Gor behaviour and attack patters

I will mark this down as feedback as it’s not a bug per se, but it’s something that should really be looked at the same way as the Ungor lunging attacks, which have been rebalanced, so i’ll ping @Fatshark_Hedge and @FatsharkJulia.

You know how the ungors lunged back quite a bit to thrust with their spear? The Gors seem to have a similar mechanic, but it’s not as apparent and it’s not even all of their weird behaviour. I first thought it was while they wind up their attack but it’s more than that, apparently it’s the reset time during attacks that’s getting them out of range, but they can also attack out of push range. That’s also why you feel so angry when you just pushed them with them doing an attack right after that.

I made 2 videos showcasing their behaviour, please ignore the Chillhop music in the background, maybe turn off the sound, sorry for that. :sweat_smile:


You can see that my pushes simply don’t connect, while the Gor is still able to attack without a far reaching weapon like the ungor spear. Also playing dwarf might put me at a disadvantage (with which i disagree at a spiritual level) regarding pushes.
The Gor also moves to a more desired (programmed?) range after attacking me a couple of times, without me moving.

This one shows the same behaviour at the beginning and the end (aimed my pushes a little bit low at the end though, will admit that), but more importantly all 3 different types of staggering attacks the Gor has, wasn’t even aware of that many. Not one of them is a running attack. This means that they have attacks we previously knew from elites only (stagger). Some might have known that and i was partly aware too, but it was a bit of a revelation to me that they so many of those attacks in their repertoire.
You can see them at 0:12, 0:33 and 0:37; the last one is the big offender obviously, with the Gor taking a full step back, looking like he is just standing there, and then start a charging headbutt attack with near instant connect. The similarities to the Ungor lunge attack should be pretty clear. This one is the one i made this report for.

One thing to remember though is that a bit like the skaven, their head is positioned forward to the hoofs, so aiming at least at shoulder level when pushing is working exceptionally better (even more so for dwarf, he needs to aim higher). Note that this push height is higher than optimal for Skaven.

Edit:
To showcase a bit better what i mean with reset time during attacks, or maybe better after being blocked that’s getting them out of push range i made this video:

I can’t push him although he should still be as far away as after regaining his footing (he took a tiny step forward on the second attack, so i will let that one slide). I also used a weapon with 3m push range (according to Armoury mod) which could push him from very far away, but not while he was staggered.

Edit Edit:
While i just wanted to make clear that some of their behaviour is odd and needs to be looked at, i also realized how much improvement in animation can be seen on them. Older enemies (the weaker/comparable ones) have mostly one type of attack with their arm swinging from a different angle, the Gors for example have 5 (4 if you don’t differentiate the two headbutts) completely different animation sets, including a different attack on downed heroes ( a kick)!

I want to point out my appreciation for the work that got into the new enemies.

But as with the ungor spear lunge that got fixed and some extreme movement the Minotaur still has (being so bent forward you can’t reliably hit with 1st heavy with dual daggers if you are not aiming at its hoofs, and you can’t move closer because you already touch its hitbox) you overdid it a bit with extreme movement. Some adjustments though and they will fit really good into the mix, and i can’t wait to see which new enemies will join later down the line!

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I always found the gor´s attackrange to be silly high, that and the thing where they seemingly hit the air beside you but it actually hits you like in the second video a couple of times.

High unit mass, high damage and high range and fairly high attackspeed ontop some weird hitboxes makes these fellows the scariest mob units by far as i see it. Heck depending on weapon it´s easier to deal with a few chaos warriors or monks compared to a clustered stack of gors.

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Can’t look at vids yet, but do you mean you can push them out of every attack when aiming at their shoulder height? If that’s the case i don’t really see an issue, i might of missunderstood tho, and i’ll look at vids later.

No, sadly not, the problem is that they can attack from very far away, but aiming at shoulder height might at least help somewhat. If they are as far away as shown in the videos then you can’t push them, but i also tried to get them to use their standing attacks from as far away as possible. Also the headbutt charge (0:37 in the second video) is very much comparable in sillyness to the 4m ungor lunge, my main point for this post (albeit not the only one).

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Pinging Game Designer @Brytarn

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Ok i looked at the videos. I have a couple questions.

When they attack and you block, they get staggered and take a couple steps back, and then you push, resulting in the push missing?

In the first video he attacked you, you blocked so he took a couple of steps back, then you moved forward a bit so he attacked from farther away?

Are you sure you cannot stagger them out of every attack if you push on shoulder height and time it correctly? Because they lunge forward when attacking a bit and maybe if you push them then they get staggerd?

Thanks for showing

That’s not specifically behavior of Beastmen, if you try this with Skaven or Chaos and 30% Block Cost Reduction every enemy type does that. The getting thrown back by the blocked attack animation I mean.
I see the problem you are refering to, I just don´t see how in a bigger horde environment that is bad for you?
It doesn´t matter if you stagger them through push or they get staggered by flinching / getting their attacks blocked and thrown backwards. Not in argument of stagger in the first place, it would however matter if we were talking about stagger duration and reset times (different values apply for different attacks - depending on the enemy type and attack type they have different values of attack speed and stagger durations but that’s for a different topic :wink:)
What I am trying to say is I dont see how that is different from a push stagger? Overall what matters is enemies get staggered and give you the opportunity to counterattack or do a second stagger stack with push.

Yes, why would i need to push if they are already flinched back. If they are attacking and you can’t push them out then, sure.

Basically, yes. They get out of range to be pushed while they are staggered although not being further away (maybe arguably, but it’s arm is still at the same level), which results (in horde situations) in the wrong conclussion that they are staggered.

Also yes, i was trying to show their attack range by pushing them around a bit.

If you look at the last video where i’m using the elf shield, one of two weapons with the highest push range (range of 3, together with sword and board, kruber spear has 2.75, all other weapons have 2.5) i’m not able to push them while they are still able to attack me. So their attack range must lie a bit above what the heroes are capable of in terms of push range.
Maybe i should not place that much trust in pushes, yes, but in all other situations (read: vs Rotbloods and Skaven) you can somewhat reliably push your way out without risking a hit (non-mixed hordes of course, only fanatics, marauders, skavenslaves and clanrats). Not so with the Beastmen. It’s super odd that you still get hit although you pushed them - for example - 3 times. An explanation for this would be, after my findings, that the Gor(s) staggered the first time got out of range for the two follow-up pushes and attacked you right after. Or if they winded up their charge, which got them out of range similar to the now fixed Ungor spear lunge.

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Yes but you are pushing after they attacked you and you blocked, so they are in a flinched state, so they take a few steps back and then move back into range to do their next attack. Did you try pushing just when they were about to hit you?

Also worth mentioning Gors have the highest stagger resistance and highest mass count of the first tier trash mobs (First Tier Trash Mobs meaning Skaven Slave Rats, Chaos Fanatics and Beastmen Gor)

I probably don’t understand half of what is shown here but I have a rather basic question:

Shouldn’t attack range be higher than pushing range anyway?

I mean the pushing range is more or less heroes arm’s length while attack range is enemies arm’s length plus enemy weapon’s length. Then we would have to take the specific weapons (which are hitbox-wise longer than animation-wise, at least for some enemies *cough Berserkers *cough) and the specific enemies. The larger the enemy the easier he can attack from outside the pushing range. This means Skaven and Fanatics are often inside the heroes pushing range while Marauder and Gors can easily attack from outside the pushing range simply as they are larger.

Stagger resist on infantry doesn’t make a huge difference due to the “flinch” mechanic introduced in WoM.

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Problem is, no other enemy of that tier will behave like that. They are, even after being pushed, still close enough to be pushed again. And if you push them beyond your push range, they will have to walk back to you/reassess their position in the slot system. They are not able to just attack again.

Marauder push/stagger behaviour for comparison:

I would put them in tier 2 together with marauders, albeit they are what Beastmen hordes mostly consist of.
Tier 1 would be from worst to kinda tier 1.5: slaverats->ungors->fanatics->clanrats.
Clanrats are technically tier 2 (if you’d go after mass modifiers from weapons), and gors share almost the same mass and stagger resist with marauders, only not as much hp.

In theory, yes of course! But the Gor definitely behaves differently.

Shown in my vid above the marauder is definitely closer as he can be staggered all the time ( he also doesn’t flinch back as much).

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Ok, so it’s just a different flinch animation, which makes it that they are out of push range when flinched. The question is if it’s intended or not, i don’t really see a problem with it as they get flinched and you can push them when they are attacking.

It might also have something to do with an entirly different thing and not be due to flinch animation at all.

Also beastmen have always been considered more difficult faction, and i don’t mind more difficult mechanics or the fact that they aren’t the same as skaven rats or behave the same. When the headbutt wasn’t clearly visible and super fast then they should be changed, but i don’t see this as that kind of issue. Either way, i don’t mind it being changed if it wasn’t intended or if alot of players have issues with this.

You are not wrong, it’s more that those behaviours together create some unfairness.

Yes, but it was turned down (color changes) and down (ungor fix) to make them more akin to the other factions, they shouldn’t be stronger just for the sake of it or because of attacks that are difficult to read.
And they do have different mechanics which i don’t want removed, like their stagger attacks (except the one i pointed out). They are the only main line infantry that can do that, even zerks and monks can’t stagger!

Also for freshing up the difficulty of that faction more specials and elites could be implemented. They are certainly lacking in that regard, they have only 1 elite and 1 special which almost behaves like an elite. Give them a Bray shaman with flock of doom that slows all movement and does a little bit dmg (maybe a bit like walking through buboe excretion) while not doing the same to Beastmen, but being a static area of effect spell.

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Maybe it doesn’t on Cata 1 but it definitely has an impact on Cata2 and 3 and DW.
Since Cata 2 and 3 you do 30/50% more damage respectively while enemies are staggered.
And an even bigger impact on Deathwish since your stagger ults can only stagger while enemies are in “flinch”.
Just wanted to clear up the context of your reply thats all.

Great video that summarizes well why I absolutely loathe playing against the beastmemes. If there’s one thing I just love, it’s pushing a hyperdense mass of beastmen, only to get hit. While I couldn’t explain why it happened, I think your videos showcase why this happens … and how desperately beastmen need to be brought down.

The beastmemes are in a bad place, which was even worse on release. They’re the hardest horde, yet they are as far as I know, basically as numerous as a Norsca horde. They have the numbers, they have the density, they have the hit power, they have the stagger and they have the height advantage. I can’t stress how little fun I think they are playing against.

I think it’s pretty clear they still lack identity and a place in the meta besides just being a little ugly variety. Skaven are numerous but weak, mixed in with elites. Norsca are hardier but not as numerous. The beastmen should then be the one thing that’s missing - fewer, but tougher. So … why isn’t that the case? No really, why not? It’s the obvious angle.

Holding out on a rework on this joke of a faction.

Beastmen are fun. They are harder then other factions, so one of the reasons they are so fun to fight against.

The only thing i agree with are packs of archers on big maps or out of bounds. Otherwise beastmen are harder, but also alot of fun. When they removed alot of beastmen presence from maps, the game became significantly easier if you got used to fighting beastmen.

I don’t inherently dislike a faction that’s stronger, but the problem is that it’s unbalanced. Buying Winds of Magic shouldn’t be a decision of whether or not you want the game to be straight up harder - which is what it does.

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