Idiot browser.... posting this a second time here....
Anyway, part of the reason why it's easier to sit far away and snipe is the simplicity of some enemy patterns; things that just shoot a basic straight, aimed shot at you are generally always going to be among the easiest foes. Proven by shmups, over and over.
I'd personally like to see some more variety in basic enemy patterns, as far as the actual "bullets" go. Usually it's straight shots, or seekers, and that's it. Now obviously it'd not be good to have singular foes filling the screen with flaming doom, but even smaller, varied patterns of 3 or 4 shots at once can add alot. Or however many.
Even with that being the case though, alot of the "sit far away and snipe" is still up to the player. I'm impatient and aggressive, so I tend to dash at things and smack them with Ice Burst or something of that nature. It works well enough and is often actually more effective than ranged bolts.
Well, sure. The player can always do what they want, but ultimately whether that playstyle is supported and how much is down to the design of the game. Like I said, Death Touch is my favourite spell. That doesn't mean that I'm not harming my chances of winning (including ultimately potentially making the game less fun by myself by attempting to use something that the game just doesn't support) by playing that way.
I don't personally see how toning down the melee damage (at least on ostensibly ranged enemies) or changing its mechanics entirely could be anything but good for the game as it stands. Trying to rush through enemies without fighting them would still be more dangerous than fighting because you end up surrounded and facing attacks from all directions. Flying past everything with Scroll of Bat would still be just as risky as it is now (ie. not at all).
The major gameplay impact of the current mechanics is to promote staying far away from the enemies and sniping at them with long-ranged attacks, which just isn't all that interesting. Here we are at bubble-popping again: punching a dude is way more fun than plinking away from long range in this game, because it has a lot more judgment and timing to it. I think the plinking away could be made better, too, but in raw bubble-popping terms punching a dude is just more fun, but the melee mechanics very heavily discourage it.
Consider that if you accidentally touch an enemy once before you punch it to death then you're probably down 4-6 enemies' worth of health. Ouch. And you might be flung across the room besides.
*shrugs* I just make sure not to touch them, hehe. I very rarely run into an enemy if I'm NOT dashing. Or falling, definitely fallen on enemies before, usually in bloody caves since the game is absolutely obsessed with vertical-as-heck caverns. But in actual combat, most enemies are fairly easy to get up close to without being at risk of touching them.
Still, removing the "player cant run through them" part of the melee, at the very least, would be a bad idea. If they change the melee mechanics, THAT needs to stay in place. Regardless of the enemy type you should not be able to run through it. As long as that aspect isnt changed, I dont actually care TOO much.
Not to mention..... most enemies really dont do much melee damage ANYWAY. At least, not anything I've run into (hero difficulty). The only troublesome ones in that regard are the accursed raptors, and that's because they sorta sit on your head. The others (aka, things that arent raptors, bulls, rhinos, and whatnot).... well, even if they HAVE heavy melee damage, I'm all for keeping it that way, since MOST of them wont make an active attempt at running into you; melee damage against that type is almost always the player's fault entirely. In that case.... the player needs to learn not to smack into them.
Frankly, in a game that tends to be about dodging tons of stuff thrown at the player, using melee skills on an enemy effectively SHOULD be harder than firing from afar. This is probably also why some of the melee spells are so ridiculously strong. If the melee is toned down (in terms of either damage level, OR in terms of making less enemies able to do it) to make it less threatening from enemies..... then THOSE spells also need to be toned down (alot) to retain balance. They're strong BECAUSE of the risk involved.
At the same time, I can understand the idea of being able to jump on SOME things without taking damage; bulls and rhinos maybe (though that might honestly make them a little too easy, and they're not exactly all that difficult to start with), and definitely something like the Urban Whatsits, those tank things, that would make sense.
The whole thing though sounds like it'd be extremely annoying to do though in terms of balancing it out.
