Half Sword

[TheArtilleryman]

I can finally stop playing.

 

[Neodanthril]

How do you consistently beat the axe giant first boss? I have really only ever picked into it

 

[TheArtilleryman]

How do you consistently beat the axe giant first boss? I have really only ever picked into it

Long Candlestick - Alternate between whacking his head with the long end and thrusting at his belly the spikey end.
Knife - Stick him in the belly after he misses a downward swing.
Shovel - Sidestep to your left and whack his left arm after he misses a downward swing. Do this 2 - 3 times uand his arm will break, you will hear the crack and see his arm weaken greatl. Then just whale on him.

Bait out downward swings and hit him before he brings it back up to swing again.

 

[RetardRising88]

A small patch released today. Mostly fixes to falling over/getting up and weapon handling. The fatal errors aren't fixed yet, but the devs say they're working on a fix and that it's related to gore (NB turning blood and gore down helps avoid fatal errors in the ultimate challenge).

Spoiler: Patch Notes

Hello everyone,

Here's a small update addressing some of the frustrations you mentioned in the previous build:

• Falling down is now harder
• Getting up is faster
• Weapon handling has been improved
• Performance improvement (might not be perfect though, we're stil working on it)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand:

• We brought ground fight back.

____________________________________________________________
About Fatal Crashes:
We’re aware of the fatal crashes, especially during the Baron fight. These issues stem from a third-party Unreal Engine plugin we’ve been using for some of the blood and gore effects.
While we initially tried to debug it, we’ve hit its limitations. That’s why we’re now developing our own in-house solution, which will be ready for the Early Access release — offering both improved stability and next-level wounds for you to inflict on poor Willie.
_____________________________________________________________

Thanks again for the tremendous support, we still can’t believe how big Half Sword has gotten, and it’s not even out yet!

Half Sword Games & Game Seer

Also someone made a mod for custom weapons which I thought was cool. I was under the impression Unreal engine games are hard as fuck to mod, so I'm not really sure how this guy did it.

Spoiler: Pictures

the strat to beating the gauntlet is picking the spiked stick in tier 4 and sticking with that for the rest of the game.

Before that, the pitchfork from tier 2 is your best bet, especially against the tier 3 boss with his big fuck-off sword. Love the spikey staves though; it's so satisfying to land a clean hit to the head with them, especially against higher tier enemies. They're definitely overpowered though, hell, you don't even have to use the submission mechanic when using one. With the staves, one or two good blows to the head will knock any enemy unconscious, if not break their neck and/or kill them, regardless of armor. It's kind of ludicrous how good they are.

How do you consistently beat the axe giant first boss? I have really only ever picked into it

Artilleryman's advice is solid, but another method can be holding alt. Holding alt with a weapon puts you in a stabbing stance and makes enemies less willing to come into range. You can use that feature to back bosses into a fence, which will stun them temporarily and give you an opening to swing at them.

 

[gagabobo1997]

amazing game. haven't beaten it yet but im trying, i've gotten to knight like 8 times so far and always die.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

It's finally released (in Early Access). Already suffering from Unreal Engine syndrome (even worse optimization, bugs, crashing). Complete with jannies being jannies towards complaints. Stick with the demo if you really want to play this game for the time being.
EDIT: Played for an hour, getting a refund. The game runs poorly (although only crashed once in the intro), there's barely enough content added since the demo such as the random "game modes" (don't get knocked down, stay in circle...that's it I think) that are barely even worth talking about as they add very little to the game and you can't even pick them in the free mode.
The combat feels worse than the last demo, you can barely handle any weapon longer than a basic Messer so just stick to short range, thrusting either works fine or straight up does not work at all, health and stamina is wonky since it seems to have been reduced or something, you fall over way too easily now (which might be intentional considering they made a game mode out of it), AI is worse and provides no challenge, weapons either can't be justified using (like the flail) or one tap (I've bisected a man with an axe just by turning slightly), and while all these can be said for the demo, any issues from the demo either remained unfixed (I've seen bugs from the demo still present, Unreal Engine everyone) or made worse.
I think they actually removed a bunch content from the last demo since you can "make your own weapons" and shit, unless they locked most of said content from the free mode (which I assume has most of the shit you'll see in the progression mode) since there's barely anything, which would be retarded. Maybe you only get up to the last tier you made in the progression mode?
As for what I enjoyed? I did think the new maps are interesting (if buggy and broken, especially the slums which has insane LOD issues that causes framerates to nosedive into being unplayable if you look a certain direction), the Abyss is even more unnerving for the first time until you realize the "lost souls" (enemies you killed turned into zombies) are an absolute pushover, with the Abyss now simply serving as a way to break progression since it seems to give you weapons and armor above your rank which you can keep (they sell for less but still, you can get what seems to be Knight rank gear in Peasant tier). They sound like they should be biting you too but nope.
Environmental hazards are a neat thing, they rarely work but hey it's something.
What the hell were they doing all this time when the previous (Steam) demos are more enjoyable? Definitely don't touch this game for a year.

 

[elrond hubbard]

The progression mode is pretty decent. They cribbed a decent amount from exanima's arena mode where you can hire additional fighters and manage their equipment. You have a gold and item stash that persists between lives, and can insure pieces of gear to avoid losing them in the abyss. You also keep whatever you have equipped when winning a battle. The loop of die -> fight out of the abyss for a second chance is still present, however the abyss enemies you fight are now sprinter zombies and you have to kill an equal amount to the people you've killed in the main game to leave. You don't enter the abyss at all if you haven't stacked any bodies, which leads to making a conscious choice of using blunt weapons and forcing surrenders on downed enemies to have a fighting chance when you eventually die.

Tiers and ranks are the same but have been stretched out, taking longer to reach the next tier, which is done through a 7+ round tournament in the classic arena map.

Performance isn't great as redditors have pissed their pants over, but after some fucking around with settings the game runs fine. Pausing for 5 seconds on level load helps a lot with the fps drop as it allows assets to load in.

Spent a couple hours grinding and made my way to commoner tier by the skin of my teeth. Got very lucky checking the merchant and getting some metal armor which will hopefully hold out for another tier or two.

 

[elrond hubbard]

3rd patch is out, reviews are climbing from 30% positive to near 60%.

The brainlet kneejerk reaction to this game was a wild one, and pretty fucking mystifying tbh. Reminds me of the splitgate 2 launch but without the eye of sauron that is r/gamingcirclejerk actively shitting down the throats of devs because of a maga hat joke

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

The brainlet kneejerk reaction to this game was a wild one

Except it wasn't a kneejerk reaction, the game was borderline unplayable for a lot of people. It's getting better from what I'm reading from the patches so naturally people are coming around to it. And much like other games with awful launches, the people who weren't there for the worst of it are going to come in and rate it more favorably.
If something releases in a dogshit state, people are going to say it's dogshit until it isn't, not sure how it's a kneejerk reaction when many of the criticisms is still valid. It's still not great and I find myself still enjoying the demo for the game way more, but it's definitely getting better and I'm glad, I'm tired of the few games I actually show interest in these days having a mountain of problems or just not even being what they promised.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

The brainlet kneejerk reaction to this game was a wild one

Having played the original demo, and the one that came out recently.
I don't think it is.
It feels like the game has gotten progressively worse.
The first was a simple run through the dark picking shit up and gutting people. The visceral effects were really well done. It feels like they toned it down a lot in the second and from what I've seen of early access, its gotten a lot worse lag wise and still lacks that absurd amount of visceral charm.

 

[Platinum Cat]

I have not been this disappointed with an Indie release in a good while. The demo on itchio gave me faith that they wouldn't make it such an unstable pile of trash.

I would highly recommend anyone who was hyped for this to play We Who Are About To Die if you want to get rid of the taste of shit out of your mouth.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

There's more than twice as many people playing the demo compared to the full release. I don't recall the last time a demo performed better than the full game, but here we are. Gone to the point where people are making more content than the developers have been silent for 3 months, it's amazing how someone can make something good, get it hyped by fans so barely any need to market, then regress and immediately run for the hills. This has happened more than once from a few games now, and people are Indie games are better.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

In a shocking turn of events, the Half Sword devs seem to be making a comeback with a big new update (and 2 smaller ones immediately afterwards):

Kept you waiting-

It's been a while since you heard from us last time, and we sincerely apologize for such a long period of radio silence. More than anything, we want to make a game that you will love to play, and we want to thank you all for your support, because it is the main force that lets us continue working towards that. We always preferred to speak with our actions, not words, and today we have something to show. The result of all our work during this silent time is finally here!

Update 0.6.1 Major changes:​

Combat​

• Reverse gripping. Added the ability to rotate your weapons (vertically for bladed weapons and horizontally for the rest) by holding down the Swap Hands key. With swords, you can go to the mordhau grip if you do that from the halfsword grip. But be careful, without proper hand protection you may cut yourself :3
• Alternative stance. Reworked alt thrust so that you can perform zwerchau. With two-handed swords, you also rotate your weapon horizontally to the ground. Can't wait to see what master strikes you perform. This particular feature was inspired by the mod The Art of Combat by Seancarter78 We are sure that with this update you can make even more cool stuff, fellow fencer.
• Stronger wrists. Made wrists more rigid so that your weapons flop less. Basically returned wrist mobility to Demo settings, but also reworked animations so that you can cut from more angles. We will continue exploring more historical techniques and refining the feeling of combat even more to bring Half Sword as close as we can to the ultimate medieval combat simulator.

Performance​

• Active Ragdoll Total Overhaul. Massively optimized ragdolls and rebuilt the whole structure from the ground up. Gonna be frank, I made this system years ago and it worked well, but was too performance-heavy. Now it is twice as good performance-wise and hopefully feels the same (or even better).
• New foliage assets. Optimized the hell out of the trees (thanks to our new hire - Eldar). The guy is really good, you will feel it in the Forest Map. - General asset optimization. Removed things that worked badly and replaced them with stuff that works better. It is an ongoing process. We slowly but surely optimize our stuff. Step by step, we will make this game run on toasters (fingers crossed).

Armor and Weapons​

• Armor material customization. Now you can change the metal and color of your armor at the Armorer. Better metal gives more protection and restricts your movements less. Also, you can dye the fabric of your garment in any medieval color. We plan to expand armor customization even more in upcoming updates.
• Equipment affects mobility. Made characters faster and more nimble in general, but heavy equipment (including both armor and weapons) will affect that. The heavier you are, the heavier the movement feels. Increasing physical strength makes you move more lightly in armor.
• Axes. Added lots of new axes both as premade weapons and as new modules for crafting. - Armor protection rebalance. Refined the math for armor protection. It should be harder to one-shot a fully armored knight now.
• Rigging and skinning. Gradually refining how our armor looks in motion. Arm armor in particular should look much better and have less clipping (thanks to our new hire Danny). It is an ongoing process. We also have lots of new and ready assets for armor and weapons awaiting implementation, so we will be able to give you new tools to play with soon.

Game​

• Expanded Free Mode. You can choose maps and time of day now, and the maximum amount of opponents has increased to 10. Your character's height and weight can also be customized in the Inventory (the UI for that will be changed soon).
• New map. Added a new map, Pit. Basically a Yard map but with a hole in the center. We will start adding more unique maps soon, but first we are reworking and optimizing the existing ones. - Bridge Fight. Added the combat scenario "Bridge" for Pit and Slums.
• Better AI. AI is more responsive and aggressive now. Next, they will learn how to fight in groups.

We have a lot planned for the future, and there will be more changes to the overarching gameplay loop soon. Fight well <3


If you have installed mods be sure to do a clean reinstall. We also recommend stating a fresh save for best results.

TL;DR: They're not dead yet, they added reverse gripping (and thus the Mordhau), and the Zwerchau stance that was inspired off of someone's mod on the stance. They reverted weapon movement to be like the demo, thus no more floppy penis swords and gay wrists. Ragdoll code was replaced by one the devs made years ago but was laggy (no supposedly not), trees apparently got fixed so now they don't rape your frames (and potentially other laggy assets).
Armor and clothes have been overhauled, armor has been reshaped slightly, is stronger overall, and has more weight to them to compensate for a faster base speed you now have (countered by strength). They can also be colored. Also more axe variants.
Free mode is more free, allowing you to choose maps and time of day. They also added a new map that's just the Yard map with a big pit in the middle. Supposedly AI got upgraded as well.
They also made 2 smaller updates right afterwards:

• Reduced run speed. Faster than 6.0, slower than 6.1,
• Less equipped characters are much less likely to rush a better equipped opponent,
• Returned classic Al Thrust. Tapping Alt Thrust key will now toggle Classic Alt Thrust, while holding it down brings you to New Thrust Mode (thumb grip),
• Added Brawling option to Free Mode. Currently it doesn't work together with Carnage because how Level Manager sets up fight (these two are two different modes for it). So choose one at a time,
• Height and Weight sliders for Free Mode expanded. You can be very very small or very very big now.,
• Fixed (hopefully) lighting in Forrest map. It was good on my machine but I saw that it was too dark for others.,
• Made sword pommels and guards more effective for striking to make Mordhau grip even deadlier.,
• Knives and other bladed weapons that I forgot to set up correctly for reverse gripping should work properly now. Vertical reverse grip,
• Disabled Wood Tint and Leather Color options in Weapon Forge temporarily. They didn't work with new materials, but once they are set up correctly they gonna be back,
• Leather Straps can be dyed in Armor Customization menu now. Materials were not set up correctly before, now it should work,
• Blued Steel should apply correctly to armors now,
• Added an option to reset your game completely at the Innkeeper. We still don't have multiple save file support yet, we will add it later. Now total reset will delete your current save file so better back it up.,
• You can strangle people to death now. First they lose consciousness and if you keep choking them they die, It takes time,
• Fixed bug when character loses weapon but thinks they still have it (hopefully fixed),
• Some other stuff

• Fixed Height and Weight sliders resetting to wrong values after reentering Inventory
• Added Height and Weight sliders for the opponents in Free Mode. They are multipliers, so a Knight with full Weight will still have more muscles than a Beggar with full Weight
• Fixed Alt Thrust modes/stances switching. Holding Alt Thrust key gets you to Thumb Grip (as it was), tapping Alt Thrust key toggles Classic Thrust (as it was). From Classic Thrust releasing mouse button momentarily will bring you back to Swing Mode. From Classic Thrust holding down Alt Thrust key switches to Thumb Grip. Fixed toggle not working correctly.
• Made grabbing throats much easier. Now character will prefer to grab throat over any other part of body if you aim somewhere around throat area. Now choking is maybe too OP
• Added back 2 helmets missing since Demo
• Also removed momentary noclip from weapons on unsheathe. Now you can samurai
• Some other stuff

Does this mean the game is now worth the $25? Maybe, I still think more should be added before I can actually recommend the game after such a disaster of a launch. It also seemed to revive the game's playerbase for a bit, going from an average 900+ players to a quickly shrinking 4000+ (compared to the demo's steady 2000+ players), which is to be expected when an noteworthy update happens for a game. Still, compared to how silent the devs for how long vs how much content was added, not much.

There's more than twice as many people playing the demo compared to the full release. I don't recall the last time a demo performed better than the full game, but here we are. Gone to the point where people are making more content than the developers have been silent for 3 months, it's amazing how someone can make something good, get it hyped by fans so barely any need to market, then regress and immediately run for the hills. This has happened more than once from a few games now, and people are Indie games are better.

Was I drunk when I typed this? I must have been as this is barely legible.