PC Melee is it me or is the new mechanic hot garbage?

The raycasts have insufficient resolution to properly resolve against zombie animations, they just need to increase the number of intermediate raycasts a little to fix that.

Frankly I'd prefer if there wasn't a 'direct hit' system for entity attacks at all, and it was just 'first entity hit by swing raycasts'.

Also I'd make the damage start lower and peak towards the 'middle' raycast before getting weaker again, which would make it an actual glancing blow system.

Then you could give certain weapons a 'follow through', like sledgehammers could do half or a quarter damage to the second guy in line, then a quarter or an eighth to the third guy, etc. Could even throw follow-through into a perk so you have to spec into group combat.

IMO this would make the entire melee system feel a lot better while still rewarding people with excellent aim, where being a little bit off doesn't punish you too hard. Currently being a little off is a huge drop in damage which makes the glancing blow system have little impact on the result of a fight outside of desperate situations.

The block harvesting system functions based on the cursor raycast but that doesn't actually need to be changed, they'd just need to run the entity collision for the first half of the arc and then block-collision from that one raycast, and if any of them hit anything then abort the arc if there's no follow-through.

 
shoot enough rockets and you'll see them pass right through the ground...fire them into the crest of a hill and you can see them explode on the inside of the other side of the terrain. Melee, arrows, bullets, rockets...it happens with everything

 
i started now my meele training, ferals are waaaay to twitchy for me, so i stick to static targets for now.
but still hard times hitting these darn spikes, they are so nimble..

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Lol, yeah, you clearly need some practise, can't even hit a spike .. :)

Some of the block hitboxes are just ... sigh. Fences are an all-time favourite, some patches you couldn't hit them from one side at all. Made for nice walls thou, zeds couldn't hit them either.

At the moment, tables seem more hit than miss, trying to hit something between table legs lands on the table, maybe train on them first? :)

And no, not the desks, those things only exist on the left side...

 
did a quick video of a random situation which i encounter quite often:
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I'd say your cross was off the head for first two, last one felt like it should've smacked the chin.

Tbh even if those swings missed the head it should've hit the body and swaggered with big sledge. That's the only problem I with it atm. I'm guessing it's by design to make it more challenging? A powerful weapon hitting everytime might make it too easy and with practice I seem to be getting regular head hits.

Thx for the upload

 
I'd say your cross was off the head for first two, last one felt like it should've smacked the chin.
Tbh even if those swings missed the head it should've hit the body and swaggered with big sledge. That's the only problem I with it atm. I'm guessing it's by design to make it more challenging? A powerful weapon hitting everytime might make it too easy and with practice I seem to be getting regular head hits.

Thx for the upload
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i don't really think its a crosshair-on-target issue, if you take a look at the swing arc and range which these weapons have, its way wider and wider spread then just around the crosshair. showswings command

i think the damage is applied time wise at the very end of the swing at a specific time, not along with the swing depending on where the weapon is currently. e.g your swing takes 0,6s it starts at the right \|/ and goes to the left.. the damage is applied not while its doing this movement, but at once when its on the far left at the end of the swing. this means if you hit the zombie visually in this position / the damage will only be applied if he is still in / position if you reach \ 0,6s later where the damage is applied.

just a thought based on some observations..

 
i don't really think its a crosshair-on-target issue, if you take a look at the swing arc and range which these weapons have, its way wider and wider spread then just around the crosshair. showswings command
i think the damage is applied time wise at the very end of the swing at a specific time, not along with the swing depending on where the weapon is currently. e.g your swing takes 0,6s it starts at the right \|/ and goes to the left.. the damage is applied not while its doing this movement, but at once when its on the far left at the end of the swing. this means if you hit the zombie visually in this position / the damage will only be applied if he is still in / position if you reach \ 0,6s later where the damage is applied.

just a thought based on some observations..
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I've been messing about with the showswings functionality a bit.. it seems quite inaccurate comparing to the results, especially with ANY movement. Try starting a swing on one side of a zombie and ending on the other.. plenty of rays going thru, no glance. How is it so inaccurate? I'd have to guess it's more of a guesstimate drawn separately from the actual hit detection system, but that wouldn't make any sense debug-wise... it wouldn't convey the info a tester wants, just something resembling it.

It seems there's now two distinct melee attacks in one blow. Against a single zombie, if you get a glancing blow, the showswings ray that hit shows green. If you get a crosshair-hit, none of the rays go green => I would guess the normal hit isn't an "arc hit" at all, but the old separate mechanic, which also overrides the glancing for the target zombie.

If so, the showswings would essentially only display the glancing mechanic..

 
i don't really think its a crosshair-on-target issue, if you take a look at the swing arc and range which these weapons have, its way wider and wider spread then just around the crosshair. showswings command
i think the damage is applied time wise at the very end of the swing at a specific time, not along with the swing depending on where the weapon is currently. e.g your swing takes 0,6s it starts at the right \|/ and goes to the left.. the damage is applied not while its doing this movement, but at once when its on the far left at the end of the swing. this means if you hit the zombie visually in this position / the damage will only be applied if he is still in / position if you reach \ 0,6s later where the damage is applied.

just a thought based on some observations..
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I gave the arc theory a go but I can't feel the hit coming at the end of the swing. If my cross is right on the head I'm getting quite consistent headshots right where my cross is aiming in the middle of the swing. I'm also not getting the misses on motionless zombies, aim for head and hit the head. But if I'm 2 blocks high and aiming down, they're sliding around that's an easy miss and I break block below. Tested on sledge, haven't played much with clubs.

 
I gave the arc theory a go but I can't feel the hit coming at the end of the swing. If my cross is right on the head I'm getting quite consistent headshots right where my cross is aiming in the middle of the swing. I'm also not getting the misses on motionless zombies, aim for head and hit the head. But if I'm 2 blocks high and aiming down, they're sliding around that's an easy miss and I break block below. Tested on sledge, haven't played much with clubs.
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quick check of the "crosshair has to be on target"-theory:

crosshair definitively not on target, 1 glancing blow (that's fine) and 1 proper hit:


well, whatever this is, this inconsistency feels terrible.

 
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What makes you say that the first vid has a proper hit and not two glancing blows?

Glancing blows can trigger effects like dismemberment and stun as well. That can explain both videos, and you don't have a damage display to check the damage done (seems to be around 10% of a normal hit for glances, with a sledge that's something like 10 hp - not the most common fatal blow, but well suited for it)

I find myself replying in disagreement with a lot of your posts - don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to annoy you, I'm curious and what you're saying goes against my own experiments so I'd like to figure out where we differ.

We can at least agree that the melee has of plenty of wonky going on .. :)

 
Clearly this mechanic is still in it's infancy, however, I think I'm mostly against it all together. I wanted a swing arc and a connection in it to be counted as a hit. It's a blunt weapon we're swinging. If you miss... then seriously why'd you swing? A full sized human body in front of you isn't something you would typically miss. It's almost impossible in fact. (unless your hand eye coordination is so bad or you have severe depth perception issues)

They're trying to add something more to melee, because some people complained it was too boring, this is the wrong way of going about it. A RNG swing isn't needed in a game like this, if I want rng I'll go play darkest dungeon and get frustrated.

And as I said in a17 abysmal melee release, walk slowly towards your friend with a club or a sledge and let them swing at you. See if:

a) they miss!

b) the damage is reduced as the weapon hits you at any place.

The swing and hit detection shouldn't be a question in a game where your life is on the line. And when it comes to a blunt weapon the odds of missing are slim to none.

There are better ways you add difficulty/fun/complication to melee than creating a random chance to hit.

 
I do hope they get the arc swing working properly, replace the point-the-crosshairs system entirely with it and find a way to make it feel good in practice.. not expecting it in A18 timeframe, but hopefully eventually :)

 
What makes you say that the first vid has a proper hit and not two glancing blows?..

I'm not trying to annoy you,

..

We can at least agree that the melee has of plenty of wonky going on .. :)
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the point is, in my first video i had 3 (!) swings which neither had a proper hit or a glancing blow, absolutely nothing.

even though i was much closer with crosshair to the head than in my last 2 examples. to be more accurate because i watched if frame by frame, my crosshair was pointing at the zombie#1 ear while the sledgehammer passed it, nothing happened.

in this example i showed you, that i don't have to have the crosshair on the head, to pop zombies head off.

I personally don't care if you call the last 2 examples glacing blows or not, this is nitpicking, zombie head popped of, regardless of how you call it.

so first you are telling me, that i have to aim better, now i show you, that i even can aim _WORSE_ and still hit, and you start nitpicking about glacing blows and proper hits? sure.

i agree with you last sentence. :D

 
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Apologies for the annoyance. I'm trying to be exact for the sake of having good info on the forums.

I'm pedantic between glancing blows and proper hits because proper hits are about ten times more effective. Ten. Glancing blows are essentially a net negative in my view, with their chance to enrage the zeds. That's why I view any argument that doesn't differentiate them slightly misleading.

I didn't tell you you have to aim better, I told you that the first video wasn't undisputable evidence of a bug. A lot of the times the zeds just seem to ignore glancing blows, they may take the damage, but not react to it. That may be intentional. IF you delivered 3 glances there, there might not be a bug at all. Is that video/experience frustrating? Hell yeah, I Feel the frustration just watching it. And I live the same in the game every now and then :)

In this example, you did show that glancing blows can trigger effects, yes. They can. But that hasn't been a factor in the "crosshair has to be on target"-theory as you called it. Damage is. An effect isn't damage, even if it is an infinite-damage-event. More importantly, there seems to be two distinct damage event types (crosshair AND arc) with each swing, and treating them as one mechanic is going to lead into bad conclusions.

My nitpicks are only about the distinction, since I don't want to land a glance, ever, if I can avoid it.

And your frustration with the hitting at spikes / hitting the wrong block.. yes, the block hitboxes are wonky. Stupidly so in places (spikes, barbed wire fences, fences, tables, ground blocks, basically anything that isn't a square is suspect) But they are hit with the crosshair-aim ONLY. The arc doesn't connect to blocks, otherwise you'd be hitting every block in your wall every swing. Again a reason to point out that the crosshairs are important in the current melee system.

Nothing more, nothing personal. I miss as much as you ;)

 
IF you delivered 3 glances there, there might not be a bug at all.
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yeah, i think i delivered 3 complete misses and not 3 glances, this is pretty much my point.

If these 3 were glances, i would not have posted this video, because i would be fine with it, but this is just not the case so i don't know why we are talking about this at all..

as i said, i don't care if the last 2 examples are glances hits or *younameit, they where obviously no complete misses even though i deliberately aimed worse than i usually do. ;)

 
quick check of the "crosshair has to be on target"-theory:
crosshair definitively not on target, 1 glancing blow (that's fine) and 1 proper hit:

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I can see what you mean now regarding the arc not applying in first video and then applying on burnt zombie. Does seem inconsistent, I'm definitely not hitting heads 100% of the time and some misses have me shouting at the screen. Seems there's more under the hood to be tested.

Don't be disgruntled though we're all here trying to figure it out too, eg stealth just doesn't work for me and people are clearing T5 quests like a ninja :( I want to be a ninja too.

Anyways thx for the uploads

 
Yeah, looking at the first video and combining that with the stripper clip, something is quite clearly off in one of them .. :)

Here's hoping for some kind of reasonabilitization (made it up, sue me)

 
Don't be disgruntled though we're all here trying to figure it out too, eg stealth just doesn't work for me and people are clearing T5 quests like a ninja :( I want to be a ninja too.

Anyways thx for the uploads
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yeah, i think some of the discussion was just about the different semantics (hit / glancing blow / whatever), which i personally don't really care because if a glancing blow triggers head-pop-off its a proper hit for me, i'm simple. :D

we can call it whatever we want, but i'm more interested in hits+glacing blows vs complete misses, in situations where i would not expect a complete miss.

sure, you are welcome. I think its often helpful if you can see the situation another one is talking about.

 
I just wanted to point out that a slow moving zombie coming towards you is like a soccer ball on a tee ball stand. the chances of missing should be near zero. And if you're missing a soccer ball sized target on a tee ball stand then you have no business surviving in a zombie apocalypse anyways.

Devs, please keep this in mind when you're working on melee. I know you want to make it challenging... but it shouldn't be challenging to hit the above scenario. When they're running, fine it will be slightly more difficult to connect, but not when they're walking!

you guys can be much more clever than this regarding the melee mechanic.

 
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