Make pikes/long spears 3 slots and maybe buff the stats a bit, then only dedicated pikemen can use them instead of everyone with a bit of sense.
Considering everything other people are suggesting is either not possible or wouldn't fix anything -- I like this.
On the topic of the pikes, a fix to most people's problems is to alter the pole-arm animation for thrusts. Change just the way it is held on thrust, and you can make point blank thrusts disappear. But honestly, if you do that you have a high likelihood of creating clipping issues as was the case with the prior pole thrust change. TBH I think point blank thrusts are better than short spears stabbing through doors...
An alternate animation change is to make it
begin thrusting earlier in the animation, which counter-intuitively makes it cause less damage and will surely glance a pointblank thrust.
a REAL solution would be to make sweet spots on all weapons matter more, and make it so that the hits in the earlier parts of animations do almost no damage. Think that requires WSE or a shit ton of code, or both.
This thread is fucking terrible though, and I mean it in the most concerned sense.