Melee units poll

Pointless arguing again.

I can quite understand Elexis' reasoning. Introducing proper Melee into this game (real melee, not short range) would be a major technical hassle in a game where it plays, at best, a really minor role.

If you're on a budget, this is probably on the "cool, but no" list. At least until after lauch.

Lets assume pathing isn't a problem. Flow field is one of the best options out there, and it works quite well with some tweaking. What sort of melee units would work?

Exploding bombs are one option. But they never really worked in previous games. They were too slow, too hard to use, and arguably too powerful when they did work. AoE is a very difficult thing to balance, especially on an all-or-nothing suicide unit. Indeed, Blizzard has stated that one of their most difficult challenges in development was getting the Baneling to work just right. It could be a great option, it'll just be very difficult to balance.

Cloaked attackers are another option. The unit is not "melee" so much as they are assassins and raiders. Cloak gets them safely across the map, and they deal massive damage with a short range weapon (maybe a mini d-gun?). Tricky to use in tight places, but very rewarding when used right.

Teleporting units... eh. I'm not sold on teleporters as a commodity item. Something that bypasses defenses is too easy to spam for a Comm snipe. The threat can be dampened by making the units melee, as only a handful of melee units can maul the Comm at one time. If the comm can survive that level of damage, then it doesn't matter how many are sent. They'd have to find other uses like base assault. Also, this sounds a lot like cloak, except without any downside and the potential for a lot of other problems. Just use cloak.

The most obvious option is melee cannon fodder. As we all know, don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Most of this can be done with special short range units. True melee isn't really needed.

The melee unit does not need to be an android. It can be a vehicle with awesome drill, Harkonen buzzsaw style or robot kraken. They may not that efficient than range units. But I firmly believe that efficiency or reality should not be the problem here. Do we support asteroid bomb due to its efficiency?

If you can make an enemy fast and run up to an enemy to melee it, you can also stick a gun to it, make it circle the enemy and evade the splodey goods when it kills the enemy.

Also: a gun allows you to do damage earlier than when you use a blade.

lastly:

if you can make your unit cloak, if you strap a gun to it then it can sneak behind the enemy lines, and fire at all those structures so it doesn't have to hug them and get caught in the destruction.

Really, the past 2000 years of human warfare have been about putting more distance between a soldier and it's enemy. Why would you revert that change?

@Bobucles, don't forget the armoured-bulldozer/juggernaught

All these points come up in balancing Bouncers in SMNC. The combatants usually have guns, and the bouncer can only beat stuff to death.

Have you seen it beat stuff to death though? It's moderately faster than other things, has a lunge attack, and pretty high health and dps.

That being said, it's entire balance point is "shoot and strafe until it dies", so it does good damage or no damage.

They have gotten killing sprees before, so they are viable. Just put them in a jamming/cloaking field, and sick em on the enemy in a close range ambush.

Thankyou for pointing out the benefits of an FPS game in context of an RTS game.

Regardless of the player's viewpoint, the mechanics of shooting things is still the same, the only different how the player makes it happen and without having the player aim you also make it easier to balance as there is less to account for in terms of player skill.

Mike

And in TF2 every unit has melee, point?

The point is that in an RTS with simulated projectiles the mechanics of units shooting other units are very similar to those from FPSs, what's your point in noting that all TF2 classes have Melee?

Mike

Well I will consider it important if PA suddenly becomes a game where every unit is under direct control of a human.

Who said that was the case and what does it have to do with TF2 classes having Melee?

Mike

It's a comparison to SMNC in terms of the usefulness and relevance of mentioning these games in this discussion.

But I wasn't talking about that thought, I was replying to this;

If we were talking about Starcraft, you'd be right elexis, but we're talking about a game with moving and shooting and Simulated projectiles, when you break it down the mechanics of shooting are the same, thus the point is relevant.

TF2 classes having melee isn't relevant because it doesn't effect the mechanics of shooting.

Mike

Metal Fatuge FTW!!!

that game was fun somtimes. you do melee in a bullet physics heavy game its probily going to suck.

short range weapons like fire/acid spray, maybe some siege weapons, PbAoE shockwaves would be the way to do it.

Since the thread is called 'Melee units poll', it's kind of silly to argue that melee is the same as 'short range'.

It's not.

me·lee1 [mey-ley, mey-ley, mel-ey]
noun
1. a confused hand-to-hand fight or struggle among several people.

HAND TO HAND people. That involves hitting other people with weapons you hold (or your fist), not shooting them with flamethrowers.

Dawn of War has lots of melee units in a gun fight, in an RTS setting no less. It works, it can be awesome, but it takes a lot of extra work to animate swinging arms and such.

Ah, thankyou for walking into that trap.

Dawn of War is a *squad based* RTS. When you order armies to attack an enemy, you are actually ordering them to attack a whole squad of enemies. This is very different to what you would do in a PA style game, where any attack order would be on a single unit, much less practical.

Have you heard on this nifty order called attack-move?

Sure, except how do you distinguish between "move over there while shooting anything you pass" and "move over there but any time you see an enemy take a detour to deal with them, in doing so potentially spreading out the army"