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[zato1]

melee AND unarmed need special 100% AP abilities that are low damage, high AP cost. either reimplement some old weapons, or rework some of the ones that are currently in, but theres no denying psycho + tesla or even BA completely negates almost any melee functionality besides crippling.

[Gorlak]

melee AND unarmed need special 100% AP abilities that are low damage, high AP cost. either reimplement some old weapons, or rework some of the ones that are currently in, but theres no denying psycho + tesla or even BA completely negates almost any melee functionality besides crippling.

I won't deny it, But I will have to prove you wrong.

These tests were not done using any super character. Need to thank Valentine for running 'Ahbobsaget' . 3 melee damage, 8 strength, 11% critical. Character Has better criticals perk( the key to achieving the knockouts / knockdowns, and cripples, that melee is awesome for. )

I had stats of one who might be wearing Brotherhood armor, 8/40 , and 40% DR. Under psycho, DR of 55%

We did Eyes, Groin, Legs, Head for all three of these weapons also, but for the sake of the forum, I will only post the results for Eyeshots. If anyone wants to see the others, let me know.
I figured I would start with a basic weapon..
-Sledgehammer [4-12]
-Sharpened Spear [4-15]
-Super Sledge [18-39]

Sledgehammer / Eyes / Brotherhood armor

Code: [Select]

• You were critically hit in the eyes for 14 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were hit in the eyes for 1 hit point.
• You were hit in the eyes for no damage.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 4 hit points and blinded.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 6 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 5 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 18 hit points, knocked out and had your armor bypassed.
• You were hit in the eyes for no damage.
• You were hit in the eyes for no damage.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 8 hit points.
Sledgehammer / Eyes / Brotherhood armor + Psycho

Code: [Select]

• You were critically hit in the eyes for 4 hit points.
• You were hit in the eyes for no damage.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 8 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 5 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 42 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 12 hit points and knocked down.
• You were hit in the eyes for no damage.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 42 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 5 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 5 hit points.
Sharpened Spear / Eyes / Brotherhood armor

Code: [Select]

• You were critically hit in the eyes for 17 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 25 hit points, knocked out and had your armor
• You were hit in the eyes for 2 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 29 hit points, knocked out and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 15 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 6 hit points and blinded.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 23 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 17 hit points.
• You were hit in the eyes for 1 hit point.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 12 hit points and knocked down.
Sharpened Spear / Eyes / Brotherhood armor + Psycho

Code: [Select]

• You were critically hit in the eyes for 35 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were hit in the eyes for 3 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 19 hit points and blinded.
• You were hit in the eyes for 3 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 13 hit points and blinded.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 39 hit points, knocked out and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 53 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 5 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 49 hit points, knocked out and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 5 hit points and knocked down.
SuperSledge / Eyes / Brotherhood armor

Code: [Select]

• You were critically hit in the eyes for 53 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 71 hit points and blinded.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 64 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 33 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 81 hit points, knocked out and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 92 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 51 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 42 hit points.
• You were hit in the eyes for 19 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 55 hit points and knocked down.
SuperSledge / Eyes / Brotherhood armor + Psycho

Code: [Select]

• You were critically hit in the eyes for 68 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were hit in the eyes for 6 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 43 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 27 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 20 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 35 hit points and knocked down.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 121 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.
• You were hit in the eyes for 11 hit points.
• You were critically hit in the eyes for 71 hit points, blinded and had your armor bypassed.

[Gorlak]

A thought on the other "points" made in this thread:

I've probably put in a couple thousand hours playing melee build of varying types,
i) 15 Melee dmg + aimed shots
ii)15 Melee dmg & fast shot
iii)1 Melee dmg & finesse (35% crit) ,with/without Better critical perk
iv)Finesse & Heavy handed (highly not recommended )
v)5 Melee Dmg, 11% critical

@OP , after trying all of these, it's been realized that the pure damage build is not great, but decent versus critters. It will be terrible when facing a player character, 9 out of 10 times.
The bottom line when talking about successful use of melee weapons, is having both... criticals, and damage. 
Better criticals perk.  All anyone needs to know, this is what unleashes the power , and maximum effect of any melee weapon, or gun for that matter.

Well Bob was using almost all possible drugs to pump his character up as much as possible. Psycho, Jets, Buffouts, (Nuka Cola?) to make himself effective against his opponents. Now with changed drugs system it's almost impossible to make such a tank.

Yes, RJ thank you,  this is true. After reaching 1,000,000 xp, Ahbobsaget decided to dabble in some drugs. This went on for about the last 3 months of the previous session.
For 3 fabulous months, I ate psycho, and jet. All psycho did is ensure that i didn't get shredded by a single burst from Big gun . As for the jet... well, that shit is just addictive.

Make the character automatically run when he attacks with melee someone who is out of range

This is the most terrible, awful, and LAZY idea I have seen.
The only way this could be a good thing, is if - Hit must be selected, when player is within no less than 3-4 hex of target, for the auto run function to kick in.
This should be an optional feature, not one that somebody is forced to use.

One idea was to give the aftermentioned knockback effect working always with Thrust attack, and never with Swing attack.

- Not in favor of this. Should stay as it is, perhaps with a slightly higher chance to cause knockback by using 'thrust' than there currently is.  Effect should not be limited to type of attack.

Tweaking knocking distance might balance this out.

- This is a selling point of melee character, for me. I want to hit somebody halfway across the damn map, as it is now..   If they are able to stand up after, and run away, so be it.
- Nerf knockback ? 

I do still think unarmed/melee need some kind of disabling attack, however.

Disabling attack like crippling? , As i mentioned before, this effect is rarely noticed without a really good critical hit. It is maximized through the use of Better criticals. This is standard for pretty much every weapon/ attack in the game.

Their only real hope if they get in close is to keep their enemy out of action before they get bursted.

Yes, unfortunately this is the truth. In my own and others dream world, there would be some inherent damage resistance.. Some kind of benefits to having melee / unarmed skills tagged , with some check on the items in hands. I mean come on, these players need to get within 2 hex minimum to attack, yet there is nothing in place to Balance Damage taken. The nerf on psycho was dark day for melee user.


Bob's bottom line : Melee is effective, and by no means should it be turned into some point and click lazy bullshit.



There are things which need to change, but changing too much has a tendency to ruin a good thing, as history has proven.
For what it is, you need to accept that this is what you will see for most of the time when playing this class :

[Slaver Snipe]

Bob knows all, what he says should go with melee...that 200+ dmg crit was amazing lol.

[Ymeogamaouas]

why does melee or unarmed need to be on par with gun related traits?

Humanity started using guns because no matter how good you were with your hands or with a sword or even a chainsword of some kind the person holding the gun was the victor of the day (provided he could hit you and that there was initial distance).

Balance does not need to come from lethality... the actual cost of firing your ammo and having a gun deteriorate is much much higher than that of a spear or sledgehammer or ultimately your hands and in the end force the melee user (and give them the opportunity) to get perks that may help him otherwise... ie high sneak and sneak related perks with a melee/unarmed prequisite or even a much improved version of Dodger Perk (could be 3 tiers, dodger gives you 5, then improved dodger gives another 10 and master dodger 15... total 30 AC ... add a 20 AC armor and your agility 10 and thats a nice 60 Armor... save some AP and get it even higher)

[avv]

why does melee or unarmed need to be on par with gun related traits?

Because it can and it has potential for awesome. The problem is just when you make a character, it has to be total melee, total sniper or total whatsoever. This creates various problems like powerbuilds, alts and the problem how are we going to balance melee to fit the world of guns.
If our chars could be more dynamic and do various things well while still having their main roles, melee could be part of everyday combat. For example a strong biggunner could be also a sledge-wielding fighter or good with his fists. Agile sniper could handle a knife. Basically anyone should be able to use most melee weapons without always having 30% accuracy with it. We should get rid of special's accuracy is related to stats -rule.

Then why use melee? We could implement some good features that would make melee the most effective combat ability in close range. So that a minigunner would prefer to equip his powerfist or sledge when his enemy comes near. It would make fights much more interesting when players had to plan when to switch weapons. 

[Badger]

Then why use melee? We could implement some good features that would make melee the most effective combat ability in close range. So that a minigunner would prefer to equip his powerfist or sledge when his enemy comes near. It would make fights much more interesting when players had to plan when to switch weapons. 

Agreed. Fallout 2 practically admitted they set Unarmed/Melee too low by giving you free unarmed/melee training in the first two damn towns. I like the thought that if enemies get up close, you don't run away but instead start punching dudes in the face. But I don't know how you encourage that. A straight damage buff would just make melee NPCs absolute beasts. And it goes beyond more than a simple damage buff - the issue of character durability comes into it, and so on - why risk a melee fight when you can just run away?

[RavenousRat]

Agreed. Fallout 2 practically admitted they set Unarmed/Melee too low by giving you free unarmed/melee training in the first two damn towns. I like the thought that if enemies get up close, you don't run away but instead start punching dudes in the face. But I don't know how you encourage that. A straight damage buff would just make melee NPCs absolute beasts. And it goes beyond more than a simple damage buff - the issue of character durability comes into it, and so on - why risk a melee fight when you can just run away?

In SW: KoTOR there's a great bonus when you attack someone with melee/unarmed and target has ranged weapon equiped, so there's 2 possibilities to play: pure-melee or melee/ranged, because pure ranged will be useful only with someone tanking. But in Fallout it's not that easy to get close to your enemy because sometimes you can die with 1 shot.
But anyway even if you'll make unarmed/melee in close combat better than ranged weapon, then what you'll do with bursters? What will be thier role? Right now they playing role of "melee", if unarmed/melee will be better than point blank burst.. then there will be no more bursters, except for bluesuitokillers with miniguns and JHP ammo just for fun.
Only powerfist, cattle prods and rippers should atleast a bit match to SG/BG/EW, because it consumes ammo, and it should be almost the same as 1/2 of point blank burst in power. So unarmed/melee will be the same as BG, but less expensive and only point blank possible, but because of less expensive less damage, but still possible to kill someone.
Bare hands, knives, hammers and knuckles should have deterioration and they should break much much much much faster to imitate "ammo", then it could be made useful too.

[Dark Angel]

och really ? 40-120 dmg on Psycho In BA all time  ? it cant be true :> Maybe you do it ,but when guy in BA have avanger he can kill you from one hex with one burst ( or high hit + knock ) To crippled his arm you need be very luckly . With  6 LK + better crit + 2 more crit i had to hit him 3-4 time to crippled his arm.

[zato1]

just saying, bypass armor crits aren't representative of melee functionality bob. i know you like to throw around those big numbers but lets pull out a plasma rifle and we'll see much nastier bypass crits.

the truth is melee's problems in the current state of the game are obvious: you don't get nearly enough bang for your buck.

for having to chase someone down, and then the terrible walking animations, and then finally catching them, only to have a slight chance at controlling the fight just long enough to get a good shot in, the usage of melee weapons is terrible.

they need to cripple. ALOT more. unless significant changes are introduced in how melee users reach a target, the problem will always be inherent with the engine in a RT setting - kiting. as a melee user you cannot overcome an opponent who starts out at range, barring any luck misses/non-crits/cripples. you will be handily knocked out, crippled, or simply out of HP before you can reach the target.

melee is currently mostly situational in usage. it needs to be taken out of the dark ages and given a serious looking at. if melee is to remain the same, all t2+ melee weapons need something like a perk to increase the chance of cripple effects on critical hits. it is simply unacceptable that hitting someone in the arm with an enormous sledgehammer won't break it. likewise, hitting someone in the head/eyes with a hammer... knockout.

letting a melee PC into close range should equal death for you, no questions asked. because, the current situation, is that melee are always in range of gun users, and when they finally get there, the effect is more akin to a powerful bullet than a melee weapon, with certain exceptions like the super sledge, which can get some hilarious knockbacks.

edit: little tidbit from the ER, knife wounds are far more deadly than even most rifle wounds.

[Ymeogamaouas]

hey Zato... I thought in other threads you yell at us "softies" about complaining about pvp... your arguement is realism... you want a game where realism is king right?

Well in reality melee weapon fighters in combat ended in the 19th century... sure you had the occasional cavalry charge, the occasional "fix bayonettes" etch but during the day, in open terrain there is no way a melee user could take down a competent firearm user.

Also "it is simply unacceptable that hitting someone in the arm with an enormous sledgehammer won't break it." ...

Yes. getting hit with a sledge on the arm will usually break that arm. No problem there.
What happens when you shoot someone with a gun? On the head? Do they bleed a bit and then keep chasing you with their sledge? Cause there is no way they can do that when they are dead!

How about if they were ANY type of conventional armor? Well they still die you know... leather, metal and even kevlar wont protect against a shot to a sensitive area from a high powered rifle of any kind. Shotgun bullets (not spread) will also bypass kevlar and the same for high caliber handguns... Even if you dont die from the shot itself, you die from blood loss or hydrostatic shock. Alot of the times when a bullet goes through you completely the chances are you will simply get knocked out from the shock itself regardless of damage (or critical).

And if you survive unlike a melee hit usually a bullet wound really does need high level (surgeon style) medical attention and not some first aid... let alone the dangers of infection etc.

And I am leaving laser rifles, plasma and miniguns out of this cause then even the THOUGHT of comparing melee to firearms becomes a joke.

So yes, lets introduce more realism. You will break my hand and I will kill you with a mauser. Sounds like a plan.

[avv]

But I don't know how you encourage that. A straight damage buff would just make melee NPCs absolute beasts. And it goes beyond more than a simple damage buff - the issue of character durability comes into it, and so on - why risk a melee fight when you can just run away?

Our melee is a bit fucked up. We got too little strategic options to choose from in general. Roughly there's 2: running and shooting. If there was more options to apply, like stances, concentrated aiming, aiming while walking, sneaking (not 300% sneak), rushing and switching to more suitable weapon in midst of combat - melee could surely have a place there.

I'm not going to even discuss how to fit melee in our current combat.

But in Fallout it's not that easy to get close to your enemy because sometimes you can die with 1 shot.

And that's something that should be fixed.

But anyway even if you'll make unarmed/melee in close combat better than ranged weapon, then what you'll do with bursters?

If they saw someone coming at them with melee weapon, they could lay down a burst when enemy was crossing the medium-close range, then switch to their own melee and have an advantage because of the damage dealt with that burst. Or if the enemy was further away, the gunman would surely win because he could shoot so many times before the axeman could reach him.

What will be thier role? Right now they playing role of "melee", if unarmed/melee will be better than point blank burst..

Like I said current combat is pretty fucked up. Good example why is that people make characters that can't do much of anything else than "burst". Their entire purpose is to burst, sounds pretty limited for a sandbox game.

[gordulan]

it would be quite interesting if "hiding" would be used as sneak. You know, necromunda style, making it a nececcity in battle for the simple reason of balancing it out properly.

I mean, "charging" could be implemented as well for melee characters, I mean, there's so much that can be implemented,  and it will work pretty well IMO...

[avv]

it would be quite interesting if "hiding" would be used as sneak. You know, necromunda style, making it a nececcity in battle for the simple reason of balancing it out properly.

Yeh sounds cool, as long as its success is not dependent on your sneak%. Most problems which are related to alts and powerbuilds are caused by the fact that skill% equals success or failure.

I mean, "charging" could be implemented as well for melee characters, I mean, there's so much that can be implemented,  and it will work pretty well IMO...

It would be basically just speed boost which you can only use to move forward. Would be good for changing positions or catching a foe unaware. It's just not going to work as long as running isn't restricted in any way. The fact that a player can instantly make his character run in any direction with full speed strips away various strategic options.

[RavenousRat]

Yeh sounds cool, as long as its success is not dependent on your sneak%. Most problems which are related to alts and powerbuilds are caused by the fact that skill% equals success or failure.

This is RPG, there're alot reflexive games already, if you don't want skill affect success/failure, then... why do we need skills at all?