PC Bladed combat in 17.3

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DeathNoble

New member
First, quick question: Does flurry of blows also speed up power attacks, or just regular attacks?

So onto what I want to talk about. The reintroduction of limb dismemberment and the HUGE buff to some of the existing perks. Namely, skull crusher and deep cuts. Skull crusher (at level 5) has had its head explosion chance raised is now 45%. That's insanely good. Slightly under 50/50. On top of that, the reintroduction of dismemberment has given deep cuts perk actual usefulness. On top of that, deep cuts has also had its dismemberment chance raised to 45% (at level 5). Assuming that limb dismemberment applies to heads, not just arms/legs (think that's how it used to work in previous alpha versions), wouldn't that mean bladed combat in a17 is not only viable again, but arguably pretty dang good?

Assuming I'm right about that the head being a limb thing, that would give bladed weapon power attacks an insane ista-kill chance as long as you hit the head. I know it wouldn't be both 45's added to together, because that's not how video games do probability (Unless you're Terraria) but still, that would be.... Alright, I'm bad at math, but yeah. Still huge insta-kill chance.

So then, in my opinion, that makes it a choice between sledgehammer and machete. That group knockdown in heavy weapons is tempting....... Crowd control and all that. But then again, its a building game. Could build an arena that forces a bottleneck. On top of that all, you need a bladed weapon to harvest. So if you just use the machete as your main melee weapon, then that saves an inventory slot.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Thoughts?

 
hard to have fun melee when you cant backpedal faster than a snail crawl. they strongly nerfed my enjoyment with bladed weapons with the new style...stand in one spot and smack zombie till its dead, fighting mechanics. major step backwards imo ...but what do i know

 
Melee feels terrible in this game regardless, especially when you start encountering runners in later gamestages. The weird melee aiming, combined with the bobblehead zombies and their tendency to basically glitch into you when withing melee range make for a frustrating experience. Every playthrough in A17 I wanted to try and max out the melee perks, but every time I ended up shifting to ranged perks after an in game week or two.

Head shots with ranged weapons have an almost 50% dismemberment chance as well (when you max out the perk), and you don't have to wait until the zombies are eating your face to benefit from them. Stamina management is also less of a problem. The only issue is ammo, but I haven't really faced serious shortages in my recent games. Just use bows for most zombies and switch to AK, SMG or shotgun if you see multiple ferals or radiated zombies.

 
hard to have fun melee when you cant backpedal faster than a snail crawl. they strongly nerfed my enjoyment with bladed weapons with the new style...stand in one spot and smack zombie till its dead, fighting mechanics. major step backwards imo ...but what do i know
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Its not like backpedalling is any more fun you know...

Worst part about 7d melee is hitscan instead of actual physical arc.

 
...the new style...stand in one spot and smack zombie till its dead, fighting mechanics. major step backwards imo ...but what do i know
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If you're playing on Insane, that's not an option without steel + mods + virtually ALL of the defensive perks. You are forced to learn new tactics for dealing with running zombies that involve them not hitting you as much as humanly possible. You need to be able to swing your club, or other non-heavy melee and register in your brain if you connected AND if your fleet-footed foe has been stunned/staggered. If so, swing away again, if not you need to turn (a full 180 is not required) and RUN just out of range to give you enough time to turn and charge back in/out (cause the Z to waste a swing) of swinging range. Repeat as required.

Isolate spiders so you only fight one at a time and can power attack stun-lock them to death...even the glowing ones. Police are kinda' all or nothing once they go supercritical, but otherwise dodge the puke. Irradiated zombie bikers....err...good luck. Maybe that anti-radiation mod would help because you could whittle them down, but their reach and damage output is daunting. If you tank these guys, you're just praying your head-popper procs.

I'm not sure how to kill fauna with melee. Dogs are easy sometimes...other times bah. Wolves?....hope for stuns. Bear?...pray for lots of stuns. Vultures?...precise timing!....or do like I do and swing wildly and loose half your health.

Dropping spikes/wire could help with a lot of these things, but I usually end up tripping myself up somehow and see my body being eaten, impaled on the spikes I'd just laid out. I just try to git gudder at melee itself. Which works!....until it doesn't.

-Morloc

 
hard to have fun melee when you cant backpedal faster than a snail crawl. they strongly nerfed my enjoyment with bladed weapons with the new style...stand in one spot and smack zombie till its dead, fighting mechanics. major step backwards imo ...but what do i know
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I guess what you don't know is that you can still step in and step back with ease and never get hit. But now that you do know it, please stop standing still while in combat.

 
hard to have fun melee when you cant backpedal faster than a snail crawl. they strongly nerfed my enjoyment with bladed weapons with the new style...stand in one spot and smack zombie till its dead, fighting mechanics. major step backwards imo ...but what do i know
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I have to agree on the backwards speed. It is super slow. IRL I can easily run backwards at about 30% (6mph slow jog) of my forward max (20mph)

It would be nice if the parkour perk also granted a bonus to backwards run speed.

10% @ lvl 1

20% @ lvl 2

30% @ lvl 3

40% @ lvl 4

50% @ lvl 5

People that would be a lvl 5 in Parkour are literally world class gymnasts of a certain breed. They can easily run faster backwards that most people due to their incredible spacial and body awareness coupled with unrivaled agility.

 
I guess what you don't know is that you can still step in and step back with ease and never get hit. But now that you do know it, please stop standing still while in combat.
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Apparently, not with enough ease... #explorationmodeneeded

I have to agree on the backwards speed. It is super slow. IRL I can easily run backwards at about 30% (6mph slow jog) of my forward max (20mph)
People that would be a lvl 5 in Parkour are literally world class gymnasts of a certain breed. They can easily run faster backwards that most people due to their incredible spacial and body awareness coupled with unrivaled agility.
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Can we drop this "but in real life" facade? A lot of people are eager to compare the game with real life (when it makes things convenient) but it's just silly.

1) There is no reason to believe lvl 5 in parkour = world class gymnast of a whatever breed.

-You can't become a world class gymnast within a few weeks in real life.

-Only few people have the capacity to become world class gymnasts - why should your character be one of them?

2) It's impossible for your character to trip or fall down because he didn't see an obstacle, like he would if he was jogging backwards fast in real life.

3) Movement speed doesn't change dramatically on slopes or rough terrain, like in real life.

4) Your character's speed and agility isn't influenced by his stamina/health levels, like in real life.

5) Your character's stamina doesn't drop until he replenishes it with sleep, like in real life.

.....................could go on all day.

Some people just don't want risky combat and that's just that.

 
Take it easy there Trolland...with advice like that its amazing that you haven't solved world hunger yet
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I can provide a video if you need one. Not sure what was wrong with the advice but if some supporting evidence would help I'm happy to oblige. Learning that standing still in combat is not necessary nor desirable is my goal.

 
Take it easy there Trolland...with advice like that its amazing that you haven't solved world hunger yet
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World hunger? No, but the whole sprinting backwards was way op. Havent had issues with melee til late game with massive horde of runners. just practice with it. Timing is everything, or just spin around and sprint away

 
I think the blade weapons need some love. You can skin animals with them so you save a slot, but their reach always feels slightly less than cudgels (is there data to support that, or is it just perception?).

-Morloc

 
Can we drop this "but in real life" facade? A lot of people are eager to compare the game with real life (when it makes things convenient) but it's just silly. 1) There is no reason to believe lvl 5 in parkour = world class gymnast of a whatever breed.

-You can't become a world class gymnast within a few weeks in real life.

-Only few people have the capacity to become world class gymnasts - why should your character be one of them?

2) It's impossible for your character to trip or fall down because he didn't see an obstacle, like he would if he was jogging backwards fast in real life.

3) Movement speed doesn't change dramatically on slopes or rough terrain, like in real life.

4) Your character's speed and agility isn't influenced by his stamina/health levels, like in real life.

5) Your character's stamina doesn't drop until he replenishes it with sleep, like in real life.
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Haha you killed your very own can we drop this "but in real life" facade? Argument immediate because you went on to compare things in real life.

As someone who was a gymnast for years, I can tell you that yes parkour experts are damn close to a world class gymnasts in their ability to be agile and jump and run. The point I am making is backwards is purposely nerfed. There is no logical reason to restrict your speed so much except to make it more difficult for difficulties sake.

Additionally, how many players will ever achieve a lvl 5 in Parkour? I would say less than 5% of people playing. The vast majority of people won't even lvl it up much, let alone to lvl 5.

1. have you ever watched world class parkour? They are gymnasts. The whole point of a lvl 5 being powerful is to reflect that fact.

2. anyone with half a brain looks backwards in a quick glance ever second or so to make sure they don't trip over something. Or run into a damn cactus.

3. I don't understand what you mean by this. Movement speed drastically changes based on the slope in game play. Seems like you misspoke.

4. Your character speed and agility are drastically influenced by certain health related things like a hurt leg so what was your point again?

5. Your stamina is very much like real life. You need to rest to get full stamina back because exertion diminish total stamina. again, I think you misspoke.

Not entirely sure what the point of your post was, but you either misspoke or were trolling because all of your points don't hold water. This is a survival simulation. We should expect certain core aspects of it to be analogous to real life or it diminishes the "simulation" aspect drastically. If you train a couple hours a day for 2 weeks running backwards, I bet you would literally be 50-100% faster running backwards than you are today. This isn't a stretch at all. It is very easy to see why this makes sense in my opinion.

 
I'm going to side with Charles Darwin on this one.

I don't know of animals which hunt running backwards. There's no history (to my knowledge) of man doing it in battle. Whatever the reason, ultimately natural selection decided moving forward was king.


-Morloc

 
I'm pretty sure introduction of dodging mechanics (short leaps in a direction you double tap for example) would solve the debacle of melee fighting being boring.

When i reworked the melee weapons in my modlet, i tweaked ranges for some weapons, especially knifes. They have shorter range (which for shiv and knife seems ok, but not machete imho).

Always liked blades compared to cudgels strictly because of higher decapitation chance. Even the short range never did bother me that much.

 
I definitely agree that melee needs a fair amount of love. When I heard power attacks were coming I envisioned something a little more ambitious. Especially with how the game feels more focused than ever on its combat.

I'm taking a wild stab here, but I feel like TFP lack someone on the team that knows how to do this sort of stuff well. I doubt they WANT melee to be hit scan. They just don't know how to make it not be, while still integrating in to all their fancy new stats systems.

I do hope they can figure it out or hire someone that can. But it's actually a pretty large issue. It's just as much if not more about the enemies as it is how the player functions. I mean as much as I want to assume they don't want melee to be hit scan, I could just as easily be convinced that they made it that way intentionally to give melee SOME kind of skill factor. Like, there's some modicum of gameplay in learning the twitchy patterns of each zombie type and mastering landing those headshots when it's hit scan. If you took that away, then you would take away the only thing that even makes most zombies feel any different from one another. I'd actually argue that if it made proper arcs, it would make melee feel a lot better, but also probably make combat feel even more samey and brainless than it already does. Assuming of course no other changes were made.

Ideally, hit scan would go away and they would beef up melee combat in other ways. A simple shove action like in project zomboid for example, mixed with slightly faster moving and more relentless zombies could add a lot.

 
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