I don't really consider myself one of the "melee folks" as I try to stay diverse, but I'll give the list a once over. Dbash: no. Maybe reduce stun times and remove the damage reduction on strong attacks, but i dont think totally removing it is a healthy change. Smart pistols: maybe. I think that smart pistols are a helpful tool for new players learning the ropes in melee, but as time goes on i find i use them less and less. No to the flak property though. Clangs: no. Durability needs to be a bit more important in melee. Removing clangs would make melee a huge mess. I frame rolls: im torn on this one. Maybe just remove invulnerability to explosions? Maybe rolls just give damage reduction and stagger invulnerability instead of full on i frames? I dunno. Don't think this is an immediate concern though either. Soft stun: absolute no. Removing this will just make ranged stronger. Why on earth you would want this is beyond me. As for the change list, well Melee speed: maybe. I think that axes and maces should definitely be sped up, but not necessarily make everything the same speed. Maybe just fast enough that a fast attack will always interrupt a strong attack between any two weapons... This kind of mirrors my idea for clanging, where i think impact damage should be used to calculate a certain amount of damage carrying through a clang, but only from the weapon with stronger impact. Weapons with equal impact would not carry damage through. In this way, a tac or dev could not stall with fa spam without risking some damage in the attempt. As for weapons being disabled, this is kind of what the soft stun is for. Maybe add a short delay between going from melee to shooting, but i dont think it really would make much of a difference. The jpa slam thing might be interesting, but would probably require new animations, and we all know how BE feels about animations
I meant the whole thing as a package deal. Clanging is for melee centric games about dueling. This is a shooter. Someone else packing an automatic rifle will gun you down during your melee duel. Removing the defender's ability to stall and forcing him into going for his handgun lets the melee player both tie up firing lines for an extended period of time and puts him at a major advantage. Also the soft stun disables even the pistol which is ment for close combat. I've seen players roll back and lunge back in before you could finish them off with the pistol. Edit: I also left off one of the points of my melee rework suggestion. Attacks that whiff has a longer recovery time to prevent players from just spamming RMB like a muppet.
Package deal changes like this would just be swinging the pendulum again. This is not how balance is achieved.
Most of the things the melee supremacists are screaming for would be a much larger pendulum swing than this. Also Ranged/Melee balance is not achievable in a shooter. Melee is either an ambush OHKO weapon or a humiliation tool to rub in your opponent's face how bad he is.
Random Crit TF2? Balance? Because without random crits and the stupid 1001 weapon unlocks, melee in that is a humiliation tool except for the spy's knife. And arguably the pyro's axe which might still have a higher DPS output than the W+M1 thrower.
knife beats powerfist/axe/sword is beyond moronic, if melee get on top of a ranged player the rdps should be wiped.
Having 50/50% balance probably is next to impossible but having it balanced enough where people feel like their doing something is. (I'd take 60/40 if not 70/30) The main reason why the balance is so screwed up here is because THERE ARE SO MANY CRYBABIES WIELDING GUNS. I will dutifully admit that there was and still is broken/messed shit that should be fixed (and have been fixed) such as old PCannon, Heavy Bolter sniping, Kannon Deffgun, Fist-spamming JPKs and what not, but there are too many bolter-fanatics (for lack of a better term) complaining about melee FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS. "Oh a melee guy got behind me and killed me and I couldn't do anything with mah heavy bolter" Well DUH he got behind you with a frigging power weapon. What did you EXPECT? I don't see melee bitching about having to AVOID your heavy gunfire just to get too you without dying because you will 100% rape them all the time at ranged combat. (Except when we had HB sniping, that was just plain stupid) "Well I'm a Tactical and I'm auto-dead if a melee class starts hitting me, it's a free kill. That's not fair" 1. It's not a free kill because you have multiple chances to shoot him down before he can close the distance. 2. You can fight back with a knife and if you're good at it, you can win! 3. If he snuck up on you, let me put it this way. "IF SOMEONE GOT BEHIND YOU IT'S USUALLY YOUR FAULT FOR NOT PAYING ATTENTION." It doesn't bloody matter if he's wielding a gun or a sword at that point. A melee assassin is going to ram his weapon where the sun doesn't shine and a ranged assassin is going to unload a clip into the back of your thick skull. "Well melee isn't mean't for killing, it's mean't for tanking and distracting" Do you people even know Warhammer 40K? You realize melee is a big part of the setting right? Glorious combat? RIP and TEAR? WAAAGH!!!! and all that? (I won't argue that shooting will arguably kill more but melee is NOT just a TANKING TOOL FOR 40K) And just to remind people... YOU CAN"T TANK IN THIS GAME WITHOUT A SHIELD. Max out your EHP (toughness, armor, health idc) on a regular melee loadout and see how long it takes for a bolter to kill you. That's how long you can tank and distract here. (I'll give you a hint: it's less than 2 seconds)
