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[DaCocoBrova]

The problem I think, has more to do w/ the control scheme.

It should 'lock' or switch to a modified control range and/or camera pan/tilt sensitivity to help you focus more on the enemy that you're engaged with.

I slight *controller jolt and altered FOV/DOF would help a lot as well.






*PS3 excluded

 

[PuppetSlave]

What I think is wrong with melee in games is the fact that the slashing motion almost always just goes on wether or not you hit something.

If more work were done to show your sword hitting things instead of just swishing by all the time, it would feel more immersive.

Maybe some games do this but I can not recall any.

 

[flarkminator]

One of the biggest problems with doing melee in first person has to do with camera and field of view. What's the normal FOV on most FPS games? 60 degrees? Maybe 90 degrees? You've got a nasty case of tunnel vision--most humans have approximately 200 degrees of vision, and that's without even turning their heads!

This works out ok with FPS games for gunning, because you generally are at shooting at something at range... so that 90 degrees is significant due to the range to the target. With melee, your opponent literally has to be directly in front of you, or you can't see them. Literally, someone two feet in front of you, but three feet to your right won't be on screen as he is roundhouse kicking you in the face.

So any sort of chaotic brawler with multiple opponents who move around and try and flank you or anything becomes a nightmare for the player.

Some sort of one on one dueling/boxing type game could probably be FPS style pretty easily, but anything involving multiple fast combatants takes a ton of effort just to tackle this basic issue.

That doesn't even really consider the fact that some of the most enjoyable part of melee combat in games comes from seeing your character do outrageous attack animations or movements that are generally wasted in first person.

Bah stole my post =)

That was exactly what I was gunna say when I saw the thread. Well said.

 

[Odysseus]

You guys are going on and on about FPS games that have reliable or trustworthy melee attacks, but my thinking has been this thread is really about first person games that use melee as the number one method of combat. Sure, I like cracking people's skulls in Halo with my assault rifle, but I wouldn't want to do that all game long.

My opinion, and I admit it is rather limited, is that first person games = shooters. Period. If you want me to fight, give me the third person camera and controls that make action games fun. Otherwise, I don't really want to play the game. The first person melee is one reason why I'll never play Oblivion.

 

[SteveMeister]

Oblivion has really bad collision detection and is stats based so you cant really judge its combat in the same way.

Oblivion doesn't USE collision detection for melee attacks. It decides whether you hit based on whether or not you're within the weapon's attack range and are facing an opponent when a certain frame of the attack animation is reached. How much damage you do is stats-based.

 

[Zaptruder]

A system that could work well from FPS perspective (multiple perspectives really) is maybe Fight Night style melee system.

The only caveat is that you'd need to put a lock on function into it... but not exactly difficult to do when controllers have 4 shoulder buttons.

Then the character would automatically track the enemy and more relative to the opponent.

Zelda did the lock on so very well in OOT... you'd think more people would want to steal good ideas like that, reprising and refining them. But we haven't really. It's also a game that manages to do non-locked on combat relatively competently.

 

[Zaptruder]

Oblivion doesn't USE collision detection for melee attacks. It decides whether you hit based on whether or not you're within the weapon's attack range and are facing an opponent when a certain frame of the attack animation is reached. How much damage you do is stats-based.

So it's like a collision detection hack.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

F.E.A.R. does FP melee fairly well. Riddick isn't bad either. I'm hoping Red Steel does good melee, despite the attacks being canned.

 

[urk]

Third person viewpoint provides for better spacial recognition. You can see your character, your intended target, and the space between. It doesn't take long to figure out the range of your available attacks. Many third person perspective titles also employ "target locking" to aid the player.

First person, as has already been mentioned, is a flat perspective. The only accurate way to judge distance is by the onscreen "size" of your target. The closer your intended attack point is, the larger it will be. Throwing in weapons and enemies that differ in both size and speed makes memorization difficult. How much closer do I have to be with the dagger as opposed to the longsword? How fast will the imp close the distance? And of course "target locking" is all but nonexistent.

Devs try to remedy this in a number of ways. Starbreeze did a great job limiting the available melee weapons and enemies that a player would experience. As another poster mentioned, they also used audio and controller feedback to great effect.

Bungie keeps melee simple: it's all up close save the plasma sword, for which they implemented a unique targeting system. While it can be a bit wonky, it works well for ranged attacks. You have a visual cue on the reticle when an enemy is in range.

 

[SteveMeister]

So it's like a collision detection hack.

No, it's a design decision. We could have used collision detection for sword swings -- we do have very realistic physics in place anyway -- but we a) didn't want the player to worry about swords clanging off walls in tight spaces and b) wanted to give the player more direct control over what they're targeting. If you use collision detection across the arc of the sword swing, you're likely to hit things & actors that you hadn't intended.

By the way, I haven't really read all that many complaints about Oblivion's melee combat. Most people who play the game seem to think it works very well. So "suck" is certainly a matter of opinion.

 

[black_13]

There is still much room for improvement but no one seems to taking any steps towards that.

Condemned-combat was pretty nice and would've been much better if it included MORE than one combo or different combos for each weapon.

Breakdown-Has the most combos yet only worked nicely on one-on-one combat situations, once more than one enemy was present it was a bitch trying to get both of them to face you and not jump you from the back while you were fighting the other.

Fear-Had some nice combos even though most of them were way overpowered and considered one-hit kills, still enemy's were too far away most of the time to be able to take them out by hand

Riddick-Nicely done combat system although a little too simple, best melee FPS game so far that had lots of room for improvement though.


So here's hoping for The Darkness including some nice improvements in melee combat, especially with the special fangs/arms the main character has.

 

[urk]

I do a lot of whiffing in Oblivion and I occassionally hit a NPC if they get into the mix, but for the most part, it's a good system. It seems the AI tries to confront you directly, which helps, because if they more aggressive circling, it could have been a nightmare.