Ideas on how to improve first person Melee combats in furture titles

[zalaryan]

The melee combat of 2077 is quite bad at the start. To me it is like two robots standing still and punching each other and no one staggers. Boss melee attacks are also worthless like adam smashers short limbs punch. Until I installed a mod that automaticcally triggers finishers and change finisher key binds to left click. The melee combat suddenly feels blood pumping. When I take a look back at favourite FPS titles like Doom eternal, I figure something out.

It is not about the damage or what-so-ever, it is about the IMPACT of each melee strikes. The enemy is being cutted and smashed during finishers, these animations make us, players in first person, FEEL our sword make impact with the enemy.

When I am thinking about it, how can we implant (heh) these kind of actions into boss/high health enemies, and I got one answer: Camera work and enemy reactions.

For example, if Oda slash you with his mantis blades, V instead being able to just walk out of it, pressing S will result in V take a step back to only get out of reach and prepare for an counter attack. And Oda will REACT to your actions like trying to chase you with next attack, block your shots, or deflect your sword swing. You can also have things like sliding through his legs, ninja flip over his head, and many more actions. These kind of animations will make players feel like they are in an epic sword fight instead of punching a punching bag. Obviously if you failed to do so or failed to dash out of reach you will be heavy staggered and camera work should be able to reflect that. This will also make enemy melee attacks more threatening because you either need to react fast enough or dash out, not just walking backward and no melee attacks will ever touch you.

This will also make Sandevistan on enemies actually plays out like in edgerunner too! Only you and your target(s) will Sandy will be able to combat in a slow motion world while others just firing their guns, dancing in a storm of bullets.

Oh yes! SLOW MOTIONS, these are fantastic to be including in the "Sword fight" I mentioned before using oda as an exmaple too!

I love this game, I hope the Cyberpunk in the future can be better in EVERYWAY. I know I am a nobody but I still want to help by giving out ideas I think will be cool

Thanks for reading this far

 

[ShinAkira00]

I do agree that Melee could be more polished but a lot of these suggestions may not be practical. For instance, in your example above.

if Oda slash you with his mantis blades, V instead being able to just walk out of it, pressing S will result in V take a step back

The majority of the time you will be fighting multiple opponents not one, and also taking damage from multiple directions. This just would not work. Adding to that, you can already basically do this by just activating Sandevision and taking a step back or using dash.

You used Doom Eternal as an example which is a very linear game. Even though you are fighting demons they move just as any normal human would, they aren't dashing all over the screen at high speeds and most importantly most of the enemies aren't using ranged attacks (Guns). The only way to do what you are asking would be to make the enemies in CP2077 just as slow as those in Doom. In doom it's easy to isolate an enemy for a few seconds to get that 1v 1 but in CP2077 you have to quickly end that fight and move on to the next before you get killed. The pace of the two games is drastically different and I would not want to sacrifice that.

I think some kind of ability where you can hack multiple enemies to disable weapons and force them into melee could work with a parry or dodge system like you described. Problem is this isn't a melee focused game and it would just be the default for players using guns. I don't think they want to make the game super easy.

 

[zalaryan]

I do agree that Melee could be more polished but a lot of these suggestions may not be practical. For instance, in your example above.



The majority of the time you will be fighting multiple opponents not one, and also taking damage from multiple directions. This just would not work. Adding to that, you can already basically do this by just activating Sandevision and taking a step back or using dash.

You used Doom Eternal as an example which is a very linear game. Even though you are fighting demons they move just as any normal human would, they aren't dashing all over the screen at high speeds and most importantly most of the enemies aren't using ranged attacks (Guns). The only way to do what you are asking would be to make the enemies in CP2077 just as slow as those in Doom. In doom it's easy to isolate an enemy for a few seconds to get that 1v 1 but in CP2077 you have to quickly end that fight and move on to the next before you get killed. The pace of the two games is drastically different and I would not want to sacrifice that.

I think some kind of ability where you can hack multiple enemies to disable weapons and force them into melee could work with a parry or dodge system like you described. Problem is this isn't a melee focused game and it would just be the default for players using guns. I don't think they want to make the game super easy.

Ahh sorry for misunderstanding it is just an example, what I mean is "some what scripted movement directed by inputs" but not a straight 1 on 1.

Take this as an example, lets say you are facing a group of 3 enemies :

Enemy A tries to melee you, you will enter a slow motion for a brief moment for you to input, lets say you choose to side step. Another enemy tries to engage you with melee atack while the other is shooting you, you will take those range damage if you are not in Sandevistan, but you will be able to also counter the other enemy's melee attack. If you are in Sandevisten and your original target isn't then as you are in sandy, you are faster and able to hit him regardless just like in edgerunner. You will do a heavy hit to knock the first target down then prepared to counter the second one while ignoring the gunshots since bullets are slow compared to you!

What if you both have sandy? Well you will react just like you both doesn't and ignore most gunshots since those are slow compare to you and your target!

The goal is to even out the weakness of first person melee combat: Make your attacks pack a punch instead of feel like wacking a tree with a stick.

What if you don't have sandy or berserk and charge into 3 people to melee? What have you lost your mind? Pull out your guns and shoot someone first ROFL!!!

The goal at the end is just to make the enemies short limbs melee attack doesn't look like a stupid move and make melee gameplay actually fun and impactful. That adam smasher punch always gets me laugh LOL

TLDR: if you are not attacking with melee/ knocked down/ anything prevents you from moving, you will be able to react to multiple enemies trying to melee you and slow motions will give you that time needed. What if two enemies trying to melee you the same time? I guess it is now a matter of AI coding. When someone is punching your enemy, I guess you should shoot him instead of also trying to punch him in a gang fight or something similar. Also if CDPR is really into it, Chinese kung fu actions are a pretty good referencce

And yes, I know I can dash out and the fun way I imagine can already be done if I am jumping around and only attacks when it is the chance, but I also want to "push" new players into this fun zone instead of Sandy and mesh a button. And most importantly, enemy melee attacks will actually do an impact rather then being a target that's able to swing hands LOL

 

[Tarille]

I think the main issue, is that the game is not a dedicated melee game.

Meaning that any combat design will have its focus split between guns and melee. Which limits how in depth they can realistically go with melee systems.

Like, yes, there's a lot they can do to make melee combat more engaging and interesting. But their main concern would be making gunplay good as that's the primary focus for combat (They also have to consider Quickhack gameplay too)

Though, honestly, there are a few things they can do to help melee combat:

- Make it more lethal. I can kill things in one shot with a Sniper Rifle/Shotgun/Revolver/Precision Rifle (Or throw a knife/axe for a one hit kill) or spam enough rounds to kill something in 1 second with an SMG/Assault Rifle/LMG... So why should I bother even using melee when it's going to take many attacks to kill something AND can be completely nullified by the enemy just blocking?

- Lean more into evasion than blocking. Make melee vs melee more of a dance instead of having enemies just throw up blocks constantly. (This can free up RMB allowing its use for alternate attack types such as a lunge attack)

- More mobility for melee attacks. Again, melee has to compete with guns that can shoot from afar. There needs to be more ways for a player to close in with targets.

 

[zalaryan]

I think the main issue, is that the game is not a dedicated melee game.

Meaning that any combat design will have its focus split between guns and melee. Which limits how in depth they can realistically go with melee systems.

Like, yes, there's a lot they can do to make melee combat more engaging and interesting. But their main concern would be making gunplay good as that's the primary focus for combat (They also have to consider Quickhack gameplay too)

Though, honestly, there are a few things they can do to help melee combat:

- Make it more lethal. I can kill things in one shot with a Sniper Rifle/Shotgun/Revolver/Precision Rifle (Or throw a knife/axe for a one hit kill) or spam enough rounds to kill something in 1 second with an SMG/Assault Rifle/LMG... So why should I bother even using melee when it's going to take many attacks to kill something AND can be completely nullified by the enemy just blocking?

- Lean more into evasion than blocking. Make melee vs melee more of a dance instead of having enemies just throw up blocks constantly. (This can free up RMB allowing its use for alternate attack types such as a lunge attack)

- More mobility for melee attacks. Again, melee has to compete with guns that can shoot from afar. There needs to be more ways for a player to close in with targets.

Honestly, anything will be better than just hitting a tree with a stick

 

[Zem]

I know it's a divisive issue, but I'd like future games to at least CONSIDER a 3rd person camera option for melee combat. Not eliminating 1st person melee, just adding an option for 3rd in combat and free roam modes.

I have a real problem in this game sometimes with enemies that move quickly. I'll throw a few punches at someone and then they might be gone and I'm not sure which way they went because I've got no peripheral vision. People keep saying "immersion" with their 1st person rants, but in real life I've got peripheral vision. So the game's restricted FoV is not so immersive for me. 3rd person gives both a wider field of view around your character AND awareness of what's happening to you since you also can't feel things. In 3rd person, I don't need a HUD indicator to tell me I've been hit in the back if I can SEE it.

 

[Nixilos]

I liked the way melee combat felt in Oblivion and Skyrim, and pre 2.0 melee in Cyberpunk felt like a better version of those to me. The recent change to focus on finishers makes it feel clunky to me, and I tire of the same 3 animations playing while V is eating lead to the face and not taking any damage. Hit stun has been reduced or removed from mantis blades and monowire to make room for the overpowered relic perks, so the combat feels less grounded with enemies not really reacting to being hit until they are dead.

Seriously go back to 1.6 sometime and play a blades build, watching heads and arms fly just from normal slashes was immensely more satisfying than any finisher, especially over the course of a long game.

 

[Tarille]

Seriously go back to 1.6 sometime and play a blades build, watching heads and arms fly just from normal slashes was immensely more satisfying than any finisher, especially over the course of a long game.

Honestly, my experience of pre-2.0 melee was pretty much the same as now.

Revolving entirely around spamming mantis blades heavy attack which just 1 shot everything and did the same 1 animation over and over with V having iframes through the entire thing.

Which isn't too much different to what they want you to do in 2.0 which is... Spam mantis blades heavy attack but then press F for a finisher.

2.0 also opened up non-mantis blades melee with Gorilla Arms, Monowire and regular melee getting finishers (I.e. Mantis heavy attacks from pre-2.0) and Monowire being retooled from janky stealth melee that sucked in an actual fight (And for stealth still sucked compared to insta-kill takedowns and one-shot mantis blades heavy attacks) into cool netrunner weapon.

I liked the way melee combat felt in Oblivion and Skyrim

Ugh... Skyrim's melee is terrible though. Just spam attack at enemies that don't flinch, don't block or evade and all the while not care about damage taken because you're super OP anyway.

The Elder Scrolls Online does melee far better than any other ES game. As it features more depth to fighting, including reasons to use quick and heavy melee attacks, blocking and dodging being mechanics worth actually using...

Though for 1st person melee combat, you've got things like Chivalry and Mordhau which tend to offer the most developed systems.