[2020] Mordhau Weekly Feedback/Discussion: 7/7 - 7/13

Originally posted by Sir___LionHeart

Patch 18 broke shields - if you're aiming to keep the competitive scene alive items and weapons should not be banned because they're broken.

Also where is 3v3 ranked?!

Originally posted by seitung

I'm sure these are already on your radar. These have been said before previously but I think they're worth mentioning again.

An obvious, intuitive practice mode for new players would help them cope with the steep learning curve of jumping into an Invasion against players with hundreds of levels on them. New players are being disheartened (and refunding if claims are to be believed) because they come into FL/INV and have absolutely no fun against veteran players. Horde mode is currently a confusing mess where building a loadout requires intimate map knowledge and teaches little about the game's PvP combat. And the tutorial, while it does teach the very basics, doesn't really help a new player understand the flow of a fight or XvX at all. Lobbing them directly into combat against us is bad for them and player retention if they do end up refunding.

On the opposite end of the spectrum of players, a ranked mode for teams of small numbers (3v3 or 5v5 perhaps) would show off the combat well and reward players who invest their time to learn the game well with a mode designed for their competitiveness.

I can't imagine these not being essential for the longer term success of Mordhau. But it would be great to see and play early iterations of these so we know what's on the horizon. I know I'd love to help play test practice mode and team ranked anyway. We love this game, let us help you make it everything it can be.

Originally posted by gooseppe1

Steam sale and new patch barely brought new 100 players to game. Seems like the game is dying

Originally posted by rein_not_reign

An alternative proposal to loadout folders:

Loadout folders have long been a frequently requested QoL improvement to loadout organization. The concept of loadout folders would be a particular solution to the problem, but it must be highlighted that it is not the only possible solution. We state the loadout organization problem as follows: The customization system offers so much variety that someone who enjoys it cannot avoid making dozens or hundreds of different loadouts; how does one then categorize, sort, or find a specific entry among one's many loadouts?

To solve this problem, we propose a two-stage approach entirely different to loadout folders. The first stage would be intended as a short-term development goal, simpler in concept and presumably much simpler to implement than loadout folders, and it would already offer a significant QoL improvement over the current situation. The second stage would be more of a longer term goal, but it would also have advantages over the traditional concept of loadout folders.

1. A name-based search filter for loadouts: Much like in the Server Browser, allowing one to filter loadouts by name would be of great assistance when looking for a specific loadout among hundreds. There might be enough unused space on the Loadout List interface already (next to the Show Defaults button, for instance) to add a filtering input without significant visual changes.
2. A tagging system for loadouts: If we have a cosplay loadout that we also use in ranked play, should we move it into the Cosplays folder or into the Ranked Builds folder? A tagging system would be more flexible, as it would allow one to apply multiple custom tags to each loadout. Filtering would be very intuitive, as it could be done with a dropdown list allowing one to tick multiple checkboxes in order to show loadouts having at least one of the selected tags. Tags could have colors, chosen with the same colorpicker used for cloth pieces so as to not clash with the game's color theme, and they could be prominently displayed above, below or next to each loadout's name. With such a system in place, one would not need to click through cumbersome, antiquated folders in order to find that one specific loadout one's troubled heart seeks on a particular lonely night when one could instead leverage the immense organizational power of modern, sleek, magnificent color-coded tags.

tl;dr taggie when?

Originally posted by TheMordhauBird

Pings seem to have been significantly affected by the latest patch.

The Bird has triple digit pings where he once had 60, and 90 pings where he once had 20. This is not pleasant.

Originally posted by Daric_Leland

How's the pipeline work going? Y'know, for faster, frequenter, smaller patches without disrupting the bigger quarterly stuff.

Originally posted by needlzor

-1. Very minor stuff, but it would be nice to specify a default mode for the weapons in the loadout, e.g. so I can start with the Messer in one hand mode, or with the spear in short stabby mode. It's very minor but since often the spawn in not isolated from the battle it's good to be ready to go as soon as you appear.

-2. Couching weapon on horse and holding shield should deplete stamina. It makes sense and it balances stuff out.

-3. Big stuff, and just throwing ideas out there: the maps are huge, and they are gorgeous, and they are underutilised. One way to use them more and reduce staleness without extensive level design would be to randomise certain parts of the game. For example:

• Random set of objectives, placed at different parts of the map, whether it's the same objective at random places (save the peasants in Grad) or different objectives altogether (e.g. grad v1 red: destroy the gates, grad v2 red: place explosive next to a wall of the castle, grad v3 red: destroy a village on the side etc.)

• Random meteorological conditions: day/night, sun/rain/fog/storm, wind f**king up archery

• Random major elements of the map: e.g. sometimes there is a mortar facing the Grad castle, sometimes there is a catapult, sometimes there is a moat (seriously this medieval game is seriously lacking in moats, wtf)

• Random minor elements of the map: have more weapons and stuff laying around to pick up. I want to pick up an apple from the Feitoria market and throw it in the face of a dirty red peasant from the Iron Company, because they suck. I want to pick up a snowball from the ground in Mountain Peak and have a snowball fight on the bridge.

-4. Add more weapons in Horde (staff, polehammer, cleaver)

-5. Add a way to summon a bot with a specific loadout from the console, for training, in local match. Maybe even a Seymour or a giant.

Originally posted by lambdaximus

The back of the german sallet moves separately from it's front, I reckon that this wasn't intended. It would be cool if it could be fixed.

Other than that I have two cosmetic related simple suggestions :

• More emblems would be nice.

• Add an unstrapped variant of the burgonet no buffet or allow facial hair to be visible while wearing it.

Thanks for reading.

Originally posted by Donkster

Just asking again because maybe it was overlooked last time.

Could it be possible to get basic filtering or a small update to the server browser?

I wish I was able to sort by players or ping as well as add servers to favorites so I don't have to look them up each time.

Originally posted by elbudziko

How about an emote where you throw your gotlet on the ground, symbolizing a challenge. Or let me bitch slap my opponent with it.

Originally posted by Madtagne

1. Turn caps need reviewing, they aren't noted as stats on weapons but they matter. I am fairly sure GS and LS have the best (AKA, most not nerfed) turn caps which is probably why you see everyone and their grandma playing it in duel servers - there is a clear disparagement of what is "meta" and what isn't. LS is too strong imo, it should be a jack of all trades weapon but master of none however it is pretty much GREAT at everything.

2. Large weapon movement speed debuff - this is too much, it either needs to be rolled out to more weapons or removed. It's inconsistent that big boy maul can still be sonic the hedgehog but you're penalised when playing other large weapons. I understand you could argue that all weapons that receive the debuff have large range, however, this is an issue in itself. I've seen people back peddle zwei attacks from close range (remember there was a lunge nerf too) with 1h, counter after the miss and the zwei player cannot move out of range. Similarly, I've seen a 1h player miss at close range and be able to get away from the zwei because of movement speed! It doesn't feel fair in duels that one side, often with a weapon half the length, can reliably just press the S key to avoid attacks while one is a sitting duck unable to catch a target despite having one of the longest weapons in the game. The worst thing I've seen a couple of times now is people have literally been able to backpeddle out of a follow up combo after a successful hit! It's frustrating because Mordhau has excellent footwork mechanics but this really takes away from it when playing the larger weapons. Personally, with the lunge changes implemented I think the debuff should be heavily toned down or removed now. Overall, zwei, spear and halberd feel a bit shit and could do with looking at. Zwei is pointless to take instead of halberd at the moment post buff. I think personally this was a reactionary nerf, due to their effectiveness on frontline servers and within casual level play but from playing them in duel for two patches now with more capable players it's clear to me that it needs tweaking.

3. Stamina drain on parries is screwed up when looking at 1h vs 2h, they are too close in value.

4. Armour speed, there is too much of a gap between 3/3/3 and 0/0/0, I would not mind this if taking half armour such as 2/3/1 actually had a reasonable benefit in terms of speed gain but it doesn't. It seems it's either worth taking full armour or very little at all else you're gimping yourself. The chase mechanic seems to get tweaked every patch because of this, maybe it's time to admit there's a core gameplay issue here and revamp it instead of trying to bodge it? As a side note, I feel naked men need a nerf overall, a lot of weapons are 2htk and it fundamentally does not matter that you do 90 damage to a 0 armour player, you both need two hits to kill eachother. If you are foolish enough to take zero armour, 1 hit kill from most 2h weapons should be a serious risk, this would then encourage people to actually use tier 1 armour.

5. Shields.

Originally posted by orangesheepdog

You shouldn’t be able to show your comp rank if you are unranked. Smurfs and level 200s use it to conceal their skill level to annoying effect.

Originally posted by Wandering_Tale

• Just like the fire arrow pit, it would be nice if the medpack was more than a bag. It's too low to the ground, I wish it was some basket on a stand, at waist level, with bandages and vials. We could interact more easily with it.
• It would also remove the red cross on it, that didn't exist back then.
• The limits of the smoke bomb are unclear. Feels as tough your vision becomes clouded well before you're within range.

Originally posted by needlzor

You're the best community manager Jax, thanks for the reply!

more map variation is a goal, but we can't really change a ton of map stuff because then we need to rebuild lighting and it's essentially a new map at that point. we're looking into some solutions for separating lighting and the map itself for visual variety, but adding in a ton of new objects isn't always possible

Yeah I knew it was going to be a tough one but it still would be less work than designing a map from scratch I assume, especially considering the amount of work that must have gone in making them. Even if say 10 slight variations (with different artillery or small changes in the buildings) were pre-built and chosen randomly when selecting a specific map it would still reduce repetition to an extent, although having a set of random variables building hundreds of variations would be ideal (but difficult to do).

Originally posted by Got_Damn_Nam

This is a repeat, sorry in advance. I think vote to scramble teams and adding community servers to the find game feature could add quite a bit of quality of life to this game.

Originally posted by Daric_Leland

I'd like to bring attention to u/ShroomD00M's thread on team color customization.

Letting players pick the clientside colors for each team would kill 3 birds with 1 stone:
Mistaking blood-spattered blue team for red team
Colorblind players
Spy builds

Originally posted by lambdaximus

Maybe I should upload some in-game footage of it but the german sallet articulates in a really odd way that doesn't look very natural considering it's model, wich is great btw.