been awhile since i studied the civil war regarding melee deaths

[TheRegulator]

(Sorry for being off topic.)

It's still an interesting series to watch if you don't look at it from a too historical perspective but from an entertainment perspective.



Wow, that sounds very interesting. Give me a shout when it's out!

Just like WoR is the release uncertain, and i guess for some similar reason's. Maybe late 2018.

[VOLCUSGAMING]

Just like WoR is the release uncertain, and i guess for some similar reason's. Maybe late 2018.

Great, that's not a too long wait!

[Bivoj]

My answer is NO.

Fine - as you have retreated without arguments, I stop taking you serious.

[Poorlaggedman]

Believe me, I am used to this kind of cry more than you think. I have been experiencing realism-haters like you since the old Day of Defeat mod. Your pseudo-arguments can be copy-pasted into any historical game discussion against any idea or suggestion and I saw very similar statements many many times before. It is funny, that many such hated "realistic" ideas were successfully transferred into great game features

Anyway, you should get used to see in this (or any other game) forum the word "realistic", because it will be used heavily. "Realism" is taken into account and being discussed. Just look around - find for example several threads regarding revolver reloads, which are flooded by "realism" based discussion and they end by "realism" based decision of devs

You remind me of myself. DoD was my first big shooter too. I continually hear the same arguments. I literally today just read about how (this is how little I follow mainstream shooters .... I forgot the name of the game ... BF 1 maybe?) such and such game looked so immersive without the HUD. And yet people were kicking and screaming like maniacs years ago that we needed a HUD and it was stupid to not have a display as to how much ammo or health or without a chart showing where you were hit. And does anyone notice when those features are gone? No. They really don't. And it's an even playing field. It's more than just the Civil War... the ideas carry across genres.

Start players out with a HUD and try taking it away and people will freak. But don't even start with a HUD and nobody even notices that there isn't one. Has anybody complained yet?

I've faced similar hysteria when I've suggested that 3D voice chat is critical to teamwork and developers need to prioritize it... like in the Red Orchestra mod "Darkest Hour." I was met with rabid opposition. So the gameplay is anti-social ... nobody communicates. One voice channel. There's no context to put voice chat into it. Yelling "Grenade" or "To the left" means nothing at all because it could be coming from literally anywhere on the map. When one style of game is all people know, they rarely are willing to take a step away from that. In terms of realism, often less means more. Voice chat is a great example.

Nobody is ever trying to recreate history 1:1. Oddly the same folks who I find tend to be against introducing immersive realism that they are unfamiliar with are the first ones who usually want to lock in scenarios into happening exactly as they're 'supposed to.' It's typically expected in a game like this that the maps will be historic locations but also that the weapons and units are the same as historical. In my opinion I'd like to see a platform you can play Civil War combat on... and beyond that heavy customization for maps and scenarios and units involved. It adds replayability. It'd be a shame if a server host can't put breechloaders in the hands of any given team to see the difference or add different regiments or uniforms into scenarios.

Reducing meelee is a complicated task. There were plenty of charges in the civil war and the misconceptions and embellishments about them stand today. When someone says they drove the enemy away with the bayonet.... that doesn't really mean hand-to-hand. When they say there was hand-to-hand near the peach orchard at Gettysburg... we're talking handfuls of guys most likely. Not entire masses of lines with bayonets thrusting them into each other at a full sprint. When the Iron Brigade attacked Archers in McPherson woods... the first regiments in didn't even have loaded muskets, they used their bayonets. Was anyone bayoneted? Not that I've heard. People assume these things happen but the truth is far harder to understand than assumptions and whatever moment somebody glorifies in a painting. The pointy sticks are effective, so effective that people didn't really use them much in the way we typically think of a bayonet getting used.

In my opinion, this is really important to get right. Not to mention there's a serious challenge getting people to load and fire blinded by thick smoke when they could just close in and stabby, rip, stab, stab. And there's only one way I see to represent the bayonet right and that's with fear.

[R21]

Again, going to be really difficult to balance this without taking away control from Players or Gimping the mechanics.

I was thinking about suggesting tying it to morale (like Players missing or doing weaker thrusts if tired or demoralised) which could tie into Players having injured states (like falling to the floor unconcious then getting back up injured like mentioned in another thread).

I think the problem is that currently it is incredibly easy to just bum rush people (easier to hit with Bayonet than shoot people) which people will always do as a last ditch effort before they respawn.

Another suggestion (though this is unlikely to happen) is to make the melee system way more complex with parrying and blocking (think the condemned series of Games and Chivalry) where players can momentarily stun other players with blocks or kicks:

https://youtu.be/DLAX9WmV_-E?t=122

https://youtu.be/DLAX9WmV_-E?t=240

the equivalent in WOR being hitting an enemies rifle out of the way.

[LJPII]

How to deal with an adversary who wants to stick you with a bayonet: shoot them in the face...
39:20 https://youtu.be/aD-Jbu6Al6I
35:25 https://youtu.be/8MQdiWE391s

[RhettVito]

To be effective, the bayonet had to be aimed to reach a vital spot, deep in the body or protected by bone (they were also hard to pull out). While bayonet wounds were frightening and painful, they were generally not as devastating as bullet wounds. The accompanying excerpt from the report of a Confederate surgeon describes the differences.

During the ten months of Grant's overland campaign, from the Wilderness to Sayler's Creek, only some fifty bayonet wounds were treated surgically at Union army hospitals. In his Regimental Losses, Fox claims that of 250,000 Union wounded treated in hospitals, only 922 (.4 of 1%) were victims of cavalry sabers or bayonets.
Most Civil War soldiers recognized the practical ineffectiveness of the bayonet. In hand-to-hand combat they preferred to use knives or wield their muskets as clubs. For most of the war, both Yanks and Rebs chose to use their bayonets as entrenching tools, tent pegs, candle holders, roasting spits, or can openers.

In the years since the Civil War, the bayonet has had many modifications, but has not disappeared as an infantry weapon. One model of rifle had a permanently-attached folding bayonet. During World War I, the British preferred the knife bayonet, the French the spike bayonet, and the Germans a knife bayonet with a saw at the rear to be used for construction. Yet World War I had about the same percentage of bayonet victims as the Civil War.


from http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.c...old_steele.htm

[Lightfoot]

I think some minor changes could help balance the melee. It won't fix the problem of melee being the best tactical solution to taking the ground. At the current status of the game rifle fire will never clear a positions.

That said, things that would help:
Give the defender reloading his gun some way to know that the enemy has walked up on his blind side and can take all the time in the world to kill him. Maybe ability to quickly look around using the "Alt" key without the reload jumping the scene all over the place.
Give a way to quickly interrupt loading and return to standing position.
Switch to melee mode much faster. The attacker can do this with little risk since he knows when he needs to be in melee. The defender however doesn't until he sees someone coming at him. Right now the switch is entirely to slow.

These won't solve it but they would balance it a bit.

Regarding the HUD. One is needed because most of the settings in the game are toggles and in the middle of a fight you sometimes need to know what mode you are in. But the HUD doesn't have to be obtrusive. A small set of icons in the upper right corner of the screen will do quite well.

[TrustyJam]

Give a way to quickly interrupt loading and return to standing position.

Press R a second time to cancel your reload.

- Trusty

[TrustyJam]

To be effective, the bayonet had to be aimed to reach a vital spot, deep in the body or protected by bone (they were also hard to pull out). While bayonet wounds were frightening and painful, they were generally not as devastating as bullet wounds. The accompanying excerpt from the report of a Confederate surgeon describes the differences.

During the ten months of Grant's overland campaign, from the Wilderness to Sayler's Creek, only some fifty bayonet wounds were treated surgically at Union army hospitals. In his Regimental Losses, Fox claims that of 250,000 Union wounded treated in hospitals, only 922 (.4 of 1%) were victims of cavalry sabers or bayonets.
Most Civil War soldiers recognized the practical ineffectiveness of the bayonet. In hand-to-hand combat they preferred to use knives or wield their muskets as clubs. For most of the war, both Yanks and Rebs chose to use their bayonets as entrenching tools, tent pegs, candle holders, roasting spits, or can openers.

In the years since the Civil War, the bayonet has had many modifications, but has not disappeared as an infantry weapon. One model of rifle had a permanently-attached folding bayonet. During World War I, the British preferred the knife bayonet, the French the spike bayonet, and the Germans a knife bayonet with a saw at the rear to be used for construction. Yet World War I had about the same percentage of bayonet victims as the Civil War.


from http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.c...old_steele.htm

We might experiment a bit with two stabs to take someone down rather than one as it currently is to reflect this (and to lessen the effect of melee).

Several effects could be applied to the soldier having been stabbed once (less stamina, etc).

- Trusty