GunZ: The Tale Of Angles

(copypaste of my youtube reply)
Random trivia: The Tale Of Angles.

I'm more well-known for discovering voidStep, voidBlock, and voidDash -- but back in late 2004, I discovered an oddity in gladiator that would later be a defining component of swordplay. I named it "Angle" and "Phase", but taught it to very few people. This... was a mistake on my part. As a result of this, it created a large skill-divide in the community that exists to this very day. There are still many who don't understand that this 'feature' exists, or how it works. Most people who learned of it, only learned bits and pieces by reverse-engineering playstyles by watching game recordings, and don't understand how the system really works.

"Angle" and "Phase" describe the rules that govern Recoil (hitting a block and being stunned) and Massives (big AOE hit you fire after blocking a hit) respectively. They share the same fundamental math calculations that are done in a function named "OnDelayedWork()", which compares the dot products of the attacking and defending look-vectors (camera angles). The result is; if the look-vectors are parallel (or "opposite"), within a tolerance of 86 degrees (if you attack up and the enemy blocks down, for example), recoil will take effect and the attacker will be temporarily stunned.  The attack distance is slightly longer than the range for recoil, meaning you can "tip slash" the enemy's block just out of recoil range, and not be recoiled. Or, if the look-vectors aren't parallel (aren't looking opposite directions), you won't recoil, even if your very close to them. This can be done vertically, typically known as "sky slash", "ground block" etc. But also horizontally, as there is a delay between when the attacking animation begins and the slash effect happens and recoil is calculated. Most animations have 3 stages, "begin", "effect", and "RtN" aka "Return to neutral (position)". The OnDelayedWork() function for slashing get's called on the RtN stage of the animation, allowing the effect (slash) to occur before it. If you queue the slash straight at an enemy, and then turn 90 degrees to the left or right before it does the calculations, the slash will hit the enemy but you won't recoil. Note: if you turn too early before the effect stage, during the "begin" stage, your slash won't be aimed where you want it. Likewise, if you turn too late, during the "RtN" stage, recoil will occur.

"Phase", for massives, follow the exact same rules as Angle, for recoils. By the same calculations, if the look-vectors are parallel, then the massive can be blocked. Otherwise, the massive will "phase" through the block, and hit. A simple example of this is if your enemy is blocking straight towards you, you can massive straight up, or after turning around 180 degrees, making the massive hit the enemy and bypass their block. If two opponents look straight away from eachother, back to back, and one massives and the other blocks; the block won't be bypassed. There is some interesting math here, as the calculation happens in 360 degrees of a massive rather than the 180 of a frontal slash, which has the result of a sky-block (straight up) being able to defend against both a ground(straight down)-massive and reverse(180degree)-massive. So there's some "rock paper scissors" going on.

It's also worth noting that you can also recoil a massive, preventing it from going off, but you can also make a massive go off while being recoiled, and you can also "ghost evade" a massive while attacking or being recoiled by positioning yourself properly and turning away from it at just the right time at just the right speed. There are many more little techniques surrounding angle and phase that come into the higher-tiers of play.

BONUS trivia 1: In very early versions of GunZ (before the lighting and cloth/fabric update in mansion), you could "phase" a slash - because the slash origin was behind the player model, effectively allowing for a "reverse slash", where you could make the hit originate from behind the enemy, and therefor behind their back. They changed the slash origin very early on, so you can no longer treat slash like a 360 AOE. However, because the calculations are the same between phase and massive; if an enemy is blocking away from you and you reverse-slash (angle 180 degrees,) you can still recoil despite the enemy not even looking at you.

BONUS trivia 2: With the exception of the Duel game mode -- the vertical look direction is obscured when attacking. If you look straight down, jump, and butterfly; you'll appear as if your looking straight forward. But after the attack ends, your character go back to looking down. This allows advanced gladiators to "hide" their angles, by quickly flicking to an angle when the enemy can't see it, and then flicking back by the time the attack ends. This makes it harder for the enemy to see patterns, and predict what blocks or attacks to use.

BONUS trivia 3: I discovered angle while working with another technique I discovered, voidstep - blocking after two slashes, where the slashes will appear parallel (normally the second slash makes an "X" on a wall, but if you voidstep you'll see "=" side by side). At the time, before i taught others or people reverse-engineered the technique by looking at replays; it was almost unbeatable. First slash would break an enemies guard, you would turn away to avoid recoil, turn back to hit the second slash (damaging the enemy) and then end on a block, defending yourself. Most enemies would attack immediately after, and get recoiled/stunned off of the block, allowing you to repeat or butterfly the crap out them. It was quite glorious...