I know this game is not going to be an esport, and the main focus is faction and strikeforce(clan) warfare, but it seems like it will have minor competitive undertones, which I love. In the future, this thread will serve to list things such as animation times, accuracy, and whatnot. Right now we can only speculate based on the videos. so, some things I noticed so far >most melee attack animations are instant, but there is a recovery time of roughly 0.75 after attacking, but that animation time is reduced if you have another successive melee attack, to roughly 0.0. This means melee/ranged hybrid builds might be weak during closed alpha. (this is only speculation on the videos) It seems like ranged damage will be king for a short while, but I could see in some areas that melee would dominate. This will be edited as we look at the info closer and as the game is developed.
Regarding assault marines. If EC plays out like the space marine mp then I think raptors/asm wont really have any issues engaging ranged units out to about 40m or so. Chain together both attacks and stuns and your enemies wont even be able to effectively fight back.
I don't see the stun mechanic in the closed alpha yet. Not sure if they are going to add it in later or if it's not going to be in at all.
This would be like not adding the tactical roll or the devestator boot to the chest. These mechanics all work together to give the fighting system sone depth and flexibility.
I'm all for some sort of stun mechanic, as long as it doesnt lead to stunlocking. Age of Conan and Rift PVP devolved into who could stun who first = win... which is pure garbage in my book. CC or crowd control type abilities always walk a fine line between being grossly overpowered to totally useless. Thorough beta testing and player feedback will hopefully result in balanced and sane forms of CC in Eternal Crusade. As far as combat mechanics in general, while the Space Marine games combat is a good template to start with, I'm hoping ECs combat will offer more options to the player as far as offensive and defensive abilities. I hope they implement some aspects of Dark Souls 2 combat mechanics, where if you overextend or "miss" a heavy strike, you can pay a hefty price.
Im positive the whiff mechanic will be inculded.(slow follow up shot on a miss) Melee combat has to be quick and intuitive to match up well with the speed and damage ranged weapons bring to the fight. An overcomplex and cumbersome melee system will just kill that aspect of EC.
3 things regarding melee. Dark Souls is apparently comparable to where they're going with melee combat, at least for depth. That's awesome. In the SMCA interview Miguel said that he and the guy from IGN both used Assault classes and when they swung at the same time their chainswords deflected each other just by attacking simultaneous, Miguel said he then actively blocked the attack, kicked the guy then killed him with a strike (very DSs). Lastly in the World Factory interview the devs (Miguel I think) suggested that jump pack equipped Assault units would need to play smart in the large battles EC is being prepped for: Picking off enemies on the fringe and sticking to cover, but once in melee they'll demolish other classes quickly. I imagine they'll be pretty ferocious within confined areas, as in the pre-alpha footage.
