Suggestion: Make removing enemy limbs a more viable tactic during melee combat in the earlygame

[User]

Hi, a bit of a disclaimer, this is just what I think, so feel free to tell me how wrong I am, because I probably am.

 

The current implementation of enemy dismemberment is sort of weird. It almost never happens early on in a playthrough in melee combat. There's been many times where I've encountered a tough zombie, such as a soldier or biker relatively early. I usually try to kite around these harder enemies instead of using heavies like I would to quickly finish weaker zombies, instead sneaking some light hits in, usually made difficult but enjoyable inside close quarters pois, since at this early stage my melee weapons do minimal damage, my brain goes straight to crippling the threat, often leading to showdowns where I hit them, they might hit me, causing potential status, but my opponent's legs don't give out, despite me hitting a leg numerous times. It just feels sort of frustrating, at least to me. I have no problem with player status effects, but it'd be nice if enemies could react more to attacks, and the crippling system seems like a good fit.

 

The bikers and soldiers have head armor, but I believe headshots are still the fastest way to kill them despite this. It feels like spamming headshots is really the only way to play for melee combat, which feels a bit like a missed opprotunity to me.

 

Some testing led to these findings: (All weapons are T1 Quality with no perks or bonuses on adventurer difficulty)

 

Wooden Club (Vs Bikers)

 

Headshot - 29 Damage

Bodyshot - 14 Damage

Legshot - 14 Damage

 

Baseball Bat:

Headshot - 48 Damage

Bodyshot - 24 Damage

Legshot - 24 Damage

 

Steel Club:

Headshot - 77 Damage

Bodyshot - 38 Damage

Legshot - 38 Damage

 

I'm sure this 2x is intended, and I'm probably dumb for not knowing the number beforehand, but given how rarely dismemberment occurs without extensive skill point investment, this makes going for leg shots almost completely redundant until you spend a lot in skill points to significantly increase dismemberment chance. Trying this again with a melee weapon with maxed out perks leads to much better results, but still shows a bit of a weird situation.

 

With a tier 6 steel club with maxed out strength as well as pummel pete, I was dismembering enemies very often. crippling limbs with almost every hit. However; by the point these chances are resonably high, I felt like it didn't have much use, espescially since headshot damage is increased further with said higher strength investment, making dismemberment a bit less useful in my eyes, when I could quickly eliminate these enemies with some strong attacks to the head. Regardless, it's still a nice part of the gameplay loop, I just think it'd be cool if it was accessible earlier on.

 

My suggestion is making dismemberment more accessible to general melee combat. Maybe dismemberment chance could be baked into sucessive melee hits instead of onto strength and other skill categories, and it could increase exponentially the more you attacked one body part. I think melee can be a bit frustrating in its current state, with zombies occasionally stumbling forward and attacking during stun animations, or speeding up/entering rage mode super frequently on higher difficulties. I think it would add a lot of depth, espescially since many poi's now have lots of ambushes, taking the risk to cripple a threatening enemy is a fun risk/reward in my mind, and would give some purpose to attacking enemy legs in the lower levels. I think it also works well with the door changes made in A21.

 

What do you think of this suggestion? Is it terrible? Either way, I hope melee gets a little bit of polish in future updates.

 

 

 

[Adam the Waster]

Hopefully with the new gore system we can get something like this. Maybe you could physically Break a zombies arm and gives weaker attacks, cut off their hands and they can't slash you only bite or uses the other arm

Then again 7dtd needs a better melee system.  Not like dying light but at least skyrim or oblivion 

[Riamus]

I wouldn't mind seeing this as I use melee most of the time.  You can slow enemies by hitting their legs... At least with a spear.  I don't really know if that is unique to a spear or not since I only use that for melee.  But if I'm going in for melee, I'm not looking to slow anything down.  I'm just there to kill it.

 

Then again, I'm not really a tactical combat person, so I'd probably still just go for the headshots every time even if it was added.

[User]

16 hours ago, Riamus said:

I wouldn't mind seeing this as I use melee most of the time.  You can slow enemies by hitting their legs... At least with a spear.  I don't really know if that is unique to a spear or not since I only use that for melee.  But if I'm going in for melee, I'm not looking to slow anything down.  I'm just there to kill it.

 

Then again, I'm not really a tactical combat person, so I'd probably still just go for the headshots every time even if it was added.

I (think) that spears specifically have a perk that does that, I could be wrong though.

Edited January 26 by User (see edit history)

[Adam the Waster]

On 1/25/2024 at 1:30 PM, Riamus said:

I wouldn't mind seeing this as I use melee most of the time.  You can slow enemies by hitting their legs... At least with a spear.  I don't really know if that is unique to a spear or not since I only use that for melee.  But if I'm going in for melee, I'm not looking to slow anything down.  I'm just there to kill it.

 

Then again, I'm not really a tactical combat person, so I'd probably still just go for the headshots every time even if it was added.

The issue is the spear is the only weapon you can get away with doing that or less you will take damage 

 

The spear got range 

[Deadfordays]

On 1/26/2024 at 1:38 PM, Adam the Waster said:

The issue is the spear is the only weapon you can get away with doing that or less you will take damage 

 

The spear got range 

I think you can slow enemies with the bows too if you read Rangers guide vol. 3... (Crippling shot)...? Edit: You were all talking about melee only, my mistake... 

Edited January 30 by Deadfordays (see edit history)