These are just my opinions, not law. Read the whole post, because some of it wouldn't make sense if the whole thing wasn't read. 1* There should be no weapons where you could just hold down and swing, you would need to click for one swing (maybe some weapons that swung twice?) 2* Shields should not be held down, they would only go up for approx. 2.5 seconds before having to click again, maybe with a 1 second delay between shield raises? If an enemy hit your shield, they would also be staggered, giving you time to attack. Shields could block bullets. 2b* If suggestion 2 were declined and shields were able to be held down, they should slow down your mobility, prevent you from jumping, or looking in a different direction. Then people/enemies could just jump to the other side of you, making it so you had to lower your shield momentarily to turn around. If you rose your shield at just the right time, right when your opponent attacks, it would negate all damage. Shields could block bullets.3* If there were guns/bows in the game, after a certain range they should have their damages slowly & constantly lowered. For full-auto weapons, there would be a cooldown after firing for too long, or a reload time. If there are any suggestions, or if I get any more ideas, I will add them to the main post.
I agree with 1, 2b, and 3. However, as for 2b, I envisioned that the player would basically be immobile while shielding, so your thought acually makes more sense.
I thought about writing immobile shields, but then thought that if that happened many people would just make a dirt wall or something in front of themselves.
I can't fully agree nor disagree. It really depends on balancing or how the game is made but what if a ranged weapon has auto attack (talking about PvP)? Melee would be totaly screwed unless melee get's a movement boost. I can see PvP being rather fast. We don't even know how a melee guy would be able to defend himself against one with a rocket launcher that stands at a distance and blasts holes into the ground to hamper the movement of the melee guy. Having no auto attack has strenghts and weaknesses. If Boss fights are long it will put some stress on you and your equipment. If they are more tactical like in Zelda then no auto attack is a good move. If they are more like in Metroid then you'd very much wish for some sort of auto melee/ranged attack. Even if it's weak compared to some heavy hitting non auto fire stuff. At this early point it is hard to tell what would work best. We'd really need more info on this and have to take all parts of this game into acount to really say what would fit the most and what not.
We can place blocks, Tiy said himself that left click places the block in the foreground and right click places it in the background (like the terraria X-block walls) Also, I agree with these too, except for 2*.
Yeah... actually forgot that Starbound would have high tech weapons. Hmm... I have no idea how a sword would beat a rocket launcher.
You also forgot that this is a 2d game in which you will be able to dodge bullets simply by jumping out of their trajectory, and probably block them using high-tech shields. So yeah, melee will beat rocket launchers easily enough, assuming you're decent in your skills. Anyways about the suggestions, I agree with all of them. In fact as I myself suggested some time ago in a compilation about melee (Melee mechanics), melee attacks should also not be continuously the same dull swing but rather some kind of combinations.
I agree that shields should greatly lower your mobility while holding them out. But I also somewhat agree with 2*. I think that holding down the shield button would negate some damage, but if you block within about..half a second as an attack hitting your shield, it would be a "perfect" block, and would be even more effective at blocking. So there's incentive, and risk, at using a shield intuitively instead of just holding down the shield key forever. ♥
That reminds me of the recent Bastion (impressive game, by the way ^^), where you could hold your shield up for as much as you wanted, but if you did it just at the right moment you'd do a perfect block and redirect the attack at the enemy. I guess this is already somehow implemented with the counterattack system, but yeah, you should get a limit to how much time you can hold it up.
One thing that could work is some sort of power wave that you can send from your melee weapon that can stun an enemy for 1 second and does minor damage. Maybe this helps to overcome distances between melee and ranged (sort of Zelda style where you could charge your sword). Another possibility against Rocket launchers would be if melee guys could risk their cover to hit a rocket at the correct moment with their melee weapon to send it flying back at the attacker. Shields could work as good block against small projectile weapons. And i would modify ranged auto fire weapons with a heat build up system to make auto fire not that powerfull and giving melee players a chance to get closer. Very much if you overdo it with auto fire your weapon will overheat and can't be fired for x seconds until it cools down. This makes combat even more tactical.
I don't think there's any problem with weapons which you can hold down the button with as long as it's done correctly and not just added to any weapons. Regarding the shield i think it's a really good idea though i agree it should probably be somewhere around 0.5 sec. Or you could take it even further and say that you block more of the damage depending on how perfect the block is. I also think that shield should slow you but not make you completely impaired, so you can use it against ranged attacks with a decent result
Perfect counters I like, but more in the matter of staggering a foe. Melee would also, methinks, should have acess to a sort of shield bash, which would use white health to stagger a foe. That would help shielders against several different attack styles. Maybe the devs could make ranged characters reload, opening a hole in the otherwise endless bullet stream. Just some thoughts.
This could most likely even things out a bit between ranged and melee, which i think is needed if you look at terraria for example.
