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Thread: Melee improvement - displacement by discipline

  1. #1
    Mark L. E. E. Smith's Avatar
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    Melee improvement - displacement by discipline

    Here’s something that I think would reduce the melee madness to a more realistic level (i.e. very little) while in keeping with current game mechanics.

    It would also prevent rambo’s approaching enemy lines while still allowing smaller melee skirmishes and chasing down lone wolves.

    Current system: anything goes, really. Rambo is free to approach a huge enemy force and stab them in the back, without even a nod towards authenticity. The penalties (extra ticket losses) aren’t enough to deter such behaviour. Bayonets are often equipped at the start of the round with no tangible penalties for doing so. Not a round goes by without unrealistic charges to remove the enemy from a point.

    Displacement by discipline


    As it stands, each soldier has an invisible radius:


    "x" is the individual soldier, with the blue circle his formation radius. He's currently "out of line"

    When enough come together, they combine into a formation...


    now he's "in formation", where he should be

    These could be extended when the formation criteria is met (“in formation”), to a much larger distance – say 50ft.


    woah. Only two buffed radii are shown, for clarity

    The radius could then be effectively impenetrable for (non-formationed) enemy troops by perhaps extreme unrecoverable suppression which gets worse the closer they get, perhaps accompanied by panicked screams and shouts to alert the formation, thereby preventing them from doing damage:




    This radius could then be utilised to move a lesser force off a point – displacing them via suppression and fear of overwhelming numbers rather than a stab fest, and forcing them to retreat off the point or have their character pretty much rendered useless by the effects of suppression. If a formation is approaching another, the formation with the greater suppressive radius (with the value determined by the number of men in each formation) doesn’t suffer the suppressive effect of the enemy radius (enemy formation radius not displayed for clarity purposes):



    This means a well-ordered force could advance at the quicktime, maintaining their formation, and force a lesser-disciplined enemy to retreat without it coming down to a melee. The current undisciplined sprinting melee charges would be rendered useless and would be replaced by a tactical system favouring teamwork and organisation - displacing the enemy by discipline. Bayonets would rarely need to be equipped, aside from perhaps chasing down stragglers.

    Shoot it down, chaps.

  2. #2

    USA Brigadier General

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    +1

    great idea and I like it very well!
    http://www.warofrightsforum.com/image.php?type=sigpic&userid=522&dateline=14500460  02


  3. #3
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    The problem with meelee is it doesn't represent real life in that the bayonet was a weapon of fear. Meelee in a Civil War game should be an exquisite and relatively rare occurrence (at least compared to now). You also see formations fall apart at close quarters as individuals decide to stop their silly reloading process and just lurch themselves Mel Gibson style into enemy lines. Stopping the solo charges, beyond supporting distance of friendlies, would go a long way to help.

    Individual players should just become prisoners in those situations when they close in to point blank of an enemy formation. Like dying except instead of a corpse you're suspended in place as a surrendered avatar with perhaps 30 seconds to wait for those circumstances (which caused you to surrender) to change whereas you may return to the action. Otherwise you're kicked to the spawn leaving the avatar. The extra rescue period acts as an additional punitive time for the player as well as a way to correct any mistakes in the system causing a surrender to happen just outside of friendly supporting distance. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjUuaVXTJsY&t=3m18s )

    The main strategy of a charge should be to force inferior enemy sizes off a point. Not a stab fest leaving three guys standing from one team and two on the other.
    Last edited by Poorlaggedman; 07-07-2019 at 05:03 PM.
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  4. #4
    BenjaGuy's Avatar
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    This absolutely needs to be added. WoR has done a great job of making period-accurate tactics viable, but having small groups of men carry out massive charges and fighting each other to the death in hand-to-hand combat is completely unrealistic. Bayonet charges were extremely common, but actual bayonet wounds were very rare. This is because in a charge, the defenders would either surrender or retreat, or the attackers would be turned back. These would be the outcomes of a charge ingame if this system was implemented, and if one force had a significant advantage over the other.

    If both forces more or less equal, charges would probably not happen at all, as both forces would be suppressed. Attackers would actually have to strategically advance towards the point, instead of using the all-or-nothing "volley at 200m then full bayonet charge" tactics that dominate the game right now. This could even result in one of those scenarios where two lines are firing at each other at point bank range, which actually happened multiple times in the civil war.

    Perhaps having bayonets fixed or being at melee mode could effect of amount of suppression or the radius? Think about the logic of anti-cavalry formations, like a square. If a horse wont run straight into a wall of bayonets pointed at it, why would a human?

    I'm not sure how I feel about surrendering. It would be accurate, but kind of weird ingame. Perhaps it could be like bleeding out in Red Orchestra 2? Maybe be crouched down too so they're not meat shields for the attackers, and its not in the best interest of the defenders to waste a shot on them, as they would've accepted their surrender in real life.

    Anyways, please add this. It will greatly improve the authenticity of the game and the tactics that are used.

  5. #5

    CSA Sergeant

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    +1 to the OP........GREAT IDEA

  6. #6

    CSA Captain

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    The OP is much closer to actual Civil War combat than is the current system. As everyone knows, by the time of the Civil War the bayonet charge ala' Napoleon was a thing of the past, usually a charge would only go in when there was some indication that the enemy was breaking, and even then American soldiers preffered to club their muskets. BUT....here's the twist, this is a game, and there has to be some way for a numerically inferior force to win. The above system does not allow for that.
    ''I'm here to play an American Civil War era combat game, not Call of Duty with muskets.''.

  7. #7
    The purpose of a charge I would say is to drive the enemy away. That still has real value in a video game especially when there's a point of contention. Especially if the enemy were to scatter it's difficult or impossible to maintain that advantage of orderly formation indefinitely to take advantage of that.

    Maybe if something similar were implemented then every house and barn would cease to be a fortress that has to be methodically cleared, so smart teams would withdraw rather than be trapped and at serious disadvantage. That would mirror real life a lot more. These guys never stayed in buildings until the enemy were on top of them.


    My main thing about the suppression in WoR is I feel like there should be a larger array of effects on the player's and the black-and-white distortion should be at the very end of the list but other than trembling it's presently the main annoying effect that causes the most confusion. The effects should focus on making you less effective even to the point of submission (autosurrender) gradually effecting your aim and meelee abilities. Where the extremes of suppression are set is up for debate but I feel very strongly there should be extremes.

    I loathe the idea of trying to police player behavior in events to prevent rambo charges. Who wants to play in a server, locked or otherwise, where individual players are just going to get bored and take off towards the enemy formations? It's all a big headache to have to deal with that just for a game to protect wildly unrealistic behavior. I give the enemy kudos if they can come up together behind us in some order but 99% of the time it's one asshole coming in like a kamikaze pilot until he finds a weak point. The loss to his team is not sufficient to make up for the damage to the immersion and chaos from losing key players (officers and flag bearers are prime targets).
    Last edited by Poorlaggedman; 07-08-2019 at 03:00 AM.
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  8. #8

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    Yo I actually really dig this idea, I'd love to hear a dev's thoughts on this.
    Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in!

  9. #9
    RhettVito
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    I really like this idea! Would be nice to see it tested!

  10. #10
    Mark L. E. E. Smith's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sox View Post
    BUT....here's the twist, this is a game, and there has to be some way for a numerically inferior force to win. The above system does not allow for that.
    The idea is that if the smaller side is defending, to fall back and thin out the larger force with fire. Keep in mind that for the suppression radius to work, the advancing force would need to coherently move forward maintaining their "in formation" status - likely at the quicktime. This would give opportunity to fire on the advance which would generally be out in the open (and would likely need to form in the open) - it would be hard to use cover and advance in formation - causing enough casualties for the suppression to be on the advancers who themselves would then need to fall back. There's currently no incentive to fall back, and would rid the "only going forward, cos we can't find reverse" mentality that has spilt over from other fps games. The advantage would be with the defender (as it should be), which is the flipside of what's going on now.

    To dislodge a numerically greater organised force would require either firing from superior cover, or splitting and flanking to enfilade until the enemy is whittled down enough to push off their point.

    Quote Originally Posted by Poorlaggedman View Post
    The problem with meelee is it doesn't represent real life in that the bayonet was a weapon of fear. Meelee in a Civil War game should be an exquisite and relatively rare occurrence (at least compared to now).
    Equipping the bayo could be a way to enhance the radius (perhaps allowing a slightly smaller organised force to push a larger unprepared force back?), reducing it's role to just that - primarily one of fear.

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