make fleeing less of a bad decision please.

[tmo97]

i want a replacement for the combat mechanic where you get hit and it makes you walk slower for 3 whole seconds. fleeing is basically sacrificing the 2 extra damage you couldve done - you're better off literally just fighting to the death because running never works. it just doesn't work, even if the things are way, way slower than you. it makes movement speed only relevant outside of melee combat.

i should be able to escape from scarabs ffs.

i just ragequit and this is the most annoying thing about combat in this game. the previously most annoying thing was dying to an infection from a hare scratch, but that's mitigated since i can tend myself now.

[frenchiveruti]

I agree, but you know you can switch that behavior to stand the ground and fight, right?

[Granitecosmos]

...you get hit and it makes you walk slower for 3 whole seconds... ...this is the most annoying thing about combat in this game.

Original art by /u/SrGrafo.


The slowdown effect happens only if the pawn is attacked in melee; hits from ranged weapons don't cause any slowdown. The only reason you'd ever get into a melee fight is if:

• You started it. In this case you want to stay in melee, unless you realize you accidentally committed number 3 instead.
• The enemy was faster than you. In this case you're being penalized rightfully and the enemy could close in and attack you again anyway.
• You made a mistake. In this case it's your fault, deal with the consequences.

The reason it works this way is to make melee chasing less tedious for every party. If you were chasing a wounded raider with a bionic arm or other valuable loot you'd have to close in a lot of distance because your pawn stops after the attack every time, waiting for the melee weapon's cooldown after the swing. This means the enemy is very likely to escape, especially considering standard map size isn't that big.

The price for this is enemies can do the same to you. And since there is no slowdown at all for getting hit in ranged combat, this problem can be completely avoided if you avoid melee in the first place. In fact, for truly justified retreats (like a raid on an enemy outpost that took an unfortunate turn) there is no such slowdown problem at all since those tend to be ranged combat oriented.

[paul23]

Also consider that "fleeing" shouldn't be done to create distance. - It should be done to get back to your line where your swordsman are ready to take on those beetles.

(I do think that melee needs a buff in that it should cause less permanent injuries).

[Jibbles]

If you were chasing a wounded raider with a bionic arm or other valuable loot you'd have to close in a lot of distance because your pawn stops after the attack every time, waiting for the melee weapon's cooldown after the swing. This means the enemy is very likely to escape, especially considering standard map size isn't that big.

Interesting details on the bionic arm.  Does the slowdown effect ever get reduced by high movement speed? In A17, I would usually get my melees to take go juice and target the pawns with grenades.  They seem to jump in and out of a fight with anyone and usually had enough to time run away from grenades on top of it all.  I could never tell if it was because of a specific stat or the combination of increased stats.

[tmo97]

You can show me math but it won't change the fact that you can simply never exit combat no matter what your movement speed is. You get hit, and then they walk up to you and hit you again. I don't care if I started it. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to get out of it.

Your argument:
1. Don't get into melee combat.
2. Get more movement speed or don't try to flee from melee combat.
3. Don't accidentally get into melee combat.

This is the point of the thread. Make fleeing from melee combat less of a purely bad decision.
The only mistake you can be responsible for IN melee combat is being in it, because your pawn does everything. Their gear & positioning and their stats relative to their opponent are the only thing that matters in combat, therefore once you're in melee combat there's no actual mistake you can make, except fleeing, which I told you, is what I dislike about melee combat.

I know why it was done, but it's more of an ugly hack than a fix.
It's like, oh, I don't know how to fix it, better remove it altogether.

Try to be a little more suggestive, I don't see your criticism as constructive.
Granitecosmos. This isn't the place for preferential elitism, but thanks for taking the time to respond. Oh welp, you made a mistake, now you gotta watch it burn and there's nothing you can do about it, and that's how it SHOULD be(, because that's how I like it and you oughta deal with that). Might be that's not what you intended to be saying, but it's pretty much implied.

"Also consider that "fleeing" shouldn't be done to create distance. - It should be done to get back to your line where your swordsman are ready to take on those beetles."
That's also the point - you can't get back to any line because you'll be able to run a full 4 squares before your pawn goes into shock or dies from RNG 67 instadeath. Turning around and walking back to a certain point is so punishing that you either prepare or you die.

If your pawn's reduced movement speed is slower than the regular movement speed of the opponent, there is no use in fleeing, because you will die. It's not fun, because it's the same feeling as getting stunlocked. There's nothing your pawn can do at that point, except stay in combat and do damage until they die. The trait 'fast walker' means nothing. They're basically already dead at that point. That kind of bothers me.

Don't think combat should be that stiff. I know people like roguelikes and challenges but every time a game is bent into harshness without opt-out buttons, it's just sad. Reloading because someone decided you should die in 1 hit because of RNG, then getting judgment about it because RNG is fair and it's been decided that the game is gonna be this way, egh. Mods, yeah, but if you know the community is divided on it, why not make a slider.

Anyway.

Melee - you run in and you fight till the death or you regret trying to be tactical about it, when all it really is is stats + amount of people you can fling at your opponents. I have to reserve people that I pre-emptively decide to not care about story-wise, because my normal pawns have a large RNG chance to just die in melee combat. I don't really care when I see the name 'Warrior', because I know they'll just die from squirrels. It was like bleeding to death from squirrels because there's nobody to tend to you and there was no self-tending yet. Just feels bad, not fun and I don't feel like I really had a choice.

[Granitecosmos]

You can show me math but it won't change the fact that you can simply never exit combat no matter what your movement speed is. You get hit, and then they walk up to you and hit you again. I don't care if I started it. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to get out of it.

The slowdown effect lasts for about one second. Most melee weapons have cooldowns way higher than one second. This is why a longsword is worse at chasing than a knife. If your movement speed is still higher than your enemies' then you will be able to get away.

Your argument:
1. Don't get into melee combat. Engage in melee only if you know what you're doing.
2. Get more movement speed or don't try to flee from melee combat. Don't expect to be able to flee from faster opponents without taking damage.
3. Don't accidentally get into melee combat.

Fixed that for you.

This is the point of the thread. Make fleeing from melee combat less of a purely bad decision.

Turning your back against a spearman and fleeing will get you impaled and you'll die. Think of the slowdown as a proper disengage instead. Sure, the enemy might still hit you if you're bad at melee or your enemy is skilled. But at least you don't turn 180° and die to a backstab every time you disengage.

The only mistake you can be responsible for IN melee combat is being in it, because your pawn does everything. Their gear & positioning and their stats relative to their opponent are the only thing that matters in combat, therefore once you're in melee combat there's no actual mistake you can make, except fleeing, which I told you, is what I dislike about melee combat.

Yes, once in a brawl it's all about melee skill and gear. But that's the point. You can check your enemies' gear, melee skill, even melee DPS in the information window. For every enemy. Knowing this means you always know when it's a good idea to melee and when it's not. And since this information is readily available for you from the beginning there's no excuse for making a bad engage decision (unless you're a new player and still not familiar with the game; at that point you're expected to die over and over until you learn how to play).

I know why it was done, but it's more of an ugly hack than a fix.
It's like, oh, I don't know how to fix it, better remove it altogether.

If you remove the slowdown, melee chasing becomes extremely frustrating when players try to do it. At that point you'd have to decrease mele cooldown which would disturb the combat balance so that's not an option either. So what's the change you propose for this? Since you sound like you have an idea for fixing it. But if you don't, then your whole thread is just whining about a game feature instead of an actual suggestion. Propose a proper change for the system that doesn't destroy combat balance in the progress instead of accusing the current system of being a half-arsed attempt because the devs couldn't think of anything better.

Oh welp, you made a mistake, now you gotta watch it burn and there's nothing you can do about it, and that's how it SHOULD be...

Roguelikes in a nutshell. Like it or not, RimWorld plays a lot like roguelikes. I'd go as far as to say this game is a lot harder than Dwarf Fortress. And I've played DF for many years (and still do).

...you can't get back to any line because you'll be able to run a full 4 squares before your pawn goes into shock or dies from RNG 67 instadeath. Turning around and walking back to a certain point is so punishing that you either prepare or you die.

If you're trying to get away from melee to fall back to a line of allies which isn't too far away, why not bring the line there instead? This is melee vs melee. No need to hold ground.

And like I've said, the slowdown is about one second. Unless we're talking about a fast melee weapon or animal there won't be such a stunlock you're talking about. You disengage, the enemy gets 1-2 free hits at you which might or might not connect. It's fair.

If your pawn's reduced movement speed is slower than the regular movement speed of the opponent, there is no use in fleeing, because you will die. It's not fun, because it's the same feeling as getting stunlocked. There's nothing your pawn can do at that point, except stay in combat and do damage until they die. The trait 'fast walker' means nothing. They're basically already dead at that point. That kind of bothers me.

Traits are pretty much meaningless. Several versions ago they changed the movement speed by a meaningful percentage; they were good back then. Right now they increase/decrease it by a flat amount. A human's base movement speed is 4.61 tiles/s. Slowpoke is -0.2, fast walker is +0.2, even jogger is only +0.4 which translates to a mere +8.68% movement boost. A duster and an armor plate combined is also just a minimal -0.12. Most of the time your speed is determined by your current wounds (including scars). Fleeing from melee combat gives the enemy an opportunity or two to attack you without retaliation. This is why the best way to not get into a bad melee situation is to avoid it. Since you can check enemies' melee DPS and gear, the necessary information to make such a decision is always available for you. If you don't use it it's your fault.

Don't think combat should be that stiff. I know people like roguelikes and challenges but every time a game is bent into harshness without opt-out buttons, it's just sad. Reloading because someone decided you should die in 1 hit because of RNG, then getting judgment about it because RNG is fair and it's been decided that the game is gonna be this way, egh. Mods, yeah, but if you know the community is divided on it, why not make a slider.

Thr RNG that one-shot your best pawn is also the RNG that gave you a self-tamed thrumbo in your previous game or the one that gave you a trade opportunity of 20 tuques for an orbital bombardment targeter in the game prior. Losing pawns and progress is part of the game experience. If you don't like the challenge, play an easier difficulty. If you absolutely can't stand losing a colonist every few years then this game is not for you.

You have no idea how hard and lengthy of a process it is to code a slider for things like these. Especially considering how many different factors contribute to the situation you describe. True, it would be very nice to have sliders and options for pretty much everything. But Tynan wants to release the game before Half-Life 3.

Melee - you run in and you fight till the death or you regret trying to be tactical about it, when all it really is is stats + amount of people you can fling at your opponents. I have to reserve people that I pre-emptively decide to not care about story-wise, because my normal pawns have a large RNG chance to just die in melee combat. I don't really care when I see the name 'Warrior', because I know they'll just die from squirrels.

There are only four tactical things about melee. First, engaging ranged opponents by using cover/walls. Second, checking enemies' melee DPS and gear to determine whether it's worthwhile to engage them in melee. And third, fighting in doorways or other one-tile entrances to minimize the amount of enemies hitting your guys while you maximize the amount of your guys hitting theirs. And fourth, letting the enemies' forces divide into smaller groups and taking out these smaller groups one by one (classic Divide et Impera). No more, no less.

However, I sould mention that melee in B18 is extremely flawed. Ranged pawns have almost as good melee power as melee-only pawns. Feel free to read up on it here. It's quite pointless arguing about an obviously flawed system that will get changed in the next version anyway if your problem is mainly engaging ranged enemies with melee pawns.

As for melee vs melee: check enemy DPS and gear (and even dodge chance; you can check that too), then decide whether it's a good idea to go melee or not. Don't expect to get away unharmed from opponents after you've already engaged them in melee and definitely don't think you can flee from a faster opponent for long. And please post an actual suggestion to fix your issue than just claiming the system to be broken. Preferably one that doesn't break the balance of melee combat and doesn't make melee chasing extremely tedious.

[OFWG]

Wow OP, looks like you seriously triggered somebody.

... fleeing is basically sacrificing the 2 extra damage you couldve done - you're better off literally just fighting to the death because running never works. it just doesn't work, even if the things are way, way slower than you. it makes movement speed only relevant outside of melee combat.
...

100% agree, I always set all my pawns to stand their ground because this mechanic is so poorly balanced.

[tmo97]

"1. Don't get into melee combat. Engage in melee only if you know what you're doing.
2. Get more movement speed or don't try to flee from melee combat. Don't expect to be able to flee from faster opponents without taking damage.
3. Don't accidentally get into melee combat."

Implying I don't know what I'm doing, condescending person.
#2 still stands. I don't expect to be able to flee from faster opponents without taking damage, I expect that fleeing isn't a 90% chance to die, because usually after you get hit once, your movement speed is rammed into the floor. Your spear argument is shit too - I don't expect that shit, I expect fleeing to do something.

My actual suggestion was, make fleeing less of a bad decision, but you really wanna be right when you're just not.

"This is why the best way to not get into a bad melee situation is to avoid it. Since you can check enemies' melee DPS and gear, the necessary information to make such a decision is always available for you. If you don't use it it's your fault."
Implying I'm not micromanaging things in a micromanagement game where you die if you don't take the minutest factor into account, stop fucking condescending.

"Roguelikes in a nutshell. Like it or not, RimWorld plays a lot like roguelikes."
stfu man, "like it or not" is just because YOU like it.

"Thr RNG that one-shot your best pawn is also the RNG that gave you a self-tamed thrumbo in your previous game or the one that gave you a trade opportunity of 20 tuques for an orbital bombardment targeter in the game prior. Losing pawns and progress is part of the game experience. If you don't like the challenge, play an easier difficulty. If you absolutely can't stand losing a colonist every few years then this game is not for you."

more condescending projected crap.
When the game makes me micromanage everything otherwise I get you going "uh-uh-uh you didn't take X into account", you can't just suddenly pretend a colonist randomly dying from a squirrel is a good thing, learn to admit when you're wrong.

Again you think I don't like the challenge, based on the fact I don't like RNG squirrel instadeaths and deathpit melee mechanics. Get off this thread with your non-constructive attitude. Idk if you've noticed, but you're telling me that I should suggest something, while you're here poking holes in everything I say with a bad, bad bias.

[Granitecosmos]

I'm still waiting for your actual suggestion to fix this since outright removing the speed penalty will also deny the player the ability to chase down fleeing enemies. And that change won't happen, you can bet on that.

The slowdown effect is already less than one second after a hit. Best case scenario for you is decreasing it by 25% or so, any more and melee chasing becomes pretty much impossible for the player because maps are too small. I don't think it'd be good for the game to always have the option to walk into melee range, hit your enemy a few times, then walk out of melee range and stay uncatchable. You can already do that if you wanted to, that's what bionics and combat drugs are for.

Fleeing is not as bad as you think it is. You could add a dodge bonus if you really wanted to but then you just buffed ranged vs melee because the game can't detect whether you have a gun or a knife in your hand right now because these entities don't have specific tags for melee and ranged that could tell the game so. If you just add the weapons' def names you screw over every weapon mod ever. So you need to add a new tag for every weapon, then write code for that one situation when a pawn is fleeing while still in combat. And then you still have no code to actually make the game detect when you're really fleeing, otherwise every melee attack will give the opponent a dodge buff (the slowdown doesn't discriminate, you are still slowed when you just stand and fight, you just don't see it exactly because you don't move). Solving this problem is a lot harder than you think and will not happen because the game will soon be officially released; there is no time to implement such an elaborate system for one thing when the current system isn't broken in the first place.

There, I even wrote a valid suggestion for it myself and told you why that won't work. Happy now?

Oh, by the way. You were complaining about not being able to escape from scarabs in the OP. First of all, when you're being attacked by more than one enemy don't expect to get away. At that point they outnumber you and they deserve to be able to lock you down just like players deserve to lock an enemy down when they gang up on them. Second, megascarabs are faster than humans in the game so you were doomed anyway. How did you get into such a situation anyway? Animal insanity event? Megascarabs rarely appear alone outside of deserts and even then they are docile unless they are part of a hive on the map (and at that point scarabs are the least of your problem).

I don't expect to be able to flee from faster opponents without taking damage, I expect that fleeing isn't a 90% chance to die, because usually after you get hit once, your movement speed is rammed into the floor.

You get slowed down for less than a second. Meanwhile the enemy is now on cooldown, unable to move at all. You get to gain distance from that enemy while they are standing and looking dumb, waiting for their cooldown. You want the slowdown removed? Fine. But the moment that happens, melee cooldown will not stop the attacking pawn's movement either because that's how fair play works. Expect fast animals to be even more deadly and raiders with swords and spears chasing you down even faster. You are fleeing because you got hit and the enemy didn't get hit as much; your pain is higher already and pain decreases consciousness which in turn decreases movespeed. With melee cooldown not stopping pawns, they will mercilessly chase you down, constantly standing in your face and attacking as soon as their cooldown is off. If anything, that would make melee chasing more effective and your fleeing decision even worse. At that point you'd have to micromanage counter-attacks, adding insane amounts of tedium if you're trying to retreat more than one pawn, while basically fighting like you normally would but also moving in a direction. While this might sound like a fair trade-off first, keep in mind that the current fleeing mechanism easily decreases enemy DPS by 50% or even more after the initial disengage while not gimping movespeed as much; a spearman needs about 3 seconds to close the distance you gain with the current mechanic (tested in-game with an already wounded target and a healthy melee fighter, feel free to test it yourself), while the spear itself has a 2.3 second cooldown. This means the spearman automaticaly loses one hit because it can't attack you immediately after the cooldown is off, then spends 3 seconds chasing you (at that point he could've launched his third attack) and then finally hitting you a second time, when he'd be through some of of his third attack's cooldown normally. Basically his cooldown chages from 2.3 to 5.3 which means he just lost over half his DPS. Is that still too bad for you? Do the math before you complain.

My actual suggestion was, make fleeing less of a bad decision

Your OP is nothing more than complaining about the movespeed slowdown. You didn't tell us how you'd change it at all, this is why you're not suggesting but complaining. Please write a suggestion about how you think this could be solved/changed in a meaningful manner that doesn't break combat.

[tmo97]

gtfo granite. you're condescending, you're projecting this to just be complaining and your criticism is neither constructive nor understanding. stop responding to my posts before i call a moderator on you.

"this is why you're not suggesting but complaining. "
"Happy now?"
"You were complaining about not being able to escape from scarabs in the OP. First of all, when you're being attacked by more than one enemy don't expect to get away, because this is MY game."
"Is that still too bad for you? Do the math before you complain."

All you do is go around writing shotgun arguments filled with logical fallacies and ad hominem. You make it a huge chore to respond to you because you're just gonna misinterpret everything and have yourself be right anyway, you narc.

"There, I even wrote a valid suggestion for it myself and told you why that won't work. "
Basically you're saying no to the point of this post, and thereby seeing so, I conclude my refutation, since your attitude is "no" and "ur bad and wronge" from the start.

Get off this post! I told you I don't like you and I told you you're being mean, you're bringing nothing but hatred in here. You hate me and you think you're superior to me. You're denying and rejecting absolutely everything I say and saying it's all meaningless and that I'm just complaining. In all good spirit, granitecosmos, gtfo forever.

[Ramsis]

Between the multiple complaints made against you, the scathing evidence you've supported their claims with, and of course the very hostile and rude PM I received you're going to deal with a 3 week ban tmo.

You are banned for multiple breaks of rules 1 and 2; I hope when you come back you will be willing to accept claims from others without spinning up violently.

[Yoshida Keiji]

Fleeing needs two upgrades:

* A ranged fleeing character should be able to fire some retreat fire, with very low accuracy of course as he won't be aiming targets, just so that the chasers don't close in so fast. It would also make chasing more fun. If the fleeing character is melee, then there should be the option to throw the weapon at closing in enemy that would deal a good damage but also has some miss ratio.

* Fleeing enemies should try to avoid sapping walls and find exits.

[Call me Arty]

Between the multiple complaints made against you, the scathing evidence you've supported their claims with, and of course the very hostile and rude PM I received you're going to deal with a 3 week ban tmo.

You are banned for multiple breaks of rules 1 and 2; I hope when you come back you will be willing to accept claims from others without spinning up violently.

Tyrannical mod! You should've banned all the people disagreeing with him! He had a fool-proof idea and all these mean people were crapping all over him! Oh, and while you're at it, ban everybody who disagrees with me in my posts, plz.

[Encrtia]

Between the multiple complaints made against you, the scathing evidence you've supported their claims with, and of course the very hostile and rude PM I received you're going to deal with a 3 week ban tmo.

You are banned for multiple breaks of rules 1 and 2; I hope when you come back you will be willing to accept claims from others without spinning up violently.

Tyrannical mod! You should've banned all the people disagreeing with him! He had a fool-proof idea and all these mean people were crapping all over him! Oh, and while you're at it, ban everybody who disagrees with me in my posts, plz.

In this thread, I agree with you. But I first came across https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=41600.0 , to which I must admit, was clearly evidence of a non-tyrannical mod. But I digress, apologies.