What they say:
“f*cking gamblers, learn to play!”
What they actually mean:
“Damn it, you hit me while I was trying to triple-feint-into-morph you for the tenth time instead of panic-parrying as I expected you to do, you have defeated me as you didn’t fall for my profesional, skill-based playstyle!”
External link →to break down what gambling actually is you need to start with the concept of initiative.
initiative = Having a timing advantage.
For example, riposting gives you initiative - you can have a maul and them a dagger, but the maul riposte will land first compared to the dagger, as you have the initiative due to the riposte. Initiative is really important in Mordhau, as we have first hit flinch in most situations; if you hit first you're protected, and then enemy goes into flinch and you can combo, and keep the initiative etc.
Gambling is the act of attacking without initiative. If you have a timing advantage (initiative) and are mid attack while the other person is just winding an attack up, you will hit them first every time if you just commit to the attack. Why gambling is annoying is because, well, it's a gamble that revolves around someone doing an attack out-of-turn which shouldn't work, but if you happen to feint or do a big drag or something, they hit you. They're just rolling the dice and hoping that you forfeit your initiative mid-swing, and it's illogical but can definitely catch people off-guard, so it can be effective at times.
Gambling isn't:
- Reading a feint and trying to punish it
- Going for a chamber attempt
- "stealing" initiative if the other person hesitates
- spamming attacks (can be a gamble but normally the timing is off)
- using footwork/range to cause misses and punishing whiffs
The More You Know™
Gambling's a bad term for it anyways. If we just repeated a sequence and I noted a tendency to do an overhead accel feint and I opt to call it out by striking into you, then It would be a hard read on how the opponent plays.
that's just predicting/punishing a feint. it can be a gamble, but it isn't only a gamble. if you actually see the feint and work off that, cool.
gambles can be awesome if you use them sparingly - you're going to take a stam hit but throwing out a basic stab when they're about to go into release will either make a less composed enemy FTP, giving you a free hit, or just serve as a discouragement for them to get too fancy. It can keep your opponent honest. If you rely on gambles and the enemy giving away their initiative, they're most likely to catch on and just start doing riposte overhead accels to counter that. If you continue to gamble you're in for a bad time, but on the other hand you've now just conditioned your opponent to not feint their attacks for a few exchanges.
Reading a feint = reacting to a feint and punishing with a swing of your own before your opponents next swing comes out.
That wouldn't be reading a feint, that would just be reacting to a feint. "Successfully predicting a player's action is commonly referred to as a read."
That's why I'm a bit confused, because to me, Jax is basically saying:
it's a prediction that revolves around someone doing an attack out-of-turn which shouldn't work, but if you happen to feint
Gambling isn't: - Predicting a feint
bad choice of words, it's not a prediction it's just going "unga-bunga me swing" and hoping that the other person loses initiative
so if you see someone feint and read it, and then punish = not a gamble
if you see someone wind an attack up and then you swing into it, without knowing if it's a feint or not = gamble
devtrackers.gg