Whenever I am put in a game with a player like Avar who is very aggressive I will support them to the best of my ability to make sure no strays/elites blank them out.
I’ll usually end up with 80-90% of the damage they did anyways, they feel like a badass, and we clear a level. It’s a good feeling.
Yeah, as a ranged player I try to always set up a situation like that where the melee can be employed to full effect as well. Picking appropriate defensive areas (cuz regardless of where the melee goes you will get wrecked on ranged if you’re badly positioned), specifically ones that let me lock stuff in place and cover them while they go ham.
This topic hit pretty close to what I have been thinking about the ranged “dominance”. I attribute it to a single weird decision made by FS: Allowing ranged careers to maintain their ammo by shooting.
Worst offenders are Pyromancer and Bounty Hunter. Both can downright abuse Scrounger/Heat Sink with their high crit rates, and actually allow themselves to shoot more - by shooting more. Huntsman is better as he at least needs to headshot, but he too can easily maintain his ammo by just shooting more enemies. Waystalker can regenerate ammunition through her Talents, both passively and actively, and while it might be a tiny bit too strong still, she at least can still run out of ammo when played aggressively. Ranger Veteran is, in my opinion, in the best spot right now. Unless you choose a certain Talent, you need to choose your targets well and shoot accurately if you want to keep your ammo up. He cannot usually spam ammo just everywhere. For the short time he had 100% crits on Career skill, this was exactly the reason I thought that was overpowered: He too could produce a lot more ammo than he would use.
How to change this, then? While I would kind of like the same thing OP suggested, reducing or removing Scrounger and possibly returning Scavenger to existence, I don’t think that’s a feasible solution. It would hit far too many other things to be useful, including allowing more melee-focused careers to keep spamming ammunition too. So I propose starting to work on the worst abusers, and changing Pyro’s and BH’s passives from actual crits to regular bonuses of similar strength. That would allow them to keep their added power from those passives, and still remove their ability to downright abuse the mechanics to keep shooting infinitely. Waystalker’s Vaul’s Quiver might need a bit of looking at still, but it’s already low enough that simple effect reduction isn’t good. It would likely require longer ticks for regen proccing, and that would require for the health regen amount to be adjusted too.
The ammo trouble certainly isn’t the only thing making ranged combat more appealing than melee, but it’s a big contributor. We do need better risk/reward management too, and better balance for melee weapons (preferably mostly by buffing the problematic ones). The careers that cannot constantly shoot might use some safer options for melee, even if they’re somewhat weaker otherwise (if only to learn melee combat better; as, like others have said, allowing constant barrage from range does not teach melee survival).
100% agree.
I’ve tried to come up with other ideas myself, like the ones you mention with Pyro/BH, but I keep coming back to scrounger as the root issue. Even with changes to guaranteed crits, the ammo return on shooting into a horde will continue to be a problem. A crossbow aimed shot can hit 25% crit (10%aim+15%equipment), so when hitting two targets with each shot will never run out of ammo, a bad string of luck aside. Against just a single target it’s a 50% ammo buff for one trait. With most weapons, if you get a good crit shot into a horde you easily get back ~20% or more of your ammo.
If scrounger only returned ammo on the first target hit it would still be a good 30%+ ammo increase for almost all weapons (exceptions exist like volley crossbow/repeater pistol bursts). Maybe 30% more ammo would be more comparable to hunter and barrage. BH’s auto-crit would then function similarly to WS ammo regen. ~2 shots back every 8 seconds for free or less if you melee, and volleycrossbow tri-shot would trade ammo for dps.
A scrounger change doesn’t have to happen by itself; it could be accompanied with ammo count changes to keep melee careers’ range healthy.
All this would only make ranged more tedious without really affecting the scorecard, when it’s already more limited than it is in V1. Also, it would fundamentally alter the game we already paid for in a pretty major way.
Please no nerfs in a PvE game. Ranged is fine, and many classes need the ammo we currently have. Because they’re squishy, and if forced to melee, they’re forced into poor positioning. What needs to happen is a buff to melee.
V2 is already very different than V1, and the balance of V1 wasn’t perfect either.
So? Fatshark can do pretty much do whatever they want with their game barring fraudulent behavior. The ranged meta isn’t on the steam page, so 
this is because piercing and cleave in general is just way too high, and as a result something like scrounger is far more effective than it was ever intended to be. they tried to set cleave values to what they were always intended to be in a beta patch, but when people realized they weren’t as good at this game as they thought they were, outrage lead to it not being implemented.
Unfortunately at the time being the high piercing and cleave is necessary to deal with hyperdensity. Increased horde sizes, and bigger individual mass chaos hordes, means if you don’t cleave through hordes fast enough they become hyperdense and any career with any weapon is toast. I’ve been playing with shield foot knight and had hyperdense groups melt my 9 shields of stamina almost instantly.
I am all for toning down cleave and Pierce on some weapons, provided a good slot system is implemented first.
What are you talking about? They nerfed cleave and damage to intended values long ago in 1.0.5
go re-read the notes.
NERF!
You do not need that ammo, you simply need to learn to meele and depend on meele in the same way meele (slayer) depends on ranged to their job.
Buff to meele does not help, because ranged will still kill before meele can touch the enemy. A buff to meele while not solve this problem, it will only make ranged meta stronger.
Ranged want to buff meele so that in the rare instance they need to meele they can do so without skill!
Yes, of course they could. Nobody claimed they could not. They coul also change every weapon to do just one damage, or remove all weapons and replace ranged weapons with literal nerf guns and melee weapons with vegetables. The question is: Would it be benefitial for the game if they did that? The player base is dwindling as it is, and starting to completely overhaul how the game’s combat works isn’t exactly a good idea to keep players playing your game. I sure wouldn’t want to learn a completely different game after learning stuff for hundreds of hours.
This is a melee focused game. Except, you know, IT IS NOT. Just look at all these design choices they made. The game is, more or less, working exactly as intended. The proper place to alter these mechanics would have been in the beta. You know, when they already toned down the ranged stuff. Remember when the ranged carreers got 100% more ammo? Or when WS’s 25 restored FIFTY percent of your ammo with each use? They realized it was a bit too much and so they toned it down, but they did not change any of the mechanics in general. That means everything is working as intended and if it didn’t: tough luck, you had your chance to do this stuff, now we are all stuck with it.
Other than people complaining about the evil ranged meta, whenever I play (and I play only with a couple of friends, mostly I play public), I don’t see much of that happening. Sure, I see Siennas doing their Sienna thing (fireball staff does seem to be replacing the beam staff, which is kinda my point: metas are only meta until somebody finds a new meta) or WS Keri’s doing their WS-Keri-thing, but I always see a mix of ranged and melee combat from everybody. Just because “elite” players can do nothing but ranged spam doesn’t mean everybody does it or everybody CAN do it. It is the same with a certain skilled player and their more than twisted representation of HS Kruber (sorry Kitten, you brought that one upon yourself, have nothing against you), it’s all perception bias.
Yes, you could call me out for anecdotal evidence, but that is kinda my point: You see videos of very, VERY skilled players popping up, doing their ranged things with rather optimized ranged carreers and go “lol ez gg pls nerf ranged meta kthxbainore” and then you look at j_sat and everybody is copying his shade play with… oh no, with melee weapons and it’s working pretty darn well.
I am under the impression that “the ranged meta” has become as much of a meme as “This is a melee focused game”, nobody actually stops to check if it’s still holding true, it’s just a bunch of scorecards and videos as alleged evidence of this thing being too strong or that thing being too strong. It’s like nobody’s actually playing the game anymore, only discussion hypothetical OP-ness in the clinical confines of a forum where average players without optimized equipment don’t exist anymore and the only map in existence is Righteous Stand. I wouldn’t call myself a super elite player, but I have enough experience and do play a couple of rounds each day, and I simply do not encounter these apparently game-destroying things like evil ranged meta, poor underperforming melee characters and - prior to 1.0.8. - op Huntsmen deliting bosses single-handedly in a matter of seconds. Maybe I play with the wrong people (or the maybe they are the right people), but the more I read about stuff here, I get the feeling we are not playing the same game anymore and everything is just about youtube videos.
I get what you saying, but I do not find it relevant!
The game is booooooring because of it, that is what is killing the game.
Average joe start to play, only find that he can’t do anything, he tries to run to rats but his butt will be burnt and the rat will die before he can swing. He will become more and more desperate as the round progress. “MUST SWING SWORD”, so he will try to get away from ranged to be able to play the game, and will be caught, will die, will quit, will never more play this game.
He will be told that he should have stayed with the ranged, he can carry pots and tome ,he will find that he is pretty much useless.
You can’t have a 4-coop that prevents some player to play, and to have fun!
I am still having a blast with it, but of course, the game can’t cater to anyone. You could claim that I am of course biased since I like the way the game plays right now, which I am, and the game cannot cater to everybody’s liking, that’s a given. I assume though that I would quit if they were to start dabbling with all the core mechanics now, the moment for doing that has just passed and again, looking at aaaaaall the mechanics in this game that have been put there deliberately, one can argue everything is largely working as intended. I wouldn’t mind seeing melee buffed against certain challenges such as bosses, but otherwise, I think the game is in a rather good spot as it is and only needs some individual tweaking of carreers (in ohter words: buffing those that are a bit lackluster) and weapons - and MOAR red items and new content. I mean, expecting the game to be still more and more challenging (which I still think it is to some extent) after hundreds of hours is always a rather moot point. Once you know a game inside and out, it is next to impossible for the game to be difficult without becoming cheap - and let’s be frank, the game’s difficulty has been, so far, mostly been based on the game’s AI “director” taking cheap shots and sucker punches at you.
Well I agree the game can’t suit all.
What I’m say is that the current state is BAD. Two average ranged + two bots player who picks grim and tome, walk in park, easy win.
For thoose who can be replaced by bots that take grims + tome and if attacked they do block push, why should they play the game ?
Find a good siena,hunter + bw, choose a meele class, play 10 rounds and try to meele.
Q
A
Honestly it feels like some people are playing a different game than I am. I see melee focused careers do very well for themselves all the time.
The fact that there are “true duo” vids and god knows what else on the interwebz, does in no way make it true that two average players can easily finish legend runs with bots, just because they picked ranged classes.
Honestly, if you have a beam sienna on your team, do you just stand there and look at her CC the horde and take 10 minutes to kill it? The name of the game is speed, most hordes in this game you can trash through while advancing.
This game is designed the way it is, and it’s clear it was intentional. Why else would for instance Pyro and BM be actively punished for meleeing? When a Pyro is overheated and needs to go into melee, she has lower attack speed and dodge. It’s literally built so that Pyro is encouraged to instead manage heat and keep using staff, rather than get into melee.
As for ranged being too powerful…I dunno. I get tons and tons of melee kills on my WS, often more than more pure melee classes. Why is that? It’s positioning and how aggressive you are, and of course access to decent melee weapons.
If you stand around to protect the ranged, then you’re creating the ranged meta. Be more active, position better, push through hordes faster.
I somewhat agree. THe thing is the issue translates up to legend. You can do decent thing with a melee class, but as I can see, going 1 melee + 3 ranged is often way easier than the opposite.
There is not much that can be done about specials. ANd often the ranged weapons of melee can do the work there.
My main gripe are bosses. Without the few cheesy careers than can hand them well, they become a slog that means tanking at least 2 hordes or special waves , or even in case of trolls a complete inhability to harm them.
I would advocate for a hidden 30% to 50% or something damage amplification from melee sources overall on monster.s and special Shade aside (she could need an adjustment), people should be rewarded when they manage to melee bosses or reach to the varied special. Reaching a ratling/warpthrower/globadier is dangerous enough to warrant felling them in 1-2 hits.
There are a few major issues with current “ranged meta”.
First one is that people playing exclusively ranged don’t understand, they don’t even want to understand how does it feels when you are the only “frontliner” in a “3 backpedallers’ party”. They never ever commits in melee combat, they just shoot in your back, if AI director doesn’t gone mad they elliminate 90% of enemies before you can reach them as melee, and when “Oh, shіt!” situation happens they just backpebal leaving you behind, If you are dealing with horde in melee range and somehow get downed (due to your own mistake, random assassin from above, etc) they almost never tries to revive you, just continue their “shooting job” while skaven/rotblood are killing your downed body. I can’t say that playing in such party is fun, especially if you are playing not a super tanky career like Zealot, but more squishy WHC or Merc. In the other hand, you can play ranged in 3 melee party prety OK, and contribut a lot.
The second problem is that lots of players dont want to learn something they are bad at, they just want to play higher difficulty faster. It reminds me the exactly same situation from another multiplayer game, where is MMR system, and players don’t wanna play better and know the game mechanics better, they just want to klimb MMR, so in a month or a year or w/e perion of time they can say “Nah, you 5k/6k/ trench!”, despites they where there not a long time ago. But they have very limited hero pool of a few characters they play realy good, and if they can’t pick this characters they are mediocre players. Same is with VT2, there are a lot of people who just plays “Call of Duty vs rats”. They don’t want to understand how to play melee, they just says that “Ranged careers can’t properly fight in melee, they need some better weapons, less dangerous enemies etc”. So they don’t want balance between melee and ranged, they want FS to buff melee, in fact they want FS to buff their melee option, to be able to kill a few rats w/o proper knowledge of melee combat. Because buffing melee and doing nothing to ranged changes nothing. It doesn’t matter how much damage my Slayer of Zealot can deal if almost every ratty is dead before I can get close.
And to the last problem. Some people dont want even try to understand reasoning behind this topic. They are just affraid of nerfing ranged in any possible way. This toric is not about nerfing ranged careers or ranged options of melee careers to the ground, it’s about doing some adjustments to ranged careers’ ammo sustain, not completly removing it, but tuning it down/giving an option to sustain ammo due melee kills/crits instead of no-brain scounger/heat sink infinite ammunition.
Same… Just did a legend run with a tri-tank setup: Handmaiden, Ironbreaker, Foot knight, Bounty Hunter. On Halescourge no less, took us longer to beat the finale than a more range-heavy team comp but still did just fine and it was super fun. Our bounty hunter was also really terrible and dead for most of the game, so it was basically three tanks face-punching their way through everything.
Even on lower difficulties I see “average joe” players on Pyro/WS/BH/Etc get rekt all the time, because they try to only use ranged even when the situation is clearly calling for melee. Even actually good ranged players are going to get caught in melee at some point, and if they don’t know how to hang then GG.