Mordhau patch improves kicking, stops bots from throwing too much poo
This is Mor
Oh look, one of the best games in existence has changed a bit. Yesterday's patch to Mordhau's swords and vandals hasn't brought any major changes, but it has brought a few that made me go 'oh cool'. The headlines: kicking is better, stab attacks are a bit slower, and it's slightly easier to get past some of the most annoying shields. Oh, and the AI in Horde mode now throws less poo at you if you try to cheat.
The tweaks are many, and can be poured over in more detail in the patch notes. I'll elaborate on the kicking and stabbing, for now.
Pre-patch, kicking felt much too difficult. It was the hard counter to persistent shield users, but was so slow and had such little range that I usually just resorted to tricksy thrusting attacks. I was still doing that last night and didn't properly test my more powerful feet, because habits are hard to break. If I had, I might have noticed that its range and the width of where the attack lands have both been increased. The range increase is "significant", but apparently only against shields and people blocking with their fists.
As someone who relies (too much) on stabbing, the note about it being slowed down gave me pause - but it's only been slowed by 25ms. In practice the difference isn't really detectable. The patch notes don't elaborate on how they've adjusted the block for Heater and Kite shields, only stating that it's slightly easier to whack around them. As someone who rarely uses shields, I'm going to selfishly declare this as: good.
Like I say, loads else has changed. Points capture faster in Frontlines mode, mallets and spikes have been buffed, bugs have been quashed. It's all in those notes, including one final adjustment.
I never play the Horde mode so I had no idea, but it turns out the bots have been throwing poo too aggressively at players who try to cheese the mode by hiding in spots the AI can't reach.
"Fixed bots being given too many turds up-front in certain cases," reads the update, "which would cause them to unload the volleys of turd reserves even long after the player leaves the stuck spot".
The poo also now does AOE damage.