Melee Weapon Diversity Thread - 3089

While guns may have loads of variety (Like everyone's favorite homing missile shotgun), swords and daggers don't have nearly as much. Right now, the only difference between swords and daggers is damage, attack speed, and special strength. However, more could be changed using the lunge attack standard to melee weapons on right click, such as changing the speed depending on weapon, or length you can lunge from. For example, daggers could become extreme close quarters weapons, with their high stunning and such, and as such, could have a short, but incredibly fast lunge, compared to a sword, which could have a default lunge that's being used now. This could also allow spears, which hit for damage in between swords and daggers, but have an incredibly long lunge, but at a slower speed than a sword. This could allow for as much diversity in melee weapons as in guns.

Interesting idea.. I may give the "quick-short" lunge thing a try and go from there

Hell you can even add more ideas to this. Some melee weapons could have something liek a right click shield that blocks damage from front but stops you from moveing that has a decent cooldown. Or maybe some sort of shield or flurry that reflects projectiles back that has a huge cooldown but could be used situationally.

Maybe instead of a targeted lunge, have a charged attack that if you hold down you will dash forward for a set distance damaging whatever you plow through maybe at less damage than your weapon but with the possiblity of hurting more than one enemy.

Maybe have a chained weapon that you can throw at an enemy and it will grab them and wisk them closer to you so that you can smack em with your sword.

Or maybe one where you can plant down like a dome shield that last for some ammount of time, but it lets no projectiles out or in. It would allow you to create a moderatly safe area to melee people without having to worry from shots from outside the dome unless the bots move inside it. To balence this also make it so when you switch weapons that the bubble goes away. And maybe make it actually reduce the damage of your weapon when the shield is up.

Just a couple of interesting ideas to add more to melee combat.

There already is a stat on swords that can reflect shots back. Also, the grappling hook can grab some smaller guys and pull them towards you, stunning them in the process. Ideas are pretty interesting, just wanted to share what already exists

Another idea I was thinking for melee: consumable grenades, more along the lines of stun and smoke grenades. What I imagine would be that you carry them in your inventory like other consumables, and throw them with a hotkey. I imagine it would work mechanically more like the robot has an in-built grenade launcher but no way to make ammo, so you have to use them sparingly.

I know that grenade-like possibilities exist using the lob-based launchers, but having to switch weapons can make that strategy difficult - especially if you're stunned. I'm thinking it would be more like timeripping, a 'secondary' ability to complement but not replace the primary skills. Hence also why I'm thinking of 'defensive' grenades rather than frags, although maybe there could be frags and just make them equally dangerous to the user so you have to be cautious not to frag yourself?

reading the phrase "chained weapon" gave me the idea for some sort of chainsword that hits rapidly for low per hit damage, but high overall. make it's right-click shoot a spike off the chain, for some energy or health.

Mohl wrote: reading the phrase "chained weapon" gave me the idea for some sort of chainsword that hits rapidly for low per hit damage, but high overall. make it's right-click shoot a spike off the chain, for some energy or health.

40K style chainswords would bring no end of new players - especially on Desura lol

Actually, thinking of interesting 40K weapons, how about a powerfist? Massive damage, slower than a wet weak, and able to punch those bigger enemies right on the chin and lay them out cold (either one-hit with the massive damage, or stun them enough to finish beating them senseless). The current choice of "stab quickly with a dagger, or slightly slower but with a little more damage using a sword" isn't really that different, and since a good dager can still out-damage a low-rolling sword of the same level it still generally comes down to stats and bonuses over function.

I know that a few attempts have been made to differentiate the weapons more, but IMO it's always more exciting to see new mechanics with similar stats than it is to choose between stat groups for the same mechanic - and quite frankly, with the variety of enemies it should be more rewarding to use different tactics on different bots. Of course you can't bodyslam a spiderbot and expect that to go well, but for some of the littler enemies it's pretty odd that you can't knock them around to get them out of the fight - especially since we already have a lunge attack. And, for that matter, the bigger "leader" models would, presumably, use that size to their advantage to shove targets around and stop them from getting around behind to stab them in the back.

I think the current melee weapons should at least get a small range upgrade.
A different weapon that I would suggest is a hammer/blunt type, where your lunge attacks get to push enemies away

Another suggestion I would make is to give some of the blades (upper part) a random chance to be able to shoot a projectile when doing the lunge attack. Right now, you can't go full melee without followers as backup, since you -will- get attacked by flyers sooner or later.
Having enemies that dash to attack you with melee would be a nice change of pace too.