hand to hand fight units

^Actually the most difficult part to reconcile would be the balance: since there are no armor types, units basically deal the same amount of damage to everything. Therein lies the problem with a melee unit: it needs to be fast and rugged enough to withstand a barrage while it closes distance. It then needs to have a strong enough attack to make it useful. Generally, there is a balance in HP/speed/damage/cost for each unit, and having a unit with high HP, is faster than the majority of other land units (and it would have to be to avoid being kited to death), has a high damage output, and is cheap goes against the design concept, even if it has no range.

I'm in the does-not-fit-this-game camp. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, I'm just dubious that it should be done.

This is the usual assumption that leads to people stating that you need kludges for melee.

Over the last 6 pages I have attempted to explain that these are not, in my opinion, required. Melee units do not have to be mollycoddled into being able to take on heavy tanks unaided, that will break the game. In that, I completely agree with Antillie and raevn; deliberately making melee units so strong (using kludges) that they can destroy tanks one on one is a stupid idea.

It does not need to be fast or rugged enough to close the distance on its own. It should exactly as fast and/or rugged as the rest of its stats (damage, cost, range) dictate, based on the overall balancing mechanic. You should use other units to draw fire for it instead; it is exactly the same with short range units. Sending melee, or even short range units, in against a phalanx of tanks unaided is a stupid idea, and it is entirely appropriate that your units get decimated for it. It's the built-in disadvantage of short range units; they get spanked by long range units.

The strength of the melee attack only needs to be proportional to the unit cost and range. Melee is short range, it will automatically get a big bonus without needing any extra boosting, assuming you just use the same method you are already using for every other unit weapon (including tanks and artillery).

If you need to build several of something else to draw fire from melee units then whatever is drawing the fire is obviously more of a threat than the melee units are. In that case what was the point of building the melee units instead of more of the more dangerous units? That's not force composition, thats a useless unit filling a role that a ranged unit could fill equally well.

You have still not been able to propose a way to make melee competitive with ranged without kludges. Yet you keep saying that it can be done, somehow. You are starting to sound like you don't know what you are talking about.

And once again, short range =! melee. A lightning gun with a range of 4 may be able to make better use of its range than a tank cannon with a range of 7 due to the lightning gun having better accuracy, no travel time to target, the ability to shoot through wreckage, or the ability to jump between and damage more than one target. In this way short range units are fine, but melee cannot make more efficient use of something it has none of, range. Efficiency is a force multiplier, and the less of X you have to start with the less any multiplier you might apply to X matters. Thus you need at least a certain amount of range to allow weapon dynamics to make your unit effective.

Ergo melee cannot be balanced with ranged without adding some mechanic that would change the nature of PA. Your total inability to understand logic, refute any of our arguments, or even understand why your assumptions are blatantly false is pretty incredible to be honest.

I think there is more than enough information and arguments on both sides of the debate in this thread to allow the only people who's opinions actually matter, the guys at Uber, to make up their minds about it. As such I see no reason to debate this any further.

It depends what you would consider a kludge or not then.

What some call balancing other will inevitably call a kludge, so its all a matter of perspective.

And in a game about tanks, tanks can fire on the move and can not be stopped from moving without the use of some bizarre technology or by literally holding onto the like like with some kind of metal clamp or spike.

Essentially most of what you would call a kludge, and thus discard it.

So an EMP weapon designed to be used upon contact with an enemy unit would be my choice of melee unit, locking an enemy down so they can then be attacked, but of course then you would say, why not just use a ranged version of it?

So really there is no point to this discussion because what some of us consider a problem of balance others would call a kludge and thus discard the idea.

Not sure if others ever noticed, but it has happened to me numerous times in SupCom 2 that two armies got in each other's melee range, in which a melee unit would be very useful, especially with things, like I don't know, jetpacks, unit cannons or something.

An EMP disabling melee weapon doesn't really seem a good option to me, I would think more in the line of melee charges or assault jetpacks, closing the gap between melee and ranged in a very swift action.

Or snare mines, I like snare mines

I think the death ball thing was the cause of that in supcom 2.

What about ranged units that do more damage when up close?

Sounds interesting, flamethrowers come to mind here.

A lot of things I see mentioned in this thread is irrelevant when discussing balance.

Using arbitrary numbers:
consider a gun. It has a range of 10 units.
A shotgun has a range of 2 units.
Melee has a range or 1 unit.
Not that it matters, really.
Both the melee and shotgun units need to get in close. Both take fire from the gun. The melee unit simply takes an arbitrary amount of extra time to get to the target. This amount of time may very well be large. But it also may be small, and thus, considering short range and melee to be much different is not relevant, since they can be balanced to not be so.

Examples of melee working interestingly (it's a matter of perspective whether it worked well or not):
Monkeylord. It technically had melee because it could smash units beneath it. Ranged units had an advantage, if they were out of the monkeylord's range, but often these were mobile artillery units, which were slow, and the monkeylord could easily close on them, even if you turned the weapons off, to simply stomp on it.

Also, age of empires. Namely 3, since it had a mostly usable ranged example.

The halberdiers were a perfect example of using ranged units to get the job done, especially as the russians, because you could produce them en masse, and they were really heavy hitters. And in AoE, you typically can't just outrun a unit. You can kite it, but you can't outrun it. Yes, I'm using the AI as an example, but I've easily overcome the AI exclusively by using halberdiers.

You can't just dismiss melee on the premise that a ranged unit will be more powerful. Balance makes that argument irrelevant. Re: completely. That's a fact.

It really comes down to taste. Me? I like the idea of melee. And using a sword as an example of why it wouldn't work is silly. A unit that converts other units but requires physical contact to do so can be considered a melee unit, but I'm sure that could be balanced rather easily, and it sounds neat.

What is melee good for, you ask?

-As a distraction. Fast, close ranged/melee units often cause players to get distracted when the weak heavy hitting units are attacking from range.

-Element of surprise. A melee unit that hits hard, if hidden from view until a ranged unit gets close, can be deadly to said ranged unit. dark templars are a good example: they are deadly if you can't find them, not so if you can. If you don't want to use SCII for some reason, then replace stealth generator with terrain or some sort of positioning that allows hiding.

-Killing heavy hitters. Consider an artillery piece that fires fast, but has a relatively low dps. A melee unit that has a high dps or is swarmed swarmed, can be used to take out said heavy hitter, because it either can get in enough damage before the artillery/whatever unit can take a shot, or because you swarmed it, thus clearing the path for your slow but high damage units that said heavy hitter is designed to take out.

Really, in the end, it just depends on what you want in the game. Melee can easily be made viable through natural means. It just depends on preference.

You seem to not know the meaning of the word arbitrary, because if the reason why the sword has a range of 1 is because thats as long as the units arm. the shotgun has a range of two because it is a weapon that has a short range because of how the weapon works, longer than the arm + weapon combined, and that ended up being balanced to have a range of 2. Having reasons for things being the way they are means they are not arbitrary.

The reason why kludge fixes came up was that to make a melee unit balanced it needs stats beyond its cost to fix its issue with melee range. Similarly Why does a sword do so much damage? can i make a weapon that just shoots swords if they are so good? This unit has twice as much armour to get it into melee, why can't i put that same cheap super armour on all my flimsy ranged units? Why can this unit move so fast and be so tough when nothing else can?

So the fact that balance can fix it misses the point of the argument, balance can make it balanced... fact. Balance beyond the visual and narrative aspects of a unit break immersion, give poor readability and make people ask questions about why the game is the way it is.

Liking sword swinging is all well and good but its not enough reason to pay someone to animate epic sword fights for all possible unit interactions.

This kind of melee is ok - it makes sense (a natural consequence of a large unit moving), and is just a side function of the unit. Very different to centering a combat unit around melee, and the monkeylord would never be built if it only had it's footfall damage.

What has been discussed at length is whether it is possible to perform such a balance without breaking lore, so it's not irrelevant as a fact. I could make a swordsman unit (as in literally, a person with a sword), put it into supreme commander and balance it so that it can take on tanks. It would be balanced perfectly, yet utterly ridiculous.

A "melee" non-combat unit is an entirely different thing altogether. There's many justifications for such a unit, and they aren't expected to be on the front line (at least not as the main participants).

Why? If half your force can't yet shoot because it has to get to melee range, you only have 50% firepower vs their 100%, and you'd be whittled down easily. Not to mention if there's the slightest wall preventing movement your melee units are useless.

This isn't StarCraft - Melee shouldn't be magically stronger than ranged for no reason. I also don't see why you couldn't use a ranged unit in place of the melee units in the above examples, and they would work better in any case (a melee unit can't hit something running away, for example, and a ranged Templar would be even more potent).

This ignores the bigger picture of battles, side-stepping the problem of getting your melee units to the artillery in the first place. Also, as above, why wouldn't it would be more effective to use a ranged unit in place of melee?

I agree. It is possible to balance melee combat into the game. It would ultimately appear silly though, in my opinion.

I guess I'll throw in my opinion.
I personally think swords and chainsaws are ridiculous, and the idea of making them automatically tougher and stronger and do more DPS and cheaper because they have short range is poor argument.
On the other hand, robots punching each other to death, fry each other with short range flamethrowers and lighting guns would be cool.

I'd say it'd come down to these things
Cost
Damage
Speed
Health

pick two
if it is cheap and does high damage it will not move fast or have high health
if it is fast and strong it will not do high damage or be cheap
ect.

Oh :shock:

All that talk about melee stuff previously, and what you really meant was "can I justify SwordBot 3000 in the setting?". Guess I missed the point a little then

Given that SwordBot will be around 1 tank tall (that's the default assault kbot scale in TA, anyway), his sword is going to be like half a tank long or something. If the sword is that big, you can fit plasma vent weaponry along the edge, or give it a giant Electro Fist that does energy damage or something, there's plenty of space to fit science in at that scale so it's not just a big lump of metal.

Just adapt the aesthetic from Metal Fatigue to look more like a kbot (yes, they do also have rockets in Metal Fatigue, but melee worked better).

I have understood most of your arguments from the word go. I also don't agree with most of them, but I understand them. Some of your catchphrases elude me, certainly, like exactly what "melee != short ranged" is intended to mean, because you throw it out as a truism without any supporting explanation. You've also not bothered to define what you mean by melee, even though I thought I asked nicely. To me they are just weapons with a really short range, but it is obvious that they are something different to you, mainly because you keep repeating "short ranged != melee" whenever I bring it up.

I'm also pretty sure you know what my arguments are (I'll admit I have laboured the point as much as you have); I've tried to ensure I stay away from truisms, and write as clearly as I am able.

Oh, and I bodged together a balancing formula for you, which uses nothing but mathematical relationships between unit statistics (you have asked a few times so I thought I'd oblige). I haven't added any constants because I couldn't be bothered.

HP = unit hitpoints
DPS = weapon damage / time between shots in seconds
(alternatively, DPS = weapon damage * number of shots per second, as that is mathematically equivalent)
Range = unit weapon range (if you really have to ask, melee = 1)
Speed = unit speed
Time = time to build in seconds
Cost = unit cost in metal

(HP * DPS * Range * Speed) / Time = Cost

Range is 1 for melee because I'm measuring all distances from the centre of mass of the unit. If this doesn't work for you feel free to edit it to suit

I am under no delusion that Uber are going to take any notice at all of what is being said in this thread. I'm sure it won't make the slightest bit of difference to any unit design choices right the way through to release; I don't think any of the devs have even posted in it, and it's doubtful they've read past the first couple of pages. At best (worst?) it may be influencing people thinking of making their own units once we have the details on how to build them for the engine.

I am participating in this discussion for my own elucidation, to share my own opinions, and to see what other people think. And the amusement of course, some of your responses have been pretty amazing (like the one above regarding my logic skills, I got a good chuckle from that).

Ironicaly your post about understanding the argument misunderstood the much of the argument. was it raven that said "i could put in a sword bot and balance it perfectly, but..."? why should a piece of sharp metal do more than a molecular disintigration field or plasma shell. the main thematic reason against swords is that all the weqpons in this world could pretty much destroy cities, with armour capable of blocking it. you want to hit that with the visual equivalent of a sharp stick.

Please read all the arguments about the results of balancing the unit correctly would have on the game.

It's always easier to impart crazy amounts of force when you have 50 tons of steel behind a weapon.

I guess physics isn't the internet's strong suit.

Actually, if you read all the replies (at least the ones to me) from raevn or Antillie, they are all regarding how melee is inherently broken. Antillie is arguing that the only way to make melee viable is to treat it differently from ranged, and has repeatedly asked me how I would implement balance in a melee unit without doing so. Raevn is arguing that since melee is inherently underpowered, there is no reason to even build melee because ranged is inherently better.

And yet Raevn, over the course of what, 8 pages of thread? has somehow managed to avoid pointing out to Antillie that he is actually capable of perfectly balancing a melee unit in SupCom, which is a TA style game which does not contain melee. And also does not contain armour types (the first kludge mentioned that was argued is required to make melee balanced), and does not contain stop to shoot mechanics (the second kludge mentioned that was argued is required to make melee balanced, if you do not have armour types), and does not contain switching ranged off when engaged in melee (the third kludge mentioned that was argued is required to make melee balanced, if you do not have armour types or stop to shoot mechanics). But raevn is capable of building a melee unit in it, and perfectly balancing it.

Pretty big omission, when you consider it could have been used to support my position, in that it is perfectly possible to balance melee in a TA style game {e.g. SupCom) without having to resort to additional engine mechanics like armour, stop to shoot or turning ranged off. It in fact is my position that you don't need those to balance melee. Which Raevn apparently is already perfectly capable of implementing.

Can't think why he hasn't mentioned that earlier.

So you don't believe that it is possible to take advanced technology and apply it to a melee weapon? Are you defining "melee weapon" as purely "big lump of metal" in the game setting? Are you assuming that you can't fit a molecular disintegration field onto a sword? Antillie previously argued that any advanced cutting tech can be added to a bullet, making any advances in melee weapons irrelevant. He is therefore proposing that, if chainsaws have better cutting ability than bullets, you just make guns that shoot chainsaws. If you are at a point where you are making guns that shoot chainsaws, surely a much bigger chainsaw that you can hold is capable of doing much more damage than your puny little chainsaw-bullets?

I mean, that right there would be the basis for explaining why a melee unit (with a big chainsaw) would somehow be capable of doing more damage per attack than a ranged unit (firing tiny chainsaws), right?

Make the actual weapon model look as sciencey as you like, and it will fit into the setting fine. It will just be the upgraded, more powerful, short range version of <insert technobabble version of chainsaw here> and will fit right into the setting with no questions asked.

There are quite a lot of real life physics reasons why you cannot take a ball of superheated plasma, fire it into an atmosphere and expect it to remain coherent (i.e. still a ball) over any real range, maybe a couple of meters, tops. Yet people seem absolutely fine with the Punisher plasma battery. It's called suspension of disbelief, people are happy for a future setting to apply some handwavium for stuff, as long as it's cool, it works, and it fits together. If you or anyone else is unwilling to suspend disbelief for melee units then that is fair enough, it is your call. I don't have an issue with anyone objecting aesthetically. I've been replying to posts mentioning engine mechanics, or balancing issues, or tactical concerns. Stuff that is quantifiable, definable, and analysable.

Aesthetics is personal taste, I don't think I've replied to any posts mentioning that.

I have. As mentioned above, I don't actually agree with a lot of the assumptions made. The main assumption that I don't agree with, is the definition of "balance the unit correctly".

To me, that means "ensure that the unit does not stray outside a set of acceptable values for damage, range, cost and utility". Like the formula I presented above; increasing damage, or increasing range, or increasing hitpoints, or increasing speed should have the same effect (increase) on the cost of a unit, with all other stats being equal. For a set amount of metal, you should be able to choose whether you want to prioritise damage (melee), range (artillery), hitpoints (assault units), or speed (scout units). Unit variety means you have one or more choices in each of those categories (e.g. prioritise range and damage, and get a slow and squishy artillery piece).

It is becoming obvious that to others in this thread, balancing a unit correctly actually means "making it capable of fighting one on one and standing an equal chance of winning against any other unit in the game". This is, to my mind, a logical fallacy. How do you balance a Pyro or a Zeus against a Brawler? You don't, the mechanic of "being an air unit" implies an inherent advantage over ground units. The mechanic of "being a ranged unit" implies an inherent advantage over a melee unit in the same way. They already know this inherent advantage of ranged over melee, it has been explicitly stated by them. So you treat melee and ranged, the same way you treat ground and air.

The same way being, of course, that you don't artificially limit ranged units against melee (stop to shoot, turning off ranged when in melee), the same way you don't artificially limit Brawlers against Pyros, (i.e. making them fly down to ground level to shoot at the Pyro, just to allow the Pyro to shoot back). You don't artificially buff melee units against ranged (more speed or hitpoints than they should be allowed for their cost, just to be able to close one on one), the same way you don't give Zeus a magic jump attack to allow them to zap Brawlers inside their normal attack range. In normal operation, a Pyro or Zeus can never, ever hit a Brawler, because Brawlers automatically fly above their attack range. In normal operation a melee unit can never, ever hit a ranged unit that has as much or more speed as it, because the ranged unit can keep it out of range.

This is an example of inherent counters. Air counters land, range counters melee, just by being what it is. I've not seen anyone argue that air is overpowered. I've not seen anyone argue that air should not be a part of the game. So if people are ok with the inherent power of air over land, why are they so dead set against the inherent power of ranged over melee, to the point they are arguing that one should not even be included in the game?

I've seen people argue in this thread that it is imperative that range not be a natural counter to melee (e.g. the addition of artificial devices to boost melee), otherwise that makes melee to weak to ever consider. They would never even build a melee unit that could not take on a ranged unit on equal footing, because they would just build another unit that can take on a ranged unit instead. Do they also never build Zeuses and Pyros, because air units exist in the game? In a game with air units, Jethros are the obvious better unit, since they can shoot air, and have a better range on land, making the Zeus and Pyro too useless to even consider.

I said arbitrary because I was throwing random numbers out. Yes, they would be balanced because of whatever reasons. However, I might as well have used a random number generator. I could have said 20 for the gun, or 1000. Sorry if that was confusing.

Then it's more a matter of visuals. People are getting stuck on swords, when that's not necessarily what melee would entail. If you want it to look realistic, you could go from having a bot with fantastically huge fists to something with a laser spear, or a bot with an arm that basically amounts to a massive solenoid/piston driven shaft that pierces another bot. What have you. The sky's the limit.

And a lot of the posts have been about balance, hence why I was commenting on it. If it's down to visuals, that's simply a matter of the creativity department of the developers making it look visually appealing and making sense. It might be hard to make it seem functionally realistic...but then again, so is balance.

One page ago.

Also the reason why its all about swords is because the sword is the quintisential melee weapon. a sword has no other purpous than to murder people. even guns can hunt things.
As for the stuff about arbitrary. You said that those examples might as well habe been random. half right because you neded to demonstrate the ratios between them. the only reason i bring this up is because moving into kludges... Bugger brb.

A sword has no other purpose than to stab and cut. You can stab and cut deer with it if you wanted to? It is easier to hunt with a ranged weapon than a melee weapon, but it does not mean you cannot hunt with a melee weapon, just that it is more difficult.

If the prey you are hunting is a predator that uses ambush tactics (e.g. a tiger), then a melee weapon is arguably also useful, because you cannot guarantee that you are going to have any range when you encounter the prey. If your plan requires certain conditions to work (e.g. you need enough time and range to be able to aim and fire) you need to ensure you have those conditions, or also plan for the circumstance where those conditions do not exist. If I couldn't get a shot in, I'd want a dagger as backup.

Also, melee weapons is a large category, as a species we have been quite ingenious with them. You have swords, yes, but also clubs, maces, hammers, picks, axes, and polearms, to name a few. There is a variety of ranges available, from dagger through to pike. Speak to a historian and they may put forward the idea that when we were a melee based species, the spear or polearm was the favoured weapon on the battlefield, due to the inherent range advantage over swords or axes.

I'd would be perfectly comfortable putting forward the idea that melee unit design should be using a halberd, or lochaber axe style if you don't want the extra pointy bit. Certainly something in the polearm class, anyway, to give it a range of more than one unit radius.

Actually they were arbitrary, if only because "shotgun" is a broad class of weapon in real life. An 18" barrel coach gun has a 1" spread per 3 feet, approximately, meaning at 30 feet you have a spread of 10". A 28" barrel skeet shotgun has a spread pattern of approximately 1" per 10 feet, so it has an effective range over 3 times that of the coach gun.

I would not class a shotgun type weapon as having only twice the range of a melee weapon, even a polearm. Giving it only twice the range is the arbitrary bit

Give it up numptyscrub.

We've got people here who are against melee units. And as I've said in this thread before, they'll take any argument they can get their melee range hands on to argue against them, even if the arguments themselves are utterly ridiculous and not coherent at all. :mrgreen:

Or even refuted plenty of times before.

They start at their conclusion: "We don't want melee units." and then they try to find reasons why its supposedly not a good idea.

Thats why you get such arguments that "its all a kludge" which doesn't have any meaning, or generalising from a single example.

Also @yogurt312, the discussion wasn't just about style or visuals, thats just no true. You've plenty of pages of Raevn and antillie where they've argued balance issues. Yes, Raevn kinda cedes the point in his last post, but only halfway, he still insists on arguing that melee doesn't work (ie. is not balancable). In the same post he says that he can balance melee he also says that:

So no, its obvious not only an aesthetic issue for them since they don't argue on that alone. Instead they try to argue with all their might that melee somehow isn't balanceable while at the same time he admitted that he can balance it... seriously, doesn't that make your head hurt?


Personally, I don't want units using melee weapons since it doesn't fit the style of the game, which is essentially WW2-style combat with sci-fi-fantasy weaponry. Which mainly involves shooting people.

I personally don't really like the japanese Mecha style and am more of a fan of the western Mecha style, ie. walkers with hard-mounted weaponry (think Mechwarrior) instead of humanoid robots with arms that use weapons and even press the trigger with their robotic fingers (think Neon Genesis Evangelion).

Although I'd still love to have some jump-bots who can place limpet mines on enemy tanks. And having heavier units that can ramm and crush smaller ones when they get in close range, perfectly fine. :twisted:

It does have meaning. You either don't understand, or are purposefully ignoring it.

I never ceded any point, because you keep making up what my argument is. In fact I specifically said it was balanceable:

So if you think that's my argument, you've failed entirely. (The 50% vs 100% argument refers to being distracted by melee units. Nice to quote out of context). My argument is about Lore, which encompases aesthetics, but also the feel of the game within it's universe - this is where balance comes in. The changes that are required to a melee unit to make it balanced with ranged would make the unit out of place - see my argument about balancing an swordsman within sup com. It's possible to give a person the same HP as a tank, but it's stupid. It's possible to give melee units far more health and speed (needed to balance them) than their cost should allow, but it's stupid.