Why are so called advanced melee weapons all inferior to basic Marduk’s Fist?
Marduk (hammer): 140 dmg, 200 shock, 2 AP
Scion of Sharur(Mace): 80 dmg, 50 pierce, 2 AP - even against exactly 50 armor enemy it does less damage (80 vs 90) and no shock. And it doesn’t scale as well with damage boosting skills. Or armor shredding.
Shock lance: 100 damage, 180 shock, 2 AP - worse in every way.
Dagon’s tooth (sword): 100 dmg, 30 bleed, 2 AP - again worse than hammer in every way and doesn’t scale as well.
… Not that Marduk’s Fist is a particularly strong either. But there are no other melee weapons even worth considering.
Yeah, I have had the same thoughts. The numbers just don’t add up.
I would like to see some more interesting weapons, with different AP requirements. Maybe a poison dagger with low base damage but moderate poison damage and only cost 1 AP like the neurazer. Or how about a life-steal melee weapon. And where is my NJ riot shield?
Adding counter-attacks ala Return Fire would also go a long way towards making Melee weapons more interesting, but yes, we need rather a lot more weapons with greater variation.
None of the weapons tiering makes a lick of sense right now.
How about a hammer that can smash through a wall and clock people on the other side? Or knockback? It would be so, so satisfying to knock someone through a bunch of Overwatch cones, oh man.
Keep picturing this mechanic - here’s a pitch for how it might work: when you successfully hit with the knock-back, the body part struck is sent on a parabolic arc to a destination square based on attacker strength, relative position of the attacker, and applicable target resistances. The rest of the model ragdolls after that body part, with zero weight. So if you hit them in the head, they sail headfirst to the landing spot, but if you catch them in the leg, they fly knee-first, with the rest of the body awkwardly trailing.
In the air, shots from overwatch trigger and can add spin to the in-flight model, but not change the destination square, so nobody gets accidentally knocked out of bounds, or juggled halfway across the map by multiple hits. When they land, they do so with a hearty thump, then stand up, much like recovering from paralysis. If they die in the air, there’s no thump, and the ragdoll instead skids along the floor. If they hit a wall, some bonus damage based on the amount of squares they would have travelled if the wall had not been there, and damage is applied to the wall based on the size of the target. Fall damage you’d presumably calculate from the target square to the floor of applicable.
I’d you trigger any reactions, slow-mo, otherwise, a nice visceral full-speed thunk. The knock-back should come at the expense of initial damage - after all, the force that’s required to fling a body would come from the smashing force of the implement. Some of that can be added back on upon landing, again to make the maneuver more satisfying to pull off.
Melee is a big deception.
You think that research will bring you a better weapon … no … an other research … still no. Never a better weapon than the first one you get.
Then comes the “shock lance” which is your own research… no again, still 2AP and worse in every aspect.
I mean, it’s Project Phoenix research, were you expecting it to be good? These are ‘scientists’ who need to dissect squid-men to learn how a shotgun works in 2041, after all
-melee weapons don’t scale with strength.
-melee costs 2 AP to use.
-melee has about as much dmg/AP as an AR…slightly less at give or take 70. meaning that it is very weak for the range it is used at.
-advanced melee weapons don’t convey any significant advantage.
-only real benifit…they can be used in 1 hand.
-marginal benifit, they are cheap to produce.
compared to, weapon bash. weapon bash does scale with strength, weapon bash only costs 1 AP to use, weapon bash comes with scaling shock damage on top of its main damage, weapon bash depends on the weight of the item used to bash.
as such…a hellcannon on a 20 str heavy makes a better club then marduks fist on a 20 str berzerker (100 dmg/AP versus 70 dmg/AP…if the heavy is not using his melee damage boosting perk)
This is a very good topic!
I agree to everything said above: melee weapons are currently worse than “Hel cannon club”)))
In my opinion their only benefit is that they are not damaged when used in melee =\
I tried modding the melee weapons to be 1 AP instead to play with the balance.
I have to say even with 1 AP it doesn’t feel too unbalanced and it plays very natural to be able to move farther in and still get a swing in with it only being 1 AP. Plus hacking away and stacking up bleed with a sword is very satisfying.
Nice idea, maybe a combo dash with melee strike could thru floor as well and gives the target random side effect at end such as dazed, panic or being paralyzed, or perhaps melee strike could push enemy position about 3-7 tile. Add more variety melee weapons such as fire, laser, poison, virus or dual wield gives an extra damage. Doesn’t have to be over like templar in xcom or RPG’s. Wish PP allowed to have dual wield weapons to use, sacrifice the accuracy as their penalty for the sake of balance.
By the way I remember Xenonauts having Riot Shields among the equipment. In Phoenix Point crabmen already have shields, why can’t our soldiers have them as well?
