How to ACTUALLY intuitively blend melee and firearm combat?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

Hey,

I have always, always had the dream of perfectly mimicking that same feeling you get when watching movies like John Wick, where beautiful firearm handling and martial arts mix together.

I want to be able to dynamically enter and exit fights that almost seem choreographed. I know this is a complex design issue that will take a while to really experiment with and tackle effectively, but I was wondering if any ideas were here.

My idea is that people blend all “keys” and aspects of combat in a single encounter, rather than limiting combat to the standard “hold click on each other until someone dies, maybe spam prone or jump.” Fights should have some level of tactics, strategy, and most importantly, melee. There are a lot of games that incorporate secondary “offhand punch” attacks, most notably A-888/Anomalous Activities, where you can press Q to throw an offhand punch and temporarily stun an enemy to gain distance. However, it’s not exactly commonplace to do this, and only applies in niche circumstances since you can just laser enemies from afar without having to get close and uncomfortable.

I want there to be many different options of “alternative attacks” with and without firearms. However, this brings a few different issues;

  • How are these attacks going to be triggered? Nobody wants to memorize 10 keybinds just to be able to hit someone with the end of their gun.
  • Why are these attacks better than just shooting?
  • If someone gets in your face with a melee, what prevents you from just holding click? It’s point blank, no way you’re going to miss that.
  • Guns should do some level of realistic damage, so what stops someone from just shooting you if you try and get close to fight? (Basically already said this).

I know this isn’t really anyone else’s problem, and more or so a thing I either need to move on from or again, something I need to figure out myself, but why not ask other people.

My main concern is just making guns not as effective in tight quarters, being able to actually bind all of these attacks, and most importantly, making it actually intuitive and not a niche aspect that nobody really considers.

Thanks for listening to my rant, any answers are appreciated.

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#2

Look to other games that combine guns and swords. I would say the Persona series, but I believe all the games there are more RPG-turn-based rather than free-open combat. I haven’t played any of the games; I have only watched some of them.

Maybe Smash’s controls could help: Controls - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Guide - IGN

This is what you have to design. Each method needs a drawback. Maybe it’s ammo limit (inf mag or?), reload speed or an enemy can only be damaged with a certain weapon.

I’m not entirely understanding, but I think a stamina bar and cooldown timer would help.

Have a shield or some way to motivate players to not use a gun/ranged attack in some cases. In real life, yes, bullets can just kill people. Since that’s makes killing too easy for complex and prolonged combat, so nerfing the damage (based on gun type: smg, shotgun, etc.) is important.

Combat design in video games is a difficult subject. There are many things to consider and it could be a deal-breaker for some players if it’s considered bad.

It all depends on the game you’re making, and the audience you want to reach, but most players don’t like tanky enemies/damage sponges or re-healing mechanics. Things that are made difficult through time or randomization can be annoying compared to skill/mechanics that feel like they matter.

I recommend looking into some YouTube videos on combat design in video games. There’s a lot out there. Here’s one by a long-time game design channel, GMTK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X4fx-YncqA

I think it’s all about incentivizing players to use both combat options or disincentivizing one a player uses the most/is drawn to. The “tight quarters” make me think of a shotgun or something that can do a lot of damage up close. Maybe a dodge makes it so that it’s not so one-and-done. Maybe a sniper and you only have 3 shots or something for ranged stuff.

Quests telling players to use a certain mechanic/weapon might help a little, but that’s less the root issue and more a slight help.

Hope that helps!

Edit: for animations, and states of a player controller in general, use a ‘state machine’. Roblox has one with Falling, Landed, Swimming, etc. but you might want to make a custom one that makes your combat system easier to design. Jot down all the ideas you have, give it some time, come back to the list, and cross out things you don’t like. After that, system design thinking by writing out connections helps:

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#3

Thank you for the response.

I agree and understand all points you make, however I want to talk about the firearm damage aspect.

I don’t think the damage is necessarily the deal-breaker as to firearm balance. There’s always aspects like aim time, movement penalties, etc. But, I still like the idea of people playing “run and gun”.

My main idea is adding penalties for rotation, so that your gun is less accurate while your camera is moving fast, and your gun is offset to the side if someone is too close to you, making it really difficult to aim (?).

If you have any other ideas please let me know, otherwise I liked all the points you made.

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#4

Just wanted to write here that I think the best solution for nerfing guns so melee is viable is to make all firearms have a windup to shooting. I’ll admit though there’s a lot of mystery variables here like desired time-to-kill or server size or even if the game is team-based or not, so this is more of a guess.

My logic here is that the reason why guns dominate over melees by default is because melees take forever to get into effective range. Even the guns with the worst effective range massively outrange any given melee weapon. So, a windup before your gun fires means it gives enough time for melee to be viable at close range. But if the melee-attacker misjudges the distance, they might be in for a swift death.

It would significantly change regular ranged combat as well though, for better or worse. The primary change would be that when players peek out of cover, they’ll hide back into cover if they see an enemy already has the upper hand in windup. Suppression would be incredibly powerful, and there would always need to be way to reach enemies through routes that lead to close-quarters.

As for how long the windup should be, I believe most guns should average around 0.4s. But once they start firing, they can keep firing sort of like how miniguns are usually handled. If you were prepared, you could shred an enemy who tries to rush you with melee.

I just realized a lot of what I wrote hear sounds a lot like Blood and Iron, but the primary difference between that and my idea is that you’d still be able to move quickly while readying your gun, and you couldn’t cancel out of shooting either. There’d also be certain occasions where you could make enough distance to draw your gun and then fire.

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#5

Thank you for the response.

I have already incorporated something similar, firearms cannot be quickly shot as their idle position is always pointed down, and you cannot fire them without aiming, making combat a little slower. In addition, I’ve also added a spread variable that increases with camera movement, and then ends a second after. No melees yet, but I’m hoping that this will encourage some cool gameplay dynamics.

If it doesn’t, I can always come back to this. Thanks.

#6

One thing you have to think is:

Getting hit with a bat, axe, or really anything can be jarring. Maybe make it so when you get hit by certain melee weapons, you get stunned. Making to do you can shoot (or if you do bullets will go everywhere, risking hitting yourself).

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