Comprehensive feedback

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CanHasPants escreveu:

I've been thinking, and am curious to hear what Moos et al think of this. Also: Disclaimer: As usual I just woke up. Am never really awake enough to post a coherent thesis and supporting points when I just wake up, yet this is the only time I really have to post. Add on top of that I am sick as a dog atm.. So please bare with my ramblings, I may not adequately express what I mean and am thinking :)

We all know the core issues of melee, so I won't reiterate, but the main problem I'll discuss is (imo) creating incentive to play in melee over range. However, given the current state of the game, most all defenses either work or they don't, and most attacks are specced to 1-2 hit most mobs. What room is there to improve melee without make them too good (nigh invulnerable) that isn't also equally beneficial for ranged, and how do you adress kill speed when you can't kill any faster than 1-hitting, mobility and threat reach being part of issue..?

It seems to me that the real issue here is the entire concept of building a "classless" game where any starting point / skin / voice actor can spec into any play style, with passives, gear, and skill gems being openly available to any class. Compare to a game that has specific class skill trees, those classes are inherently restricted in their options, which mechanically allows melee to achieve things ranged cannot, and vice versa. The freedom of movement we have here, ironically, has revealed and made extreme the inherent strengths of ranged and weaknesses of melee; because any "class" can do anything any other can do, ranged will inevitably be better than anything melee can do. Restricted class skill trees overcome this by imposing superficial restrictions to one style to allow the other room to flourish.

This (lack of play style disparity in a free form skill environment) is in large part due to power creep, where the current numbers are so large that they're situationally boolean, leaving little room to provide benefit according to the risk melee takes, when ranged already has full access to those benefits, with the added benefit of distance between they and packs (defense) and significantly extended threat reach (kill speed without such emphasis on mobility). At risk of sounding like a broken record, nothing can be truly changed for the better without reducing the numbers across the board (nip power creep in the ass), such that fights take longer and allow room for melee to flourish.

Furthermore, it seems that there is something missing fundamentally from the core mechanics, that should distinguish melee from ranged. Something that, even though both melee and ranged can have access to both on the skilldrasil and through gear and skills, inherently provides greater benefit to a melee play style. Only thing I can really think of is the suggested keystone that makes armour function like point blank, except made a core mechanic of armour* rather than being optional. In this way AR ranged toons will not gain both benefits of being at ranged (safety and reach) and benefit from the full DR that melee would, meanwhile melee will definitely benefit from its tendency to close the gap.
*Perhaps that should be both AR and EV, there can be EV melee too :)

Any who, enough rambling. Time to get ready for work. Bleggh...