Remove autolock is somewhere along the lines of 'Nerf Plasma' and 'Nerf fire ailment', meaning it would ruin a lot of people's day because someone whined too fucking much.

Even though i don't support OPs proposal, i do agree that if something is to be done with autolock its adjustment, not deletion. Dont go chopping off a fucking arm when you can put a band aid on it just fine.

If anything, i'd give ranged classes the ability to autolock in melee so they dont have to git good as much.

I do this too sometimes. It's totally viable. But there needs to be a way to "stick" to your target to hold them in melee, else it could become too easy to slip out of the melee. And if people could easily slip out, ranged spam will become a problem. The pendulum swings.

Are you sure autolock is the cause of that? I think quick attack spamming is more an issue with the imbalance of the RPS system. Quick attacks have a quick animation, quick and constant lunges, and does damage of course. With quick attacks you are hard to hit with bullets and the enemy has a hard time maneuvering around you. Meanwhile, d-bash stops you in your tracks, locked in a slow animation and a pathetic lunge distance to boot, AND it can still be dodged once clanged on. The only thing it has going for it is a stun, as its damage is negligible.

To respond with a d-bash against a rmb spammer, even with the stuns landing, it takes much longer to win that fight. And he's forcing you to become trapped in the d-bash animation, totally exposed to other melee sweeping behind you or ranged guys to get free headshots on you. It's the equivalent of being tackled and arms held behind you back, open to the enemie's friends.

Quick attack spamming isn't because of autolock, it's because its counter is gimped.

True, if D-Bash was instant, instead of a kick more of a shoulder bash, it would be much better.

This just comes back to Melee being bad, too easy to pick up and spam, and the idea that there is some real depth to it is silly.

I've been saying that it should be removed for months. Then I started using it.... I have to say that I actually enjoy using it. I don't always leave it on as it can actually be more harmful than good at times and I hardly ever use rmb spam attacks.
I have also mentioned in other threads like this that it would be a great feature to only allow Eleet classes to use this feature or a mod that costs points in your loadout.

Well, I don't think auto-lock should be removed. But I don't think it is needed, as well.

I play tactical mostly, so I'm not that much in melee anyway, but when I am I never use autolock, and my knife still kills lots of people. Melee works without auto-lock, if you care to learn it!

The one thing that really upsets me about auto-lock is when I try dodging in direction of my enemy, and auto-lock just 180s him in my direction. So here is my suggestion:

Adjust auto-lock, so that when the target moves fast enough out of a certain degree of your view, you lose your lock-on. There should be the posibility to break the lock-on with some maneuvers, besides getting out of range, which is not viable/possible in 99% of the melee-situations (especially when the enemy is locked on you). Auto-lock shouldn't work like an aimbot with a range limit, but more like an aiming-aid (see other shooters on console for example)! Right now besides the initial lock-on aiming there is no aiming from the user involved at all. That needs to be changed in my opinion.

Edit: Another possiblity could be that auto-lock in melee is always a one-hit thing, where you have to relock for each hit.

REMOVE.

Autolock has no place in a pvp game.

Without locking, JPA can't dodge things properly.
Instead of dodge, you would strafe 10 meters to the selected direction.
Which is a death when dueling anything with ranged capabilities.

Tbh, all dodging becomes fatal against anything with ranged capabilities.
When you dodge with the lock, you rotate around the target.
Without the lock, you just blast in one direction, get out of melee range and get a face full of lead.

How to counter a locking melee?
Switch to the sidearm and commit to melee.

Does a third-person melee pvp game without locking even exist?

Just change auto-lock so melee classes can only lock onto other melee classes.

I am of the opinion that both lock on and smart pistols are not necessary to the game and take away more than they add. Not much else to say, I'd love to see them go but it's unlikely to ever happen.

Turn it around then. How to counter getting blasted in the face by ranged characters? Just switch to that JPA sidearm and fire back! (that's basically an inverted suggestion of yours).