Game Mechanics What Happened To Being Melee? (Read OP, Under Revisionary Scrutiny)

Percentage of your interest in this being expanded upon in later patches?


  • Total voters
    48
I saw nothing that needed to be replied to and it's against the rules to bump one's thread without adding content. This subject does seem to be lacking interest from the community strangely so I see no real reason to attempt to keep it active.

Until there's more attention there isn't anything else for me to do.
 
I saw nothing that needed to be replied to and it's against the rules to bump one's thread without adding content. This subject does seem to be lacking interest from the community strangely so I see no real reason to attempt to keep it active.

Until there's more attention there isn't anything else for me to do.
I suppose that it is.
 
What I thought would be interesting would be something like the whole combo system from Diablo II. The more you strike is the more you benefit on the final strike.
 
What I thought would be interesting would be something like the whole combo system from Diablo II. The more you strike is the more you benefit on the final strike.
That's intriguing I suppose but I don't exactly see it working out. My initial thought are this'd be less rewarding to people who have full damage sets for clearing events/bosses quickly so they probably wouldn't bother? Something like that would more beneficial to AFK area set-ups? I don't really see a viable way to make hitting mobs and bosses multiple times work since the player has to manage avoiding damage, plus clearing it faster is generally better.
 
I know I might be late to this subject about the blocking stuff, but what if you just made a countering system aswell? Maybe you could block then deflect those annoying demon eyes. Could even input this into a boss if they updated it, where you had to deflect a projectile to hit it. (Maybe a new pre-hardmode boss to train upon that?) Like I said, I know i'm late to the discussion, but please reply telling me what you think :)
 
what if you just made a countering system aswell? Maybe you could block then deflect
This is worded oddly so I'm going to go by my best guess of what you mean. First off there isn't a statute about blocking or anything else related to melee in this subject, if there were I'd mention it, so no it's not too late discuss that.

I don't see any problems with implementing blocking as a means of entering a state of heighten defence but I do with countering since even if applied 360° there's still the complication of multiple attacks, how would you time it, how long is the invulnerable for? I don't think a counter system can be well executed with current combat and the amount of additions needed in coding is probably pretty high, or so I'd expect. I'm more in favour of small tweaks to what exists in the game over large overhauls. If you think you have a good idea of how it could be added that's both fun to players and balanced for characters then please feel free to share it in detail, it's not that I condemn countering it's just I personally don't see it working out.

On a side note, something I do think would be fun is a range of melee weapons that perform scaling or even different attacks based on the length of time between when you click for varying arcs of animations, different speeds could be included. Just seems interesting to me but without you lot giving feedback these suggests will go to waste.
 
I'll attempt to chip my own ideas in on how a revamp of true melee weapons could be done, because I completely get where you're coming from with it. Of course, it's a bit hard with how hardmode begins bringing in a lot more 'bullet-hell-ish' features into it, and especially when you get to bosses, so I feel like even a swordsman using a fairly standard blade should have a good shot at stuff. So:

What Every Melee Weapon Should Be Able To Do:
  • Projectile Reflect - Much like with how current melee weapons can be used to swing at incoming magic projectiles to dispel them, a weapon swing can be done to not just destroy the incoming attack - regardless of whether it's an Imp fireball, Hornet stinger, or Skeleton Archer arrow - but this also sends a reflected set of projectiles back the way the swing was directed.
    • With simple swords, particularly the ones crafted out of ores, the reflected projectile is usually very simple, such as a short-ranged arcing shower of sparks. On rarer, more exclusive blades, however, the effect becomes much more pronounced - I.E. A phase saber shoots a very fast wall-piercing laser at its foe (imagine a star-wars blaster being deflected), Arkhalis throws out a triple shot of very low damage, high-knockback wind gusts, Excalibur does the shower of sparks and heals the user a bit, etc.
    • The big limits of this are timing, and how fast the weapon can be swung. However, another limiting factor of the projectile reflect is how much damage the projectile coming in does - if the attack you're trying to parry does more than 2x the damage value of your weapon, the incoming attack will just be deflected without any extra effect; no counterattack. Beams, such as those fired by the Saucer or by Moonlord, also cannot be deflected.
    • The bottom line here: Projectile Reflect is used by melee fighters to counterattack Rangers and Wizards.
  • Hitstun - To deal with particularly nasty bosses that bum-rush you - such as Fishron for example, True melee hits can perform a counter with a great deal of hitstun, capable of stopping an enemy dead in their tracks if they're coming straight for you, regardless of knock resistance. The hitstun effect can only be activated after a certain amount of time without attacking or taking damage, meaning it's a technique that requires discipline and timing, rather than wild swinging.
    • To be very precise, the hitstun is not knockback, meaning no accidental flinging an enemy into you with a backswing or anything like that. And because of the nature of being mobbed, a single swing can also hitstun multiple incoming enemies in its arc - making it poor for maintaining a continued defensive in a single spot, but great for a quick getaway.
    • For a scope of how versatile this is, Hitstun is activated once every half-second, with each interval inbetween that time, the player must not have taken or dealt any kind of damage, nor taken any weapon swings.
    • There is a limit to how often enemies can become hitstunned in a short period of time, and hitting an enemy that already is stunned with another attack will break them out of the stunned state, even if the next attack would've also been a valid stun.
    • The bottom line here: Hitstun is used by melee fighters to counterattack other Melee fighters and Summoners.
  • Axes and Hammers - These two tools I want to bring up - they're perfectly fine weapons outside of the scope of terraria, but they are constantly lesser in comparison to the mighty swords, due to, while sometimes doing higher damage, having a much lower swing speed. I want to see if we can get them a very major damage buff, making their individual hits stronger than what a sword can deal out. But then you might ask: They can also chop down trees and reshape blocks, why even make a sword then? Several reasons, all coming back to one central point about these two weapons: They're way less versatile in combat.
    • Both are slower than the Sword, even if they ultimately can deal the same DPS thanks to higher damage on hit. This already makes the combat maneuvers of Reflection and Hitstun harder to perform due to less precise swing timing. As an added bonus however, Axes gain a minor boost to critical chance, and Hammers have a very hefty knockback boost, making one great for aggressive styles, and the other a defensive godsend.
    • Their ability to do a deflection is much worse, not just because of the slower swing, but also because of the much smaller blade (or hammerhead) making a precise parry much harder - that is, when deflecting a projectile with these weapons, only the tip of each weapon will count. Otherwise, you just get hit by the attack.
    • As will be discussed below, Axes and Hammers do not get the same kinds of accessory bonuses that swords or spears can. Many of said bonuses aim to make combat with particularly tough enemies, specifically airborne bosses, easier - so these tools don't get those luxuries and are mostly ground-bound.
  • Knockback Adjustment - One last thing is this: Knockback should be done relative to your character's position, not your weapon's orientation. Because one thing that can happen very often on backswings is that you end up juggling an enemy into your own hitbox, which just ends up causing them to hit you repeatedly.
    • I can also take this moment to just say, desigining around legit close-ranged melee is very hard when all enemies do damage on direct contact with your character. Maybe that's something that could be changed for mid/later-game enemies, like hornets and demons and such?
What Other Bonuses That Can Be Picked Up:
  • Lunge Accessory - This accessory ties into the first concept discussed in the OP: A scabbard or something that grants the user a lunge move they can do from a certain number of tiles away. The lunge has some limitations:
    • It can only be done with 'proper' melee weapons - Swords, Claws, and Spears.
    • The range of this lunge doesn't scale with what weapon you're using - it's always a set distance of about 15 tiles. However, side-upgrades, particularly to movement speed from armor and other accessories, can boost your lunge range.
    • When doing a lunge, you are invulnerable, much like how Solar Flare armor works. Also unique is that your lunge will instantly stop you and grant your invulnerability for a few frames after you make contact with your target, at which point you do a standard weapon swing.
    • The lunge is initiated by doing a click on a far-away target, at which point, you lock-on to them and will deal your attack against that specific target. Any other enemies in the way risk getting knocked away, or the player just phases through them (could be the difference between like a ghost scabbard and a knight scabbard or whatever). Solid blocks, however, will stop your lunge prematurely without dealing a hit.
    • The lunge has a sizable cooldown. Again, much like (old) Solar Flare armor, it's something you can only do roughly once every 3 seconds.
  • Shield Mechanics - Perhaps either as what current shields should be able to do, or as a new type of shield, they should be usable as a 'melee' weapon that can be held out to block incoming attacks. The current concept for the idea is something like this: The Cobalt Shield gets an alternate upgrade line with a Steel Towershield, we'll say. Instead of being an accessory, however, this is a piece of held equipment:
    • The Steel Towershield has an extremely fast use time, and will hold out a large, solid shield in the direction your mouse is pointed.
    • Any magic or projectile that hits the shield is entirely removed in a puff of smoke and with a metallic tink.
    • Any enemy that hits you in melee will be knocked back, and inversely, you also will get knocked back based on how much damage you might've taken.
    • If you ram into an enemy with your shield, you can lightly damage the enemy while also reducing the knockback you take.
    • Upgrades to the Steel Towershield will entail extra ways to use it unorthodoxly or as an offensive melee weapon (Spiked Shield deals much higher charging damage, Magician Shield can recharge mana by getting hit, Enchanted mirror shield can reflect projectiles, etc.)
    • Optimally this sort of blocking should be something doable with existing cobalt/obsidian/etc shields, but with the current control layout that might be a bit hard to achieve (right click??)
  • Passive Mobility Buffs - While getting more speed bonuses on your armor is nice when it comes to hardmode, it still pales utterly in comparison to true mobility accessories, such as wings or lightning boots. Perhaps a buff to those aspects could be planned?
    • Also tying into that, some kind of accessory that allows you to do a dodge-dash; somewhat like the Tabi, but with the added bonus of being able to phase through enemies without dealing or taking damage. Something that'd be attainable early-ish on in hardmode for melee fighters?
  • Emblem: Greater damage bonus to Pure Melee - Let's be frank. Especially getting into hardmode, it begins getting really really hard to feasibly approach many enemies in pure melee without taking ridiculous amounts of damage. That's part of the reason why Melee armors are usually the strongest, but then there's the melee emblems and accessories you can get, such as the Fighter Emblem or Mechanical Glove. These sorts of things should give a very drastic boost to 'pure' melee weapons, such as perhaps even +25% extra damage to standard, up-close swings. I sort of also would like to see emblems expanded even further into more specialized areas, but this is all very heavily conjecture:
    • Knight Emblem - Grants a high 30% damage bonus to melee sword swings. Player becomes much more likely to be targeted by enemies, and becomes resistant to knockback. Hitstun is empowered with 'Knight's Splendor', which lengthens the stunning effect of the attack considerably (3 seconds?).
    • Lancer Emblem - Grants a high 30% damage bonus to spear attacks, and increases spear size by 10%. Players can increase spear damage by running quickly at enemies, boosting damage further by as much as 10% extra at 35mph.
    • Fencer Emblem - Grants a 20% damage bonus and speed bonus to sword swings. The effects of Projectile Reflect are boosted, and regardless of weapon used, the deflection always throws out a homing wave-slash of force back at the source of the attack. The Fencer Emblem also might be crafted out of the scabbard, making lunges a lot more frequent.
    • Berserker Emblem - Grants a high 30% damage bonus to Axe attacks, paired with 5% extra critical chance. The user becomes resistant to knockback, and will gain 'bloodlust' buff when taking damage, boosting damage, speed, and attack speed by 5% each time, and lengthening invincibility frames.
    • Brute Emblem - Grants 30% extra damage and knockback to Hammer attacks. User's Hitstun ability with hammers is buffed, now creating a spherical shockwave upon usage that knocks all surrounding targets way out and deals a prolonged stun (5 seconds).
 
my own idea
That's all well and good but even with all your efforts to propose a balanced approach to realising "true melee" combat it still has the existing problem attached in that the pay off for this additional trouble players go through using it doesn't seem worth it compared to alternatives. I get doing something not because it's easy but because the act itself is recreational but even with what you've suggested I don't see many benefits as it will probably be very time consuming. Time consummation isn't a problem until it begins to feel repetitive and unrewarding in the long run.

I like to evaluate things by a game logic I've held for quite some time; there's a scale by which effort to reward needs to be done in a context the player is happy with, where they can see their results for labour preformed. Going by what you typed I'd have to stated that the stats would need to be adjusted to kill mobs/bosses quicker than that of what the same tier projectile melee weapon can do, even with taking into account dodging time. The problem is I have no idea what a balanced layout of that would look like, not to mention this is a lot of effort to achieve some basic combat style.

For those reasons I don't think an utterly pure straight forward melee combat system would work, it'd be too niche in appeal. It just doesn't fit with how the enemies you face attack you, there's difficulty adapting it properly to work, particularly with bosses. I think a hybrid of hitting on animation and drastic positioning tools with far increased effective hitbox improvements to players' attack arcs is the way to go. Granted it isn't what true melee is but on the other hand it's easier to implement with what's currently in the game and is far closer to what melee should be without the need of flying projectiles flung in every direction.

Just to be clear; this isn't me writing the concept off, it's just I'm highly doubtful to it working in practice. The way in which you presented it hasn't changed my original views about the problems that come with this notion. If you think you can solve that you're free to try.
 
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The short-ranged 'slash-wave' solution I can respect. All things considered that would be the easiest way to circumvent the problem, but I believe the methods I put down have got their own merits, basically dissolving down to gameplay variety.

I guess the higher-damage thing was also a bit implicit. Spending hours trying to deflect incoming attacks and attempt lunges isn't a great idea yes, so ramping damage up to make each of those risky dives in count would be a good idea - I mean, after all, a Solar Armor lunge does a pretty respectable chunk of damage. Having a hitstun also inflict a defense debuff might be desirable.

As it is though, the package described up there I think balances the playing field fairly well, provided we don't count the slew of 'ranged-melee' attacks that exist. Ranged builds are limited by ammo supply, Mages are limited by their magic regeneration and mana pools, Melee (in a perfect situation) is limited by technique and timing, managing cooldowns you have on your abilities. Taking the faux-melee weapons into account, everything just gets convoluted because the only real downside stuff like Solar Eruption and Yoyos have is their slightly limited range, and that aside they are both extremely easy to use, do loads of damage, and use up no ammo, magic, or other resource. But theoretically (and this is why I made some distinctions between 'true' and 'partial' melee on stuff like emblems) most of the finesse involved with making close-melee swings so versatile and deadly is lost on those sorts of weapons. In a much more succinct way: Ranged and Magic require you to (generally) know how to aim your mouse cursor to hit enemies on target, but melee focuses much more on when to click instead - which is kind of like how melee worked in Terraria before more updates occurred, but it just got a bit lost between expansion of boss AI and fancier ranged weapons.

I can see where you're coming from with enemy AI. If you consider the closest equivalents to this game when it comes to 2D combat (Probably Castlevania - On-contact damage, timed weapon usage, etc), Ranged weapons in those games tended to be actually somewhat inconvenient to use since you couldn't aim anything - as well as limited uses, so generally melee is the default in that situation. More generally I think the biggest differences I can think of between Terraria and a battle-oriented Metroidvania is that the sprites in Terraria are way smaller, and movement precision is a lot less fine than it is in a game like Symphony of the Night - One's engineered for players to properly walk up fairly near to an enemy and smack them in with Crissagrim. You can control precisely how far you walk forward, stop on a dime before a fairly large target, and then strike at them without much fear of them suddenly lunging forward, because most axe knights and rifle skeletons usually didn't do that.

But for all I know, the solution could be as simple as causing zombies and other generic enemies to pause and then make a short dash across the ground at you when they get nearby? The key to making enemies work in those games is that, after you saw them a few times, you generally had an idea of how they'd move and attack. And some of the later mobs you encounter, stuff like Giant Cursed Skulls or Red Devils, that predictability is what can be used to avoid curses and immense damage from very slow tridents. What if that sort of principle was applied to even some of the earlier mobs? Who knows how it could work out? There'd of course be the issue of other unpredictable situations (a zombie walking off a ledge and dropping on top of you for example), but then is that something else that could be worked out by adjusting how enemies spawn or move?

Getting back to how melee and ranged relate in ye old Castlevania; for just a short while, Terraria melee also is the fallback! You always have to start out that game with nothing but your tools and a copper shortsword. But what's to stop that from developing into seeing what neat things can be done with it? It might seem niche, but provided the changes are introduced on weapons as globally as even your starting weapon, there might be some sort of draw to use the melee layout - provided of course stats like damage are ramped up properly over the course of the game instead of starting way too overpowered or again failing to match up to fake melee or the ranged options.
 
This would be cool to see as a mod, but I feel it's a bit too complex to fit in with the rest of the game. Combat in this game is very simple for a reason. Plus, who knows how much code would have to be rewritten and how many workarounds to the game's engine there would have to be on the dev team's part?
 
Longer ranged Arkhalis type weapon would be so easy to work into the game. It would simply be 7-8 frames and a hitbox.
 
This would be cool to see as a mod, but I feel it's a bit too complex to fit in with the rest of the game. Combat in this game is very simple for a reason. Plus, who knows how much code would have to be rewritten and how many workarounds to the game's engine there would have to be on the dev team's part?

I gave in-game examples for a reason, it's because there's potential to use existing mechanics, adjusting them accordingly, also I don't see any good reason to exclude more complicated combat if it's an additional option to what we already have, people may like their fighting to be simple, that's fine, but where's the harm in making more complex weapons for those who want to challenge themselves?
 
I gave in-game examples for a reason, it's because there's potential to use existing mechanics, adjusting them accordingly, also I don't see any good reason to exclude more complicated combat if it's an additional option to what we already have, people may like their fighting to be simple, that's fine, but where's the harm in making more complex weapons for those who want to challenge themselves?

I see. Sorry, I thought you meant that you wanted to see current mechanics replaced which is probably my fault for not paying enough attention when I read the suggestion. Now that you've cleared that up, I really don't see any reason why they shouldn't add items that have interesting mechanics.
 
What about durability? What if you successfully hit an enemy with a melee weapon, it takes some damage? Weapons like the Terra Blade could have their beam as a secondary effect with the right mouse button that uses durability on the weapon. When the weapon loses all it's hit points, it would turn into a broken state in which it has to be repaired, either by using an item or having an NPC repair it for you.
 
What about durability? What if you successfully hit an enemy with a melee weapon, it takes some damage? Weapons like the Terra Blade could have their beam as a secondary effect with the right mouse button that uses durability on the weapon. When the weapon loses all it's hit points, it would turn into a broken state in which it has to be repaired, either by using an item or having an NPC repair it for you.
I like where you're coming from, but I don't like a flat out durability. I would much prefer something like Skyrim's soul meter where once it's empty, the weapon can still be used but it doesn't have any special attributes. You could probably work out a system where you have soul gems that essentially function as ammo for the weapons, but this type of thing really sounds like it should be in a mod, as it would needlessly complicate the main game in my opinion. Still an interesting thought and a cool idea though. I may come back to this once I can actually work with code.
 
I like where you're coming from, but I don't like a flat out durability. I would much prefer something like Skyrim's soul meter where once it's empty, the weapon can still be used but it doesn't have any special attributes. You could probably work out a system where you have soul gems that essentially function as ammo for the weapons, but this type of thing really sounds like it should be in a mod, as it would needlessly complicate the main game in my opinion. Still an interesting thought and a cool idea though. I may come back to this once I can actually work with code.

I actually think I like that idea better.
I haven't played much of Skyrim though, so I wouldn't have known. I was thinking more on the lines of Dark Souls, specifically the second game.
 
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