A Treatise on the Folly of Melee FF

[Tigerclaw]

Don't forget that my very first post acknowledges that this debate is academic.  The point of it all is to discuss the merits and downsides of FF combat, so that both sides can better appreciate the others.  It's not fair for either faction to disparage the other, because neither is a "pro" or "noob" setting.  The players who proved their merit long before FF was something the community even wanted should never be so ridiculous as to say combat is easy and depthless without it, but they do.  Hence, I was compelled to post this thread.

I appreciate you supporting me in my request to be accommodated with more servers, but a TDM server is not what I want.  We already have one, in fact.  What I want is a Battle or FnD server for my crowd, because we resent being restricted from the "pro" game modes.  Both of those modes require much more personal and team skill than other modes, and one of them should be ours.

I think that the thread was an excellent idea, and I think it has largely succeeded. Personally, I respect the non-melee FF position and I think there is valid reasoning behind it, but I find the reasoning behind melee FF more persuasive. However, that may simply reflect what I look for in the game, as opposed to what someone else may want to get out of the game. I'd certainly agree that arguing that one setting or the other is the "pro" setting is as pointless as arguing over which class takes the most skill. It occurs to me that since F&D and battle are usually played very similarly, since players tend to ignore the targets, perhaps one of them should be melee FF and one not for the time being, and once we have more servers we can have both game-types available with both FF settings.

As to the realism angle, one has to remember that this is game combat, not real-life sparring.  The player is restricted to certain animations, attack directions, and tunnel-vision.  You can't always see the teammate that pops up next to you, and you can't just stop your swing at any point.  (Or, may I add, redirect it)  The game wasn't designed with melee FF in mind, and it doesn't accommodate it well at all.

I appreciate your point, but to me it feels like a greater departure from reality to disable FF then to have allies die sometimes. But again, that is something that reflects a preference about who you want the game to play.

Also, I do not argue that the old depth of group fighting is lost altogether, only that it is badly diminished.  Whereas before you had to weave in and out of danger zones, backpedalling suffices better now.  It's too easy to fight groups, really.  You say that four players should not be able to stand side-by-side with huge weapons and whale away at a cornered opponent unless they have him fully surrounded.  Well stated, I agree!  You never could.  Weapons bounce off of teammates with FF turned off.  A player who was good at the battle-dance had a great chance against groups, without the unrewarding result of his enemies killing each other off.

Allow me to rephrase myself - while I understand that the four players swinging wildly would mostly miss the lone player due their weapons bouncing off of each other, I don't feel that players should be allowed to play so carelessly with impunity, which melee FF prevents. I'm afraid we'll simply have to disagree regarding the depth of group fighting, as I am now more likely to dance through a group then before since it increases the chances of them hitting each other. I really don't think that it is too easy to fight groups - rather I think that the difficulty of fighting groups is now at an appropriate level.

I don't ignore that there is a certain element of precision required by FF in group fighting.  That's why I expressed my willingness to compromise with a stun effect.  I just feel that melee should never be restricted by the possibility of teammates actually killing each other.  The depth it brings is for the most part a false depth, and again, is unrewarding to me and many others.

Again, I think we'll have to agree to disagree regarding the depth brought by melee FF, but I think that your idea of a compromise is excellent, although personally, I think that there should be at least some damage, perhaps 25%. It would a shame for the community to split in FF and non-FF players that frequent different servers and never interact, so I would like to see a compromise that is agreeable to both persuasions reached.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

What possible reason could there be to have damage?  It's the stun effect that keeps people from attacking with impunity.  I've agreed that there is something to that argument, but a stun compromise would accomplish the same thing while at the same time eliminating all the negative effects of hurting allies.

To the FF melee haters I can respect your oppion and apperiate that you have put a lot of effort into your argument. That being said I still am not persauded by your arguments. I love FF.  Its very refreshing. Makes things interesting. Fortunately we have a choice.  The good players don't like FF because they like prediction. On the other hand you can get newbs to kill each other.  One thing Melee ff it helps with 2 hand Nord axe spamming or at least helps defend against it.

Thanks for the kind words, but actually, we don't have much of a choice at the moment.  That's part of what inspired this thread.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Actually the melee ff means that the outnumbered guy with the 2-handed axe can spam away all he wants.  The people trying to fight him can't do the same.  Right now the berserkers run the show.  A little bit of irony there I guess but whatever.

That is when you back off and let your missile troops pelt him until he is down.  Only attacking him if the enemy decides to run after your missile user.  Teamplay strategies like this arise due to the fact that you can't mob someone.

Kelso this is exactly the reason melee ff is ruinious to any kind of strategy.  You are saying that if three axemen run into one guy with a long weapon the proper strategy should be to run away!  Does that make any kind of rational sense?  Strategy is part of the game too.  And a man outnumbered by three people should have to employ a ton of skill to survive.  Right now it is the opposite!  You expect the three to have to have far more skill than the one.  The one guy only has to swing away like a madman to have success.  For the three against him it is far more difficult assuming they don't simply fight him one by one which involves no strategy at all.

EDIT:Notice what melee ff does to the balance of the classes.  In this little situation here you are saying that the three melee fighters should back away from the one and let ranged deal with him.  Who is to say the long axeman doesn't have 3 archers backing him up.  You might only have one archer.  When you make it easy for one infantry to deal with three you skew the balance of ranged to infantry units.  Really if you have one good infantry with the current system most of your team should go ranged.

 

[DanAngleland]

What possible reason could there be to have damage?  It's the stun effect that keeps people from attacking with impunity.  I've agreed that there is something to that argument, but a stun compromise would accomplish the same thing while at the same time eliminating all the negative effects of hurting allies.

I think Tigerclaw's point is that with melee FF inactive, players can just click-click-click until a swing gets through, rather than trying to get into a position where they could feasibly attack from. If you can keep pressing the attack button knowing that, as soon as your ally moves out of the way, you will swing at the enemy, you don't have to time your attack well to be successful because you don't have to wait for an opening. You can just keep clicking until your allies aren't in the way of your weapon's swing.

Bear in mind I haven't actually got access to the beta, so I don't know if this regularly occurs. Also, your suggestion of a stun effect for 'hitting' a team mate should eradicate the problem.

 

[Berserker Pride]

If you stun an ally who is in melee range of the enemy your ally still dies.  The important difference is you didn't kill him which prevents the continuous teamkillng that is happening on the servers now.  Almost half your deaths come from allies right now.  That is far too high.

In the end all people like me and Scipio want is one F&D or Battle server set to 1% ff damage with manual block.  Both play the same so it shouldn't be a great sacrifice to the melee ff people that we get a server too.  Marnid mentioned that ranged wasn't able to be set separately from melee ff which sucks a bit.  Hopefully in the future that will change.  But eh ranged spam could still knock you into an enemy attack so it would still work semi-okay.

 

[sadnhappy]

If you stun an ally who is in melee range of the enemy your ally still dies.  The important difference is you didn't kill him which prevents the continuous teamkillng that is happening on the servers now.  Almost half your deaths come from allies right now.  That is far too high.

Not in anyway a shot to the other side of the pond ( ) but I very rarely see anyone TK'd on the EU servers where Melee FF is on. Altough the percentages might be different, I think it's 50/50 now on FnD server.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Hell you should see the US servers.  Maybe we are just a bunch of dicks but I honestly believe people have just accepted the fact the rampant teamkilling is just the way the game works.

EDIT:This isn't to say people teamkill on purpose just that they have given up on trying to be careful with attacks that strike everywhere around you and should not be in a game involving melee ff.

 

[Orion]

Hell you should see the US servers.  Maybe we are just a bunch of dicks but I honestly believe people have just accepted the fact the rampant teamkilling is just the way the game works.

EDIT:This isn't to say people teamkill on purpose just that they have given up on trying to be careful with attacks that strike everywhere around you and should not be in a game involving melee ff.

I see maybe one TK per round in Battle on average, if that. I think a lot of the conclusions that are being drawn regarding TKing are coming from players who have had a bad experience in the past where they were repeatedly teamkilled or saw unusual amounts of teamkilling, and they have concluded that this is the norm. It's not.

 

[Tigerclaw]

I think Marnid makes a good point, in my experience, it's more like a teamkill every other round.

 

[Ros]

Hell you should see the US servers.  Maybe we are just a bunch of dicks but I honestly believe people have just accepted the fact the rampant teamkilling is just the way the game works.

EDIT:This isn't to say people teamkill on purpose just that they have given up on trying to be careful with attacks that strike everywhere around you and should not be in a game involving melee ff.

Out of 21 deaths on a TDM server yesterday, 9 were from teamkills. Admittedly I did accidentally create 3 teamkills but the point stands that its utterly ridiculous that your options are either  loan wolf or dead by your buddies hammer.

 

[Berserker Pride]

I think Marnid makes a good point, in my experience, it's more like a teamkill every other round.

Basically right now the game is trying to have what essentially is a hack-and-slash attack,the big horizontal, and melee ff.  This leads to either a lot of teamkilling or simply splits everyone up to fight 1 on 1.  Granted some rounds of battle have people being more careful but this means that people simply spread out a lot.  It's turned the game into one giant mess of one on ones.  How does that not reduce any of the strategy of battle?  It still gives the pros who like to duel more too much of an advantage.  Numbers should count for something.  Right now they don't.  My point about the current system expecting more skill from the people fighting an outnumbered guy than from the loner still stands.  As does my point about the hollywood style line up and die combat.

 

[CryptoCactus]

I say we make Battle full FF, FnD non-FF, and switch them every week (so next week it'd be FnD full-FF, Battle non-, etc).

As for TDM.. it's kinda ridiculous either way. Either you have people getting TK'd 10+ times per round, or you have it off and people (sometimes literally) become longaxe tornadoes. The lack of team cohesion just makes everything a madhouse. DM's that way too, but obviously FF isn't an issue (and I feel like DM is kinda supposed to be a madhouse).


Also, the issue Marnid mentioned, about not being able to alter the percentages individually for melee and ranged, is a major one. I would love to try a server with 1% (aka basically stun-only) melee FF... but with ranged at 1%? That'd be an archer-filled nightmare. So that's something the devs will have to fix before the admins can really do anything other than "on" or "off".

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

Marnid, your point is indeed valid.  TK deaths are fairly uncommon.  But why should they be there at all?  As BP said, hitting your ally is still going to cause the stun and get him killed.  As soon as we can separate melee FF from ranged FF, I think the 1% option is the best possible option, and not just as a compromise.

 

[sadnhappy]

Marnid, your point is indeed valid.  TK deaths are fairly uncommon.  But why should they be there at all?  As BP said, hitting your ally is still going to cause the stun and get him killed.  As soon as we can separate melee FF from ranged FF, I think the 1% option is the best possible option, and not just as a compromise.

But those two are already separate. There's separate boxes in the Admin Panel named 'Friendly Fire' and 'Melee Friendly Fire', the first one being for the throwing/ranged weps like in the good old days and the other for Melee weapons. Sure there are the percentage boxes below them but I'm fairly certain that those are for the Melee FF settings only, I could be wrong though.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

Marnid, your point is indeed valid.  TK deaths are fairly uncommon.  But why should they be there at all?  As BP said, hitting your ally is still going to cause the stun and get him killed.  As soon as we can separate melee FF from ranged FF, I think the 1% option is the best possible option, and not just as a compromise.

But those two are already separate. There's separate boxes in the Admin Panel named 'Friendly Fire' and 'Melee Friendly Fire', the first one being for the throwing/ranged weps like in the good old days and the other for Melee weapons.

Oh?  Did I misunderstand this post somehow?:

Also, the issue Marnid mentioned, about not being able to alter the percentages individually for melee and ranged, is a major one. I would love to try a server with 1% (aka basically stun-only) melee FF... but with ranged at 1%? That'd be an archer-filled nightmare. So that's something the devs will have to fix before the admins can really do anything other than "on" or "off".

 

[CryptoCactus]

But those two are already separate. There's separate boxes in the Admin Panel named 'Friendly Fire' and 'Melee Friendly Fire', the first one being for the throwing/ranged weps like in the good old days and the other for Melee weapons. Sure there are the percentage boxes below them but I'm fairly certain that those are for the Melee FF settings only, I could be wrong though.

You can turn them on and off separately, but can you adjust the damage % separately? What I gleaned from what Marnid was saying was something like this:


Melee FF On/Off
Ranged FF On/Off
FF Damage %: 0-100


Is that more or less right?


When what it should be is this:

Melee FF On/Off
Melee FF Damage %: 0-100

Ranged FF On/Off
Ranged FF Damage %: 0-100

 

[sadnhappy]

It actually goes like so Marnid could be right that the % sliders affect both, Ranged and Melee FF. Haven't tested it though. Tested it, it's for both.

Allow Ranged FF
Allow Melee FF
Damage % Self: 0-100
Damage % Friend: 0-100

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

So in the 1% scenario, ranged FF would be either off or at 1%.  That's not good.  The devs need to address that one.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Sounds like a new thread should be made for it.  It's a fairly serious issue as most would agree it's easier to control ranged ff than melee ff right now.  Hence why people would prefer different damage percentages for each.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

I agree.  Have at it!