Should archers have a 1 range melee attack

[contributor]

In a shameless attempt to force a point that Cory Trese and fallen have probably put into place for good balance reasons, I thought I would create this poll.

It comes from the experience of having both an archer and a melee unit at one range on my character and the archer regularly doing more damage than the melee unit. It seems to me that the whole advantage of a ranged fighter is the range. At range 1 (i.e. right next to your character) it seems like they should be handicapped and not be able to use their ranged attack (like our very own heroes). Ranged fighters always have the advantage of not having to role against your Parry skill like melee fighters do and are therefore fierce at both short and long range. It seems like there should be more of an advantage to rushing the archers and forcing them to use a melee attack would be just that.

[algesan]

Parry should apply to all range 1 attacks.

[fallen]

contributor - hahah ... thanks for putting it to a poll. This won't change - as you pointed out, put in for many good balance reasons with a long time spent testing the alternative AI patterns (trust me, you'd be asking us to put it back ... if you think "dodging AoE" is bad then you should see "scatter from melee character").

EDIT: as a final note, we never released the "dodge AoE" AI procedure to the field, even in the Alpha. It was too evil.

[slayernz]

Wizard type fellows should also have 1-Range casts ... except those AoE spells because fire != good unless you have asbestos underwear. Is asbestos still carcinogenic in the world of Steel? Oh well, most heroes have a much shorter life expectancy anyway

[Gr8Scott]

I vote that it works well in its current state to keep an already complex game simple for the developers.  I also vote the Tamilin should be able to use her bow at range 1. :-)