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[Sordid]

The system doesn't recognize long movements, only small ones. This is to accomodate quick decision making without having to rotate your view 90 degrees and lose focus of your target.

The problem with that is that the shorter the movement, the less data the direction recognition algorithm has to work with. Hence, glitchiness.

That was insanely fun, actually.

Now you're just being contrary. It was totally and utterly uncontrollable. All that complexity was completely wasted because the most effective technique against any opponent was to backpedal while constantly slashing from left to right and back again.

try as hard as you want, you cannot map 3d arm movements to 2d controls.

Actually, you kinda can. DbtS used the mouse to move the arm around, and several buttons to extend it or hold the sword at a 90 degree angle for blocking. Kinda reminds me of Trespasser, actually, which used a very similar system. These are both very nice examples of what one game reviewer over here called the two kinds of realism. You have technological realism, in which you make a perfect virtual model of something, be it a sword arm or a jet fighter. And then you have tactical realism, which aims to make the player go through the same decision-making process as the operator of that system does in real life. At first glace it seems the two go hand in hand, but they don't. You don't need to be a keyboard virtuoso to be able to control your arm in real life, you do it intuitively. With flight sims you have the problem of controls (unless you build yourself a replica cockpit), limited field of view, and no sense of g-forces and the attitude of the aircraft. DbtS tried to do technologically realistic sword fighting and it failed spectacularly.

[Virtz]

try as hard as you want, you cannot map 3d arm movements to 2d controls.

the most close you get is the four direction system driven by mouse, which falls apart as soon as you try to attack and strafe.

don't underestimate console combat controls: better mapping of buttons allow for a very precise control of attack, defense and movement.
only that you don't find that on rpgs. you find them on the ps2 dragon ball z tenkaichi series, for example.

What? What's so hard about moving sidewards and using the mouse to aim?

Also, you can map 2d controls to angular movement, much like Die by the Sword or Determinance.

The system doesn't recognize long movements, only small ones. This is to accomodate quick decision making without having to rotate your view 90 degrees and lose focus of your target.

The problem with that is that the shorter the movement, the less data the direction recognition algorithm has to work with. Hence, glitchiness.

And yet there are people who can use it without fault? There's even a large arrow on screen previewing which direction you attack/block in. Unless you turn it off, that is.

That was insanely fun, actually.

Now you're just being contrary. It was totally and utterly uncontrollable. All that complexity was completely wasted because the most effective technique against any opponent was to backpedal while constantly slashing from left to right and back again.

Not the way I played it. It may have been clunky to control, but I still found the overall result to be fun. And with enough practise in the arena mode, I could easily dispatch orcs by attacking at the right times as they attacked. It was hard as hell due to controls, but tell me lopping off someone's legs with your own well-targetted swings isn't rewarding.

[LoSboccacc]

What? What's so hard about moving sidewards and using the mouse to aim?

the conflict is between aiming and doing the correct the attack/defense gesture while strafing (so that you already have a lateral component to add), not aiming and strafing per se.

[Sordid]

And yet there are people who can use it without fault? There's even a large arrow on screen previewing which direction you attack/block in. Unless you turn it off, that is.

Yeah, I imagine with ungodly amounts of practice it's possible to learn to control it, but like I said, after years and years and years of casually playing this game I still can't do it consistently. For a system with just four possible moves, that's just ridiculous.
The arrow is useless. The sequence of events is that you see an enemy - you move your mouse to ready your attack or block - you execute the action. You're reacting to one event. Witht he arrow you see an enemy - you move your mouse - you check the arrow - you move your mouse again to correct - you execute. That's double the number of steps you need to take, you'd have to react to the enemy and then also to the arrow, ie your reaction time would need to be half. That makes it more difficult, not less, and that's exactly the reason why I turned it off. Checking the arrow before releasing the mouse button kept getting me killed.

Not the way I played it. It may have been clunky to control, but I still found the overall result to be fun. And with enough practise in the arena mode, I could easily dispatch orcs by attacking at the right times as they attacked. It was hard as hell due to controls, but tell me lopping off someone's legs with your own well-targetted swings isn't rewarding.

It wasn't for me, precisely because the game was hard due to the controls. That's the wrong kind of difficulty in my opinion, because then you're not competing against your opponent, you're competing against the developers' incompetence. Easy to learn, difficult to master, that's how I think games should be.

[Virtz]

Not the way I played it. It may have been clunky to control, but I still found the overall result to be fun. And with enough practise in the arena mode, I could easily dispatch orcs by attacking at the right times as they attacked. It was hard as hell due to controls, but tell me lopping off someone's legs with your own well-targetted swings isn't rewarding.

It wasn't for me, precisely because the game was hard due to the controls. That's the wrong kind of difficulty in my opinion, because then you're not competing against your opponent, you're competing against the developers' incompetence. Easy to learn, difficult to master, that's how I think games should be.

The enemy was sort of undergoing the same kind of struggle, though. As long as the enemy has to overcome the same kind of difficulty, I'm ok with it. To me DbtS is sort of like the Inception shifting gravity fight. Nearly impossible to fight properly in the environment, but somehow entertaining due to that. Not to mention the pay off of blood and gore in DbtS.

They probably could've done it better, limited the angles or made the movement feel less heavily weighted. But I wouldn't look at it as a regrettable experiment. They even provided alternative control schemes for people who didn't like the mouse sim mode. You could've played with numpad based swinging or pre-made animation attacks.

And as far as "easy to learn" games go, what about Dwarf Fortress? Or Liberal Crime Squad? They're not exactly newcomer friendly, yet many here consider them endlessly entertaining. Personally I had the most fun with either while I had little to no idea how to play them and figured out how to do things myself.

[Shadowlord]

You know, you could have just changed the control mode to the keyboard control instead of mouse control. Then you press a movement key and hit attack, and you attack in that direction. (Or block, etc)

Blocking, of course, is a pain, because it's difficult to tell what the enemy is doing half the time because half their moves look alike, and they all look bizarrely robotic for some reason. But in any case.

[LoSboccacc]

You know, you could have just changed the control mode to the keyboard control instead of mouse control. Then you press a movement key and hit attack, and you attack in that direction. (Or block, etc)

Blocking, of course, is a pain, because it's difficult to tell what the enemy is doing half the time because half their moves look alike, and they all look bizarrely robotic for some reason. But in any case.

so you choose attack with one hand, move with the other hand, and use the mouse to look with the other other hand? or are you using the other combo, the one where you use one hand to move the mouse and the twelve fingered hand to control the attack and move keys?

[Sordid]

so you choose attack with one hand, move with the other hand, and use the mouse to look with the other other hand? or are you using the other combo, the one where you use one hand to move the mouse and the twelve fingered hand to control the attack and move keys?

No, no. The attack keys are the move keys in that case. Personally I can't stand it when a game insists that a control input have two functions, and both of M&B's control schemes do exactly that.

[Shadowlord]

It's really not that bad.

[Sordid]

It's not that good either.

[Lysabild]

I personally think Mount and Blade is the best fighting game experience I've -ever- had. Especially with the mods that make stuff more realistic.

[Vibhor]

So we are arguing about mount & blade and how the guy with the pony avatar (no offense intended) is unable to control the combat in mount & blade.
Let me jump in, The combat controls are not for realism but for making complex moves. If it was just click and strike, the game would lose a lot of its strategic and reflex action in combat. There is a reason both blocking and striking are manually controlled. It all is a part of strategic combat and it cannot be pulled off any other way.

[Moddan]

Well, for people like him the game allows automatic block directions. Maybe something like that could be done in Skyrim. A simplified(default) fighting system for casuals or the hopeless and an optional more complex version for more dedicated players. Worked in Fallout:NV with the Hardcore mode in my opinion.

[Sordid]

The combat controls are not for realism but for making complex moves.

What complex moves? It has four different moves, four, all of which are simple directional attacks.

[Vibhor]

The combat controls are not for realism but for making complex moves.

What complex moves? It has four different moves, four, all of which are simple directional attacks.

Ah I apologize. A slip of words from my part. You see, it was supposed to say "making the combat more complex" instead of making complex moves.
It makes the combat require more skill and agility.