Last week our development team streamed during our Free Weekend over on our Twitch channel. If you weren’t able to catch it, you can still watch the stream over on our highlights section.
You can follow our own Torn Banner Studios Twitch channel for regular livestreams (once a month or more) as well!
The focus on the stream was to go over the basics of combat in Chivalry 2 in order to give a crash course to players who may be playing the game for the first time during the Free Weekend. We invited Mike Orzechowski, a Programmer and Technical Designer at Torn Banner Studios, to talk to us about the combat in Chivalry 2.
For the basics we recommend that players play through the in-game tutorial if they haven’t already learned the basics. We also have a Combat Tutorial video on our YouTube channel that explains the basics in video format if you’d like more of a walk-through than the tutorial alone.
During the latter part of the stream, we introduced more complex mechanics players can and should utilize while playing. Here’s a breakdown of some more advanced combat mechanics.
Feinting
When performing a normal attack, such as a slash, it is very easy for the enemy to read what attack you’re initiating and react to it with a counter. The benefit of using a feint is to “fake out” your opponent and make them think you’re performing one attack, when in reality you’re doing another. In Chivalry 2 you can feint almost any attack into another.
Feints can be used purposefully or if you change your mind part way through an attack. For example if you initiate a slash but realize you’re too far away from your opponent for that hit to land, you can simply change to another attack part way through and give yourself more time during the attack windup to get closer to the enemy.
You can feint between normal and heavy attacks with this as well. An example of this would be to feint from an overhead attack into a heavy slash attack. Throwing in a heavy attack during your normal attacks is a good way to throw off your opponents timing or just deal more damage than a normal attack.
You can feint into a jab or into a kick to interrupt an incoming enemy or push them back, allowing you space to breathe and better initiate your next attack. This can be useful if you’ve initiated an attack but notice your enemy will hit you before your hits lands. You can feint into a jab, stunning the enemy before they’re able to hit you.
You can use alternate attacks (hold ALT to attack in the opposite direction) to confuse your attacker and take them by surprise. This may also give you an advantage if your opponent blocks in one direction, and then you alternate your attack to the opposite direction.
This can also be done with countering for defensive purposes against opponents feinting your initial counter attempt, and for offensive purposes to change up your attack if you need to. If your timing is off, you can alternate your counter to the other side from your initial engagement for a second chance at having a successful counter.
Evasion
While being aggressive in Chivalry 2 has its benefits, sometimes what is equally as important is your ability to evade or negate incoming attacks. Mastering your ability to position yourself against your opponent(s) is key. If you’re ever in a situation where you are up against multiple opponents, you should never sandwich yourself between 2 enemies, where one enemy is at your front and the other is at your back. Since you can only parry in one direction this puts you at a major disadvantage. Move away by executing a dash to position yourself so that both opponents are in front of you, allowing you to block both of them and attack both of them together. You can dash in multiple directions as well.
Dashing has a lot of value other than just giving yourself safe to safely engage. If you wind up an attack or counter attempt and change your mind, you can cancel your attack by dashing. This prevents you from wasting the stamina that you would otherwise lose from a failed engagement.
You can also dash or crouch after a parry break. This means that while you’re in that state of not being able to engage with an attack, you can dash or crash to evade incoming damage. Speaking of crouching – crouch can be used to dodge incoming attacks. You can even crouch backwards to pretend you’re in the Matrix and dodge underneath incoming damage.
Chivalry 2 is all about giving the player many options to both attack and defend. The kick and jab fits into this category well. If you feel like you’re getting overwhelmed by someone who repeatedly kicks or jabs you – you can counter their attack by performing the same move against them. Jabs block jabs and kicks block kicks. You can also continue to attack someone while they’re kicking because even though kicks do push your back and deal damage, they do not interrupt attacks or break a parry.
There is also riposte/counter queuing which is a new mechanic that allows the player to queue up a riposte or counter during states where they are “stunned”. This will allow you to attack more quickly after you experience an attack where you’ve been forced into a stunned state.
Projectile Blocking
Did you know that you can deflect an incoming arrow or any projectile using your weapon? Just like you can counter an enemy’s weapon, you can counter an arrow. You’ll need to get your timing right as arrows move quickly, but it can be done! Execute an attack, such as a slash, to hit the incoming arrow away before it lands damage on you.
While using shields to block arrows may seem obvious, a shield on your back can also be helpful in blocking arrows coming from the rear. Shields can even block incoming ballista bolts, but only once as the bolt of that magnitude will destroy the shield on impact. Blocking with a shield consumes much less stamina than parrying with a weapon, making shields an excellent defense weapon.
Future Streams
We hope you enjoyed our combat-centric stream, and we look forward to seeing you in our next Twitch stream next month where we’ll be playing more Chivalry 2 and giving you a behind the scenes look at how the game is developed.
You can always stay up to date on the bigger items the team is working on at the Chivalry 2 Road Map. And don’t forget: for help be sure to visit the Chivalry 2 Knowledge Base and Support Site, community discourse – Discord, follow us on Twitch, and read all the latest news on our Social (Twitter & Facebook).
