Try open up with a stun move in Spacemarine MP and see what happens. If you don't have too serious lag you will negate most of the right-click spammers right there.
I totally agree with you with the really short ttk. Everything in Spacemarine is just too powerfull. Some of the perks are downright opd (like Death from Above having a massive stun making it really difficult to react in time). If you don't know exactly how to counter them in a split second, you're toast.

Problem is, if ttk is higher, a dedicated melee class will have a really hard time getting the job done before dying from focused fire. Even in Spacemarine where four sword strokes kill a Tac, being a raptor/asm can be tough enough when good and aware ranged fighters surround you. Tbh, I have a hard time to see how intricate "duel like" fights can happen at all, since an enemy raptor/asm is essentially a bullet magnet with a jet-thruster on the back. If a dedicated melee class is to have any meaning, they have to be bordeline too powerfull or too fast, given that they have to close the distance and actually place their hammer on top of your scull in order to kill you.

And, tbh, this "En garde" style fencing doesn't suit spacemarines anyway. Touchè Angron!

Here's the problems that people aren't looking closely enough at:

Focused Fire: When you get a whole squad calling targets and coordinating fires on point targets.. that individual will be dead instantly... do not pass GO... do not collect happiness... go back to spawn.. done. There isn't just going to be bolters.. though focus fire from them will be enough. Picture Las Cannon+Bolter+Plasma Gun all firing multiple rounds at the same target in 1 second=DEAD. Call next target.. move on...

Latency Evasion: Some players will have better upload and download to server based on their world wide location and connection. The avatar you are gunning down or bashing with your sword will not truly represent their "real time" no matter what. It's just not achievable. If you further slow down melee speeds you open the door to "Mr Dash Roll Bolter Fire Man". This guy rolls around non stop and fire 1-2 shots at your head between dashes and rolls and eventually you lose the fight of attrition... another example of how shooting will trump melee if you don't make it OP.

And as a side note concerning Space Marine. IF you build your load outs correctly, the Furious Charge+Combat Stims+Axe makes an insta kill combo with your shoulder charge much like the Tacs MC+Stims+Serrated Blade.

Good points and well worth examining in detail.

Focussed Fire

This is always going to be an issue whenever you have a multiplayer game that blends melee and ranged combat, but remember that in EC weapon fire spreads out meaning that anyone firing into melee combat risks shooting their teammate.
Add several more combatants into the mix and you have a situation in which focussed fire into melee is a really bad idea unless you are very nearly in melee range yourself, and since the TTK for melee may actually be lower than for ranged at this point you may be better off just wading in yourself.

Of course closing to melee range in the first place is an issue, but then there is a reason why most races' (Eldar are the exception) Assault specialists have jetpacks or really heavy armor.

Add mobile cover in the shape of tanks to the mix and you can see that there are numerous ways for assault troops to get to melee range and once there focussed fire potentially becomes as dangerous to the defender as to the attacker!

All that in mind it may not be a great idea to prejudge the TTK for melee on the basis that it would be impossible to get a clear view of the situation that needs balancing in isolation from all other factors (friendly fire, tanks, terrain, special abilities, jet packs, armor e.t.c.).

Latency Evasion

This needs to be covered in two parts, latency and evasion abilities coupled with latency.

Firstly latency is a problem, but not an insurmountable one in the case of mild latency issues, provided you use some clever net code to compensate for the player's actual position server side being different from their apparent position client side.
At 250ms (again the latency ceiling for normal play) this shouldn't really be a problem and the pikko server system should also help to mitigate the lag in larger battles (which is the bane of many mmos) by more intelligently allocating server resources.
Nevertheless there is always the danger of lag going above the one second mark.

Basically when it gets to this level it makes playing almost impossible.
However if such situations are down to a few player's poor internet service rather than a common and widespread issue it can't really be used as grounds for arguing for baseline changes to game balance in any particular type of combat since these are cases in which there is a technical fault outside the scope of the game's normal operation.

That said given that there may be some degree of lag the hyperactive mr Dash, roll, Bolter fire's behavior you described may be better classified as a potential exploit, in that it attempts to make the most of the fact that some (but clearly not all) players have a poor connection by spamming movement abilities to make their situation worse.



Viewed in this way there are a number of ways this potential 'exploit' could be dealt with.

One way would be to make ranged weapon fire wildly inaccurate after a dodge roll (i.e. the bloom cone expands after a dodge and over the next 1-3 seconds contracts back to normal) to punish dodge spammers.
You would probably also want to make sprinting widen the bloom cone as well, but whether this effect only lasts for the duration of the sprint or lingers for a while afterwards is a matter for testing and balancing.

Such a system could also be coupled with a stamina mechanic that covers such things as blocking, sprinting and dodging.

Different unit types could have different amounts of stamina and have actions that cost more or less dependent on their role (and/or even different stamina recharge rates) - So for example an assault marine would have the most stamina or the cheapest abilities, meaning that they can sprint more, block more and dodge more - all actions that are needed in melee.
On the other hand a Devastator (heavy weapon) marine may have less stamina, or more expensive actions, meaning that they can't sprint, dodge or block as often as a more melee oriented unit.

These factors combined would help to prevent people from just spamming their movement abilities since:
a) It makes their firing less effective
b) They can't do it often enough for it to have a reliable effect..................... and
c) If they use them hoping to exploit lag they likely won't have the stamina to use them in melee to stay alive.

I've done this multiple times. However, more often than not someone may simply roll/jump out of the way, and it's easier to just right click because of the glue-targeting mechanic in Space Marine, as you cover more distance right clicking than pressing f. That and of course, the lag.

Git rid of the glue mechanic, and have stagger abilities, and boom. Suddenly the Assault Class has more depth in close combat, and you don't gotta worry about a Tact Marine punching an Assault Marine to death with his bolter at the same time.

I totally agree. Focused Fire is one of those development challenges the Devs will have to overcome. However, the flip side of focused fire is that it's not (it shouldn't) just be a single raptor/assault marine jumping into the thick of it. Numbers > Skill. If you have say 5 Raptors slamming down into a squad of say 10, then suddenly focused fire isn't as effective because if the squad is busy focusing on one target, the other 4 will be chewing up the squad. Now compare that to the scope of the game the Devs are shooting for, it'll be a lot more difficult to focus fire when a multitude of raptors are dropping in on the squad. Suddenly things are a lot less structured, and focus fire isn't nearly as effective. But yeah, the melee class shouldn't be able to soak up bullets. They should be forced to pick and choose their engagements more carefully instead of jumping straight into a wall of Tac Marines. It's sort of similar to driving a tank headlong into Devastators with LasCannons, that's a waste of a tank. You either need to get behind them, or attack a different spot.

You shouldn't walk into a meat grinder, unless of course you're the Orkz. Assault classes aren't meant to run across no-man's-land. Think of them like Cavalry. You don't rush Cavalry headlong into a wall of muskets or cannons. You'll lose so much more doing that and the gain will be minimal. Especially because now they don't have to worry about Cavalry hitting them in the back.

Assault Classes operate the same way, they sew chaos and disorientation among a more structured place. This is done by large numbers of them dropping in and disrupting Tact Marines before they're able to Focus Fire, as 90% of players will try to kill the person attacking them, instead of attacking what they're told. It's a natural reaction that a lot of players have, and only really skilled/professional players will remained focused under pressure.

I remember hearing on a stream that Steven did where, yes a Tact Marine/Devastator will utterly annihilate people at range, but if you close the distance, their options are severely limited in terms of damage output.

Having played most of the games in question in this thread (Space Marine, Planetside 2, and Chivalry), I think a more polished Space Marine combat method is the way to go. You give the melee primary classes ways to close in and get out with some efficiency, but when it comes down to it, there just shouldn't be melee fights that last more then 5-10 seconds tops.

You have to consider that, while you're up on the base trying to swing away at some dude, tanks can be rolling in blasting away at everything, while ranged infantry and shooting the crap out of everything. In a chaotic environment like that, melee combat just doesn't have enough TIME to be overly complex.

I really enjoyed Space Marines balance between melee capability and ranged. Especially if you consider that most of it was based around mobility and dodging, the melee combat certainly wasn't "easy". For anyone that was any good, it made a big difference if you knew what you were doing as apposed to just dropping in and flailing away. Then of course while you're trying to swing at someone, some tactical marine comes back and hoses you with their bolter.

So, honestly, for anyone that's played Planetside 2, can you possibly imagine trying to squeeze in effective melee in that? I'm not saying they shouldn't, as it can be awesome, but there's just not enough time to have deep complex melee in a game on this scale.

Hmm, do you have a link to that part? Maybe it was a very early vid cos with all the knowledge (confirmed by the devs) we've got now it seems this 'range of utter annihilation' will be pretty...short, in case of bolters about 40,50 meters by default with 2 seconds of sustained fire required to take out a marine. No heavy weapons are introduced so far apart from the heavy bolter which is confirmed by Brent to be extremely deadly at...close range, not so much at a longer distance:

Brent said:

I will repeat what has been said by Partisan and me in this thread (and others) many times: if melee classes are to stand any chance of survival in the battlefield they will have to be able to kill QUICKLY after closing the gap. What's more, this ability may be not enough that's why the range and damage of most of guns seems to be pretty nerfed so far with the exception of the heaviest ones like lascannon (this one however is going to be too unwieldy to use against regular infantry as a sniper rifle as some would wish). Probably the melee class will also need some health buffs like Furious Charge or something like that.


I didn't make up the things I mentioned myself, this is info based on the devs' comments. If we had the Chivalry system of melee it would be too complicated and it would take too long to be of ANY efficiency in combat, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. My opinion is that the devs will have a very hard nut to crack with melee\ranged\classes tree balancing issue. It is difficult in regular online shooters and in EC the level of complication and different kinds of dependencies is extremely high. That's why I'm keeping my fingers crossed, they have a real challenge ahead of them.

i know they said they were thinking of taking the poisey stats/ system from dark souls.

here the quate from the wiki on what it dose, as i feel they do a better job at explain it then me.

"Poise is a value that determines a character's resistance to being stunned. All characters, including enemies, have Poise. Being hit drains Poise which regenerates after a moment, much like a hidden stamina bar. When Poise is completely drained, the character becomes stunned. Having one more point of Poise than is being dealt will prevent the character from being stunned by that hit."

soo yea i think this would be something good to take from dark souls as it doesn't seem we will have a stamina bar, and it would prevent endless blocking.

i agree that melee should be pretty simple to learn making for quick fight, but it should also have a large skill ceiling, so if two skill melee player fight each other it could turn into a epic dual of parry's/blocks dodges and rolls, just because the melee need to be easy to learn ,doesn't mean it should be super simplistic.

Also people who would try to shoot them in the duel would risk killing there own allies, and i believethey said at higher ranks there would be great friendly fire peniltys

You wont have hack and slash like Space Marines, in no way is that even close to feasible. The ranged weapons in SPM were horrible underpowered. That's the key to making this work. The rounds these guns use are .95 roughly, that's damn near a full inch of bullet width that's massive. Double the size almost of legal rounds in the USA. Give them the power they need. Granted a chainsaw sword is in itself terrifying. But the key is giving the firearms ample power. I know how geneseeds work I know Orks can withstand huge punishment and I understand the power of the chaos gods. But even a full on astrates you take an inch of bullet to the head youre not gonna walk from that. thats my beef with SPM.

I'm afraid You'll have to swallow that beef my friend cos bolter instant kill headshots will not happen in EC (confirmed), however they will simply do more damage than to any other part of body (confirmed). And yes You will have hack'n'slash here cos\and the guns are even more underpowered (at least so far) to enable the melee class to exist which is a reasonable solution taking into consideration the complexity of combat in EC (I am good at repeating myself, am I not? )

But I have a different question to all Chivalry type of melee supporters: how many online pvp games do You know in which You have a combination of modern ranged weapons and effective melee combat? Maybe there are some, I haven't played all games in the world.

I know one (I can describe how it worked but first I'd like to see your response if possible).

Dueling should be reserved for ranked players on the battlefield. If a SM Sergeant and Eldar Exarch meet they should have an option where they can agree to enter into a duel or something like that. If you win you get to add a kill tally to your chain sword.