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Thread: Melee improvement - displacement by discipline

  1. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Sox View Post
    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.
    A solution would be that if the defending players (with numerical disadvantage) stand close together, even shoulder to shoulder, the negative more affects could be lessened or negated entirely. However, the further apart a player is to his buddies, the greater the morale hit and related debuffs. This way, an attacking force would be incentivized to create gaps in the defender's lines with effective volley fire prior to charging. Organized defenders will form up prior to being charged to avoid a morale hit - or be forced to retreat!

  2. #32
    I think if there were systems more deliberately designed and fine-tuned then the gameplay would get better without the need for a desertion penalty for average players just to keep things logically together (like in Picket Patrol).

    There's got to be more of a reward to working closely and orderly and a real reason not to try going Mel Gibson with your bayonet on an enemy column. This isn't to say there isn't a place for skirmishing tactics, I think we're pretty dumb for not using skirmishers more to start engagements or feel for the enemy. Just there's got to be more of a tangible reason to work in a formation as opposed to a blob. The cons of formations are easy to see. Many people naturally arrive even in a game like this and want to play it like any other shooter. You get the comments all the time that we shouldn't be standing here getting massacred whether we really are getting massacred or whether we're putting up an even fight with the enemy. And there's definitely situations where you shouldn't be where you are getting shot up as bad as you are, there's always a balance to seek out in tactics. Experience should teach players though that there are pros and cons to certain types of play and that by keeping a formation you're helping yourself and that in a lot of cases you're going to see better results by doing so and that should not just be limited to a cloudy determination of which team wins and which team loses.

    Sure you can charge an enemy that is your equal in numbers but experience should tell people that it's exponentially more effective to charge an enemy force you've already skillfully widdled away somewhat.
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  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Poorlaggedman View Post
    I think if there were systems more deliberately designed and fine-tuned then the gameplay would get better without the need for a desertion penalty for average players just to keep things logically together (like in Picket Patrol).

    There's got to be more of a reward to working closely and orderly and a real reason not to try going Mel Gibson with your bayonet on an enemy column. This isn't to say there isn't a place for skirmishing tactics, I think we're pretty dumb for not using skirmishers more to start engagements or feel for the enemy. Just there's got to be more of a tangible reason to work in a formation as opposed to a blob. The cons of formations are easy to see. Many people naturally arrive even in a game like this and want to play it like any other shooter. You get the comments all the time that we shouldn't be standing here getting massacred whether we really are getting massacred or whether we're putting up an even fight with the enemy. And there's definitely situations where you shouldn't be where you are getting shot up as bad as you are, there's always a balance to seek out in tactics. Experience should teach players though that there are pros and cons to certain types of play and that by keeping a formation you're helping yourself and that in a lot of cases you're going to see better results by doing so and that should not just be limited to a cloudy determination of which team wins and which team loses.

    Sure you can charge an enemy that is your equal in numbers but experience should tell people that it's exponentially more effective to charge an enemy force you've already skillfully widdled away somewhat.
    This.

  4. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by Poorlaggedman View Post
    experience should tell people that it's exponentially more effective to charge an enemy force you've already skillfully widdled away somewhat.
    This^^^. That's exactly how it should be in civil war combat: The obvious example is the charge of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg, if the troops that Chamberlains men attacked had been fresh, then that charge would have been met with withering volley fire & had a very different ending. Melee in WoR is deceptive, the actual melee fighting is almost always inconclusive, with the winner actually being decided by the team who can get their men back to that spot quickest.
    ''I'm here to play an American Civil War era combat game, not Call of Duty with muskets.''.

  5. #35
    Mark L. E. E. Smith's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sox View Post
    Melee in WoR is deceptive, the actual melee fighting is almost always inconclusive, with the winner actually being decided by the team who can get their men back to that spot quickest.
    Yeah, mostly everyone dies and the side who moves people back to the point quickest wins - unless it was a large force charging a small group who should have retreated through fear. Pot luck really, no reward for teamwork and discipline.

    Looking forward to when arty and horses arrive and it could become even more rambo-centric. I can see arty in particular being nullified by Jonny Lonewolf who would be free to charge a piece at will. In the proposed system it would make sense that each manned piece would get a radius of fear along with each manned horse.

  6. #36
    The thing is, even for the team which might be driven back, it's more entertaining to live longer experiences in the game. Much better to fall back, reform, and try something different than going down to the last man. You cannot brand that on players minds though by telling them that. The cycle of spawn-die-spawn sucks especially when you're forced to move a huge distance and completely reform because whatever guys you were with and flag bearer you were with is now gone. Very often the last few experienced players alive will get the hint and run for it but only to save their team the morale cost. They could just as easily stay, do the most damage they can, and die.

    Last night there were a ton of noobs on the 1st GA server and one enemy player is left after a huge melee on one of the new maps on South Mountain where the Union attack downhill towards a low stone wall. Some friendlies are stabbed already once, some are reloading, there's only a short group of us left. I'm the flag bearer and I'm trying to tell these guys that there's one left off to the side. I couldn't tell which one was which since I'm stabbed myself and both guys are fighting each other. He kills a guy, one-hit kills another, and then finally takes a stab himself before getting two in and dropping another guy while yet another friendly comes up and is accidentally killed by his other friend.

    In effect a way of tipping the scales would reduce the willingness of players to face annihilation and might result in some longer and more protracted unit formations which would be better for players. Melee tends to be the end of one or both team's organization.
    Last edited by Poorlaggedman; 07-15-2019 at 01:31 AM.
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  7. #37

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    This would be cool. I don't totally agree with the invisible wall, but rendering an isolated man useless would be good.
    "The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth." -General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

  8. #38

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    Idea. Keep the AoE suppression zone idea for dealing with lone wolves. However, when two groups meet in a melee a new, singular AoE is formed in that spot. At first this new type of AoE does nothing. However, when one side gains an advantage over the other (For now we'll say an advantage is gained when one side kills 10-20% more of the enemy's men than the enemy has killed of theirs.) the AoE activates and the losing side must flee or die of desertion. If neither side gains an advantage and both have lost a third of their number or so, both sides must flee. Additionally, the fleeing side should receive a speed boost so a decent number actually getaway. After the melee and the fleeing stage all men alive who were in the melee have an negative exhaustion status so that a counter-attack by fresh troops is more likely to drive them away, as it would be in reality.

    This system should make it so that a numerically inferior force has a chance to win if it has superior skill or strategy. Whilst also keeping true to the original system's intent of making melee less deadly.

    However the elephant in the room is the lack of a melee block/parry. As long as all men can do in melee is attack, melee will continue to be highly lethal.

    Pvt. William J. Sadowski

  9. #39
    The problem is with preventing melee combat at all from occurring in a great many cases. As people pointed out already, it's overrated and unhistorical. That is not common knowledge though and many times reckless charges in game will see some results, especially in lieu of competent leadership able to do anything else with a team. Often times both teams employ meelee rushes and they destroy the game experience and team cohesion and quite often it never really recovers from that completely. Particularly in the larger and more confusing maps.

    The willingness of teams to stand and fight to-the-death against an onslaught of bayonets, who themselves will not stop no matter what, needs to be dealt with. The willingness of players to just take off kamikaze style and charge enemy formations alone from one angle or another needs to be dealt with. I had higher ambitions than just that when I set out trying to influence development but I see further efforts futile if we're not even going to confront that BS gamer privilege to charge in alone and disrupt gameplay as much as your skill will allow you to. It's a constant presence in gameplay. It's funny though I don't see too many guys coming up stabbing 3 guys in formation making everyone turn around in anybody's fan videos. An honest trailer would show it 'cause it's what anybody is going to see and/or do when they try the game out.
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  10. #40
    This must be done

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