I would try to play with the assumption that 2 handers have a strong stab ability. There is game theory in this. You know he has a strong stab, and you can know its strengths and weaknesses and can play to counter it. If I see a stab animation I have a direct counter that is always available that removes 100% of the damage, and not only that I can then follow up with my own move that can have a guaranteed attack window where he has to defend himself. I can choose to make an attack, hold an attack and see what he does, hold right attack while circling to his left and see if he can't block, change position towards a team mate and see if he over extends, pretend I lose focus on him, feint an attack and attack the same direction on any number of feints, or change direction whenever etc. Good players won't care that the stab is strong, they will play to counter it if they see it as a threat (I don't necessarily, I think its just generally a good attack in the right situation). If you get outnumbered then you did something wrong. If you fail a block you made a skill mistake. Misjudged the extent of your or the enemies attack then you can only blame yourself. You have to take the combat as a whole rather than zero in on one ability like the stab. I don't think the 2 hand stab supersedes all the other stuff you can do in melee. I'm not saying that nothing in melee can be OP, but there is some leeway due to all the other things involved in it
Thats only from my perspective as I play. You then have the enemies reaction to what he anticipates me to be doing. Theres definitely a layer of depth in melee that gets close to game theory for me. The pacing is slow enough and contains enough variables that can allow for this type of gameplay.
When it comes to ranged, I just feel like its shallow and devoid of a lot of the stuff that makes M&B a unique pvp style game.
About exploits being similar to taking money off a table...I don't really agree as every 2 hander has the opportunity within the confines of the actual game. Taking money off a table is more akin to turning someone's computer off as they are playing. Its outside the confines of the game. There is a grey area with exploits, but general game mechanics that are available to everyone without modifying the game are all fair game to me. If there are tricks to things well you just need to learn them or learn to counter them. If the devs want to change anything they can, but until then you have to play the game as its designed
I'm not trying to make out M&B is a super complex strategic game. I am a lot of the time just going around hitting people when they are in a weak situation. But I do it to try to win the round, I don't care if that makes it unfair. I see it as exploiting other people's mistakes or lack of awareness. I don't care if you died through something I did that was unfair, I did it to win the round. If I played ranged I would feel the same I'm sure, and I can see why ranged players would want to protect that gameplay that brings them success. Its just not "fun" for a lot of players. At least in melee people can by and large only blame themselves when they get in bad positions or have bad teamplay or whatever else they do. In ranged gameplay its very one sided and lacking the depth of melee counters and on the fly decision making
Again not making out I play cRPG like this all the time or that melee always has a lot of depth, just trying to point out that you're more likely to find hidden depth in melee than in ranged, and that renders some seemingly OP melee abilities unimportant.
