Plasma cannons can be aimed way off in the distance where no teammates are but enemy ranged are. Flamers are close-ranged so you're guaranteed to have friendly melee in there too.
Flamers also can be used where no teammates presented. Yeah if your dumb teammate runs under your fire - like literally.
EC is a team game. If you're making it to close range with the enemy, there should be teammates near you, and given the game's emphasis on melee being viable, many of those teammates will be melee who will be in melee range with your targets. Also, given how crowded fights around objectives can be, the flamer would be totally useless there. Plasma cannons don't have to charge fire, they can try to land direct hits with uncharged projectiles. The fact a flamer operates at close range and not long range is why the plasma cannon is viable and the flamer is not.
Flamers will not be implemented at all because the devs couldn't figure out how to make them look half decent without breaking the already fragile optimizations in game and absolutely destroying the fps.
Makes sense. The particle effects needed to make a flamethrower work in a third person shooter game would probably be murder on everyone involved when it comes to framerate.
I would support that reasoning if this game supported more players per factions in-game like planetside, but sadly it does not and the scant 15-20 teammates you've got are usually away across the map from you doing what they want. Make it a flamer you equipped on your client but a glow gun on another players client. Praise the cleansing holy glow!
I wrote exactly the opposite. Basically ranged guns feel like toys while melee is nuclear bombs. Last match I played yesterday evening I've never died to an Eldar gun. Never. But swords are simply unstoppable. Right if you want to cap a point just rush it with melee and it's done. This is even worse for flying classes: the strongest weapons to the only class who can enter / leave combat at will.
They should really remove the lock on system in the PC version (as for console? i don't care about inferior gaming machines ^^), makes melee at least require SOME skill. I have been playing melee without using lock on, then people sometime did outmaneuver me, when i tried lock on they had no chance. I could just keep up following and facing them instantly even if they pulled some nice dodges to the sides or past me. We have to aim with guns, lets get aiming back into melee. I honestly don't see why melee needs this crutch.
