So here's a thought: If we want to encourage people to melee more, why not implement a system where a melee kill gives you either lifesteal or (preferable for me, I think, as it means we can keep lifesteal intact) a reduction in armour regen delay? So if I'm using a Bolter and I'm in a firefight, I might try to manoeuvre the fight to allow me to finish my opponent off in melee so I can get my armour back up faster. It would also mean dedicated melee players are harder to kill because their armour will be constantly regenerating with each kill, making going from target to target in a busy combat area easier. Yet more reason for my suggestion of removing clangs from the game entirely to be put into practice.
Sure. It would probably have to be coupled with a massive TTK increase, but in principle my point is just to provide positive gameplay rewards for carrying out desired activity (i.e. Tacticals fighting in melee, not avoiding it at all costs).
>a massive TTK increase Bring us to >OP MELEE NERF!!! Why? Because with increased TTK you can't avoid melee at all cost and you MUST learn how to melee.
Yeah, but if you couple that with a change to make melee actually worthwhile for players who prefer Ranged, then it's fine.
I hope you lot recommending longer TTKs for ranged weapons realize that we had a patch where ranged TTK was halved (from 0.4 - 0.7s on headshots to like 1.1 - 1.5s and up to 4s kills on bodyshot) during beta and it resulted in, predictably, shitty results. Because melee classes have to be more viable than tactical classes in melee otherwise why would I play a melee class, so basically what ends up happening is everyone goes melee as there's almost no situation they can't close the distance on due to I-frames or they play heavy weapons in order to get similar to old TTK back and thus stay competitive at range. Meanwhile, tactical archetypes are made useless since they're 'meh' at range and 'meh' in melee. Remember, cover still exists. I-frames still exist, clever movement to counter ranged players still exists. This line of thought is wholly unnecessary, especially since those who can play melee competently are more than capable of using it for its intended role, disruption and high damage, especially when ambushing or flanking. No. I've seen how this shit works before and I understand the concept, yes, you want to make melee more viable. But this is not the way to do it. Want to make melee a more viable playstyle? Get rid of all melee attacks but fast attack and d-bash, d-bash no longer takes a wind-up but instead functions as a quick kick to give you an opening as a tactical/devastator to land a fast attack and there's no clanging, just swing-spam like in Space Marine. Yes, the melee is simplistic, yes, it is not a skill-based system as such, but it allows for ranged and melee to co-exist without making either one shitty or too slow. I don't think this is necessary as a change, I think melee is more than viable when it plays to its strengths in competent hands, but if you think melee needs a rework - increasing the ranged TTK is not the way to do it. We have already seen what that does. If you desperately want to make melee more viable in all situations - despite it already being competitive in good hands - then this is what melee in EC should play like. All non-JPA melee classes should also be removed simply because they do not have a function, either give them a shield or an active ability that lets them evade shooting damage for 3 - 4 seconds, or remove them entirely.
Evil Space Marine! You won't take the Slugga Boyz from da Orks that easily; just because Ground Assault cannot capture points. Eldar would have no main melee class to use by that logic; Warlock (Sorcerer too) would have to rely on magic and pistols as they will no longer have swords.
Yep. Which is why you'd have to think of something, such as the option for ground assault equivalents to ALL take shields of some description as well as a sidearm, so they can switch out their sword to shoot or slash while in the field and also keep their shield raised. It's this or nothing really, increasing ranged TTK even by just 50% will just make tactical archetypes practically obsolete for anything but capturing and acting as a meatshield for devastators or melee. Basically, everyone would just switch to melee - as they did during beta - because it's more effective, or devastator w/ heavy bolter equivalent for the old TTK.
There's still a balance to be had. R. SM did it just fine with a Bolter that was capable of landing two ranged kills with near perfect aim before reloading. The TTK was fair, a bit longer (certainly not twice as long, nobody said that) and he was still capable in melee and often found himself there. Which again is the argument I made before, you don't want two extreme ends of the spectrum, the tactical class is meant to be blended between the two and the melee/Devestators are the extremes. If ranged players could stand up in melee instead of folding at the first sight of it, then yes, it would favor melee, hence the balance would be improving the melee experience for everyone even when another player has an edge over you. Take for example the tier system. Just because a power sword is technically weaker than a power Axe doesn't mean people won't take them into melee anyway. One could argue the other direction right now and reach the same conclusion; it comes down to personal preference. The same should be true with knives/knuckles. How many kills can on person get with an Autocannon or Heavy Bolter before overheating? A stock Bolter? A box Bolter? A drum Bolter? How many kills can a knife wielder get in melee? Particularly a scrum? A mace? A sword? How likely is that knife wielding Bolter going to choose the knife over the ranged weapon? Especially when mechanically melee remains clunky and ranged is allowed to keep shooting into said melee even after it was briefly engaged? These are not unrelated topics. If both seem silly, than we're on the right track here.
