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Weak Guns vs. Strong Melee

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Rasmenar, Jul 23, 2014.

  1. Rasmenar

    Rasmenar Void-Bound Voyager

    This is a bit of a problem. I believe that there should not be a very significant difference in the damage that guns deal vs. melee weapons. If anything, I'd say that overall they should deal MORE damage than melee weapons, for this reason:

    Guns use energy, Melee weapons don't.

    That is already a rather large limitation for guns. If they required ammo, you could at least stockpile ammo and be able to shoot until you've exhausted your supply. In this case, you can only shoot until you are out of energy, then you have to "reload" artificially by letting your energy bar regenerate.

    With Melee, you are able to constantly deal damage as long as your target is in range. You have no resource for your attacks. In addition, some melee weapons even have projectiles, giving them access to an infinite-use ranged ability. The damage on these ranged portions of the attack tend to be quite weak in comparison to a hit within normal melee range, but it still gives them an advantage over guns: No resource. You can dig into a hole and hold the fire button until whatever is on top of the hole is dead.

    When you are fighting with a 1h melee weapon and a shield, you lower your shield when you attack, and raise it up slightly after the attack ends. With a gun, you can shoot from behind your shield, but your energy bar will not regenerate until the shield is lowered. With melee, you have a moment of vulnerability when you attack, then you are protected until you choose to attack again. With ranged, you are invulnerable while you are attacking until you are out of energy, requiring you to lower defense (and probably get hit as your target will be either in your face or shooting back) and hide until your energy refills, or use a consumable to give you energy.

    When you look at it from that perspective, Ranged already has pretty severe penalties when compared to melee. Why, then, does it need lower damage as well?

    The developers have stated that they are going to monitor closely to see if there are any balance issues with Novakids not having access to melee weapons. With the fact that they have all of the current ranged penalties vs. melee, I can already see a big balance issue. Sure, some people will be able to progress no problem, but the simple fact of the matter is, it'd be easier to progress with a melee weapon with the current state of guns.

    So, hopefully, guns are set to be buffed. Or, at least, the guns the Novakids will craft will be better than the ones that you can currently find.
     
    Lecic, Madzai and R_C_A^ like this.
  2. Akado

    Akado Oxygen Tank

    Yay! I like talking about balance between ranged and melee!

    Energy is primarily a drawback for sustained combat and mobility. If one hit will kill an enemy (launchers / slow 2h weapons), then it doesn't matter how many shots you can fire, because hitting that first one means combat is over and you can rest up before the next fight. This is why sniper rifles and slow launchers are the most popular (effective?) guns being used. For mobility (pvp mostly), melee players can use energy for techs to dodge shots and close the gap between them and ranged players, but also to keep closing the gap if the ranged player escapes. This is a significant drawback for ranged in pvp, but not really noticeable for PvE.

    Ammo is only a drawback while players are progressing through the game. They must decide to spend their materials on armor, exploration tools, or weapons, or ammo. At endgame, players will have infinite ammo, and it simply becomes a guaranteed bonus. I don't view progression during the game as needing to be slowed down for players that choose ranged weaponry, but it is possible that gun crafting requires fewer materials than melee (the extra cost being made up by ammo crafting costs). Still, I don't think this is a good idea.

    Shields bring up a good talking point as well, 1h guns and 2h guns do the same damage. That's silly, when my 1h pistol can do the same dps as a 2h sniper rifle, but I can use a shield or bread with my pistol. 1h melee and 2h melee do have different dps values, which is awesome. This causes players to actually make a decision between more power or more defense.

    Anyway, I think the current balance situation is temporary. I think CF will be working on this during Stage 2 of the beta, and that what we know right now will change in ways that make most of our discussions look as outdated as a VHS player in an Apple store.

    That being said, I still hope that they make guns slightly weaker than melee. If guns have more power than melee, this implies that ranged users can reliably end combat from range, and prevent threats from enemies that cannot teleport or are not really, really fast. Granted, I also would prefer if the lightning-elemental property on melee weapons was not long range, because that really muddies the waters. Melee weapons should be slightly stronger than ranged, but limited in range. Lightning elemental is not limited in range, and still stronger than ranged, AND it does not cost energy to use, AND it scales on weapon damage. So, if you find a strong lightning elemental weapon, it's a great melee weapon and a great ranged weapon. That's overload, imo.
     
  3. The Neon Seal

    The Neon Seal Sandwich Man

    I think it should depend on what kind of weapon it is. Not just a streight ranged vs melee. If you think about it, a sword or axe causes way more injury than a pistol, but no melee weapon could stand up against a heavy machine gun or an anti-material rifle in that regard. Any magnetic weapon such as a rail or coil gun pwns anything except a nuke.
     
  4. Loopholes

    Loopholes Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    With that kind of balance you end up with a line of weapons that is better than the last, think of it like rock paper scissors, except instead of the usual rules, rock beats both, and sissors beats paper, and paper is weak to both. This means there is a clear and obvious better option, which means everyone would just choose the more powerful rock, as there is no reason to chose anything else.
    This is why things need to be balanced equally, so everything is viable and it creates and more varied and balanced experience, we want to encourage different play styles.
     
    Lintton, krylo and Akado like this.
  5. krylo

    krylo Hard-To-Destroy Reptile

    Damage being lower is fine. What they need to do is reduce energy cost to the point you can kill 3-4 enemies reliably (meaning enough energy to miss a few times) before it runs out.

    The fact that you can't 'seal the deal' with guns is their problem. Not a lack of damage.
     
    Lecic likes this.
  6. Tomato Master

    Tomato Master Noob Simulator 2014

    Don't forget that nothing can beat a headshot.
     
  7. The Neon Seal

    The Neon Seal Sandwich Man

    Of course, this can be balanced with ammo, weight and rarity. Other things too. You could use a shield with a pistol, but nothing larger. Ammo would also be much more plentiful and it would take up a whole lote less storage space.
     
  8. Akado

    Akado Oxygen Tank

    It can be balanced by adding other variables to the equation, but that makes it a more complex situation. Rather than needing weight/ammo to balance combat, why not try balancing it without those extra things that only affect certain types of combat?
     
  9. KaZe_DaRKWIND

    KaZe_DaRKWIND Big Damn Hero

    I never understand this argument. The whole point of ranged is making it so you are less likely to take damage. To balance that you deal less.
     
    Untrustedlife likes this.
  10. Rasmenar

    Rasmenar Void-Bound Voyager

    The point of this argument is that, currently, you have no killing power as a ranged character, due to the fact that ranged combat not only does less damage, but has a resource on top of it as well. That resource gets consumed far too quickly, forcing you to kite and run for cover while waiting on the energy bar to refill. So, not only are you dealing less damage per shot, you have more downtime between attacks than with melee. Long story short, ranged isn't worth using at all in its current state. It doesn't make you less likely to take damage because, like with melee, you still have to kite/avoid creatures that get up close and in your face just as much as if you were hitting them with a hammer, which does far more damage and has no resource limiting it's use.
     
    krylo likes this.
  11. "Strong Melee vs Weak Ranged" comes down to one simple thing: Risk.
    Players going in close for melee attacks are taking a far bigger risk than those standing back and shooting wildly. They should be rewarded for taking the risk and being successful. Missing with a bullet means nothing, missing with a melee attack will most likely result in getting hit.

    I think the energy system should be handled more like how Mercenary Kings handled reloading. No finite ammo supply, but after you fire X bullets, you start "reloading". When reloading a bar shows up with red, yellow, and green sections. If you hit the reload button again when over a red section, it fails to reload for a few seconds, If you hit it during a yellow section, it reloads normally, if you hit during a green section, you get a damage buff. If you wait for the bar to finish without hitting it, you reload in the normal time.
     
    Untrustedlife, Lintton and krylo like this.
  12. krylo

    krylo Hard-To-Destroy Reptile

    Agreed, but I don't think increasing damage is the fix. Increasing damage enough to be worth the energy cost, would required a ludicrous amount of DPS to the point guns WOULD be over powered.

    Better solution, in m my opinion, would be to lower the resource cost, as I said above.
     
  13. yclatious

    yclatious Guest

    Why not simply indroduce a cartdridge system?

    High rate of fire Guns like SMGs and such would cost a determined energy cost for about 50 bullets,the energy cost was subtracted from your energy bar,then you can simply fire those 50 bullets without worrying bout Energy.
    Run out of 50 bullets,geta another cartdridge of bullets for the Energy price.

    That way,you dont ned to worry about wsting Energy,beetween reloads,you should have had more than enough time to replentish yer energy,it leaves you with energy regen so you can use other Techs aswell in combat whilst using guns,and its much better than just using Energy by eatch shot.
     
    Oberic likes this.
  14. The | Suit

    The | Suit Agent S. Forum Moderator

    It really doesn't matter.
    According to them they justify by it by the "Slow walk back"

    But what ends up going to happen is twitch game play. Where you turn around for a second shoot then turn back forward and run. Hence removing the "slow walk back"
     
  15. MysticMalevolence

    MysticMalevolence Oxygen Tank

    Honestly, slow back-walking is more of a problem for melee to me.
     
  16. dkdeath

    dkdeath Contact!


    I think one thing can fix melee vs. range and giving players ways of using the energy bar for something besides abilities / bullet magazine. Equipable passives like extra damage, damage reduction, aura burn, poison touch and critical hit chance could be the equalizer we need to round out the combat.

    A melee fighter can be kited fairly well using ranged weapons. Adding a distance closing ability and per-shot energy cost into the mix leaves ranged fighters with little energy to use abilities of their own and thus fairly defenseless against an enemy that can close the gap with an ability like teleport.

    However, breaking down the melee fighters into quick ability users and slow tanks would give Starbound the rock-paper-scissors balance we want.

    Thus, Ranged > Tanks > Melee > Ranged:
    1. Melee ability users would still be able to move around the battlefield quickly, and trump ranged fighters.
    2. Melee passive enhanced tanks would use manna bar to burn away some of the damage or cause more damage via passive abilities, making them last longer in hand-to-hand combat and beat melee active ability users.
    3. Ranged users would use the distanced advantage against the slow-moving tanks. The damage reduction or aura burn would be useless against an enemy that you can't reach.

    Additionally, this system would still remain flexible enough to account for the player's skill through use of healing items, blocks, counters, terrain advantage, and differences between various weapons.
     
    Rasmenar likes this.
  17. Rasmenar

    Rasmenar Void-Bound Voyager

    I'm not sure if rock-paper-scissors balance is the way to go, though I liked your post as it's very well thought out. Instead of making each build weak to one and strong vs. the other, why not give Ranged the option to be able to use abilities as well? You could easily justify the lower damage of ranged attacks if they were at least also able to use abilities to kite without having to chew through food items.
     
  18. Terrahero

    Terrahero Cosmic Narwhal

    The issue of risk isnt as much in favor of ranged as might initially be believed.

    The energy you consume, rather rapidly, to use ranged weapons is the same energy you need to use Tech. And Tech has proven to me to be quite powerful in the defense of the character. To quickly get out of danger, as kiting only gets you so far, to quickly maneuver otherwise difficult terrain or to evade attacks.

    And top top it off, losing or limiting your ability to use tech is (atleast to me) less fun aswell.
     
    JustHereForTheMods and Rasmenar like this.
  19. Lintton

    Lintton Guest

    If folks are looking to float around forever using guns at the same time I hope you realize how ridiculously unbalanced that is to all combat.
     
    Untrustedlife likes this.
  20. dkdeath

    dkdeath Contact!

    I think you are right. Currently there are only two skill-based ways to mitigate damage shields and tech. The ranged players are put on a disadvantage on both counts:
    1. Shields put them in melee range.
    2. Techs use the same energy pool as bullets.

    Thus, without introducing new mechanics, the best way of mitigating this could be allowing ranged players to expand energy pool by further sacrificing ability to fight close range. If ranged players could get access to high tier armor that sacrifices armor rating for increased energy pool and regeneration, they would improve ability to kite and solve both of the problems.
    1. If I don't plan to get in range to use shields, I don't need the high armor
    2. Increase energy pool to allow more tech usage.

    The melee combat changes will put emphasis on blocking and countering mechanics. This would make ranged players into mobile glass cannons and require mobility and positioning (which can be really fun if done right). However, this would still require a degree of skill, to move out of the way just as you become vulnerable.
     

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