What do you want to see in melee playstyle?

Give swords fast DPS.
Since you know, you need to reload for guns, except the automatic type.

 

Weapon randomization will be a feature in the game, i'm not overly concerned with how my weapon looks, thats not going to keep me playing the game.

Customization, uniqueness, variety and overall fun will be the factors that will keep me returning to this game.

 

I don't think attacks will be directional, but there are multiple varieties of swords that swing in different ways, and let's not forget Weapon Mods!

 

There's no actual ammo in the game, so if a person has incredible Energy gear, reloading is more or less irrelevant.

 

Your right the taco should switch in between hotdogs, clams, and chicken and the muffins should switch between meatballs, cake, and mustaches and as for the hilt? The pony will switch between a picture of Rick assley, a troll face, and a space core

 

I really hope it is, directional attacks(imo) would be one of the biggest contributors to "swinging in different ways", left and right is far too limited compared to a gun, this makes it feel instantly stale(imo)

While it was super fun to get the hammer in donkey kong(NES), when you take that gameplay, and put it into terraria, you end up starting with a terrible terrible copper shortsword that you immediately toss or just use the pickaxe instead to damage enemies. This instantly makes weapons like daggers or short fast weapons unapealing, forcing all players for big, slow(mostly) swords. Yes, it was a pointless item but it shows that strictly left and right direction attacks are very boring and unfun when presented with a challenge. Yet the rest of the swords still swing in this manner, but do a wide swipe so the weapon is effective, you are forced to use it, so you run around and whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh, oh look! a new sword, whoosh whoosh whoosh etc. it doesnt go any farther than that for swords.

whoosh whoosh whoosh pvp feels lacking, i want to jump and swing, i want to leap over things and smash them. i want to effectively hit birds and flying stuff regardless if they're above me or below me. I want to hit that asshat skeleton thats on a ledge below me, without having to resort to killing myself jumping down with low health because i can only swing left or right, ultimately losing all my gear in the middle of a dungeon in a world i just created.

weapons like daggers or poleaxes, spears or any horizontal attack have to be directional, vertical swings will have to be too or the transition would feel awkward.

 

They should also add some form of K-K-K-K-KOMBO attacks in the Melee system lol

 

I have seen both Vertical and Horizontal attacks, and there are also stabby things and stuff. Each weapon will prolly only swing in 1 or 2 ways, but it doesn't really matter because you can switch weapons on the fly.

 

Stabby things u mean spears and or shanks?

 

yeah

 

But alas I to hope for less bland fighting lol look at terraria lol they just have one directive specific to weapon attack

 

I'd love to have a (hold) right click to shield and left click to swipe or stab. While we are on the topic of this i hope there are certain combo's that can be performed, maybe shield bashing or something (if you could get shields)

 

I do not know what all they have in the melee mechanics yet but...

A dodge roll left and right would be great perhaps some sort of upgrade in the future to do it while in mid air would help with ranged mobs.

Having enemy have to actually ATTACK you to harm you would be nice, enemy hurting you by merely touching you has always been a bugbear of mine.

Being able to push smaller enemy's by holding up your shield and walking into them would also be a nice touch.

as for mod's I would not mind seeing rolling be put into melee weapons or a backstabbing mod that would help for tougher enemy's and could help with the rolling plus team play.

 

I WANT GIANT FISTS

 

they said that there will be Tech that allows for movement stuff, so I think Dodge Rolls are in.

 

Ah that sounds GREAT! I always like dodge moves as opposed to blocking and just being a bullet sponge!

I was hoping to go melee in this game since in terraria I was a ranger 24/7.

Besides nothing feel's better then dodging a few bullets/lasers/rockets and one or two bad guy's to slice off there commander's head.

 

I'd love a big two-handed sword style. But that's probably hoping for a bit much.

 

Chaos Zweihander + 5

a man can dream

 

I think the melee system needs variety more than anything, slicing people up with a big sword is fun for a while butit gets boring if the only change is a higher damage different looking weapon. Starbound needs many different kinds of melee weapon with different skills and abilities.

Also, although combos are good there should also be some passive upgrades. Think of a modified version of skyrims (yes, im mentioning a AAA corporation game on an indie forum! kill me with fire now!) skill tree with differnt upgrades and paths.

Heres a rough idea: The more you use melee weapons the higher your base melee score. if you use a certain type or weapon, say a greatsword your separate but linked greatsword score goes up with use as well as your base melee score therefore your less likely to get into a rut of using one weapon as some of your skill is transferable to a different weapon type.

For example, your base melee score is 50 and your mace score is 25. you want to now use greatswords as youve found a powerful one, you switch weapon type and start using it. Because while you were using your mace you were still adding to your base melee score you dont have to start from scratch with your greatsword.

This could also be implemented into some sort of perk system. You can get individual weapon perks by using a certain weapon, but you can also get weapon perks for a weapon youve never used before if your base melee score is high enough.

As well as a perk and skill system i think its also important for melee weapons to look just as cool as ranged weapons and have as much varietyas possible. I know modding can and will add more weapons but i still think its important to have a good range in the standard vanilla game.

Of course, a good fighting mechanic to use these perks and weapons is essential.

 

Juggling and Combo attacks are not a good fit for Starbound imo, and would be very difficult to balance. They'd probably be either totally overpowered or almost entirely useless. Starbound just isn't a fighting game, and nothing will really change that. EDIT: It also is not an RPG. Please, no perks/points/skill trees. Item-based progression 100%.

Making more interesting and various attack animations (Castlevania style) would be excellent. Air Dash + Dash Attacks might be useful.

More importantly, all weapons should have very low knockback by default, or even have an extremely short term rooting effect instead. Castlevania and Metroid games both have this extremely short-term rooting effect for mobs, but they also have knockback for your character, which is kinda wierd. I think the rooting/stun would work better in some cases. Including higher knockback on melee weapons means that the enemy will get pushed out of range by your attacks, and if you are ranged it prevents enemies from approaching. At the same time, if the enemy is not held at bay by your melee attacks then the enemy is likely to collide with you and get attacks in. Shields will help a bit, but they might not fix the issue entirely.

I hope there will be variety among the shields, like only some of them would allow you to move while they are held up, while others would cause you to be immobile while holding them up but are much stronger. There should also be a mixture of shield effects other than counter attack damage.

I hope there is no "Cobalt Shield" that completely nullifies knockback. It was totally broken in Terraria. Immunity to some minor knockback, resistance to major knockback, or even a percentage change of nullifying knockback is fine, but completely ignoring all knockback is way too powerful. Ideally, melee players should be able to ignore rapid ranged attacks and run straight through them, but slower ranged and melee attacks should halt their approach with some rooting/knockback so that they have to Air Dash in or raise their Shield to get close. How much knockback the player can ignore should be variable, like you can ignore up to 3 points of knockback (or whatever units the devs decide on). The rooting effect would be like the minimum knockback, but could be nullified if the original knockback was less than half of the knockback resistance of the armor.

Maybe knockback could be a function of the damage you take, like in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. More damage = more knockback; less than X damage = no knockback; etc... Might be a bit harder to code, but would have interesting consequences as a game mechanic (like using explosions to reach high ledges, TF2 style).