Can we please get a longsword?

[Daynen]

I think we have every reason to include melee weapons of at least SOME variety, since no combat force in existence would ever be caught dead without them. Sooner or later, you WILL run into situations where you are either in too-tight close quarters to shoot effectively, unable to fire your weapon for some reason, or just out of ammo. You'll also run into enemies where cutting them half or squishing them is just more efficient than riddling them with bullets. In those situations you WILL be glad you're equipped with a combat blade, hammer, or spear or some sort.

Just because the word "shooter" is in the genre description, that's no reason to pigeonhole ourselves into a situation no sane combatant would ever desire.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

I think we have every reason to include melee weapons of at least SOME variety, since no combat force in existence would ever be caught dead without them. Sooner or later, you WILL run into situations where you are either in too-tight close quarters to shoot effectively, unable to fire your weapon for some reason, or just out of ammo. You'll also run into enemies where cutting them half or squishing them is just more efficient than riddling them with bullets. In those situations you WILL be glad you're equipped with a combat blade, hammer, or spear or some sort.

Just because the word "shooter" is in the genre description, that's no reason to pigeonhole ourselves into a situation no sane combatant would ever desire.

RIFLEBUTT THE SH*T OUTTA THEIR FACE NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU, HUH.
GRAB THE BARREL, IT'S BASEBALL BAT ENOUGH.
OH WAIT, NOT F*CKING EDGY ENOUGH.

I WANT A SHOTGUN WITH AN AXE INSTEAD A PUNNY TATTOO NEEDLE.
CHOPPED RABBIT ARE EASIER TO GRILL.

 

[Omnires]

If I remember right in WWI the most effective weapon in terms of the number of kills that was made with it was the spade / shovel the soldiers used to dig holes with. The sharpened spade is a more handy and deadly than many sidearms. So even in massive wars where people have guns, bomb, tanks, airplanes, and toxic gas cloud weapons most of the people killed in the war was from melee attacks and killed with a spade.

 

[Pandagnome]

If I remember right in WWI the most effective weapon in terms of the number of kills that was made with it was the spade / shovel the soldiers used to dig holes with. The sharpened spade is a more handy and deadly than many sidearms. So even in massive wars where people have guns, bomb, tanks, airplanes, and toxic gas cloud weapons most of the people killed in the war was from melee attacks and killed with a spade.

like shovel knight he is cool

 

[PlzBanMe]

I like my games very much over the top. If I could I would make a game called Over The Top which is completely crazy over the top but I like my mech games grounded. I want more guns with everything seeming some what possible or practical in some form or another.

 

[203]

The funny thing about that scene was that according to the script he was supposed to do some fancy whip work against the dude.

But since he was tired from all the shooting they had to do from the scenes before Harrison Ford was exhausted so he just resorted to the pistol and they ran with it for that scene.

I know two stories about it.
One, he was sick while they where shooting this, would explain the ludicrus sweating and why he doesnt seem to pay attention.
Two, they had to repeat the shot several times and the lighting was going to shit but the extras were only contracted for that day, so... "why doesn't he just shoot the fucker?"

Yes, but given that we are in mecha with armor and shields guns are no more effective as swords are. Because in real life things that are bullet resistant (there is no such things as bullet proof) can't block damage from melee attacks, while at the same time things that can resist melee attacks can't block damage from range attacks like bullets. This because ranged attacks and melee attacks have different energy signatures that are largely counter to each other. So blocking for one type of damage leaves you weak to the other type of damage.

In other words, the greatest threat to person in bullet resistant armor is person with a knife or hammer.

That's a load of bull if I ever read one. While it certainly looks intimidating, a sword or whatever is just dead weight. Soldiers carry knives that double as knuckleduster for such a situation, as rare as they are - there's no space for melee on the modern battlefield; before you use edged weapons, you have a pistol and if you run out of that as well you pull out and get the hell away.

 

[Omnires]

That's a load of bull if I ever read one. While it certainly looks intimidating, a sword or whatever is just dead weight. Soldiers carry knives that double as knuckleduster for such a situation, as rare as they are - there's no space for melee on the modern battlefield; before you use edged weapons, you have a pistol and if you run out of that as well you pull out and get the hell away.

In most modern combat people fight more often in than not fight in small and enclosed spaces, as urban warfare becomes more and more common. It is more common for someone to jump out from behind a wall or turn around a blind corner to be face to face with an enemy. And like Daynen pointed out before there is lots of times where you can't use your gun normally just because of the area you are in or there is too much of a risk of things like friendly fire. And like I pointed out before making armor to block one type of damage inherently makes it weaker to the other type of damage (there is no such thing as one type of armor that can block both ranged attacks and melee attacks equally well to a high degree. Unless you want to wear a different type of armor on top of the armor you are already wearing.). It is things like this that are part of the reason why every military on the planet still trains people in melee combat and how to use melee weapons to this day.

I might be known for adding in real world logic and science into games, but I always try to make it match that game's reality. And it just makes more sense to have melee weapons as well as ranged weapons in the game because we are on an alien planet fighting unknown enemies and might have to fight in areas where it is too dangerous to use guns or the enemy we are fighting is highly resistant to range damage. As it is not uncommon for creatures to have natural armor/shells designed to protect them from something. And so it is not unrealistic for some creatures to have defenses against ranged attacks making our guns more or less useless against them as they evolved to fight other creatures who use range attacks. And yes there are some real life creatures who do have what about amounts to built-in natural guns, the spitting cobra, bombardier beetle, and red velvet worm are just a few examples. So who knows what alien creatures would have evolved for their biological guns.

Plus remember we are talking about a game where one of the main enemy races have the ability to transform into giant monsters with teeth and claws to try and melee us to death while we are in mecha? Given that is a robot arm that is holding the weapon and not the pilot themselves it is not likely going to make you tired holding it and using it. And it can be built into the mecha's arm or is a part of that model of armor outer shell (as it seems like we will have a few interchangeable armor parts for the outer armor).

 

[Daynen]

That's a load of bull if I ever read one. While it certainly looks intimidating, a sword or whatever is just dead weight. Soldiers carry knives that double as knuckleduster for such a situation, as rare as they are - there's no space for melee on the modern battlefield; before you use edged weapons, you have a pistol and if you run out of that as well you pull out and get the hell away.

Ammo is expensive and finite; a knife can be used many times as long as it doesn't break. It's also quieter, where that happens to matter. No amount of modernization is likely to change these facts anytime soon. Having a melee weapon, even in a futuristic space war, just makes sense, since it helps cover those situations where firing your weapon is either impossible or a bad idea. Rare? Maybe, if you're smart about managing your ammo--but never an impossibility. Also, again, consider those times where a quick stab is just more practical than unloading a few rounds, not to mention probably easier to hit. There were TONS of times in beta FF where I wished I had the melee perk (yes, it was locked behind a perk for awhile, which was just dumb) just so I didn't have to waste ammo on puny bugs I could've easily swatted.

 

[Kouyioue]

Real-world Knife tactics are a thing best not compared to videogame enemy force deployments
They're useful in videogames because ai is dumb

 

[DARKB1KE]

 

[203]

@Omnires @Daynen I know where you come from, accept and conqour it. But a long sword works equally well as a sniper rifle in confined space. That's what I try to veto, if you look up my other posts in here. I am okay with slightly longer (combat) knives and reinforced knuckles or a ram*, not rheinhardt level hammers and swords.

link in case hotlinking doesnt work


*in case you missed that part of unreal:

link in case hotlinking doesnt work

 

[Grummz]

Remember when you could kill stuff (and players) with the Scan Hammer?

 

[Omnires]

Remember when you could kill stuff (and players) with the Scan Hammer?

I use to love that. It is was the only way we could melee back in the early days of FF before they nerfed it to hell. Some of us high skilled players made it a meta game to see who could do things like clear missions and kill things like bosses only using the hammer. lol

 

[Omnires]

@Omnires @Daynen I know where you come from, accept and conqour it. But a long sword works equally well as a sniper rifle in confined space. That's what I try to veto, if you look up my other posts in here. I am okay with slightly longer (combat) knives and reinforced knuckles or a ram*, not rheinhardt level hammers and swords.

link in case hotlinking doesnt work


*in case you missed that part of unreal:

link in case hotlinking doesnt work

Understandable. But given that we do have mecha I also imagine some of the weapons and parts we can use as being retractable and/or collapsible. Meaning that they can change shape and size based on what we need.

Having things like retractable blades and spikes on/in the arms and legs of the mecha will not only help us in combat but would also help us with things like walking on ice, digging things up, and other non-combat things. And for non-retractable weapons having them be able to collapse down and fold up so we can store them in small pockets or compartments on/in the mecha also makes a lot of sense.

For example, in games like Armored Core games I often put large back-mounted cannons on my mecha. But because of their size it also makes it hard to move while aiming and firing with them, so the cannons do things like collapse down or fold up into a smaller size to let you move without messing up your movement.

 

[203]

Game design is one of the core issues why I am against melee combat as a main selection - namely, the tendency of players to tweak their shit so high you can put magazine after magazine into them and they still come after you and mess you up all kinds till sunday with ease, if a game is designed around ranged combat as basis, adding this goes against the base design and breaks absolute everything. "Fun" will be the first thing to die when you're flagged for PvP and some bruce lee wannabe punk jumps out of a garbage can and and redecorates your face in two hits.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

"Fun" will be the first thing to die when you're flagged for PvP and some bruce lee wannabe punk jumps out of a garbage can and and redecorates your face in two hits.

no PvP in this game.

 

[Omnires]

Game design is one of the core issues why I am against melee combat as a main selection - namely, the tendency of players to tweak their shit so high you can put magazine after magazine into them and they still come after you and mess you up all kinds till sunday with ease, if a game is designed around ranged combat as basis, adding this goes against the base design and breaks absolute everything. "Fun" will be the first thing to die when you're flagged for PvP and some bruce lee wannabe punk jumps out of a garbage can and and redecorates your face in two hits.

But you see that is called a biased game where you excluded some players or playing styles in favor of others. And in MMOs that is a bad idea because that means many people will naturally have an advantage over others simply because the game favors their way of thinking and fighting. Meaning the rest of the player base will also struggle simply because the playstyles you are imposing and enforcing on them is not their natural or "go to" one. You might as well be telling some people to think backwards, upside-down, and inside-out just to play the will if their personally and fighting style is one that is at odds with the one you want to enforce. This will lead to two things happening, the player base is going to be split between the people who are happy with the game because it favors them and people asking for changes to allow for their playstyle to exist in the game, and if you do not allow for other styles to exist many people who may even love the game might leave it simply because they are personally unable to play it.

Different personality types will also favor different playing and fighting styles. Because of that some people will naturally favor different things that you always have to be aware of and ask yourself "Who am I making this for?". Some people are going to favor close range combat, others mid-range combat, and others long range combat. Some people will favor blocking and absorbing damage while others will favor evading and counterattacks. Some will favor running in guns blazing and some will favor stealth. Some will favor melee combat and some will favor ranged combat. There is a whole rainbow of fighting styles and a MMO that doesn't account for nor allow for all the main groups is effectively excluding a lot of possible players.

A good game is one what knows how to balance out all the different playstyles to keep any of them from being overpowered or underpowered so the most people possible can be happy playing the game in a way that is natural to them. Otherwise you'll get people making reviews stating things like this "If you the type of person who like to do (this), then is not the game for you. I suggest you play another game." Because no honest player or reviewer will lie to people and waste their time on a game they know they won't have fun playing. The MMOs that last a really long time are ones that account for people playing in all crazy ways, be it a classless game where people can make up how they want to fight or a class based game where there is a class/character for everyone (the reason why games like League of Legends and Warframe keep making new characters that suit even niche playsyles. If you like to play in this way there is character for that). When making a game the idea should always be "How can we reach the most people possible and let them have fun in our game? Despite them all playing for wildly different reasons and playing in wildly different styles."

 

[Daynen]

I sigh when someone says "resident evil's controls made sense for (reason X.)" No. Let's stop justifying it please. Old RE controls were terrible. Period. No vaguely humanoid character ever needs to move like that.

As far as the whole "melee monster who can't be taken down with a couple clips?" Well, there's nothing wrong with that existing...as long as it has to sacrifice things like speed, ammo capacity, armor, detailed sensors or extraneous equipment, to say nothing of attack range. So long as people are paying tangible, meaningful costs in performance for their min/maxing, it is fair. Armored Core is a fairly good example of a game that does just that. The amount of granularity available to customize your AC is staggering and every swap makes a difference--some subtle, some drastic. If Ember can even approach that level of customization(AND HAVE A REAL IN-GAME NEED FOR IT,) I will be a very happy reaper.

 

[203]

@Daynen @Omnires The experience I'm drawing my salt from is a character in a guns based MMO with a melee class introduced 2 years after game launch.
This character was 2 or 3 levels lower than mine (20), I had an assault rifle. Fully buffed, high accuracy, I hit him for maybe 10% hp in the time it took for him to nearly teleport to my character, and two seconds later I was standing near a respawn point. I don't call that fun and I want to prevent that from happening in ember.

no PvP in this game.

...yet. Players always ask for PvP. I wouldn't put it past grum to introduce a new faction later.

haaaaah... I realy would have loved the transhumans.

 

[Ronyn]

...yet. Players always ask for PvP. I wouldn't put it past grum to introduce a new faction later.

I understand your concerns, but it's not something to be wary of in this case.
The choice for no PVP in Em-8er is not because we don't want it, it's because we must have a laser focus in order to get the game made. That in mind, we are very aware of the common want for PVP. If someday, after the core PVE experience is out, financially successful, and we get to a certain hefty surplus of funds. We can then consider doing PVP.
If and when that day comes, PVP will be treated as it's own beast. It will have it's own frame set ups/classes/builds/weapon (or whatever way we go with) balance that is essentially separate from what players have in PVE. Under a pvp model, we would certainly strive to ensure that there would be a reasonable balance in the relationship between the various play style options.
So however melee might be implemented into Ember's PVE does not dictate how it might be integrated into a hypothetical Ember pvp model.