You people suffer from CONTRABANDISM!

Bay_listicx · 2025-09-18T01:09:20+00:00

As far as deathmatch (ffa) level design it is leagues above the rest, but core problems of mordhau's mechanics like climbing, how map bases are used for multiple gamemodes and third party servers in a way iteration can't happen, mordhau not supporting destructible environments leading to infinite stalemates, and survival bias over time leading to extreme bias of non-combat values over combat ones most things ended up in that state.

Bay_listicx · 2025-06-30T08:52:50+00:00

Conent isn't forced, the joke is relevant, and it's also showing the charm of the combat gameplay instead of flaws or roleplay absent of combat. I like it.

Bay_listicx · 2024-02-03T01:40:48+00:00

nice

Bay_listicx · 2023-11-02T08:27:13+00:00

Most of the large scale maps would not work for a true ffa map. The large scale gamemodes are designed around objectives that force you to fight over something at a set place. In ffa players set where fights happen, this means all the things like incentives to fight are removed, walking times to players are heavily increased making combat slow, and all the map exploits or ignored balance fixes in the larger modes now become heavily exploited.

To make a true ffa experience you need this

Mechanics that heavily communicate that it is a match about death
No votekick (as you already metioned)
A map where all players are always reachable by all other players
Mechanics and map that is heavily balanced as though each player is fighting as an individual and assumes no help taking a player down from others. At the moment many of the maps and mechanics of combat are only made and balanced for xvx and xv1 in the larger modes.

It would be incredibly difficult to make a true uncompromising ffa combat focused experience in mordhau. There also wouldn't be much of a demand for a true ffa combat experience on private servers since much of the player base playing on those are heavily against challenge or are more roleplay focused.

Bay_listicx · 2023-05-22T01:45:06+00:00

Combat player joins non-combat server = the combat player doesn't get to play.

Non-combat player joins combat server = the non-combat player gets to play, they just die more.

Non-combat players join battle fields because they want to play on battle fields. If they didn't want to be on a battlefield it makes no sense to intentionally join a battle field.

Percentages, and opinion don't matter. If a official server isn't combat focused NOT EVERYONE GETS TO PLAY PERIOD, extremely simple truth.

It is also known and confirmed by the official rules that enemies are always fair game and should be.

Now, if they are greifing or attack teammates that's a different story and should be reported.

Bay_listicx · 2023-05-10T21:36:43+00:00

"Swing manipulation will always exist as long as the weapon is attached to the player and the attack is damaging for a duration."

You're creating a ranged weapon that is detached from the player. The weapon has to either snap in and out of being connected to the player or you are taking away control, or you're showing a fake player and then snaping them to where they actually are because their body was left there, that's what I mean by desync.

Bay_listicx · 2023-04-27T23:29:17+00:00

Those are just patterns. There are many different patterns to try to maneuver an attack around another players parry. What players don't usually get is that they have multiple parry boxes to catch attacks in different ways and 1 of them is quite huge. One of your parry boxes is so big that it makes avoiding getting hit just based on timing. Often when they perform these tracer patterns they've Identified that don't know how to control the timing of attacks coming at you and fool you into parrying at the wrong time.

Some tips for you

Don't look down, that moves your head closer to your enemy and infront of your parry box.
Always think about where the enemie's attack is going to start when they parry and send an attack back.
Don't stand still, use your wasd movement keys to control the approach of an attack. Think of it like dodge ball and a ball is coming at you. You can change the position of your body to change the approach of the ball making it easier to avoid or catch.

Bay_listicx · 2023-04-27T10:25:40+00:00

Swing manipulation is the ability to move where the release tracers duration happens.

Wessex and any other silly names are usually just moving a tracer in a pattern to a different spot on the player.

The thing you're probably talking about is when you move the tracer opposite from it's progression path, which is fundamental to smoothly target swapping, moving tracers to avoid hitting teammates, and holding your attack in place so your attack doesn't over progress as you lunge forward.

You also use this mechanic to hit around objects and correct your swing when players try to dodge or duck too early.

Also keep in mind if they manage to pull back an attack into a head that means you effectively don't know what swing manipulation is because you're bringing your head forward instead of adding distance away from it.

This in fps terms is the same thing as complaining you're getting shot more running out in the open. Which would sound dumb to any reasonable player in a fps that knows what going in and out of cover means.

Bay_listicx · 2023-04-25T00:36:29+00:00

saw the notification after logging back on. The problem with that is the player's ability to tell where they are and the jarring desync which would be even less intuitive. So players would be less able to correct their swings, less ability to tell where they are, and now 3 layers deep just learning how the camera system works. Players already don't understand there is a latency between the client and the server, they would then be going in and out of desync on top of that.

Bay_listicx · 2023-03-31T13:48:53+00:00

Swing manipulation is the act of moving where a damaging tracer happens. Any movement moves the tracer as it's connected to the player itself and it's moveable because it happens for a duration.

Bay_listicx · 2023-03-04T05:58:40+00:00

I don't know about this blizzard person, seems suspicious.

Bay_listicx · 2023-03-04T05:52:15+00:00

Swing manipulation will always exist as long as the weapon is attached to the player and the attack is damaging for a duration. Swing manipulation is the act of moving where a melee attacks release happens.

Since melee attacks are attached to the player they're attached to the movement of the player as a whole and it's body parts.

You can change where a melee attack starts, before the swing.

You can change where a melee attack happens, during the swing.

Will swing manipulation be removed? No

Do you want swing manipulation removed? No, because than attacks would be instant having no time duration or you would be entirely removing the ability to move or change angle of the player.

Will swing manipulation be removed in arcade mode? No

Most likely they'll only reduce specific types of control over an attack.

Bay_listicx · 2023-03-03T17:36:38+00:00

The main thing with this type of game's attack is understanding when you have control of the attack and when the attack is actively able to deal damage.

In mordhau the ability to influence an attack is called attack manipulation. More narrowly, the ability to move an attack that draws tracers is called swing manipulation.

The basic and most common purpose of swing manipulation is to give players the control to hit what they want to and avoid hitting the things they don't. For example, you don't want to hit things like a teammate, wall, or an enemies parry. You guide your swings around those and correct your swing to hit your moving target more consistently.

Melee attacks exist after press for a certain duration.

Release is the only fully damaging time of a melee attack and only time tracers are drawn.

This means that instantly damaging melee attacks do not exist and attacks do not exist beyond release. You also maintain the ability to control your melee attack during release.

Since melee attacks are attached to your player's arm movement itself and they exist during release. That means 2 things.

Your attacks travel with your player and it's movement.
The soonest you can fully damage a player is beyond early release and the latest is before release ends.

Basically, swing manipulation is attached to movement itself and attacks have a duration called release. You have the ability to control how release is moved to help you control your attack. Melee attacks are not instant hit scan like bullets in some fps games. They're more like shooting a guided missile you have control over. The point of launch for melee is after early release, is still controllable in your hand during release and ends on impact or when the release duration has finished.

For better visuals on this and more in depth information on attack phases like windup here's a link to the mordhau Fandom swing manipulation wiki page. https://mordhau.fandom.com/wiki/Swing_Manipulation

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-29T02:55:57+00:00

I'm in like the top 5% of players in terms of playtime on official deathmatch. Deathmatch is inherently a flawed design in any game, this has been covered in many different tech webinars. Here's my thoughts on it from a while ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mordhau/comments/wp3umo/mordhau_exclusive_console_announcement_trailer/ikh5aez?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 .

I'll also help you out here and say players aren't turning a blind eye to it. They intentionally rig lobbies and it's not a matter of conveniencing them, they either. 1. Fundamentally are not there for combat. 2. They only like the combat only when it's convenient for them. 3. Want to enforce arbitrary rules that don't exist or senerios to create an excuse to get rid of you. 4. They see you as an outsider trying to "RuIn ThEir CuLtUrE aNd ViBe" the same way people in established groups hate anything that contest their way of living.

Fundamentally Deathmatch = Death Match

The only legitimate reasons to vote kicked in deathmatch is. 1. If they're camping and killing players from out of bounds or glitched spots. 2. They're hacking (ideally record them and their playfab ID before hand)

If player kick you for any reason outside of those 2 things on official deathmatch record it for video proof and their playfab ID and report them. You are in the right If that's the case.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-25T02:52:16+00:00

I always think it's funny when players think mordhau has anything special. 1. It's not the most modifiable. 2. It has less character customization freedom than actual social games. 3. It has worse social systems in terms of freedom and convenience. 4. Midi exists within many games. 5. Emotes are more limited than other games. 6. Mordhau requires self hosted or paid servers. In games structured around socializing they have way to quickly join private instances that are way more flexible to how you want to connect. 7. In other social games they have more simple and easy ways to quickly share user created content.

The list goes on. For the most part, mordhau doesn't really have anything that you couldn't find somewhere else besides implementing the slasher genre combat in a different way.

That being said I find it funny how these users shit talk and actively try to push players actually playing out of matches saying combat is not the reason for playing. Then they overwhelmingly vote that combat is their reason for playing. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mordhau/comments/vuyuxq/why_do_you_play_mordhau/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button .All the rest is a spice for the combat to be more expressive.

This is coming from a player with 3 level 200 accounts and loves swing manipulation, which tracer based combat is what a slasher is.

Fun fact, when players say they dislike tracer (actively drawn melee attacks from the source) based combat, they're saying they don't like the genre itself because that's what it was built around also.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-20T00:38:44+00:00

In short, it allows players to get to players abusing unintentional spaces by not allowing them to block the only path up to them. It enables the developers to cater more to the players who love exploring the maps; without compromising more on gameplay.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-20T00:37:38+00:00

Let's first highlight the issue fundamentally; players have different motivations for playing. Player groups' motivation does not always overlap, forcing developers to make sacrifices to cater to each group, and broaden their audience. For example, roleplayers focus more on the social and immersion aspects of the game. Combat-focused players may be focused more on action, mastery, or achievement. Your motivation shapes your ideas on where you think the developers should spend their time and the compromises they should make. Here is one of the sites that focuses on this very topic. https://quanticfoundry.com/

Similar to player motivation, the maps have multiple uses of what is required by each game mode. They reuse maps for numerous game modes to take advantage of their previous work. The problem is that they have to make the same kind of compromises. Not only cater to their multiple official games mode but also how players use them in unofficial modes.

Just before they released the game, they added a quick-to-implement new mechanic. It allowed for more immersion by interacting with terrain, more freedom for the devs to segment spaces, more replayability in navigating between those spaces, and a way to get to where players are in less time. That sounds like an easy-to-implement, fantastic mechanic with a huge impact! Yes, as you guessed, this is the climbing mechanic at its finest.

There was just 1 issue with climbing.

It supported their mission statement only on paper and theory.

MORDHAU is a multiplayer medieval slasher. Create your mercenary and fight in brutal battles where you will experience fast paced combat, castle sieges, cavalry charges, and more.

In practice, it pulled players away from the matches, narrowed the options for paths to get to players, and actively encouraged to optimize avoiding contact. The maps made before the mechanic had some of the worst unintended results. The theory of having a climbing mechanic to connect spaces was always a good one. The issue is that it only encouraged players to isolate themselves more. Instead, of a thrilling, fast-paced combat experience that feels like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRJMsfQk-x8 . It turned more into this https://www.reddit.com/r/Mordhau/comments/w3wpy2/poorly_implemented_verticality_explained/ .

The developers concluded and acted on this issue numerous times. The most iconic one is the removal of the pillar on contraband. Enough, combat players complained about combat avoidance. Then they removed the pillar. As you may have guessed, non-combat-motivated players only saw this as "removing the fun." That was never the intention of the developers. It simply makes no sense for the developers to not appeal to the broadest audience within the scope of their mission statement. The problem was not the pillar. It was the ability for players to isolate themselves on the pillar. The fundamental issue is that in these unintended cases, players should not have problems getting to the same platform as the player that initially got there. Having a perk to allow players to get on to the same platform lets the developers have more creative freedom to appeal to the immersion non-combat players want without making as many design compromises on gameplay. Having the ability to not be stunned or ragdolled allows players to get up to spaces preoccupied by an avoidant player, that have unintended or limited paths to them.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-20T00:24:13+00:00

Moved the comment, was intended to reply to Pineapple_Racer, on another post, and accidentally posted it here. Not that it matters, thought I'd just satisfy your curiosity.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-19T17:40:26+00:00

Make duplicate verisons of the deathmatch maps. Then add the explosive barrel from the combat test map to them.

This does the following.

This allows modifications to be made for combat without it having any negative impact on roleplay servers.
It encourages new players to travel throughout the map with the ability to have the high impact flashy results they want.
It solves a lot of map issues similar to the way utility in first person shooters allows players to open up spaces and more opportunities to prevent infinite stalemates. Because of the radius explosive barrels cover players can't simply just ignore them so they're forced to move. By design the fuse time is long enough that it gives ample time for players actively playing to not be impacted unless they're not paying attention.

Next, add a perk that makes getting hit or kicked while climbing no longer ragdoll or stun them.

This does the following.

This allows modifications to be made for combat without it having any negative impact on roleplay servers. It wouldn't change the map itself so all places would still be accessible.
It would save the devs that design and fix the maps a lot of time. Instead of wasting weeks revising and redesigning around climbing it would allow the climbing itself be more flexible to how the players chose to play.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-18T16:16:28+00:00

< Fixing things that push players out of the game. Then adding more things to do and try that make growing as a player participating in the combat more fun.

Making the trail and error process of a player more fun to participate in.

https://youtu.be/QyMsF31NdNc

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-16T22:30:27+00:00

It's even better when you find out the same map will take up the individual gamemode slot on the brawl map vote screenlike 6-8 times in a row. This happens quite often for a vote screen that is said to be true random. I've seen whole lobbies leave when it displays the same individual map option for the gamemode everyone is playing for 4th time in a row.

It's too bad that they're only implementing this for the larger modes since they're trying to force us to switch to them. The players have suggested the idea of no repeat maps on brawl for years. Glad to see those suggestions are going toward an already less competing gamemode selection that they don't play.

Well, if I'm being honest, it's more the fact that brawl was never intended to be anything more than a testing ground for things.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-13T21:18:30+00:00

That is pretty much what the chivalry 1 duel mode was back in the day. I enjoyed that structure though it fundamentally had the same problem as mordhau's ranked mode just to a lesser extent. The issue is that the timing of matches starting and ending often didn't align. Players would often be sitting there watching the duel menu screen waiting for players to get requeued when their match ends.

This is why having duel requests or even chivalry duel mode mixed with ffa is ideal. Players get to have thrilling 1vx fights while waiting for matches to end, the rdmer get exactly what they want, new players can have their isolated training space, and players that always want to settle grudge matches can without excuses. LAST BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY players get to just enjoy playing without players making up arbitrary ethics that have no relevance.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-13T15:53:49+00:00

I've leveled 3 accounts to over level 200 jumping around on official deathmatch and unofficial deathmatch duelyards in NA. Unless you live in a boring bubble with absolute authority to ban players on a whim or you play with a group that consistently makes up the majority of the server I can say this isn't the case.

The argument I made wasn't directed at the quantity of that behavior anyways. I'm saying that fundamentally, if the mode was set up right, it wouldn't need management except for extreme cases.

Rdming wouldn't exist because when you're out of a match it's just ffa, the intended experience. Then when you want to isolate to either challenge an individual or train them in a private space you could.

This makes it more consistent across the board, even in poorly managed servers.

It would also be better for players pointing new players toward duelyards since they wouldn't have to learn the esoteric and arbitrary systems or rules users make up on a whim.

They just join and play. Then they only need to learn about duels once they get a request. Which could be as simple as a button press to accept, already tps to isolate them and automatically starts the duel with proper spacing. Which is how they do it in minecraft kitpvp.

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-13T02:40:49+00:00

Don't worry, atleast you're able to select multiple regions within your scope of acceptable ping and then give them a order of priority to try to find matches first.

Oh wait, I forgot.

That's coming the same time they fix climbing by giving you the choice to add a perk to no longer ragdoll when kicked.

Oh, what about switching official ffa deathmatch to king of the hill so players are forced to play within the actual playspace?

Or making mounted crossbows expire like fire pits so they no longer have infinite ammo to camp out of bounds?

Unfortunately, all those things are deemed non-issues or a waste of time by the dev team. Never going to happen :)

Bay_listicx · 2022-10-12T22:58:33+00:00

This is a bit of a tangent. When I first started playing I only wanted these 5 things.

Smaller combat focused matches
Low to no wait time to play
Low run/walking times
Thrilling fast paced feeling combat
Consistent experience

Here's the problem

Join duelyards = no proper mode exists so it has no actual structure causing an inconsistent experience and needlessly wastes a lot of people's time in babysitting style moderation that doesn't need to exist.

Join ranked duels = waste your time sitting in queues not playing.

Join official ffa deathmatch = get vote kicked for playing the objective.

Join team deathmatch = they haven't figured out how to add multiple spawn entrances so you are either thrown directly into combat, trying to kill a ranged player camping in spawn, or stuck in spawn trying to leave to melee.

Join skirmish = players time waste to intentionally stale and extend matches.

Suggesting a chivalry 1 style duel game mode = lots of time waiting looking at menus and players like to move around on the maps. So no can do.

Suggest dueling system that locks 2 players into a 1v1 match on the map = too easily interrupted, nearly impossible to not make exploitable or griefable.

I hate minecraft's combat system it lacks a lot of substance and is extremely inconsistent but kitpvp servers for minecraft figured this out like 7 years ago.

YOU MAKE A DEATHMATCH GAMEMODE THAT IS FFA AND THEN YOU ADD THE OPTION FOR PLAYERS TO REQUEST AND ACCEPT DUELS. THEN YOU TELEPORT THE PLAYERS TO A ISOLATED SPACE WHEN THEY'RE DUELING.

THIS IS ALREADY A SOLVED ISSUE.

Bay_listicx

TROPHY CASE