Regarding Melee mechanic

[Kattla]

I also feel like these wide-sweeping stamina-devouring power attacks should have an AoE component to them, letting me clear out hordes effectively and giving me a melee defense against being swamped by low-HP but numerous and erratic enemies like dog packs. This would give power attacks something to distinguish them beyond them being 'regular attacks that deal more damage' and could also allow for perks and weapons that improve on this aspect (allowing for more AoE damage, a wider swing arc, etc).

.

 

I kinda agree.

A melee attack with blunt weapons should be an AOE , but only affect the (1) target closest to the crosshair.

[hotpoon]

You can add dismember chance with tags="leg,arm" to only have it affect limbs. I have this on a few weapons like the fireaxe at 66% chance and it's a lot of fun. What really makes me sad though is they seem to have taken out the dismember damage thresholds in favor of purely chance based, so doing higher amounts of damage doesn't mean higher chance to dismember. I had to go to great lengths to mod it so I got way more dismember chance without constant insta-kills - a calculation is done to check how much health the zombie has left and only increases the chance if your next shot would kill them anyway.

 

Does it still make that same satisfying blood explosion sound when you pop a limb off?

[leaderdog]

This doesn't really prove anything, but if there are enough targets, about 50, it's difficult to miss.

 

 

No, i am not happy with the videoquality. Wish i knew how to make it better. Suppose i could

search for how if i really bothered.

 

Thanks for posting that.

 

I think it illustrated quite beautifully how often you missed when swing into a great big pile of meat.

 

However as was mentioned, if you had 5-6 zombies in a room or in a house even with all the perks and what not I'm pretty sure you'd be eating a lot of damage and missing quite often.

 

While the animation and the impact might be "tighter" or more accurately synced than ever before, if feels more wrong and inaccurate because of the only point of collision is that one pixel that if you move even slightly, or if the twitching zombie moves ever so slightly it's a flat out miss. Where a swinging weapon still would make an impact in the body, causing either some damage or stumbling because it's still contact.

[leaderdog]

So as far as the devs are concerned the melee combat is the way it's going to be?

 

All we've seen here, from devs, is defense of the system saying it's the way it always was and that it's more in sync with the animation.

 

Therefore it's not getting a "Swing" or "arc" to allow for logical collision to coincide with close quarters combat?

 

We just need to learn to accept misses that should hit and that all melee weapons behave like guns?

[Guest]

I wonder if the devs have ever tried to melee a bunch of irradiated zombies in a tight space? Preferably the ones with animations that cause their head hitboxes to swing all over your screen while they tear you a new one?

 

We need some crowd control options that actually work.

[HerrKingsley]

Some times it feels like some devs are more focused on how the code looks than how it plays.

That clip a few posts ago clearly shows that something is wrong with the hit box!

[Greymantle]

I love melee now every version before it I ignored it. I guess I'm not so critical of a miss I just chalk it up to gameplay and swing again.

[leaderdog]

I love melee now every version before it I ignored it. I guess I'm not so critical of a miss I just chalk it up to gameplay and swing again.

 

hmm, that makes me curious, have you been cornered or in a small space where multiple feral zombies are attacking you?

 

The reason I ask is, if you get stunned, it delays your swing horribly which causes you more difficulty.

 

That's all well and good I suppose when you're early stage and have mostly slow moving zombies, but once gamestage is higher and more and more coffee tweaker zombies are coming at you, those misses, because of the current mechanic, are not just annoying they're down right game breaking.

 

In houses as your gamestage go up that much you will face multiple irradiated or feral zombies, as carbonkid said, some form of crowd control (kick, shove, shield) needs to be implemented or it's just not an enjoyable experience any more.

[BobTheBard]

Now don't get me wrong, I love melee, even in the new build. I also like the perks, with a sledgehammer and Heavy Metal giving me pseudo-CC that I can use when stuff starts to bunch up on me. There are, however, still a few complaints.

 

1) When I knock a bunch of zombies down, choosing which one I want to hit becomes impossible due to the pile of shifting hitboxes. And since I only get Stamina back from SexRex 5 if I kill one of them, this can lead to me running out entirely since I can make 4 power attacks and hit 4 different zombies despite swinging at the same spot. Knocking them down outside also adds the wrinkle of me probably having to break a piece of grass before I can hit any of them, which is aggravating since I only get my Heavy Metal damage bonus vs. enemies on the ground.

 

2) Bleeding. Bleed damage is so great and stacks up so quickly that you can't ignore it, but on the other hand dealing with it requires you to wait for your swing to finish, switch to a bandage, use the bandage, wait for that animation to finish, re-draw your weapon, wait for that animation, then swing, which takes a long time in a melee. There's also no perk to deal with Bleeding, despite there being perks to minimize the damage from every other random status effect like Infection or Stun.

 

3) There is still one outstanding issue with animation sync, but it involves enemies. If an enemy begins their attack animation they will hit you if you stay in range, even if they don't finish it. The problem is this can often mean that the enemy hits you after you've knocked them down because they just got close enough to begin their attack while you were swinging. Being able to interrupt enemy attacks would be nice.

[Deceptive Pastry]

Does it still make that same satisfying blood explosion sound when you pop a limb off?

 

Yep. Very satisfying. And gives you more options to deal with groups of fast enemies.

[Swingchild]

of course i know many will want to argue me down... good luck.. i will not participate. i said my piece and i have as much right as anyone else.

 

God I hope you're not a full grown adult.

[The_Great_Sephiroth]

I am not sure if something changed or not. What I can tell you beyond any shadow of a doubt is that the OP seems to be correct. This is far more difficult than any prior version I have played. A15 and A16 I used a sledgehammer constantly and enjoyed it. Now if a zombie is all in my face and I am a single pixel off I miss completely, despite the sledgehammer having a large metal head and long wooden shaft with which to collide. I am not sure what changed, but A17 is about a hundred times more difficult as far as melee is concerned.

 

I also note that every other hit from a zombie causes bleeding, which is a tad extreme considering they are not using bladed weapons. Couple that with with zombies that get knocked back and then warp to be in your face as though they continued walking and it makes melee fairly difficult, especially in tight spaces. I believe multiple things contribute here, but either way melee is far more difficult than in the past.

[goremachine]

Well, melee is usable, but neither does it make sense nor is it a lot of fun. One just uses it in it's akward way.

 

- It can't be that a diagonal club swing misses the whole body and hits the wall behind because the head wasn't in the crosshairs when starting the blow.

- It can't be that I sledgehammer a downed zombie and break the grass but don't damage the zombie

- It can't be that the action queue is still messed up and I released my attack button, but I get another ghost swing either destroying lootable objects or wasting stamina.

- It can't be that you horizontally swing at the legs, the Zombie stumbles, falls and you just swing through it's torso without effect

 

Melee weapons need to work with collision boxes, not raycasts, there are free whitepapers on that from the 90's. I get a feeling that the developers by now have the same illness many get, they are bored fixing or refactoring existing methods and game design choices and are more excited by implementing new features to show "progress" and keep the community happy with feature releases.

[Junuxx]

lets try this...

 

* base system for melee gets redone and starts out at lowest stats

* sometime player misses target and hit closest body part (wild swing)

* player finds mod for club "swing like babe ruth" now when players swings at targets head and if makes good contact... targets head is sent out for a home run

* players till misses now and then

* wait, there is a perk now available - "getting better" now player is 50% better and not missing as much

* oooh whats this mod for "broadside of a barn" appears now every swing will make contact, just cant miss.

 

get the idea... but the base had to go in and all stats have to be at a descent lower level in order to allow for perks and mods for improvements. and this will take team work and time the ground works had to be fixed.

 

hope this explains it

 

 

This explains it? Not at all... Sorry but you're kind of hard to understand.

[Z-Pooh-Bear]

I think what the OP is trying to say was summarised nicely by games4kickz.

 

If i do a vertical swing at a head and miss by close enough to shave their ear, IRL that axe should scan down and hit the flesh of the shoulder.

 

Likewise horizontal swings across the body don't miss the entire body because you were 2 pixels to the right. You miss the arm and merely wound the torso for less stumble instead.

 

Take a look at the analogue mode controls for dead island. Thats the representation they are talking about.

 

+1 the lack of pixels coupled with the jittery zed animation makes for some pretty aggravating misses under pressure.

[Kattla]

This explains it? Not at all... Sorry but you're kind of hard to understand.

 

Seems to mean the developer meant to add a perk and a mod to improve aim, but

somehow (time issues) it was not included in A17.0 .

It could also mean that missing a lot is actually intended, and yes, you can miss even

if aim is dead on target.

[Ghostlight]

That is not a change.

Melee has been working like that since there was a melee weapon in the game.

 

At least it hits where you aim instead of below. So no more need to aim high. I find the melee in A17 a huge improvement.

[HungryZombie]

Hitting a wall behind your target with a melee weapon at close range makes absolutely no sense, an early swing is an ok miss, if you miss anything else with a big ass sledgehammer your character doesn't deserve to be a survivor... oh now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense considering the moron you are early game

 

Serious question, I'm not baiting you or anything. Do you mean you want to not really aim and just swing and hit them?

 

I think I'm starting to understand what people are saying. I just didn't see it as a problem. If the cursor is not on the targets head, you miss.

 

Is this what you mean? I've been so confused.

[leaderdog]

Serious question, I'm not baiting you or anything. Do you mean you want to not really aim and just swing and hit them?

 

I think I'm starting to understand what people are saying. I just didn't see it as a problem. If the cursor is not on the targets head, you miss.

 

Is this what you mean? I've been so confused.

 

What we've been saying is if you swing with a melee weapon it is an arc. But these weapons behave like guns, where your cursor is is where you shot will be. But, if you swing at the head and the weapon goes clean through the body, it should still contact the body because it's swinging and landing there.

 

Here's kickz attacking a downed zombie. Slow down or pause, you'll see his cross hair is directly on the zombies head, but he still hit the floor. The "getting up" animation is poorly synced.

 

 

 

 

But in general for me, the twitchy zombie and the lack of arc/swing involved in the weapon is the biggest problem. I don't find it "harder" I find it annoying that swings that should land if you missed by a single pixel should still land, you didn't fire a weapon, you swung it. But when the ferals are after you, then the not being able to hit them becomes a larger problem.

 

As I've said before, if they aren't going to fix it, may as well change all melee weapons to a spear, because that's how it's behaving.

 

I can't find it now, but in the same episode, he's swinging the sledge and it passed right through the zombie when he missed the head by a slight bit, but it clearly should have connected on the chest.

[HungryZombie]

What we've been saying is if you swing with a melee weapon it is an arc. But these weapons behave like guns, where your cursor is is where you shot will be. But, if you swing at the head and the weapon goes clean through the body, it should still contact the body because it's swinging and landing there.

 

Here's kickz attacking a downed zombie. Slow down or pause, you'll see his cross hair is directly on the zombies head, but he still hit the floor. The "getting up" animation is poorly synced.

 

 

 

Thanks for that I've been wondering exactly what people were meaning.

 

I mean if they fix it to a swing or whatever I'm surely not going to complain. I can see how it could be a problem with running zombies.