 95% of the time), it two-shots literally anyone. Even heavily-armored opponents lose 50% health on a body shot from it. I love walking into a battlefield occupied largely by people swinging around two-handed swords in heavy armor, landing a single hit on them and watching them backpedal in horror while I ready my next attack. Scares the daylights out of 'em. That goes for all blunt weapons, really; they really show their worth against heavily-armored enemies.

[Vivalas]

A someone who just recently became decent at chivalry (despite not playing it in years and just picking it up and getting to the top of the scoreboard), is it similar at all? I've been playing a lot of melee-ish games like Holdfast and Chivalry that seem really easy melee-wise I guess because of the time i've spent suffering in warband multiplayer. I'm not great at warband, but apparently "decent" at warband translates to "good" in other games. Is mordhau similar? I really don't have the money at the moment to throw at more games, but it does look interesting.

[Yoink]

I had heard about this from people praising its realistic, or at least challenging, combat and got all excited, thinking "whoa, maybe there's finally a large-scale Chivalry with decent combat!" and convinced a friend of mine to watch some gameplay footage with me (the first either of us had seen of it) and... it basically was just a re-skinned Chiv.
I was embarrassed to have been so hyped about it. 

Not gonna lie, though, the lute shenanigans sound wonderful, but the combat itself was a steaming pile of horseshit from what I saw.

[nenjin]

Not sure what happened or who streamed Mordhau recently, but I've been seeing it everywhere the last few weeks.

The lulz in this game sound like a somewhat watered down version of the lulz from Holdfast: Nations At War. Also fewer players.

But glad the game is getting its time in the sun.

[Flying Dice]

If the game allowed archers to shoot you, then run away from you ad infinitum and continue peppering you once at a safe range, it'd be the most annoying thing in the world. If you're running directly away from a fight without any teammates to support you, you've basically already lost. The speed bonus for chasing fleeing players is there to help prevent Mordhau from turning into an annoying game of tag, and I think it was a good decision.

It's not about archers, it's about playing a good skirmish game with light armor and a light weapon. You can do good footwork games (until you get fucked by the bad connection), but once you've engaged you cannot disengage, which means that it's impossible to dip in, hit, and fade, then come back into the fight from an unexpected direction or right after they've turned around and given up chasing you.

I'm not going to say anything rude, but in this game there's a breakpoint at around 50ms ping. If your connection is worse than that, you are at a substantial disadvantage even if your opponent is worse than you. The only thing that saves it is that 90%+ of the people on each team are going to have bad ping as well.

Also, if you're sick of heavy armor users, try the mace. It's a 4-point one-handed weapon. It can't swing spam like a sword can, but if you're landing body or head shots (which you will be 95% of the time), it two-shots literally anyone. Even heavily-armored opponents lose 50% health on a body shot from it. I love walking into a battlefield occupied largely by people swinging around two-handed swords in heavy armor, landing a single hit on them and watching them backpedal in horror while I ready my next attack. Scares the daylights out of 'em. That goes for all blunt weapons, really; they really show their worth against heavily-armored enemies.

A mace is great for 1v1 and small TDM. In Frontline it's questionable for the same reason that all blunt weapons are: they don't penetrate except on kill. So when you're in a crowd of people, if a teammate jumps into your swing, you don't hit the enemy at all (and they probably stab you in the face). If you're 1vXing, you can only hit max one enemy at a time unless you get a killshot. The stab damage is abysmal, so you can't really use it at all in large group fights (which is 70% of Frontline, the other 30% being 1vX because your team is shit and all died or ran away).

Honestly I don't see much reason to do much of anything beyond accel spamming a 2H or stab spamming a polearm in Frontline, since nothing else comes close to their effectiveness in high-latency large-group fights. You can anti-archer with a crossbow, ofc., but good luck operating forward when your team is liable to collapse and leave you exposed to being charged down by a guy in full plate at any moment.

[Man of Paper]

I tend to play a fly-as-fuck fencer - Rapier, Two Fire Bombs, Dodge, the perk that reduces jump stamina usage, light armor all around, and another perk or two I might not be remembering. I don't get many kills but I tend to get a fuckton of assists in Frontline. I stick with teammates and weave in and out of the battle. I use the fire bombs to isolate or separate enemy forces, and throwing them behind enemies nets nice kills when they're backpedaling at low health.

[Nighthawk]

I had heard about this from people praising its realistic, or at least challenging, combat and got all excited, thinking "whoa, maybe there's finally a large-scale Chivalry with decent combat!" and convinced a friend of mine to watch some gameplay footage with me (the first either of us had seen of it) and... it basically was just a re-skinned Chiv.
I was embarrassed to have been so hyped about it.

Not gonna lie, though, the lute shenanigans sound wonderful, but the combat itself was a steaming pile of horseshit from what I saw.

I don't understand the hate here. It's basically a vastly more polished version of Chivalry seeking to remove some of the weird breakdancing shenanigans for a more grounded (but still somewhat silly) experience. Even if you ignore the more polished combat, comparing its content to Chivalry, it adds significantly more freedom in terms of customization (visually and mechanically), loads of weapons, and alternative modes for said weapons with some interesting little gimmicks (like billhooks instantly dismounting horse-riders).

Calling it a re-skinned Chivalry and saying the combat looks like a steaming pile of horseshit without actually giving specific examples of what is so terrible seems presumptuous to say the least. I'm not gonna pretend Mordhau is game of the year or anything (every game has problems), but damn, is it the fashion around here to hate on a game because it's getting attention from mainstream gaming channels? Oof.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Just got this! Bit of an adjustment from M&B for sure, but I'm loving the cheese--the sheer variety of it all is excellent.

I mostly run a light armor support guy (was nearly topping the leaderboards with only a handful of kill and level 3 gear), I can't say I've had much success the few times I've tried heavy armor builds--everythings just so cumbersome and slow. I'm not sure about the usage of medium armor builds? We should start a Bay12 Clan or Squad or something!

[nenjin]

Anyone here that's played Holdfast: Nations At War that would like to compare the two? Got a group of friends who are going to do a LAN and we've had good times with Holdfast, and the question has been raised if we should get this too. It's a much smaller scale game for sure.

[Yoink]

...is it the fashion around here to hate on a game because it's getting attention from mainstream gaming channels? Oof.

Hey now, not at all! I'm not the type to hate something just for being popular.
No, to be honest I just love a medieval setting but hated Chivalry's combat mechanics, and when I heard people singing the praises of Mordhau's combat my first thought was something along the lines of "Oh my goodness freaking gosh they've finally made a medieval combat game with decent combat?!" and so when I saw its similarities to Chiv it was like a whole regiment of armoured cavalry trampling my dreams into the dirt.
It was the most disappointing thing since... since... I don't know, really, I think I tend to suppress most of my especially disappointing memories.
You get the idea.


If it has a greater scope of equipment and customisation, that's great! I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, and I'm sure folks who enjoy Chiv-style combat will love the game. Myself, though, I'm going to hold out hope for a game to someday emerge with realistic hand-to-hand combat that isn't, well, the shameful clusterfuck that was For Honour. (I don't know if its combat was good or not, mind you - I couldn't get past the bizarre decision to mash up three far-flung historical factions rather than just settling for one to focus on. Also it had zero customisation, so that sucks too.)