Some thoughts on Melee combat (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, April 09, 2018, 09:29 (2206 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Re-watching that video, by far my favorite moment is this right here:

There's just something so satisfying about the speed, the smooth animation, the way the Cabal's head pops off...

In the moment, I remember getting a little thrill of excitement. It was just so different than Destiny's usual combat. It made me want to see the melee combat in Destiny fleshed out a bit more. Obviously, Destiny is a shooter, and a great one at that. The gunplay needs to be the core of the game, I think. But if we look at Destiny's current sandbox, the melee system sticks out to me as the most under-developed, with plenty of potential room for greatness to be added.

We've got more guns and types of guns than any of us can really use. A wide range of super powers and space magic to do all kinds of cool stuff. A load of different jump and mobility options. But when it comes to melee, there's just the one default "punch" (which sometimes has an extra power tacked on to it). The addition of swords is a big step in the right direction, I think. But I think there is room to take the concept much further.

What if, in addition to our current 3-weapon loadout system, all of our guardians were also equipped with a melee weapon? Nothing as powerful as the current swords... no heavy attacks or anything like that. But some kind of light melee weapon (like a short sword, a club, dual daggers, etc) that would be effective at quick strikes against weak enemies? What if equipping one of these melee weapons also granted a boost to speed and agility?

Spending a couple hours playing with this build yesterday made me sure of a couple things:

1) Destiny 2 is a lot more fun when you can move a little faster,

and

2) switching between guns (and "gun combat") and swords (melee combat) on the fly is loads of fun, and feels really great with the rest of the sandbox.

I truly think there is room here for Destiny's combat to grow in an exciting way that does not at all take away from what it is, and what it already does so well :)

Thoughts?