Melee Overhaul Suggestion

[Rinzark]

An idea that I've been playing around with for a little while. Currently, the melee is "Spam E", "Sometimes Hold E" and "Jump and E" with the rare "E after Wallrun".

 

My suggestion is to make melee a bit more complicated (just a little), to make it more than just semi-autonomous spamming.

 

Control Changes

 

As it stands, the primary melee button is E, with rare use of Mouse 4 (the side mouse button that not many have) to block. Alongside this, you can melee while sprinting, falling or jumping.

 

My suggestion is to have melee become a little more complex through the introduction of Parrying and a few other things (More on that later)

 

Suggestion: Different attack arcs

Keep melee on E, but also put it on Q. Move Item Popup that's currently on Q to Tab or another key. The reason for this is to allow for melee, and each weapon to have two different "attack arcs". If you are using a dual-weapon like the Kogake or twin daggers, you can press E for the right weapon to attack, or Q for the left. If you're using a single weapon like the Skana or Gram, you can press E for a swing from the right or Q for a swing from the left. 

 

Players can still mash E, but the attack wouldn't be as fluid due to the frame having to reposition the weapon properly before the next swing.

 

Now, players can get off smooth combos by going Q->E->Q->E. Perhaps have each attack cause the frame to step forward slightly as part of the animation to allow players to move a bit as they attack, so players don't have to worry about broken combos by the constant need to reposition. The attack will still head towards the direction the camera is facing as always.

 

Charge attacks can also be done as part of a combo, perhaps even changing the combo by when the charge is done.

 

This leads to my next suggestion

 

Suggestion: Weapon blocking, parrying, block rates and blocking speed.

How this would work is that there would be a third Guard button. I'm not entirely sure what key it would be on yet, but perhaps allow RightMouse to have some use in melee. (Though this could prove difficult since it's already used to aim)

 

As long as Guard is held down, the Frame will reduce their movement speed (like normal aiming), and throw up a guard. To solve the issue of aiming vs. guarding, have the Frame only Guard if Q or E are held down as well. This will cause the frame to throw up a Guard. Another idea is to have the Guard be toggleable, to allow for movement while guarding.

 

This will allow the frame to Guard that area (left for Q and right for E). As long as they guard that direction, all incoming melee attacks from that side have their Damage Reduced (More on this shortly). While guarding, the Frame will not recover Stamina as quickly (or at all, perhaps)

 

Each weapon would then have a new stat added (which will also open room for more mods), Block Rate. 

How BR will work is that when the weapon Blocks a melee attack from an incoming weapon, the user will suffer damage that is reduced by a percentage equal to the BR% of the weapon, and they will also suffer a bit of Stamina damage. No stamina? You cannot guard (or do anything you'd need Stamina for and must wait to recover).

 

If a player is hit in the side that is opposite their Guard, they'll take damage as normal (or perhaps a little more due to being completely open on that side)

 

Example:

Kogake has a BR% of 10%, while the Fragor has a much higher 75% (these are just test numbers mind you). An unmodded Fragor is listed to deal 50 damage. So if a Kogake blocked the Fragor, the user would take 45 damage, and significant Stamina drain (But hey, you blocked it!). If an unmodded Kogake, with a listed damage of 25, were blocked by the Fragor in this example, the guarding Frame would take roughly 7 damage and little Stamina drain.

 

This would make it seem like heavy hitting weapons are the way to go, right? Of course not! We're still space-ninja-martial-masters of course!

 

One benefit of a lighter weapon is that the player can throw a Guard up much faster than a heavier weapon. A larger weapon takes longer to bare, which makes it slower to guard with. So a player can attempt a Parry if they're opponent has them outmatched in destructive capability. To parry, a player needs to throw their Guard up right before the point of impact. A literal split second before the attack hits, if the player manages to fully enable their guard (which would be easier to do with lighter weapons), the enemy attack is parried. This will cause the attack to get thrown wide open shortly, leaving the formerly defending player an opportunity to go on the offensive.

 

All of this would require the addition of a few new stats to each weapon:

Block Rate: A percentage that indicates the incoming melee damage that is reduced IF the block is successful.

Parry Rate: The speed at which an unmodded weapon can initiate its Guard. Smaller weapons can do it faster, allowing for them to be better at parrying.

 

Additional notes/suggestions:

While guard is up, any incoming ranged damage (depending on the type) is deflected in order to better balance melee with ranged. (Of course something explosive would be foolish to try to straight up deflect). This will drain stamina heavily.

 

Players should still be able to and are encouraged to ROLL and DODGE while in melee. Why risk taking the hit when you can avoid it?

 

Perhaps the addition of other melee combos that change depending on the weapon? Like certain melee weapons (like the kogake in particular) can be taken into a grapple and throw.

 

And another small one, allow players who use the dive-kick (Slide while in the air), to instead of flying through the enemy as they John Wu their way through things, the option to kick an enemy and backflip off of them, instantly initiating melee or stopping them from flying too far.

 

Any additional comments and suggestions are welcome.

 

What's everybody think?

 

[Tingnok]

+1 block is useless right now

[Tineidae]

Blocking has no use at all atm, so You want it to be even more complicated? some ideas are interesting, but I don't think it's a right direction.

[RustyNaps]

I was thinking that melee could be split between light,normal and heavy attacks.

 

Q=Light, E=Normal, T=Heavy.

 

Light attacks would have a faster fire rate but less damage.

 

E would be your normal sword swings.

 

Heavy attacks would be where the charge goes, but you wouldn't have to hold T you could tap it and it'd go into charge animation.

 

Depending on the Sword would determine how many swings could be made with each attack. Lets say a long sword had 4 swings. You could press Q to have 4 light swings, E 4 normal and T 4 heavy (Heavy swings would have there own 4 swings instead of just the one slash like it is now).

 

This could open up melee combos having these extra buttons.

[EinRyu]

Too tired to read this right now I'll bother editing this post when I read through it... A lot of Melee Suggestion Threads...

[-Kittens-]

This has all been literally suggested before, multiple times, and while I generally agree on principal, as a left handed person, I can safely say you're a racist and should be ashamed of yourself.

 

Go sit in the closet.

 

There also some lag and latency issues to contend with relative to defense, as players of JK2 and onward through to stuff like Chivalry can relate to that would need to be addressed.

[Paradoxbomb]

Things I'd like to see involving melee:

 

 

Melee Stance/Holding you weapon: Either add this to the existing switch weapon button (F by default) or a new button entirely, it lets your character hold their weapon and changes the gun fire and gun zoom buttons to attack (left click) and block (right click). It would make it easier to efficiently attack and block without having to switch your key bindings every time. For the sake of ease of access, E could remain a quick melee button.

 

Blocking/Parrying attacks: Instead of just reducing damage, all weapons should have a % chance to completely block a bullet when holding down the block button (larger weapons offer a greater chance to block; can be upgraded with mods). Quick tapping the block button should perform a parry that can counter an enemy's melee attack, stunning them and setting them up for a counter attack. Additionally, it can deflect projectiles such as Bombard rockets if time correctly.

 

Quick Melee Improvements: Obviously, melee attacks in general can really use a buff to damage to balance out the risk vs. reward factor of getting close to an enemy. Weapons already perform combos of sorts, perhaps speed up the animations to make them feel more like combos, or make each consecutive hit on an enemy during these combos do more and more damage. Smaller weapons like daggers can have longer chains and therefore, the damage increases faster and greater as you hit a target. Also telegraph when an enemy is going to gun butt/melee attack better so players can effectively parry it and perform a counterattack that deals double damage.

 

Charge Melee Bar: Since charged melee attacks are superior to quick melee in every way and are unlimited, I propose a charge meter be added to heavy attacks: as you perform quick melee attacks or block incoming attacks, this meter will fill and make your heavy attacks deal greater damage based on how full said meter is. You can still perform a charge attack even if the meter is empty, but it will only deal +50% damage or so as opposed to the current +200%. Mods like killing blow will expand the meter, allowing your heavy attacks to grow even stronger. While charge attacks would be a little more restricted and require players to use them more sparingly, DE could buff charge attack damage even more as a tradeoff since they are no longer spammable.

 

Single Target and Non-armor ignore: Remove these. These are dumb. If more than one person was standing in the way of my knife, I expect them to get cut. And melee attacks shouldn't be bogged down by armor, considering how much trouble it is to bring a sword to a gun fight from the get go.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Paradoxbomb