Recent reviews by Brother-Apothecary Duck

Abandoned

A bit buggy but really fun.

My favourite X4 Game to date. The Devs continue to update and improve the game over time, DLC always comes with free updates and content, and they even update old DLC that wasn't up to par, to make them more worth it. Despite the fact that all the DLC adds up to over $200, most of them are well worth it and vastly improve and add to the experience of the game, although the base game is still plenty fun on its own.

I'm pretty picky but I found it entertaining enough to finish the campaign and will probably return for the rest of the content later.

I love this format, I wish there were more games that played like this, fantastic game for anyone that likes strategy or card games.

Let it be known that I do find this game fun, at times. However the problems with the game cause it to be incredibly frustrating to play most of the times, with many of your deaths being certified ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thanks to the incredibly buggy, unbalanced, and unrealistic combat, weapons and armour. Likely the worst feature of the combat system is how effective feinting is. Feinting is when you cancel your swing just before you do swing to throw off your opponent. The issue is not only is this a terrible tactic that only serves to get you killed in real life, it is ridiculously effective in Mordhau, being so strong that nearly every player will feint as soon as you pay attention to them, with the only good counter being chambering, which however is not only very touchy, by the time you realize the enemy is fainting and you try to chamber, you will either be dead because of a one hit kill or they will have already swapped their tactic, on average killing you with the second hit, even if you are wearing plate.

As for weapons, the best example of an unbalanced weapon is the maul. The maul does incredibly high blunt damage, making plate almost useless against it, the biggest problem with it however is its ability to instantly kill someone with a headshot no matter what armour they are wearing, even with a side swing. The fact is that in order to instantly kill someone or at least knock them unconscious with a blow to the head with a big hammer would take a pretty big windup if doing a side swing, much slower than what it takes in-game, and as a result, a single mistake against a hammer will usually result in instant death, and of course, with feints being an incredible tool for making players make mistakes, this creates an incredibly overpowered combo that will make many players believe they are "Gods" despite the fact that as soon as they pick up a longsword, they become about as skilled as the average player. Obviously I have no problem with an overhead swing instantly killing someone, as that is pretty realistic, even given the time it takes to perform one in-game, as the weight of the hammer really helps with this.

The issue continues with many of the other weapons, such as the executioners sword, which does a ridiculous amount of damage against armour despite being a bladed weapon and also being a one shot headshot, with much longer reach than a hammer.

As for bugs, they are generally small and mostly unnoticeable, however playing long enough you will notice them, causing issues with recovery times and hit boxes, which can be incredibly frustrating when you would have been able to hit, swing, or block if it were not for them and getting killed. (Some are more noticeable however, like when playing as cav, if an enemy also on a horse comes at you at the right angle and speed, can literally phase through you, even through your weapon, this is pretty rare though and they generally won't be at a good angle to be able to hit you with a swing)

There are also some features and "Balances" that are in my opinion strange or over the top.
One such example is the obvious intent by the devs to not just nerf ranged weapons to prevent them from dominating the field by one shotting plate users, but nerf them so hard that they will never be as effective as using a melee weapon without some serious ability to land head shots (Which won't even one hit kill people using MEDIUM armour). The three main ranged weapons are the Long Bow, Crossbow, and Recurve bow. The three main problems with these weapons are very low damage, unrealistically slow projectiles, and the ability to literally block projectiles with any melee weapon, which of course is made worse by the slow speed of these projectiles. I understand the decision to not allow the long bow or crossbow being able to one shot(By which I mean render incabable of fighting) someone with a body shot like in real life(Excluding some rare cases of some incredibly resilient people), but the fact that it takes three body shots or two head shots to kill someone is just ridiculous. What is even worse is the fact that for the Long bow it gets these kills with the bare minimum, with each body shot dealing 34 damage to plate users. and head shots dealing 50(Remember that the vast majority of players will be using plate, and it takes the same number of shots kill a medium armoured person). What makes this so bad is the fact that even the tiniest amount of healing will require additional shots to kill someone, which is easily done with bandages (Which only cost 1 Equipment point of your total 16 and can be used TWICE), Medic bags (Which cost 2 points), or even just the passive healing after not taking damage for enough time, which will activate even if you just miss ONE shot on the person, guaranteeing that you need yet another arrow to kill them, even if they only heal for 3 health. This is also assuming they don't notice you shooting them after the first arrow, and fail to parry the incredibly slow projectile that is easy to see from a distance with only their weapon (A shield is actually worse than using your weapon if you are good at timing your parries due to the fact that the arrow can go under it into your legs). What is probably the worst thing about this is that throwing weapons are nowhere close to being as nerfed as the proper ranged weapons. While they might have only two(For the Javelin and throwing axes) or four (For the throwing knives) ammo, they are incredibly cheap point wise and can easily be taking with a melee weapon to give you an extra edge in fights, not to mention they will be much easier to hit with at close range (You can even feint with them if someone is parrying them).

TL;DR: The game CAN be fun, especially if you learn the mechanics and use them well, unfortunately the game is unbalanced and unrealistic, with cheap gimmicks and some frustrating bugs. If you want to be an archer, think again.

Edit: Disabling comments on account of toxic players. To clarify, I never said I was "Bad" nor getting my ass beaten by these mechanics, I was merely pointing out these unbalanced parts of the game. I have a collective 1000+ hours over Mount and blade, Chivalry, and War of the roses, I do not struggle in medieval melee games.

's Good

Fun

Another BioWare Masterpiece, hidden beneath a ♥♥♥♥ show of advertising

Gmod fur lief 8/8 gr8 m8