Favorite Version Regarding Melee

[Stabbing Hobo]

Tell us which is (or was) your favorite version for melee combat. Tell what you liked and what could have been improved. Also say which was the first version you played.

I got in the beta in .580
So, my favorite was .615, the first patch after the singleplayer style turning cap was implemented. The combat was smooth and all of those spinners were gone, without making the melee feel elastic. Spears swings did too much damage and armour effectiveness compared to price and weight was a bit off. I'm not sure whether the manual block had a delay anymore, I hope it didn't.
What I'd like to see would be .615 system with kicks, warhammer crushing and backpedalling speed as now and some overall balance between the weapons. New animations aren't bad, either.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

It's all running together but I did enjoy the second or third incarnation of turn speed caps around the time of .615.  I prefer it to the new one, as it stopped silly roflcopters but didn't noticably affect the responsiveness of combat.  Other than that, I am a big fan of all the latest tweaks other than the new backpedalling speed.  I approved of faster backward movement, but I feel that it's slightly too much of a good thing currently.  It needs to be lessened, but not to what it previously was.

 

[Albretch]

Woah!  The forums are feeling nostalgic it seems, talking about the old Betas, maybe rokcing themselves in thier rocking chair, at the old Beta Testers home.

"I remember when my Internet was so slow, I used to carry it on my backs all the way to the server's location, in 10 feet of snow, without a hat on."

 

[DeathsShadow]

615. Decisive battles, fun gameplay i couldn't block at all but i could sure as hell dodge

 

[Plazek]

I had the most fun before they slowed combat down. Possibly the patch just before they were testing stun block where 2h suddenly become everyones best friend. When backpedalling was slow and before blunt weapons were broken.

It was fun being one of very few people brave enough to fight without shields. Because of the much faster speed you also had to be much more careful and manual block was much harder.

Not to say that there have not been some nice improvements. I just dislike a few small but important changes to the general combat. It all felt a lot more fluid back then.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Ditto what Plazek has said.

 

[TRU]

I remember .614 being pretty good, then going to .615 and not even wanting to play the game. Hated detached camera.

the 2H spam patch.. whatever that was. 1H was still 'good' in 1vs1 plus you had the very valuable shield for missles. A patch after that it was back to shield hugging and I've pretty much been playing cav since then.

 

[Binboy]

By any chance can we make the Movement block EXACTLY like PVKIIs, apparently it's tweaked slightly different and it awkward (For me that is) also can we have inverse movement block?

 

[glustrod]

I wish i could compare the versions right now to tell the difference more exactly. What I remember exactly is in .615 I thought "wow, wow, wow, this is fun, this is fluid, this is great"! I loved the camera in that version. I cannot say .615 was better than the actual version because I can't compare right now, but from what I remember I feel like it was the best version regarding melee. Don't get me wrong, there are many improvements since then, like Plazek said.

 

[Sir Pwn-A-Lot]

I also got in with .580. In my opinion best melee was in .614-.615, it was fast, fun as hell and also required a lot of skill to perform manual blocking.
Well, it's not that bad now, but yeah, was better.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

.614, I think that was the good one.  After that things started going haywire with all the new physics stuff and block-breaking.

 

[Plazek]

I wanna go back in time, well I want some of changes to go back to how they were

Especially stuff like general combat speed.
Just to see how it feels with the various other improvements.

 

[Kapt Torbjorn]

Combat speed back then was waaaay too fast.

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

Combat speed back then was waaaay too fast.

You sound like Yoshi giving one of his grandpa lectures.

 

[Alhanalem]

The only thing I don't like about this patch is all the people whining about cavalry and archers (who will continue to find reasons to whine even if they get nerfed to uselessness)

 

[ScientiaExcelsa]

The only thing I don't like about this patch is all the people whining about cavalry and archers (who will continue to find reasons to whine even if they get nerfed to uselessness)

There is no major problem with cavalry and archers.  It's just that infantry is very very boring right now.

 

[Plazek]

No the combat speed was great.

I loved it. You had to be alert and very careful in melee. Manual blocking was also hard like it should be. I remember the first match I playey after the slowmo patch. Whenever me and calen loki dueled it would last for so long it would only end when one of us lost interest and died of boredom.
That might ba a slight exageration...but
It was that combined with whatever they did to 1 handers that made it feel so clunky.

 

[ignoble]

633 was my favorite of the individual versions I remember. I don't even recall this 615 and 620 business, I must have been busy that week.

 

[Kazzan]

1.011 'Nuff said.

 

[CryptoCactus]

I like the combat now. So there. :p

Seriously though, I think once they fix hit detection and tweak the turning camera a bit, people will look at melee in a better light. And there won't be so many spears.

Of course, there's still a long way to go. Weapon/object collision, for one thing. No more giant 2hers in tight corridors, no more couching through rocks and stuff.