Directional Melee Combat (meme)

Game Mechanic

Directional Melee Combat otherwise known as DMC, is a play style and mechanic characterized by a more complex form of melee fighting than just “Aim and Click”.

Typically the weapon attacks are from the right, left, top and bottom. Swords and pointy weapons also have a center strait on stab. Parrying and shield block also make use of these directions.

Games such as Mortal Online 2, Mordhau, and Chivalry 2 exhibit these play mechanics. These games are also known as Slasher games.

Most of the these games are first person combat where the player will usually need to make use of extra key-presses to direct the location of attack, parrying and blocking on the enemy. Which requiring more skill with the keyboard or controller.

The appeal of some of these games is that they are highly competitive and require a degree of player skill. This tends to be a disadvantage to new players and players who prefer a more casual play style.

And some will favor players who have had a lot of practice with the game mechanics, over newcomers.

Compatibility with games using modern/futuristic weapons

Although many of DMC games contain weapons like the bows and arrows and thrown weapons. They are not easily compatible with games that contain more modern weapons, like assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and hand grenades. It's unclear if they would work well with mage classes that can cast root spells and highly destructive AOEs either. As this is mainly a melee combat style, close combat is a requirement. In a game with ranged weapons a DMC player would seem to be highly disadvantaged