Dancing < what do you think?

[Classic1977]

Without asking for a crazy change like "half ranged damage and lock units into melee" (which is completely unreasonable and would change the game totally), I'd like to say dancing should be reduced a bit. - my suggestion is temporarily locking units into melee, for at least a certain amount of DMG or time. (depending on the attacker, 1-3 hits or 2-4 seconds).

As I get better at DoW (been playing for about 4 months) dancing seems more and more ridiculous, and melee units more and more useless.

EDIT: people have already said dancing units are a wasted unit, as they cant fire back normally, but, if 2 squads are being used, dancing is still just potent, as the stationary squad can still fire.

I'm not saying dancing should be stopped, just that dancers should be forced to take some melee DMG...

[ViS]

Melee units should take reduced damage within charge range, move much faster, take far less damage in melee and units escaping melee should have half their morale knocked off.

However, ranged weapons will need a total rework...

[dreddnott]

As long the enemy shooty squads are running from your melee units, they're not shooting at you (or they're firing with greatly reduced accuracy). Melee units and ranged units need to complement each other in a well-managed army.

[mlai]

After Relic drastically reduced everyone's (except Necrons') FOTM acc, dancing is no longer very potent. Now it's just a waste of time. You can laugh at your opponent as he wastes valuable energy dancing while your cc units are only right-clicked once.

[crusader10k]

thats true.

a dancing unit is a wasted unit. you either commit it to combat, or you run away. thats why you usually need two ranged units or a ranged unit+cc unit.

as is, dancing is useless for both sides. I would agree with having cc units take less damage when within charge range, and move faster. somehow make cc units a little more effective. I miss seeing lots of banshees

[s1_ONE]

After Relic drastically reduced everyone's (except Necrons') FOTM acc, dancing is no longer very potent. Now it's just a waste of time. You can laugh at your opponent as he wastes valuable energy dancing while your cc units are only right-clicked once.

no wait,

[Classic1977]

Like I said FOTM really dosen't mean much unless its a 1 on 1 fight.

As soon as you have 2 ranged squads, one can just stay still and shoot. This ROYALLY sucks with long ranged units like FWs.

[dreddnott]

One change I wouldn't mind being implemented involves melee animations.

You know how a unit has to stop to do a melee attack animation, and the damage is dealt halfway through or at the end of a swing? This causes the model to be too far away to deal damage to a dancing opponent, which is how dancing keeps your squads alive.

Now, if the attack coding was changed so the damage was dealt at the beginning of the animation, sure, you'd still have to stop to do the whole animation and then catch up with your dance partner, but at least you'd get a hit in every once in a while. Some fast units with really short attack animations are already capable of this (Wraiths are a good example I think).

[Grabnutz]

I'm sorry, I can't read this thread without giggling

Anyway this is really a balance issue, so providing some replays etc would help.

Hyperspacing to balance issues

[Classic1977]

Dont really see how this belongs in balance...more of a game wide suggestion neutral to all races...but hey, some mod needed to demonstrate is infinite power within the realm of http://forums.relicnews.com/* and moved the thread.

[dreddnott]

Sure it's a balance issue. You're claiming that there's an issue with balance between close-combat and ranged squads.

[Logga]

When you mêlée a ranged unit the whole squad goes into Mêlée, so this means if just ONE unit mêlées the whole squad is rendered useless for a while because they are trying to dance away. No other games I know does this. Mêlée units are designed to be danced because in general they have more HP than ranged units and do more damage when they Mêlée compared to ranged damage.
I do not see a balance issue here anyway since this effects all the races.

[Kendallv2000]

If you are using range stay still

[Chaingun]

Don't lock units into melee - removing control from player like that isn't all too much fun. It's like getting a GM squad chained by sorc.

There are other ways to increase power of melee units naturally (speed, health, etc.) If you do so across the board however you'll change racial balance as well because of different races' different reliance on CC units.

I personally like the system the way it works today already and don't see the work required to change it necessary, even for SS.

[Logga]

I would say in other words Classic1977, you are asking for more path finding problems from what you have described by temporally locking them in mêlée for a few seconds, and this does happen already because of the horrible path finding.
When you control a unit to move/dance they should do what you say no questions or hesitating.

[magicalcarpet]

I disagree, leave it as it is.

Zerks + Chains is pretty gaylord to play against as it is.

[Guardian X]

Dancing should never have been allowed to exist.

Contrary to what the wiki for Dawn of War read once, DoW was not the first game where melee troops could stop ranged troops from firing. There was an excellent and criminally under-exposed game from 2000 called Sacrifice by Shiny Entertainment (before they made their Matrix-based games) where melee troops could shut down and defeat ranged troops most of the time. In that game, however, there was no firing on the move. Every ranged unit had to stop to fire, so dancing was not a problem.

I cannot see why this extraordinary exploit was not stomped out during the development of DoW before it ever became a problem. I do not believe it would have been difficult; there is an easy-to-use "blend function" in 3D Studio Max that allows you to blend, say the animations of a characters' upper torso (such as an Ork swinging a Choppa) with the animations of a character's lower torso (such as the legs of an Ork running.

A measure like that, along with, say, a damage bonus added to melee damage, or something similar like extended stunning periods, both triggering when the intended melee target is trying to run away would help to reduce dancing, since the targetted squad would die much more quickly if they were running than if they stood and fought, buying time until a more capable melee squad could extract them. Making grenades have friendly fire but better disruption could be one way to extract squads from melee combat.

[The_Guardman]

Every ranged unit had to stop to fire, so dancing was not a problem.

If the shooting #units outnumber the # CC ones, dancing would still be a problem.

[santiago4ever]

Could you give some specific examples as to why this rather drastic change should be made? This would radically change the balance in all matchups and I have no idea how to compensate the ranged units for it.

[Dark_Avenger]

I say lock units into melee until broken, if this change were to happen then drastically up moral damage on melee attacks so your not totally screwed

instead of lock, why not the whole squad moves a lot slow (75% maybe) untill broken.

[Vytae]

I say lock units into melee until broken, if this change were to happen then drastically up moral damage on melee attacks so your not totally screwed

instead of lock, why not the whole squad moves a lot slow (75% maybe) untill broken.
__________________

Honestly,where do people get this stuff. Ranged units with a very few exceptions cannot survive melee units in melee even if they outmass them by a large margin. So basicly,everyone would build melee units,because once you lock a ranged unit in melee,its fucked and dead,while your melee unit gets cover bonus to boot. Right now they are on of the few things that ARE balanced. If you cant counter dancing,your either not as skilled,or following a flawed strategy.

[Guardian X]

Could you give some specific examples as to why this rather drastic change should be made? This would radically chance the balance in all matchups and I have no idea how to compensate the ranged units for it.

Forcing all units to fire when standing still was not the solution I suggested. That was merely the description of another game I was giving.

[magicalcarpet]

do you people calling for change happen to play chaos by any chance?

can you imagine the zerker spam? ._.

melee units are already balanced by having better damage / health for cost and either higher speed or jumping abilities.

i don't understand why people want to the game to be ruled by units that simply require you to right click on the enemy and hack them to death.

if these 'locking' business came into play, you'd have to triple dps on ranged squads. the balance situation would be ridiculous.

[jourmungand]

I agree with the one who said that the damage should be done at the beginning of the attack animation rather than the middle or end. Sure it may look a little goofy, but it would give melee units a better chance of actually landing a blow on dancing units.

That or allow melee to occur on the move as well, with drastically reduced damage or accuracy.

[Gadianton]

@magical carpet: Exactly. If ranged units are going to get locked into melee than ranged units should have a chance of killing the melee units first, because this is what getting locked in means. If I don't dance my sluggas and Fire warriors away from the wraith, they die.

So much of this game is unrealistic (sci-fi setting aside) that picking on details like this is well, silly(?).

You can dance if you want to,
so you don't get torn a new behind.
If you want me to be locked I get a bigger glock,
or you aint no friends of mine.
(sorry about the above y'all.)

There's a "stand and shoot" rule in table top fantasy(i know, this is a far cry from DOW) than allows the ranged unit to choose to fire on the attacker as they close, giving them a free round of shooting which can potentially break the morale of the charger causing them to be unable to close and possibly forced to flee!

I think that allowing some damage to be done as soon as a charging unit closes could be fair, after all, just the breath of Khornes beloved killers is probably enough to shrivel your nuts...

[Arcinatus]

if your dancing a unit that has morale, try to keep moving and break there morale with other ranged units. then when it is broken, stop..and let your own melee units take them down. (doesnt happen often but i just did it today, my FW"s were funning from some sluggas, my ally's tacts were opening up on em, as soon as their morale broke my kroot ripped them to shreds)

[Chris]

i don't understand why people want to the game to be ruled by units that simply require you to right click on the enemy and hack them to death.

I think it's pretty obvious... because they want to be able to right click a few times, go make a cup of tea and then come back and watch all the pretty kill animations.

[Avatar of War]

I'm American.

I want to be able to right click a few times and go make a cup of coffee...


We threw the tea into the harbor for a reason you know!

[DemoDragon]

Wouldn't it be simpler to make the the melee units able to deal damage on the move, as long as they are within range, without having to stop? And also have range units be able to shoot on the move? Just penalize accuracy and damage while on the move.

Be more realistic, in real life people can swing weapons, shoot guns and move at the same time.

[War-Reborn]

To be honest i think it's fine as now, fast CC troops do dmg ranged troops as they try an slice past them etc, if a change was to be made something simple (like upping the accuracy on cc troops pistols, since most melee squads sport low dmg close range bolt pistols) would likely solve the trick an make dancing slightly less effective or at least make prolonged dancing less effective while requiring zero changes to the game engine, radical reworks at this stage of dow are not going to happen

[ImmortalChaos]

Demodragon: That is exactly what I was suggesting. I would deifnately put speed nerfs on the units while meleeing (as much as 50%) so they would be more like they currently are, exept the run in, swing around, lose distance, then sprint back at them process would be a lot smoother. Melee units would not be able to chase you at your heels and hack you down, but at the same time they would do something.

In a nutshell:
Melee units can swing on the move.
They recive about a 50% nerf relative to their standing accuracy.
They recive a speed nerf of 50% while they are meleeing; they will get a bonus for the charge like normal (depending on the unit, cultists for example have a huge melee charge) but once they stopped charging and started chopping, they would have to slow down. Once they were out of range again they would start the charge bonus and sprint back in.

What this changes:
To be honest, not much. Melee units would seriously not do much better at all vs ranged units; IMO, however, that is fine, as it is extremely close to being balanced now. What my suggestion would change is a much smoother chasing process, and units would notfind themselves losing distance with the enemy every time they swung their weapon.

At the same time, the FoTM changes I've suggested all over the place should take effect; this creates a small but noticeable buff to FoTM, as well as balancing it for slower units and units designed for FoTM.

In the end: Everybody wins. Dancing is slightly better, melee chasing is less weird and will actually do damage with units specifically designed to rape while moving, the game plays smoother.

This is not a top priority change however. I'd rather have time and effort spent on balancing a single race than smoothing out the melee/ranged relationship. While it would be awsome to see this in game, I'm not holding my breath.

[Zany Reaper]

Dancing shouldn't be allowed. Only non-melee stuff (as in things that can never engage in melee in the first place, like tanks) should be allowed to leave combat.

I'm in all-time favour of having melee units lock things in close-combat. It's a great idea.
Of course, ranged units would need a form of buff, & melee units would also need price/damage adjustments too (with the current system, if such a thing were introduced then spamming cheap melee units or bezerkers would make ranged combat irrelevant).
With this in mind, the game could still be balanced, yet would also be more fun to play as less micromanagement would be required.

[mlai]

Dancing should be allowed. But melee units simply should have melee attacks on-the-move.

[s1_ONE]

so whats the purpose of dancing then? :S

[Arcinatus]

you wouldnt have to dance really if only the squad members being attacked in melee responded, but since a CC squad makes the ENTIRE ranged squad engage in CC you basically have to if you dont wanna lose valuable units to a horrible death (aka chain axe to the face)...

i dont like my wording on that...huh...

[God_Of_Scots]

So what your saying is....take out the only element of "micro" in the game, if thats what you actually want to call it.

[Arcinatus]

i'm not an advocate of taking out dancing completly, that would be wrong... :0
just changing in it some way so, depending on who is using their unit better, either the melee unit or the ranged unit will be at an advantage, not the stalemate scenario we have right now. i mean, ranged units cant fire, but melee units can get shot up by other ranged attacks while chasing. its a lose - lose situation really.

[Chris]

I'm in all-time favour of having melee units lock things in close-combat. It's a great idea.

Go back to TT pl0x.

Dancing is fine. To put it simply, if you can't cope with a simple game mechanic like dancing you need to stop posting in the balance forum and go back to the tutorial missions.

but melee units can get shot up by other ranged attacks while chasing. its a lose - lose situation really.

So get more melee units of your own? Now a winner is you.

CC troops are fucking hardcore. They have a HP/DPS/Cost ratio that makes most ranged units weep. Berzerkers with a combined squad DPS of almost 290. Nobz and Assault Terminators with over 1000hp EACH. If melee units could do half of the shit suggested in this thread (and yeah even though ImmortalChaos is fairly reasonable I still think his suggestions arn't really needed) you should see NOTHING but melee units.

I challenge anyone in this thread (I'm looking at you specifically, Zany Reaper) to play in some games vs me WITHOUT using dancing for ranged units. Playing as Eldar is basically cheating but I'm pretty confident they'd still get owned by a no dancing rule.

[Zany Reaper]

No, dancing really isn't fine. It's boring, really frustrating & has too much micromanagement. If certain melee units are too tough ATM, then buff them.

Besides, having things get locked in melee would weaken annoying fire-bases! At the moment, melee units can be made almost totally redundant thanks to having entire armies of melee units gunning down even the toughest of melee units, being Nobz for example.

As of such, if dancing is eliminated, then melee units continue to scale properly. I fail to see the problem with that, especially since you could still shoot down the melee units whilst locked anyhow.

[Zaark]

Zany Reapers idea is really so stupid that it doesn't really need an answer. Everyone actually playing this game should know why it is just ridicilous suggestion. But anyways here is one reason.

Basicly you saying that one should auto lose their reaper/tac/shoota/gm/fw/termi/oblit/ws/etc squad when asm/raptor/stormboy squads jump right next to them or when zerk/psm/shees run them down? What game are you playing?

Really, pls stop making ridicilous suggestions like that.

[Chris]

Zany Reaper:

I am on GMT+0. I will be available tomorrow 1200-2100 and 1200-1800 on thursday and friday. Might also be free 1200-1800 on saturday too. If you are available you are more than welcome to try out "no dancing" games and you will see how utterly ridiculous your ideas are.

ENTIRE ARMIES killing a squad of Nobs? Well that's just outrageous, we can't have entire armies killing single squads can we?

[Hawillis]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
get out of balance forums now and forever more. Boring? Do you know how boring it would be if all I could do was to move troops and decide who to attack. This game has no micro management at all. Proof: I got to 1700 and I have crap micro.

Also lock in melee = I just run a few seconds earlier to be safe lulz. Go back to TT and enjoy that. Gosh I hate TT since you cant flee from melee, its so dumb!

Sure increase damage melee does to range on dance. My suggestion was charge bonus of 2 to all units.

[mlai]

Of course, if melee-OTM is implemented, melee units have to be debuffed somewhat. And FOTM will need to be rebuffed back to closer-to-DOW level.
Right now, aside from some units like Zerks, Wraiths, and Banshees, a charging melee unit is actually doing less dps to a dancing target than if the melee unit is simply chasing and shooting with his pistol. Melee-OTM will simply allow a charge to be worthwhile; it's not a sudden death knell for dancing troops contrary to what some like Zany wants.

[sn0zcumb3r]

OK locking units in melee is a silly idea.. Jump troop spam fest would then follow.. it also takes away from the game alot!
The problem that should be addressed is that melee units do absolutely no damage on the move which means that supposidly fragile ranged units can run from them back to an LP2 taking no casualties/damges whatsoever. Ranged>>>melee as proved by the ork tier 3 before the introduction of Gitz or by current match ups and also by 90% of matchups where ranged units are chosen instead of melee.
I find ImmortalChaos idea quite good. In a nutshell damage should be dealt at the beginning of the swing or units charging should move a little further forward than the closest point of enemy model in order to guarantee a swing/hit depending on accuracy

[Merker]

How about just changing the FOTM for melee units so they have decent number for it say ~40% instead of 15%. They should be skilled at shooting while running since they do it all the time.

M

[Zaark]

This thread is now 3 pages long, yet I haven't seen a single piece of evidence that there is a general imbalance between melee and ranged. Instead I have seen pointed out that melee units have been compensated with higher hp and dmg as well as jump ability in some cases. I think it's time for someone to post this evidence or lock this thread.

Major gameplay changes such as melee lock is not, to my understanding, a balance issue and thus balance forum is not the right place for such suggestions. Also claiming it is boring to dance is not a balance issue.

[ImmortalChaos]

I have to say that the melee/ranged balance is freakin' good right now.

There is no real reason to make any drastic changes. However, as it has been said before, this game is pretty easy on micro. My suggtions to smooth out melee on the move and buff fire on the move do very little in terms of actual game balance and rather help punish players a bit more for micro mistakes and military weakness. It wont be enough to go back to DoW style " you have a smaller army so you die while I chase you around", but it wont be DC style "I have no army but can stay alive forever by running aorund".

Its more of a gameplay change than a balance change.

PS: Melee lock is bad. Veeery bad. Same with melee on the move being added with no "sloooow dooown" effect, as melee units chasing you at your heels while taking chunks out of you is no better than melee lock.

[Hawillis]

You want evidence for melee< ranged?

lol. look no further than:
1 melee v 2 ranged. ranged win
2 melee v 1 ranged. draw

2 melee v 2 ranged. I reckon I can win this for the ranged with my 1337 skillz.

[ImmortalChaos]

Thing about that situation is that usually the melee is either a stalling attempt, or has something like chains of torment to even the odds. You dont build melee units without some way to catch the enemy.

[mlai]

Same with melee on the move being added with no "sloooow dooown" effect, as melee units chasing you at your heels while taking chunks out of you is no better than melee lock.

This is so taken out of gameplay context.

What idiot range squad runs around long enough for the random chop from a standard melee squad (i.e. not Wraiths not FoFing Banshees) to accumulate enough to decimate it? Obviously it's running towards an LP2, its own melee squad, or a set-up HW squad.

A melee squad with MOTM is no better than a range squad with mediocre FOTM. (But at least now it gets to do some dmg.)