I've now spent some time fighting with daggers and 1-handers now, after doing tanks and 2-handers like most of this alpha, I've completed my first pass on melee, and come to the following conclusions:
1.) As much as I love to give shit to the vets whining about stamina, stam regen is actually a bit low, even for lighter armors.
2.) Most melee is actually pretty well balanced, and judging by tanks with massive 2-handers is premature; the faster weapons are pretty realistic too, as is footwork, because the idea that plate armor should be able to dance around is incorrect. Plate armor shouldn't be so maneuverable, and the lighter armors need this advantage for game balance.
3,) The "slow swing weapon" argument is a bit overblown, and time-to-kill based on everyone walking around as a tank is completely incorrect. Tanky playstyles *should* take a this long to kill, and anyone that disagrees should throw on some light armor, grab a dagger, and notice how speed and skill just *owns* armor, BUT NOT QUICKLY, as it shouldn't. TBH, IMHO turn caps should be adjusted slightly, slowing down spin additionally as run speed slows for heavy armor, and for slower swinging weapons. And that's in addition to current restrictions.
4.) Parry arcs are too wide, but this one is kind of obvious at this point.
The takeaway I've really had, foregoing big 2-handed weapons a bit, is this: we are doing a lot of great thinking on game balance based on BAD INITIAL CONDITIONS, and those initial conditions are the default armor-sets we are presented with. It seems a small thing, but it's not; I cannot stress this enough. People tend to go with what's offered. Technically you can say people can make w/e they want in game, but most don't, let's be honest. When you log in, you need to have the first choice be a very lightly armored char with a fast weapon like a dagger, the second choice be a medium heavy armor with a one hander and shield, and the third choice be a full plate with a massive 2-hander. Not only will this stop wasting all this *massive* experienced thinking on game balance based on an incomplete dataset, but will allow the grabbing of a bow on all armor-sets, and get a good feel for that too, a smaller issue I'll admit. But the simple truth is that conclusions are *strongly* based off of initial conditions, and we're drawing intelligent but inaccurate conclusions based on a really narrow set of initial conditions (armor sets, etc). If this is our combat alpha/beta, can we *please* get a more widely varied set of gear-set defaults, because people are lazy and gonna go with whats handed to them as default, most of the time, whether its a good idea or not, and because while what we have is OK to learn about ping latency, smooth animations, etc, it isn't enough to do combat balance, and like it or not, people are going ahead and drawing those conclusions (myself included). It's a small change, changing the login char choices, but I really think you'll get the next dataset you need (combat balance, not just animation/ping testing) if you do so. The clues are obvious; most people grab a massive 2-hander, and draw the conclusion that swings are too slow. most people choose heavy plate armor, and draw the conclusions that movement and stam regen are too slow; please change the defaults to encourage a wider dataset for conclusion; I think you will get so much more, from such a simple and easy change, that *not* doing it, would be a disservice. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree.
Please change the login armor-set choices with the mounts patch, so we can test a more realistic dataset. Light, medium, and heavy armorsets, archery, and mounted. THEN you will get some real feedback on game balance. My .02.
