Morale and how to harness it.

[David Dire]

That too. I think all these effects would increase realism dramatically by restricting what officers could reasonably have their unit do.

[Poorlaggedman]

Close combat is definitely the most complex part of the morale system. There's a few things going on.

Before you closed in you started off in some morale state. Maybe you were already in a firefight and haven't recovered entirely or maybe you are fresh. The closer you get, presumably the morale hits will come faster just by the increasing accuracy of enemy fire and casualties. At a certain point, I'd say slightly closer than the width of your average road, you are in the mix for autosurrender depending on how outnumbered you are. This get's greater the closer you are. So when an enemy is almost on top of you, it's greatest. Close enemy with charged bayonets increase the likelihood of surrender by a serious amount. However, the enemy with charged bayonets in also has an additional morale hit, because we all know people shouldn't be sticking around for that very long.

You're also more likely to autosurrender if your morale is lower.

So in close quarters you're going to want to stay close to friendlies rather than spread out to go Mel Gibson some guy not looking your way because:
You're less vulnerable to morale hits by fire in the first place by being closer to more friendlies.
You're far less likely to autosurrender as the enemy get close.
You're more likely to induce autosurrender on any enemy approaching you.

Heck if you want to be even more realistic you can add a grabbing feature so you can literally grab enemy when overwhelming them to further induce autosurrender.

Also if some friendlies retreat or stop short of closing in all the way, it keeps the rest from blatantly disregarding their comrades all the time. I don't know how many times I've been in a 'charge' already and saw it was totally hopeless but went on anyway just because I knew we'd all be at the spawn and I might get a kill anyway. If you add the extra motivation then it makes sense to stop short. So charging has to be done in close order to be effective against an enemy in close order and it's more of a tool to drive enemy away than wipe them out.

[David Dire]

Melee should not be like chiv or warband: experienced players should have only a little advantage, if any, over people who literally got the game the same day. Otherwise unita will simply train to be good at melee and destroy everyone that way.

[Takerith]

Melee should not be like chiv or warband: experienced players should have only a little advantage, if any, over people who literally got the game the same day. Otherwise a unit will simply train to be good at melee and destroy everyone that way.

This is kind of tangential to the thread, but are you saying that there shouldn't be a skill to melee? That kind of goes against all theory of competition; someone who works more at something should naturally be better than someone who doesn't. Hard work pays off and all that.

Also, melee doesn't seem like it will be rewarding except in extreme situations. Going off previous dev blogs, it seems like melee will be based on timing and parrying rather than the hard blocking of M&B, meaning that it's likely that in any given fight there will be casualties on both sides. So any officer wanting to avoid a bloodbath would only charge in certain circumstances, assuming that the devs do enough to discourage the current issues properly.

[David Dire]

Melee was a very rare thing in the civil war: To make it rewarding in any real way would automatically make it overused. There should be incentive to hold ground and shoot rather than charge, and an incentive to retreat in the face of a charge.

[Jordon Brooker]

Melee was a very rare thing in the civil war: To make it rewarding in any real way would automatically make it overused. There should be incentive to hold ground and shoot rather than charge, and an incentive to retreat in the face of a charge.

This can't be stated enough.

[Takerith]

That is fair enough, but I feel like making melee non skill based is just a lazy way to discourage it. The best way to discourage melee would be to analyse why it wasn't viable in the war (low discipline and morale, accurate rifles) and represent that in-game. Which takes us back to the thread topic. IMO discouraging people from walking towards a line through in-game morale would be far better than just making the melee not skill-based. People would be able to figure out the best times to charge (which should be fairly rare) and then be able to take advantage. The only way I could see melee not be skill based would be to make it randomised.

[David Dire]

Oh, I agree. I think there should be morale penalties resulting in pretty fair debuffs for both sides during charges, as well as make charging a lot more exhausting.

[Zachary Stuart]

Oh, I agree. I think there should be morale penalties resulting in pretty fair debuffs for both sides during charges, as well as make charging a lot more exhausting.

Why debuffs? Personally, I think it is fine as is. Unless there is AI involved then I can see morale being more of a significant factor. Because since we're all players, our morale is basically personal.

[David Dire]

I dont know about you, but the threat of dying in a video game to me is enough to maybe make me blink an eye. There is no reason for me, as a player, to retreat (or order one, if I was an officer) when the enemy is charging: I can simply hold my ground even if I was outnumbered 20 to 1. And if melee was heavily or fairly skill based, not only would I be able to hold against said charge, but I might even win the following melee. It's completely unrealistic and has no place in a game preaching for realism.

Morale is useless if it has no buffs, or debuffs attached to it.