First of all, I would like to say that I appreciate the mature and thought-out way in which Scipio has presented his concerns on this issue. However, I feel that I must disagree with your conclusions.
I do feel that realism is an excellent argument for melee FF. Realism is the primary reason that I play Mount & Blade instead of all the Medieval/Fantasy hack and slash junk-heaps available, and I honestly feel that melee FF enhances M&B's realism. The objection that has been raised is that in the event of an ally entering the path of your blow, you would simply redirect or stop your swing/thrust.
The first point that I would like to make is that this is not nearly as easy as it sounds. They say that one of the best ways to learn to appreciate the performance of Medieval weaponry is to take an accurate replica weapon to an actual target, such as a pell or a hunk of beef. I'm sure that in a community this there must be other people besides me who have done this, so I would welcome your input, but my experience has been that when you are swinging "to kill", it is very difficult to stop your swing. Not impossible, by any means, but difficult enough that my friends and I always stand well away from the person testing a weapon, because if I was swinging and someone accidentally entered the swing arc, I'm honestly not sure that I would be able to stop the weapon in time - however, I am reasonably certain that most people would be able to slow or redirect their blow enough that an ally would not receive the full force of the blow, even though I expect that they would still be hit. I could see this being used as an argument for reduced melee FF, but I don't think that it is a very good argument, due to the next point that I would like to raise.
I honestly feel that the ability to stop or redirect your blow is already in the game. I see people cancel an attack to avoid hitting an ally all the time. I do realize that after a certain point an attack cannot be canceled, but this is somewhat true in real life - the more momentum that you've achieved, the harder it is to reverse that momentum and stop your blow. Additionally, when you're going to hit an ally and your attack is too far along to be canceled, you can jump and look at the sky and you blow usually flies harmlessly over everyone's heads.
The second objection that has been raised is to the arguments about melee FF increasing the game's depth by discouraging swarming/spamming. I really think that you are dismissing these arguments too readily - I would encourage anyone who is interested in this topic to make half a dozen padded weapons and go try a 5v1 with some friends. What you'll quickly discover (at least from my experience) is that four or five people cannot fight one unless they have the once completely surrounded - unless they can strike at him from all sides, what usually happens (especially if two-handed weapons are involved) is that only two or three players actually engage the one at any given time, while the others follow along a few steps behind waiting for an opportunity to join in. Now, this is what I usually see happening in Warband when melee FF is active, with the exception of players who are only thinking about their score, in which case you sit back and let them swarm the loner then go kill him yourself once they've died pathetically.
I also fail to see how the game has lost any depth with the implementation of melee FF. Everything that was true before is still true - the survival of the loner depends upon footwork and timing. If anything, the loner's options are increased, since, as you mentioned, he can cause opponents to damage each other. And honestly, if a player is swinging a weapon towards an ally on the assumption that their enemy is going to be nice, sit still, and stop the attack...
It seems to me that if anything, team play has been improved. Made more difficult, perhaps, but definitely improved. Without melee FF, you don't have to think about your teammates at all, if you don't want to - you can simply swing your weapon towards any enemy without worrying about where the long sharp object might wind up...in other words, the is no need to work together. It helps, certainly, but players could get away with essentially ignoring their teammates. But with melee FF, you have to be conscious of your teammates and work with them, or you die very quickly...or else you're kicked. It does put restrictions on teamwork, but only in the sense that is discourages bad team-tactics, and requires players to play more thoughtfully and carefully when their teammates are present. Four teammates with long axes or bardiches standing an arm's length apart all swinging at one person without ever hitting each other? Physically impossible, so why should the game allow it? But four teammates pulling out their swords and shields and going after the one with thrusts and overhand swings? Funny, that sounds familiar, almost like it was used by a historical faction or something...
Actually, come to think of it, the thrusts-and-overhand tactic would work with long bardiches or long axes...or spears, or spiked staffs, or two-handed swords, and so on. My point is that I do not feel that teamwork has suffered, quite the contrary, I think that teamwork is more essential then ever.
Now, there is one important consideration to keep in mind, and that is that this is a game, and the point is to have fun. This is where it comes down to personal preference. I find melee FF to be loads of fun, even when it kills me, and I feel like the game is missing something when it is turned off...but there are plenty of people who have more fun when it is off. Thus, it seems to me that the best answer is to have both melee FF servers and non-melee FF servers, as I'm sure we will at some point in the future, at which point this debate will likely become purely academic. Perhaps until then, we should at least have two battle or team deathmatch servers, so that we see more of Scipio and company...but that's up to the administrative staff.
Thanks for wading through my ramblings,
- Tigerclaw
