Melee 2.0 - My List Of Reminders

[Khunvyel]

This is a collection of questions which are very specific as they mostly target what has been said by the developers.

I like to keep things tangible, and I like to think about the connectivity of the new part to the existing system. I am not requesting any answers from the devs, but rather just want to make sure some things are being remembered. You know, focused shutters vs. leaning back for the bigger picture and all that :3
 

• You mentioned new AI reactions. Will the AI of melee NPCs FINALLY try to get us while we are standing on elevated spots? I cannot bear it any longer to see three dozen Infested occupying the space around my crate and staring blankly at me. I cannot bear it any longer to blast Tyl Regor's face from 2 meters above while he ducks behind a railing for cover or simply stands there.
   

• Have you factored in the melee damage multiplier from Stealth? With your all new melee system with continuous damage, I suddenly see 4x Loki / Ash with perma stealth and simply destroy everything, including Defense and Survival missions. Suddenly this could be the new metagame. I never understood the excessive bonus damage when stealth on every single melee attack. That sounded more like a bandaid fix until a full revision is in store... and that revision is now. I hope you keep that in mind.
   

• How are mods like "Reflex Guard", "Parry" and "Reflection" going to fit in there? You mentioned in the livestream that when you block during the right time, you'll be countering an attack. Future blocking is said to not consume stamina any more, making "Parry" very interesting. But "Reflection" could be totally useless, since "countering" indicates that the hit is not even going to cause damage to you. Or there will be a glitch that it still applies the damage back which WOULD have been dealt to you. Or would that be intended? Within this, "Reflex Guard" would need to be carefully looked at, so it doesn't become an "auto-counter". Because by it's mechanic, it just blocks the moment a hit connects, which very much could sound like perfect counter conditions?
  

   

• Will we finally be able to aim vertically with our Melee attacks? This has always been a bother if you attack enemies at different height levels (staircase, crates, etc). It is also bothersome that you sometimes cannot even hit Infested Crawlers even when CROUCHING with your regular attack. The possibility to aim up and down with our melee weapon would introduce a new measurement of skill which allows us to actually aim for weakspots aka headshots. (( I mean, you didn't add the headshot count for melee weapons for nothing, right? :P ))
   
• Where do you intend us to acquire these new stance mods? Will they be on alerts, or drop from enemies? I hope you remedy the decision to put them into the badlands because this might be very well content not everyone is willing to play, but I keep my opinions in check as the badlands AND melee 2.0 8.0 are not even released yet. It might well be that badlands just drop an amplified version of a stance, which is improving the weapon in general with more damage and attack speed and whatnot.
  

   

• How will a weapon behave when you have no stance mod on them? Since the stance mods can be ranked, and with that ( according to livestream ) will unlock more moves to do... this sounds it will very much be a massive jump in melee depth once you slot them. But how will the weapon feel without it? How would someone try his melee weapon again because a "naked" one didn't feel good to begin with? Or will it stay true to what I gathered from the livestream and a stance will simply unlock timed combos, and then add more to them as you rank that mod?
   
• Will ranking the stance mod to unlock more stuff will feel like a real progression? The problem is; we have 3 / 5 / 10 rank mods. A 3 is a no brainer, you just rank it up, no progression felt. With 5, most players would instantly unlock to 4. But with 10, it again looks so unreachable. I'd hope we only get an "unlock" every second rank and on the last one, but I secretly hope the stance mod will have a new rank order, being 7. Or perhaps it keeps being a 5 rank and we unlock stuff on 3 and 5. Perhaps you want people to unlock that early. I have no idea, but the balance of doing so will be tricky, I give you that. A mix of visible progress without braindead rushing and without everlasting grind.
   
• Are you going to make sure that there are sufficient tutorials ingame (aka Codex) in order to introduce this feature to players who are not camping the forums and the wiki constantly, and neither have the time or the patience to try and find every single move on their own? It should be introduced right inside the very first tutorial which guides you through the weapons. After being introduced to the weapon swap button (so after the pistol) you should go back to melee and show how you "press and hold weapon swap" to equip your melee weapon, and what you can do with it now.

   

• How much do you take the two melee-helping options (auto target & follow target) into consideration when doing Melee 2.0 ?
   

• Is the "hit counter" to increase your melee damage going to be just that - a HIT counter? Or was that just optimistic wording and it will become a KILL counter in the end?
   

• Is the hit counter going to drop gradually over time, or just suddenly drop from 142 down to 0?

   

• The video shown in the livestream with the Excalibur slashing away on a Grineer looked very "railroaded". I hope that this combo system does not require a hit / target to continue. I dearly hope that we can execute every single move as we can do now: slicing thin air. Will it be that? Because I'd like to be able to "crowd control" many enemies at a time in my vicinity by distributing the hits among many enemies to keep them staggered.

   

• Will there be the possibility to chain quick attacks and heavy attacks together fluidly or are we locked in chain 1a or 1b (depending on the pauses) the moment we open up with the first hit?

   

• Are you going to add visual/aural cues for the damage bonus of any sort so we can see 1) at which "tier" of damage bonus we are and 2) when this bonus is going to drop off?

   

• Are you also going to make sure these visual cues are going to be chosen from a set of options?

   

• If you introduce new ones, will you think about new players when determining the loot tables or do you think those advanced moves should be for advanced players? I hope the former. It would be very fitting if the melee units of the factions drop these mods, as they are pretty much around everywhere. 
   
• How will blocking behave in conclave battles/Duels? Blocking 2.0 was described as; "if you block, you are not going to lose stamina, only when there is actually a hit coming in to block."  Are you okay with it that people simply keep the block button pressed and diminish whatever comes at them because... there is no stamina lost in this waiting stage? Sounds very sketchy for conclave fights.
   
• Do you intend to lose the "quick-shot" feature in order to heavily emphasize melee? Since you said you will equip your melee weapon by holding the weapon swap key longer, and since you said that not only the quick attack button but also then the left regular fire button is going to be used for melee... how is this going in line with the conjuction of firing your gun and chugging out melee attacks? Is the aim button going to become a "quickshot pistol" or is the Aim button going to serve a different purpose altogether? I think Quickshot pistol would be the best option to keep the "blade and gun" feel from the current style.
  

   

• To revert back to your regular gun, will it take as long as a regular weapon-swap or will it be faster to cope with the need to switch to your gun quicker? Sometimes, the switch from primary to secondary can be very crucial and I do enjoy my speed holster aura just for that. Since quick-melee is more or less instantly, are you going to speed up the transition between "sheathed" and "unsheathed" melee weapon?
   
• There was talk on the livestream about how mods are going to affect certain moves. This will be replaced by the stance mod, and said stance mod seems to open up new moves as you rank them.

 

 

I'd like to finish these questions of with a heartfelt statement:

Hopefully I am not alone with this mindset, but... I don't care if you take another month or 3 months to complete it. Just have it a very polished, fluid and rewarding system, is all I ( we) ask for.

 

This is something that people are waiting for since a long time now, and I have the feeling a "not quite ready" state of grace is going to cause more damage than expected to the active playerbase. On the contrary, if you really ship an excellent design that is relatively bugfree, you are getting a lot more of positive credit out on the street. like; "hey, Melee 2.0 is a lot less of a mess than damage 2.0, and it is actually really helping the game now."
This would not only pull old players back but also perhaps convince some others which didn't pick up Warframe yet due to "lacking Melee combat" (( I know a few of those personally )).

 

I am sure you are aware of this, and I am certain you will do your best for Melee 2.0
Sorry, I mean 7.0 :D

 

As always, thank you for everyone bearing with my long posts. o/

Edited March 22, 2014 by Khunvyel

[baron1357]

SCREW MELEE 2.0  I WANT MY LLAMA DOG FIRST

[Khunvyel]

I'd happily grant you your Lama dog long before Melee 2.0 hits. Because that means more time to wait, meaning more time to polish. *sagenod*

[VKhaun]

SCREW MELEE 2.0  I WANT MY LLAMA DOG FIRST

This.

[Khunvyel]

I am at a loss how I could forget the absolute most important thing:

 

You mentioned new AI reactions. Will the AI of melee NPCs FINALLY try to get us while we are standing on elevated spots? I cannot bear it any longer to see three dozen Infested occupying the space around my crate and staring blankly at me. I cannot bear it any longer to blast Tyl Regor's face from 2 meters above while he ducks behind a railing for cover or simply stands there.

 

*edits this into first topic*

[Khunvyel]

*bump because it was a bad idea to post this on a weekend*

[Khunvyel]

I've added the following:

 

Have you factored in the melee damage multiplier from Stealth? With your all new melee system with continuous damage, I suddenly see 4x Loki / Ash with perma stealth and simply destroy everything, including Defense and Survival missions. Suddenly this could be the new metagame. I never understood the excessive bonus damage when stealth on every single melee attack. That sounded more like a bandaid fix until a full revision is in store... and that revision is now. I hope you keep that in mind.

___

 

Will we finally be able to aim vertically with our Melee attacks? This has always been a bother if you attack enemies at different height levels (staircase, crates, etc). It is also bothersome that you sometimes cannot even hit Infested Crawlers even when CROUCHING with your regular attack. The possibility to aim up and down with our melee weapon would introduce a new measurement of skill which allows us to actually aim for weakspots aka headshots. (( I mean, you didn't add the headshot count for melee weapons for nothing, right? :P ))

___

 

Added to the tutorial part, that these changes should be introduced right inside the very first tutorial which guides you through the weapons. After being introduced to the weapon swap button (so after the pistol) you should go back to melee and show how you "press and hold weapon swap" to equip your melee weapon, and what you can do with it now.

___

 

Added to quickshot question the bit if the aim button is going to become a "quickshot pistol" or if the Aim button is going to serve a different purpose altogether

 

   ~   ~   ~

 

I'd like to mention again, that for me, personally, I don't care how long it takes until Melee 2.0 is finished as long as it is solid. I praise your decision to delay it. I was NOT disappointed as U12.5 didn't bring Melee 2.0 , on the contrary. I thought to myself; "The longer we wait, the better it is going to be." Patience is a virtue, and some players simply need to learn that. By holding back with melee 2.0 release, you only show us how important it is for you want to deliver a well rounded system, because you are aware of the importance to keep the good Gun&Sword feel. I view your constraint to release Melee 2.0 as a good thing.

[LukeAura]

Infested do jump at you on an elevated platform already. Not sure about none infested melee types but I've definitely seen chargers and ancient get up on crates coming after me.

Edited March 20, 2014 by LukeAura

[Khunvyel]

Infested do jump at you on an elevated platform already. Not sure about none infested melee types but I've definitely seen chargers and ancient get up on crates coming after me.

Yes and no. This was a change that came with the autotarget melee options as far as I can remember (which was actually detrimental to some bosses, like Phorid and Tyl Regor). They only climb crates of a certain height, and to be fair, these crates were not safe to begin with anyhow. Tyl Regor, Grineer and Corpus Melee units still are as sorry as they are before. Often enough, Scorpions do not even TRY to get you down with their grappling hook.

 

To prove my point, I just hopped into the currently running Invasion on Mars, Exterminate mission Ultor. First room. I am not even standing really high up as you can see, it is a simple, small control console model. Nothing has changed. Or rather, the only thing that has changed is, they are at least trying to scurry around your position. Sometimes. Which makes it simply more convenient to shoot them, to be honest...

Spoiler for image:

[Khunvyel]

Edited the previous #13 and dumped it to the bottom. This was about the mods which replace different moves, and with the newest information this will be pooled into a new "stance" mod. This in turn brought up a three new questions though:

 

• Where do you intend us to acquire these new stance mods? Will they be on alerts, or drop from enemies? I hope you remedy the decision to put them into the badlands because this might be very well content not everyone is willing to play, but I keep my opinions in check as the badlands AND melee 2.0 8.0 are not even released yet. It might well be that badlands just drop an amplified version of a stance, which is improving the weapon in general with more damage and attack speed and whatnot.
   
  
• How will a weapon behave when you have no stance mod on them? Since the stance mods can be ranked, and with that ( according to livestream ) will unlock more moves to do... this sounds it will very much be a massive jump in melee depth once you slot them. But how will the weapon feel without it? How would someone try his melee weapon again because a "naked" one didn't feel good to begin with? Or will it stay true to what I gathered from the livestream and a stance will simply unlock timed combos, and then add more to them as you rank that mod?
   
  
• Will ranking the stance mod to unlock more stuff will feel like a real progression? The problem is; we have 3 / 5 / 10 rank mods. A 3 is a no brainer, you just rank it up, no progression felt. With 5, most players would instantly unlock to 4. But with 10, it again looks so unreachable. I'd hope we only get an "unlock" every second rank and on the last one, but I secretly hope the stance mod will have a new rank order, being 7. Or perhaps it keeps being a 5 rank and we unlock stuff on 3 and 5. Perhaps you want people to unlock that early. I have no idea, but the balance of doing so will be tricky, I give you that. A mix of visible progress without braindead rushing and without everlasting grind.