Ways to Make Melee More Interesting

[O Negative]

These are just some small ideas which might improve the melee combat system.

Chance to stun
I've witnessed predators stun their prey, and thought it might be interesting to see more skilled melee fighters stun their opponents from time to time.
Perhaps this already happens, but it isn't noticeable (to me) if so.

Chance to block
A higher melee skill already gives an advantage with respect to melee accuracy.
However, I think it would be interesting to see a chance to block an enemy's attack at higher levels.

Change to disarm
Incredibly highly skilled melee fighters could have a chance to disarm their opponents, causing them to drop their weapon.
Given complications with AI, I can see how this might be overpowered.

[Lightzy]

Adding ammunition requirement to guns, and possibly replacing 'silver' as currency with bullets

[b0rsuk]

These are just some small ideas which might improve the melee combat system.

Chance to stun

Translation: chance for a fighter to do nothing for a while.

Chance to block

Translation: (increased) chance of an attack to do nothing.

Change to disarm

Translation: chance for attack to make an enemy do next to nothing in melee.

Adding ammunition requirement to guns, and possibly replacing 'silver' as currency with bullets

Translation: let's just give up trying to make melee interesting, and make ranged weapons more limited (and even more desired).

Okay, I had my daily fix of venom now. But hopefully you see these suggestions don't actually make melee more interesting.

The first three just make it more complicated and unpredictable. But melee would still look the same - two pawns standing there and swinging at each other. The passive nature of the suggestions at least means player wouldn't be bogged with micromanagement. But passiveness of melee is a large part of what makes it boring. Two dudes seem tied and neither can disengage, so they just hope they don't catch too many bullets. There is little maneuvering.

Let me try:
1) Pulling an enemy.
When activated, colonist's damage dealt and taken (in melee) is reduced, but he can pull an enemy a few squares. For example behind a corner:

When a shunned girl contacted me through radio and asked for help, Macey was the one with plasteel steel and a personal shield who acted as a bullet decoy. She stood at the corner of the barn, everyone else was shooting from doorways. She was overwhelmed in melee - I released animals a bit too late, and without an armor vest she survived with a 2/40 HP torso.

You know what would be more fun ? If she could grab the first enemy and pull him behind the corner. Even better, pull him inside the barn so she and her animals can gangbang him, without soaking any unnecessary bullets and friendly fire.

2) Enemy as living shield
Grab a living enemy and hold him as a living shield. You would have to have a big advantage in Melee skill to pull that off. This one would work based on Melee skill, but you would actually want a gun with it, so you can use the enemy as living shield but fire yourself.

3) Knockback mode (defensive)
You'd deal reduced damage, but each of your attacks would knock an enemy a few feet away. This could be somewhat useful when trying to hold a passage, and setting up enemies for allies to shoot (minimizing friendly fire). Also to get multiple enemies off you so you can escape.

These would be activated abilities, but they are all tactical, neither is a no-brainer. Very useful in some cases, not at all in others.

re: Lightzy
Limiting ranged ammo as a way to make melee more valuable is pretty much admitting defeat. I'd rather think up something that gives Melee unique abilities not available to ranged.

[O Negative]

Right.

The problem with the suggestions you've made is that AI wouldn't really know how to use them against you unless significant time and resources were put into improving said AI.
RimWorld isn't a 3rd person over-the-shoulder shooter (which is where you see a lot of these features implemented).

My suggestions were simple on purpose. The cheapest ideas are often the ones that actually get attention...

Stun: Speeds up the melee process by giving the stunned individual an obvious disadvantage in the fight.
Block: Your translation has a point. Perhaps change it to counter-attack. I'm not sure.
Disarm: Same as stun, except more extreme.

I'm not looking for a petty argument, but appreciate the feedback regardless.

[Boston]

I would rather see weapon reach implemented, to make certain weapons more effective in certain instances.

For example: a pretty "standard" length for a spear is around 7 feet. In the field, nothing short of another spear will be able to compete, and you could very well get in one or probably more "free" hits as the enemy closes to range.

A longsword is longer than a gladius, so it does the same.

A knife is the shortest of all, meaning you have to get right up on the sucker.

On the other hand, which would you rather have in a fight inside a building, or in tight, close-in locations? That spear will almost certainly be useless, getting caught up in everything, and the longsword will be severely hampered. The gladius will probably be pretty good, and the knife will be the real killer.

Of course, adding shields and the ability to carry a ranged weapon and a melee weapon at the same time would also be interested. Combat Realism does this, and it adds a whole new level of "awesome" to combat.

[Keychan]

There can be a lot of things touched up upon for melee. Like reach, as suggested to bring more tactics into the game other than baiting.  I know that predator animals already have an ability to stun prey so that getting food isn't always a gamble.  I think certain weapons should have specific properties to make them useful and diversify your choices other than choosing platsteel long swords for every single brawler.

Blunt weapons have a small chance of 'stunning' by knocking down the pawn.  If I remember correctly, pawn use to just randomly trip, for one reason or another.  Knocked down pawns could get bonuses to avoid projectiles (since they're prone), but also give the ability to be attempt to arrest on them.  The amount of time they're knocked down can be determined by skill or by weapon, at most 2-3 seconds.  Then blunt weapons would be great for capturing prisoners.

Finesse weapons, would usually be sharp weapons, have a small chance of disarming but it's solely based on melee skill.

Reach weapons, a long spear or pike for example, as is sounds, can attack past standard melee range, but suffers from attack speed and/or penalty for not fighting in correct range. (Being too close is bad)

Held shields (instead of using the personal shields), used with small melee weapons that, along with armor, gives a chance to block and immediately makes the pawn strike back.  This counter attack chance is affected by melee skill greatly.

These with something along the lines of changes like these would help open up your choices other than power armor, personal shield, and platsteel longsword.  You could choose to use power armor, platsteel buckler, and a platsteel mace for a different situation.

It would also be nice to see some melee animations and more sounds, but I understand if that was purposely not included.  It just seems bland when all other ranged weapon feels like what they're suppose to be, arrows being shot, rockets being launched, machine guns going full blast, etc. while melee combat is just two pawns tackling each other to see who can 'pfth' each other first and the most. 

[Sinosauropteryx]

Some good suggestions. One I particularly like is Boston's regarding weapon length/size. Aside from reach, give an attack speed penalty to larger weapons in tight spaces like hallways. Effectively you lower the DPS of weapons like longswords indoors, and give knives and shivs a chance to shine in certain situations.

Another thought, anyone played Fire Emblem? I remember one mechanic whereby melee weapons had a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. Swords were weak against spears, which were weak against axes, which were weak against swords. Maybe something similar could diversify weapon choice a little. The problem I'm coming up with is how to justify it - it barely makes sense in Fire Emblem. Any thoughts?

And how about this. b0rsuk said

Two dudes seem tied and neither can disengage, so they just hope they don't catch too many bullets. There is little maneuvering.

and it got me thinking. What if the character's ability to maneuver/disengage while being melee'd was a function of a) his melee skill and/or b) his weapon? A seasoned fighter could slip in and out of combat more easily than an amateur. A shiv-wielding slinker could position himself more easily than someone dragging a stone club.

And this would translate to ranged combatants too - when your gunman gets caught in melee, don't you just want to get away? Maybe the guy with 8 melee skill he's otherwise not using could get away, while the 0-skill would get pummelled. Or maybe the pistol carrier can get out of reach faster than the LMG guy. Maneuverability bonus/penalty can add a whole layer of complexity to weapon choice without much cost, or taxing the AI for that matter.

[Trylobyte]

Some good suggestions. One I particularly like is Boston's regarding weapon length/size. Aside from reach, give an attack speed penalty to larger weapons in tight spaces like hallways. Effectively you lower the DPS of weapons like longswords indoors, and give knives and shivs a chance to shine in certain situations.

The problem with this would be programming the AI of pawns to actually fight at that range and try to stay there.  You're not going to be able to use many of the tactics that made lengthy weapons so good in the real world (schiltrons, pikewalls, phalanxes) in a game as simple as Rimworld.  That and some lengthy weapons (longswords, halberds) have techniques that make them just as dangerous at close range as at their optimal range, so that would need to be accounted for if you want to get into that whole mess.

Another thought, anyone played Fire Emblem? I remember one mechanic whereby melee weapons had a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. Swords were weak against spears, which were weak against axes, which were weak against swords. Maybe something similar could diversify weapon choice a little. The problem I'm coming up with is how to justify it - it barely makes sense in Fire Emblem. Any thoughts?

A much better and less clunky way to do it would be something like this.  Break weapons down into three groups, Blunt, Edged, and Stabbing.  Stabbing weapons do lower damage but attack faster and have a greater chance to hit internal organs.  Edged weapons do the most damage and inflict a lot of bleeding, but are the most affected by armor.  Blunt weapons do moderate damage, don't cause bleeding, and swing slowly, but can stun enemies and more or less ignore anything short of power armor.

[Lightzy]

re: Lightzy
Limiting ranged ammo as a way to make melee more valuable is pretty much admitting defeat. I'd rather think up something that gives Melee unique abilities not available to ranged.

The OP was actually about making melee-melee combat better, I guess. I sort of suggested something about melee-firearm balance... my bad. THAT SAID!:
The lousiest handgun defeats the best melee weapon in pretty much every case. I don't need a game that pussyfoots around this with all kinds of 'gamelogic' bullshit ideas and solutions.

Making ammo more expensive is a working solution.

ammo has value, so if you have a stockpile you are more likely to get raided, and in order to create, say, 20 bullets, you need 1 component and 20 steel or something, so added costs in work time and resources.
Something like that.

That said, OP 'disarm' suggestion is great in this case too. So that if your swordninja DOES by some miracle manage to close in with that assault rifle pawn (which is most likely suicide), or ambushes him or something, the sword guy might have some kind of advantage.
There's real life stories of stuff like that happening, where guys with swords did some damage to guys with guns (before being shot to death, of course. And in most cases they weren't fired on at first beause of risk to civilians).


ALSO!

Shimmer/holo field type artifacts (rare please)

[Ace_livion]

how about something like "knock out chance"
since using a blunt weapon instead of an assault rifle increases your chances of taking hostages.
that would make melee a lot more attractive to me if I had better chances of prisoners.
this can work great early game where most attackers don't where helmets.

I do like the
Chance to stun and Change to disarm suggestions. I understand the whole "whoo it does nothing" kinda argument against it.
but I believe that a simple "Stunned" turning up can early game make even the most simple fight seams intense. a strait Yess! / OHH FUCK! Moment. required that a bold white text turn up making us nervous, same
like watching someones weapon dropping on the ground. (knowing myself i would instantly pause the game and have a 1 sec Ohh shit is that my guy who got disarmed? moment)
the block, kinda does nothing... its a fancy word for miss.

while I cant find the best of ideas for Hyper micro managing melee combat, I personally think that if small text sprites like "miss, dodged, Pow, Bam, Slam" and perhaps "STUN, DISARMED, block" showed up while two guys was duking it out. it would at least make it look a lot more intense. kinda like awful snipers, shooting every 4 sec, missing everything.. yet we are not complaining since it look like something cool is happening

[Sinosauropteryx]

The problem with this would be programming the AI of pawns to actually fight at that range and try to stay there.

Maybe, but ranged pawns already start attacking at their maximum range. If a pawn has a range 2 spear, it shouldn't be that much different making him start attacking at range 2 rather than closing the extra distance.

That and some lengthy weapons (longswords, halberds) have techniques that make them just as dangerous at close range as at their optimal range, so that would need to be accounted for if you want to get into that whole mess.

Sure, that's not hard to implement. Some weapons are good in close range, some at longer range, some at both. Of course if we're going for realism uber alles, Lightzy has it right, a handgun should trump a sword at any range, and melee should be obsolete. If we're making combat varied and vibrant, realism is going to suffer.

Break weapons down into three groups, Blunt, Edged, and Stabbing.

We already have this, it's blunt vs sharp damage type.

[FreyaMaluk]

These are just some small ideas which might improve the melee combat system.

Chance to stun
I've witnessed predators stun their prey, and thought it might be interesting to see more skilled melee fighters stun their opponents from time to time.
Perhaps this already happens, but it isn't noticeable (to me) if so.

Chance to block
A higher melee skill already gives an advantage with respect to melee accuracy.
However, I think it would be interesting to see a chance to block an enemy's attack at higher levels.

Change to disarm
Incredibly highly skilled melee fighters could have a chance to disarm their opponents, causing them to drop their weapon.
Given complications with AI, I can see how this might be overpowered.

+1... I thing all this are viable and make a lot of sense in Rimworld. Let's allow our brawlers shine

[Trylobyte]

A concern I have about adding a lot of 'chance to' things to melee would be that it wouldn't really make melee more interesting (it's still two pawns bonking each other) but would greatly increase the effect of RNG on melee fights.  Stun and Disarm are pretty much instant-wins in a one on one, and when your melee fighter is the one getting mobbed this may very well mean they can't do anything for the duration of the fight.

[schizmo]

How about a basic rock paper scissors style of weapon advantages, where pawns have an advantage or disadvantage in melee depending on what they're matched up against? It puts some control into the player's hands while still allowing melee combat to be as automated as ever

[A Friend]

How about this:

Melee has three types of attack. Light, Normal, Heavy.

Light = Lower cool-down, and hard to dodge but lower damage and is capable of doing a special effect depending on the weapon
Normal = Balanced cool-down, hit chance and damage.
Heavy = High cool-down, easy to dodge, high damage and is also capable of doing a special effect depending on the weapon.

These effects would be:

Unarmed (Fists)
Light Effect
- Consecutive attacks (Allows you to attack rapidly with little cool-down in between)

Heavy Effect
- Stun (Enemies are stunned for a few seconds and are afflicted with a "Disoriented" health debuff lasting momentarily. Granting a -20% to conciousness)
- Knockout (A hit to their jaw causes a -60% penalty to conciousness)
- Disarm (Opponents drop their weapon 1 tile away. They may pick it up a few seconds later or not.)
- Take Weapon (You instantly take the opponent's weapon.)


Blunt Weapons (Clubs and Maces)

Heavy Effects
- Stun (Enemies are are stunned for a few seconds and are afflicted with a "Disoriented" health debuff lasting half an in-game hour. Granting -40% conciousness)
- Knockback (Opponents are knocked back a few tiles and stunned, anyone else hit by them will also be stunned for a few moments.)
- Disarment (Their weapons get thrown a few tiles away. The AI could go after it or remain fighting.)


Cutting Weapons (Long Sword and Gladius)
Light Effect
- Slight blunt damage (Causes a minor hit to conciousness. I imagine them using the sword handle to bludgeon their opponents.)

Heavy Effects
- Dismemberment (Should be the only possible way of cutting off a limb)
- Stab (Internal organs are severely damaged, extreme bleeding, and high pain.)


Stabbing Weapons (Spears and Knives)
Light Effect
- Consecutive attacks (Swift movement allows up to 4 light attacks with very low cooldown in between)

Heavy Effect
- Stab (Same effect as cutting weapons, but knives do less damage and cause less pain.)
- Twist (Causes high amount of pain.)

The chances of effects occurring will be highly dependent on the melee skill of the users.

Pawns attack with normal by default. But you can set it to light or heavy as you would with their fight/flee/ignore reaction to enemies. But even with a different attack stance, you could still do different attack by right clicking on an enemy and then choosing the attack type. The pawn will then use this attack for the next turn and then revert back to the default.

Melee skill would mostly determine a pawn's defensive capabilities such as dodging, reflecting and parrying instead of hit chance. This means two crappy fighters will end up trading blows until one goes down. But a crappy fighter up against a master will be guaranteed to lose. While a master on master fight will be a long hard fought duel, relying on the smallest damage to manipulation and movement to bring each other down. Overall, you can at least guarantee that your legendary fighter won't get screwed over by that 0 skilled guy with a shiv.

A solution to boring melee? Maybe not. But I believe something different is better than nothing