Can Chivalry or Mordhau Become Main Stream?

In todays video i talk about the medieval slasher genre and games like chivalry 2 or mordhau. These games traditionally have trouble retaining players however i believe the right triple A slasher could become a main stream game. What would it take for a game like chivalry 2 or mordhau to have main stream appeal?
#chivalry2 #mordhau
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[@StridahsAngels]

What type of slasher game do you think could be main stream?

[@joebailey4374]

I'm hoping and believe possible for Chivlary 3 or 4 =) to become mainstream. There's so much juicy chaos and hilarity and epicness and god of war feeling in the game to pass up, gotta get the casual rts, civ, etc players to just give it a try.

[@soneca798]

@StridahsAngels I'd love for an extraction slasher to become mainstream. Something woth crossplay and controller support tho, dark and darker doesn't have it

[@BenjisReturn]

Ive only been playing chiv for 2 months, i've had more enjoyment from it than any game has given me since ark or gears of war for the xbox 360. Such an underrated game, can't wait for the next installment dude

[@alcorongame]

Chivalry could have been a main stream game if more effort were to put in the game. Especially with a offical ranked 1v1, 3v3 servers would have hyped the game when they had the chance. Eventually ranked on to when enough player base have been reached. Plus with enough playerbase they could have do first person ranked and third person ranked as well. Ranking system attracts so many people nowadays and gives the already playing ones more reason to stay in the game, keeping the game alive. They also could have fix so many other server issues and bugs, which costs time and money but will be rewarded by the playerbase in the end. I swear nowadays game studios cannot gain more money because they are awfully greedy about it and basically want to do easy money which makes them gain actually less then their true potential. Studio with listening it's playerbase and developers would actually got much popular and gain lots of money but they're too greedy and ignorant to heed us.

[@StridahsAngels]

Great post!

[@sirretsnom3329]

I agree, Chiv 1 was so close to becoming main stream with so many big streamers back then playing and pimping it. Great additions like 3v3, decent match match making duels, mapping contest adding the winners into rotation, fairly early SDK that was supported. It was so close to really getting big but then some major poor decisions like the bubble patch that broke the game taking months to fix, to very slow updates and few if not poor bug fixes, then no fixes at all. They also could have sponsered some comp tournaments and done a lot more but they fell into the the woke game in thier forums which like Mordhau got removed in favor of Discord which is the worst for gaming issues and resolutions not to mention looking up past issues with fixes. They even had a big chance with Deadliest Warrior and didnt take advantage of those international TV show connections. So many wasted opportunities.

[@Literally_a_Moth]

You can’t make true art with a necessity for short term profit. The problem isn’t as much the developers as it is the economic system they’re (making games) under.

[@IskOne_]

I've tried getting several people into Chiv. No takers so far. I think the learning curve is too step for most players. People want easy rewards these days, the masses do not want a challenge.

[@Christian-tw3sp]

You know chivalry battle royale/dungeon extraction could work really well

[@BLaCkKsHeEp]

you mean Dark and Darker? lol

[@Christian-tw3sp]

It's nothing alike combat wise​@@BLaCkKsHeEp

[@JWP190]

You know damn well the shitters would immediately complain because they got outskilled. Anything that allows losing gear would never bring in the casuals.

[@StridahsAngels]

Dark and darker has horrible combat tho

[@GraphicFrost]

@@JWP190 you'd have to find some sort of even grounds. A mode where you don't lose your stuff but then a mode where you can. Maybe something that requires you to go into the other mode so you can upgrade gear.

[@yankeepirate6039]

I never heard of Chiv until it was free on Epic in June. I couldn't believe something like this existed and I've been having so much fun. With a little more marketing and polishing the mechanics it could become huge.

[@StridahsAngels]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@safsnake]

Me too, its such a fun game

[@sirretsnom3329]

As someone who goes back to 2005 AOC Beta, comp player and alpha tester for most of the games in the genera over the last 2 decades, I am not sure I agree that this will ever be mainstream. The main reason is that not only have Devs changed the business model from Pay for Complete game on release to paid early access, free-to-play/micro transactions and then to the fact that gamers have changed as well. The two main issues with this is that game devs have also given up or forgotten what worked in previous games and game modes to players being far younger, a bit lazy, short attention spans and have little to no knowledge of what was available in game play and previous games to them playing games. Additionally, with the older games 10v10 or larger battles were much easier to coordinate till e-sports game along with the 5v5 meta which in turn wittled down melee slasher comp from 10v10 Team OBJ or CTF down to 3v3 or 5v5 dueling matches. But on a social aspect, I would argue that younger players don't even have 5 friends in real life any more and friend building skills outside of gaming have diminished because screen time and followers are more important than making real friends. This of course trickled down into gaming when there used to be massive gaming clans to now nothing but smaller 5v5 size clans or teams, at best. A short example of the main Dev issues: there were game modes in AOC(2007) with objective based destructable walls and objects, being able to move tables and the like to manually build barricades, and having to physically push a battering ram with the player model to get it to move. All of that was abandoned or had pre-scripted actions more like cut scenes and stand in a circle to trigger an event instead of manually doing something. Some of these things did not come back around till almost 10 years later and some not at all. When comparing games and game modes, I would argue that AOC had some superiour maps with some high level strats for TO, Chivlary 1 were mostly decent but forgot what made AOC so great till the mapping contest which added some even better maps. Mordhau tried batttle royalle but it was poorly implimented, maps were ok but grew stale over time, however they did a really great job with horde mode and demon horde mode as they actually evolved that. (too little too late but TBS is equally as guilty). Comparing Chiv 2, the maps are far better than Mordhau but with their horrible private server rollout and lack of an SDK and even shutting down the private groups that made their own launcher and maps along with Chivstats and Polehammer.net, TBS really dropped the ball there and now they are done with it. Chivalry 2 is an example of dumbing down a game to make it easier for supposed player retention but when looking at Steam Charts a few years after release between the different games, the player numbers initially stablized (like Chiv 1, Mordhau, and now Chiv 2) to just a few thousand daily players. If you look at the long term trend, that is pretty standard for the genera. Maybe Mobius which is more focused on a 5v5 competitive game might fit the more mainstream team based games might break through, Renown might as well as it is more Rust like, but I really don't see a medieval melee slasher ever becoming mainstream. Chiv 1 had it's chance and blew it too many times to get into. Mordhau blew it as well with not releasing TO first and woefully underestimated the number of servers so when those 60k players couldnt get into a server then only had like 4 maps to play, they simply got bored and left. I just cannot imagine a melee slasher to ever become mainstream unless it is dumbed down and turned into some fortnite/pubg clone of some type with lots of seasons and reasons to pay for micro transactions. (all of which suck by the way)

[@StridahsAngels]

What a post! Ty for taking the time, getting rid of old features seems so lazy!

[@sirretsnom3329]

@@StridahsAngels That is because it is lazy. Knowing many of the original AOC devs and then Chiv 1 Devs and Mordhau devs there was dev drama as well, TBS failed to retain many of the AOC devs and brought in new devs that never played AOC, then when they switched from Source to UDK, they really didnt integrate AOC features well into the new engine. Not only that but they changed the default player model and scale of UDK which had long lasting effects in Chiv 1 game dev as well as the SDK release. But the same over arching issues remain that you originally had enthusiastic, invested game devs that were fans, actually played their game when AOC was around and they had their own clan for clan battles called Blood Sacrifice. When we beat them with new tacticts, they would radically change the game, for better or worse. But at least they played the game. This realy didnt happen with Chiv1. As you transition through the games over time, new devs were hired that had no real experience in this unique genera so many of the great things were either abandoned, forgotten, or had to be rediscovered and redeveloped because many of the devs never played the original or past games. All of that led to many of the issues and imbalances that so many players found frustrating as well as a lack of creativity in map design and interactivity to where standing in a circle long enough to trigger an event became the norm instead of teams having to sacrifice a player in battle to manually do an objective while protecting them. I could go on and on about map strats and design for better play and have older videos on that on the KILA KZbin page that should still be up but digging through all those videos would take time.

[@thepancakemann]

Loved this comment as a long time AOC player. I only just bought Chivalry 2 and get a huge kick out of being at the top of most servers and people thinking I'm on an alt, but I can't help but miss a lot of features from Chivalry 1 let alone the mod. It really existed in a time when creativity was at a surplus in gaming - half life mods were fucking incredible to play with full servers and I still haven't had nearly as much fun playing chivalry 2 as I ever did with the free mod.

[@drew9298]

Chivalry already has the most important thing. A core fan base to build on that can build up hype for a 3rd game. I think it can go mainstream as is they only need to add more weapons, maps, depth, factions, and quality of life features to the next game. chivalry 2 is already a great game

[@StridahsAngels]

Deff has loyal fans!

[@GraphicFrost]

My whole complaint about Chivalry 2 is not enough modes. No option for community servers with custom maps that download before each round. Give us features, watch your game be huge. They could have raked in cash off the community while they build their failure of a survival game. Games that allow modding in the right way that also include console in this area are 10x better off to succeed. There is a reason quake 2 was so popular. Assetto Corsa is an example the game is over 10 years old. I'm level 1000 in chiv and I just want something to do. It's still my main game.

[@StridahsAngels]

Good points!!

[@sirretsnom3329]

TBS forgot where they came from, a Half Life 2 MOD.

[@joebailey4374]

I couldn't get my brother to play Chivalry 2, just doesn't like the stress i guess. You really have to wake up to this game, get into the zone, especially if a less-than-chad-player, but I find it more rewarding than pretty much any other game even when i was a total noob. I get upset now and stressed because i've played for over 800 hrs now and get pissy when I don't do as well as i, and potentially others on my team, expect...

[@StridahsAngels]

Understandable!

[@ravensbigtrusss7905]

Y’all say chivalry 2 don’t have a broad audience, but every time I play chivalry 2 the server always full or getting full Iam good with that

[@StridahsAngels]

The more people who play the better!

[@sirretsnom3329]

That is probably because you only play official match making servers. Go take a look at the server browser and you will see a ghost town of empty servers. This is because unlike Chiv 1 that only had one server browser with all servers listed, Offical match making servers do not show up in the server browser and that the server browser is also kind of hidden makes custom and private servers kind of useless and empty.

[@cyka7705]

i will say chivalry 2 is the only game that actually very suits me, the mechanic isnt that hard to understand, not too grindy to unlock weapons, no need to play with friends to be enjoyable, no need to be very good to enjoy it either, i used to play everyday for an hour or two each. i still keep the game, sometimes return just for some smacking

[@BjornKuma]

Extraction, pve hordes (good ai), more factions (different aesthetics), BR, and mods... you could do it.

[@StridahsAngels]

Agree!!

[@Christian-tw3sp]

Dark and darker felt like playing an elder scrolls oblivion/skyrim battle royale

[@1IGG]

It was janky as those games, true. But it was pretty bad.

[@StridahsAngels]

I think you hit it perfectly

[@merellion]

I think Chivalry will always be a Love or Hate game, I have some friends say they suck and just didn’t like the theme.

[@cmrn5700]

The first person melee genre is really being held back by the blueprints laid out for it. Even the smallest forms of innovation seem to be ridiculed (Mobius, Chiv2 held parry). On just a combat system standpoint, high level play isn’t palatable to the average audience. Mechanics like drags, anim abuse, Wessex drags, ballerina spins, counter dodge cancels, etc all increase the skill ceiling, but in an unappealing and/or unmarketable way. They all either look ridiculous, or contradict logic and reason,. I don’t hate dragging or spinning, but they’re a huge deterrent for new players. Unironically, St0uty has the pretty good takes regarding potential mainstream success for first person melee games. Chivalry 2 was the closest we’ve seen to the genre getting good mainstream success, but it didn’t have enough interesting gamemodes to hold player retention. If Chiv 2 pushed LTS more, and/or added modes like KOTH or CTF it probably would’ve had held much better.

[@StridahsAngels]

Great post! Think you made some really good points!

[@BLaCkKsHeEp]

man, some people do like the challenge of learning. i know i got my ahh beat a lot and i still today. but skill wise, back then i couldnt keep up with feints, now i can counter counter-feints lol

[@StridahsAngels]

I also enjoy learning

[@luketierney3407]

I can't believe I slept on this game for so long, its been the most fun a video game has given me in such a long time. Actual fun with the bros laughing and goofing off throwing barrels and anvils at each other with no care to the scoreboard for my first 30hours.

[@jbr6734]

Yeah I can attest that the adrenaline rush you get in dark and darker starts to drop off after 1000+ hours and then you focus on how bad the combat is. I put a petition titled combat overhaul on their website for those reasons you mentioned.

[@StridahsAngels]

Would never happen, that community will argue against non sense like dropping you chest piece to run and kite (non sense bs) being removed. I hate the kite meta

[@buttaball846]

All chiv needs is a tdm and a voice chat with heavy marketing from streamers, and it would do very well

[@zerophoenix8312]

Chiv2 had a decent start and even went a little viral during the Tenosian update for a while as I remember. Torn Banner did the right thing to make the game somewhat friendly to casual players, but they also did a terrible job making good updates. Downgraded servers, cheater issues, and poorly made new maps killed most people's passion for the game, and the toxicity of the community definitely didn't help.

[@StridahsAngels]

Very good points!

[@unrealskill9810]

the only issue with a chiv 2 dark and darker is what would be the point of looting better gear if you are a decent player? like a 1k hours player in starter gear would wipe the floor with a new player that has on BIS. know i would still play the shit out of a game like that because i want to be that 1k hours god but still it is a major issue and it one of the reasons the dark and darker devs sated why the combat is simple. so gear is the main drive not necessarily pure skill. but i agree that a dark and darker with a ton of skill expression would be awesome.

[@StridahsAngels]

So I think there could be a line and balance where the gear matters but a player of skill can over come gear. If skill is close better gear wins. Like in tarkov you always have a chance called “head eyes”

[@shadowinversion]

Nice essay breddeh. Didn't know u had it in you

[@StridahsAngels]

😂😂😂😂 I trying

[@tonycurotola2121]

Chivalry level mmo rpg would be cool

[@StridahsAngels]

There was Gloria victis but it was very Jank

[@Gagoonga]

Dungeonborne hits the exact bill of what youre talking about. Its like dark and darker with sick melee combat. Unfortunately the devs have spiralled the game into a terrible state currently but it is a great game.

[@StridahsAngels]

I found dungeon borne no better then dark

[@rauladriaham2508]

A few modes for chivalry that might interest a wider player base: A zombie or fantasy enemies horde mode (like Killing floor), team up with friends, kill computer enemies. A rogue like mode where you and friends (or strangers) team up, complete stages, get buffs (similar to Vermintide). Mods, lots of fun and stupid goofy mods like Chivalry had in the past. An actual campaign/story mode for your character with rpg elements. Seriously, chiv2 had a lot of potential to add those modes, but no, I guess TB decided to go dumb.

[@mopyrshu2617]

well, look at mordhau, demon horde didn't helped alot for game

[@rauladriaham2508]

@@mopyrshu2617 Woah seriously? Dang... could it be because mordhau's combat is more complex than chivalry's?

[@mopyrshu2617]

@@rauladriaham2508 not combat, sometimes this is not update, that players wanted

[@bboy_noiz9572]

I have 1500 hours in tarkov, what really made me stop was that they refuse to seriously take steps to remove the biggest thing killing their true fan base which is cheaters killing the game because they just ban them and they buy a new standard account so it's profitable for them to not do anything about it

[@combatvll9025]

What’s good Champ!

[@StridahsAngels]

❤️

[@Yamommasblubber]

Chiv could be more mainstream with more game modes but I think no matter what it’s hard to gain new players with that steep of a skill gap, especially with newer games being especially easy

[@Emerald_Wolf]

Started on Chiv1. The ballerina stuff was absurd. Never got into Mordhau myself, but Chivalry II has been a blast despite Torn Banner. Hope they can keep their politics and BS out of Chivalry III. Fair chance for it to go main stream.

[@StridahsAngels]

Yeah I hope they have multiple modes!

[@Emerald_Wolf]

@@StridahsAngels Heck yes. That would be the way forward.

[@ravensbigtrusss7905]

Chivalry 2 is all that and more fell in love with this game more then my girlfriend so with that said long live chivalry get good dudes ✌🏼

[@healmachine5526]

8:39 Word.. Just have fun in the moment.

[@mopyrshu2617]

about age of chivalry, in january 2024 it's was 1000 player in game and i still don't know from where those players come from, anyone know frome where they?

[@StridahsAngels]

No clue

[@mopyrshu2617]

@@StridahsAngels well, maybe in future someone from those 1000 players will write there, by the way, are you gonna do streaming age of chivalry?, i would be happy, so i can play with more than 0-4 players in objective maps to feel, how it was for defending and attacking team in those maps

[@TheSpearman-vt3nb]

i have a problem with companies that dont allow modding. either make a better product or be mad the community can do it better than you. either way we all win. im sure a well-made warhammer mod would blow up. they get the sales we get a game we love

[@DozerB555]

my friends did a 3v3, lost in seconds and just quit, called it awful, never to return

[@propiggaming921]

That’s the first mistake for new players. 3v3 is probably better for experienced players

[@safsnake]

I never heard of chiv before it was free on epic, I can't believe how such a game is off the radar

[@LSBigmacGaming]

It will definitely work the same. Its like son of Rome from xbox 1 its underrated. Loyal fans who know how to fight and use a sword play like kingdom come deliverance. Its simply fun they can do it id yoy remarketing it bettter and be consistent with updates. And they might have the graphics like son of Rome or close to it. Sadly this stop doing updates to support another game

[@angryeliteultragree6329]

I have unfortunately, fought every single man woman and child who still plays mordhau. It’s only about 3-500 people.

[@tomashavrlant2494]

I would love Hunt showdown year 1455. 😊

[@StridahsAngels]

Sign me up

[@casoheloa7407]

Bet you haven't been in the Esports industry. There are basic concepts that 'core players' would like to stay for long time. Compared with Esports giants like Csgo, Dota2, Valorent, whatever esport game u could have, no company provides hotbugs rather than hotfixes, or downgrade rather than updates. The problem is not the Chivalry 2, but the company who failed to run it well. Let's see a part of those concrete failures of Chivalry: Rubber band internet connection issues. Hit registration issues. Failed anti-cheat function. Very slow updates. Unpolished weapon hitboxs. Lack of servers. Etc. You cannot image a Dota 2 or Csgo tournament allows a bug to ruin the whole match. Torn Banner ignores those basic rules and threw their money into next game immediately, so u cannot expect any reward from Chivalry 2.

[@soneca798]

For Honor's combat is SO bad....... I hate that it's the "go to" when people talk about medieval games. I wish more people would take a crack at medieval pvp games, there's so few of them out there

[@StridahsAngels]

Cause Ubisoft marketing it most known

[@iskalley]

The mordhau devs breed toxic troll players and this will always kill a community from within

[@sendateable]

No si no solucionan la mierda de los chetos, es un vertedero de cheat engine el chivalry 2

[@sleufffff]

o7

[@merellion]

Nope IMO it will NEVER appeal simply because it’s medieval sword fighting. If they try to casualify the game up More than it already it is it Will Ruin it.

[@StridahsAngels]

Medieval genre is massively popular some of greatest movies of all Time are medieval.