I believe the main problem facing melee specialist classes right now is that they don't have sufficient advantage once reaching melee range. I do not feel melee (in general) needs help closing the gap, as this would detract from the skill requirement as well as negatively impact the Ranged/Melee balance in the area where Ranged should have the advantage. The following suggested changes are designed to give the advantage to melee specialists by making Stamina (rolling) more valuable and give value to different kinds of melee weapons without making non-specialists impotent in melee combat. Changes: No clangs. Ties (both participants throwing the same move) result in damage to both participants if they are within swing range. No stuns. Instead of a stun, there is a Camera Knock effect on a successful throw (see below). Stronger weapons swing more slowly but inflict more camera knock or do more damage or both. The DBash animation is considerably shorter, but still provides 360 degree protection from Fast Attacks whilst in motion. Melee lock-on is removed (along with smart pistols). When a Ranged class performs a melee throw, they need to manually swap back to their main weapon before they can fire it. This system would considerably speed up melee encounters as more attacks would cause damage. Combat positioning and timing dodges would be paramount to long-term melee survivability. All weapons would be viable, as more hits would connect, meaning higher alpha damage weapons would be applying that damage more often. Removal of lock-on would increase the skill threshold. DBashing no longer stuns, but does provide the largest camera knock effect, so can be a short animation (effectively it is more of a riposte than a parry) and still be a viable throw. The Camera Knock effect explained: Spoiler When on the receiving end of a successful throw ("winning trade"), the player's screen is displaced to a different position, somewhere from 45 to 135 and 225 to 315 degrees horizontally from where it started and somewhere from -90 to 90 degrees vertically. The heavier hitting the weapon, the bigger the effect. The heaviest hitting weapons (Mauls and Power Fists) cause this displacement effect on all successful throws. Swords and Axes cause the effect on Strong Attacks and DBashes. Knives cause the effect only on DBashes. Knocked Right, Knocked Left, Knocked Up and Down. Heavy Displacement Weapon - Fast Attack: Low intensity Strong Attack: High intensity DBash: High intensity Medium Displacement Weapon - Fast Attack: No displacement Strong Attack: Low intensity DBash: High intensity Light Displacement Weapon - Fast Attack: No displacement Strong Attack: No displacement DBash: High intensity Low intensity: 45 to 90 or 270 to 315 degrees horizontal displacement, -45 to 45 degrees vertical displacement. High intensity: 90 to 135 or 225 to 270 degrees horizontal displacement, -90 to 90 degrees vertical displacement. Weapon profiles: Spoiler Fist - High damage Low speed Heavy displacement Very expensive Maul - Medium damage Low speed Heavy displacement Expensive Axe - High damage Low speed Medium displacement Expensive Sword - Medium damage Medium speed Medium displacement Average cost Knife - Low damage Medium speed Light displacement Cheap
Example (verbose): A Maul user targets a BolterTac in melee. He opens with a Fast Attack and the BolterTac eats it, being caught unaware. The BolterTac is trying to orient himself to his target, but the heavy blow has spun him around, so he takes a moment longer to reorient himself to the assault. Because he's reeling, he goes for a DBash hoping to buy himself some time, but the Maul user is a canny sort and, seeing that his target has not oriented himself to face him yet, goes for a Strong Attack, as even if the target had Light/Strong Attacked, it wouldn't connect as he was facing the wrong way. The Strong Attack brushes the DBash aside, spinning the target around even further. The BolterTac dodges, narrowly escaping the Maul user's next Fast Attack then, now oriented to face his opponent, quickly swings a Fast Attack to try and gain some initiative, but the Maul user, pressing the advantage, also swings a Fast Attack. Because they are now facing each other, both attacks hit home. With the damage previously taken, the BolterTac drops to the floor. Example (technical): Maul Fast Attack, Tac no action. Fast Attack causes Low Intensity Displacement. Attack displaces target's view between 45 and 90 degrees left or right and up to 45 degrees up or down. Tac takes Fast Attack weapon damage. Maul Strong Attack, Tac DBash. Strong Attack > DBash. Strong Attack causes High Intensity Displacement. Attack displaces target's view between 90 and 135 degrees left or right and up to 90 degrees up or down. Tac takes Strong Attack weapon damage. Maul Fast Attack, Tac dodge. Fast attack swings and misses. Maul Fast Attack, Tac Knife Fast Attack. Both attacks connect. Maul causes Low Intensity Displacement. Both take Fast Attack damage. Tac is downed.
My own version: No clangs. Ties (both participants throwing the same move) result in damage to both participants if they are within swing range. No stuns. Stronger weapons swing more slowly but inflict more more damage. This means you can dodge around and strike back quickly if you are good. Remove DBash. Melee lock-on is removed (along with smart pistols). Remove Stamina. Make Rolling faster so that tactical classses can roll away and shoot the melee if they are good. Make Jetpack much faster and let it blast off with a dodge as in Space Marine. This would counter the Rolling move, giving the already less armoured Jump class some agility in return. All in all, this would be like Space marine's superior melee system. Improve Powerfist non-strong attack so that it can deal good damage to tanks. The strong attack is just so slow, it is only good against un-crewed vehicles. Eternal Crusade is not a duelling game, and a knife should not be able to parry a power weapon at all. There is currently no reason for taking stuff other than the chainsword, for hundreds of extra points give too little a reward.
Aye, I'd say we're broadly on the same page with it, barring a few minor tweaks here and there. I'm curious though, if you want to do away with Stamina entirely, would you have any means to limit how often people can roll? Have the roll mechanic on a cooldown or something?
It was not limited in Space Marine and worked fine. If the tactical is good, he rolls and shoots raptor. If the raptor is good, he "leaps" forward with the spacebar and hits the rolling tactical . This mechanic worked really well. I feel it also depended on more player skill than "timing dbash right". This would, as I said a lot of times, requires agile and not the super clumsy jetpacks we got today.
So here's another thought to tweak the way melee works: Held-charge Attacks, which go off when you release. So if you Single tap-hold RMB, you get a Fast Attack, which you hit with when you release the RMB. Double-tap-hold does a Strong Attack. Fast Attack would have a pretty short charge-up, so to spam it your timing would need to be exemplary. DBash could be held, but would only block incoming FA damage when the animation is running (after release). My thinking is that you can then have more control over exactly when you swing. If you need to get your victim in range first, you can hold off on releasing the attack until they are. Additionally, each weapon/DBash could have a distinct 'held' pose, making recognition (and therefore picking the correct RPS response) easier the longer someone held the attack, so it would be a balancing act that both participants are dealing with at the same time. You would always be able to dodge or sprint out of your own held attacks to reset them without swinging. I do have concerns about how this would result in extreme Power Fist murder, so I would maybe bring the PF Power Attack damage into line and just give all of its attacks a vehicle damage multiplier.
Man, it's pretty disappointing these ideas aren't getting any love, because I think they would transform melee in this game into something really special.
I have a better idea in mind that makes use of some of the good parts of the current melee system (and there are some), pulled from a different thread. Personally, however, I strongly believe that the melee system as-is needs to go in the trash can and stay there, because it is a guessing game, not a contest of skill like it should be. Here are my ideas, and @Oveur please take note of this because it might be a lot more fun and rewarding than the current system: Instead of the slow and clunky D-Bash, add a normal, much more responsive blocking mechanic that you can hold to block light melee attacks (staggering the enemy long enough to perform a light attack with any weapon OTHER than the powerfist) and reduce the damage of heavy attacks by 50% (no stagger). Blocking an attack without a shield will reduce your weapon durability by a percentage equal to the attacking weapon's impact minus 100. So for light attacks, a standard knife will reduce it by 10%, a standard chainsword by 13%, a power axe by 16% and so on. Heavy attacks have much more impact, will break your weapon much faster, and you will still take half damage to block them unless you parry it. The clang system should still apply to light attacks performed at the same time in much the same way it does now, but both weapons should lose durability based on each other's impact. Add a kick/bash that is performed as quickly as a light attack with the knife, but costs a stamina point to use and will do one of two things depending on the situation: If the opponent is blocking, be it with a weapon or with a shield, it will break their guard and stagger them as if they lost a clang, allowing you hit them with a light attack or shoot them. If the opponent is staggering, you will stun them for 2.5 seconds, wherein you can hit them with a heavy attack with any weapon, but if they take damage from anything other than poison or fire the stun will be cancelled immediately. Note: You can kick someone twice in a row to stun them if they leave themselves open to it, but keep in mind you just used two stamina points to do it. This is great for asymmetric balance, since this will be more effective with some loadouts and less effective for others as well as being a risk and reward strategy. For the JPA/Stormboy, the animation should be a jet-assisted shoulder bash so that it makes sense for it to use fuel. Rather than spamming light attacks to stop heavy attacks, make it so that you have to time your block in order to parry, providing both a visual and audible cue (make sure they are synced) that demonstrates when you should begin blocking. If you time it correctly, you will stagger your attacker, and you will not lose durability or take damage from the attack. Only kicks and light attacks can be performed when you are not in melee mode. You switch to melee mode by drawing your secondary weapon (if you are not a melee class already). Left mouse button will block UNLESS you aim down sights first, in which case you will shoot your pistol or cast your spell. Shield users will not be able to aim down sights and will of course always block with left click (unless you swap your controls). Swooping Hawks and heavy classes should be avoiding melee in the first place, so not being able to heavy attack is a fair trade, I'd say. Remove lock-on so that dodging around your opponent actually MEANS something if they are not expecting it. No more pistol cheese. No more free aimbot. More or less, the point is to make the melee a bit more like that in Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, where the Assault Class is both fun and rewarding to play because there is a variety of reliable attack combos and strategies in melee, and fun to play against because every class has the means to outplay the assault, and while you are at a disadvantage, you aren't completely defenseless.
