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  1. #1

    Petition to rid of the super punch

    In this thread I want to talk about NPCs ability to jack all your armor and half your health with one mele attack. This game has suffered quite a bit with gun diversity. Mostly because close range options leave you far to vulnerable to over powered npcs. Whether it’s yellows and purples that close the short gap at close range to gun you down before you can put them down or the the infamous knockout punches they often down us with. These mechanics need to be removed or scaled down to make shotguns and smgs viable in harder end game content. There is no justification to get in that close and risk being one tap punched by an npc right now. Lower the risk some. (Risk is already extremely high as you are within every npcs optimal range meaning your taking the full damage from them) Npc aggressiveness has been looked at although arguably feels worse now then it did pre tu9.1 (comments on that for another day). However the mechanic of npc super punches has never been addressed. Why do npcs meles hit so damn hard? Ours as agents are a joke. Recommendations.
    1. Lower the damage done by npc mele by 75 percent.
    2. Lower the range at which npcs turn this mechanic on.
    3. Lower the npc health and armor so players can burst incoming npcs more effectively. (More to argue on this in the future) or decrease their aggressiveness tawrds players attempting to get in optimal range for their shotguns and smgs.
    4. More talents such as adrenaline rush so players that enjoy close quarters combat have solid options to use to get in close. (Really am excited for that talent)

    These changes I think could help bring shotguns and smgs back into use in challenging and above end game content. They will never be meta but I suspect they will get more use they have so far in the games life cycle.
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  2. #2
    i am on your side....
    love to play close range but at the moment the game does not reward this kind of playstyle
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  3. #3
    That's a good analysis of the NPC melee problem, I agree it discourages CQB game styles.

    Why do npcs meles hit so damn hard?
    IMO, to discourage players from getting close to the NPCs and kiting them at melee range while other players shoot at them. Tanks do that because they can take the damage with their shield.

    1. Lower the damage done by npc mele by 75 percent.
    I believe this would make regular players able to kite (in a limited manner) the NPCs tank-style - but without a shield. Maybe not a great idea for balance purposes.

    2. Lower the range at which npcs turn this mechanic on.
    I don't think this is a really good idea, since the usual NPC melee process is as follows :
    Player at melee range -> stop shooting -> get closer -> perform melee attack
    Lowering the range would make NPCs empty their clip right in the players' faces, dealing full damage without the delay needed to close the range and melee.

    3. Lower the npc health and armor...
    That's part of global balance in the game, I'd maybe leave it out as a more general issue outside of melee ?

    4. More talents such as adrenaline rush so players that enjoy close quarters combat have solid options to use to get in close.
    I couldn't agree more !

    What I'd propose would be to make NPCs more or less eager to melee certain players depending on their weapon in hand to reflect more realistic behaviors. For example, make them charge player snipers because their guns are ineffective in melee, but try to avoid getting too close to a shotgun wielding player. After all, who in their right mind would charge a shotgun ?
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