Melee 2.0 And Stances: What It Should Have Been

[Kamikiri]

I agree so much with this thread, especially on the notion of the Nikana, we run around primarily in a iai-stance but without the power and speed of the first strike that of which the stance relies on.
And the stances that makes us tenno flail around and do nothing while we're getting swarmed feels to me as if those stances weren't designed with actual martial arts in mind but martial art movies.
Which is like putting a trick pilot in a dogfight, it'll look splendid all the way to it's inevitable crash.

In my opinion DE could have pulled back (a whole lot) on the smoke and mirrors because with the current control-scheme the really flashy attacks really do not do enough for the player to be worth the difficult execution, that only gets more difficult as we add attackspeed mods.
Having attacks that lunges the player forward is a nice thing to have from a utility standpoint, but when it's mandatory in a combo and is placed rather deep into it AND cannot be unleashed on a moments notice it becomes more of a hassle to work around than it is useful.

 

As far as dual swords and coiling snakes go (I hope I remembered that name right), the only time I give the flashiest combo any attention is when I'm swarmed by enemies in numbers so big that I know I'll hit more than three and so powerful that they don't die before I finish the combo, and at that point the enemies are just so powerful that I often need the invincibility from a trinity blessing to even pull it off before I die because I'm being swarmed, that is if I even manage to pull it off since the timing of the E,E,E(Hold)E,E hold transition is really easy to miss when I cannot afford to let up, really hoping to get the tiger stance sometime soon since there are so many nice words about it in this thread. (As a side note about the coiling snakes, I feel more like a mantis in that stance than anything, especially with the E,up+E,E)

 

I guess my main gripe with melee 2.0 that I believe needs to be looked at would be that we cannot adjust our attack patterns on the fly to match the battlefield, we need the battlefield to align perfectly for us to be able to use our attack patterns.
Which in turn makes me think of another metaphor, it's like the starry eyed dreamers that came to a complete halt in life after graduation and never recovered, because they were waiting for the "perfect" moment to start realizing their dream, and even to the few that do get started on their dream may just back out because it was not what they expected it to be when going in.

 

I will set my disclaimer that this is only a early opinion on my part, since I have a lot of stances left to try out, and they can't all be made of little substance in fancy packaging.. right?

[xAzazyel]

I already own a few amount of  stances and i been noticing something with some stances, for example Pointed Wind (Dagger Stance) just have 1 combo + the normal "E spam", Iron Phoenix pretty much the same thing just 1 combo, the main issue is that the combos are pretty much useless for moving around and killing a lot of enemies. Its a good system with a nice base but we REALLY need some utility movement for each stance or just make it a new Warframe movement. Games like Metal Gear Rising gives the player a little "dash" if you press the light attack button, even devil may cry have some nice combos with little damage but a nice amount of utility/movement.

My other big complain its the lack of new animations on some stances, for example Reaping Spiral just got 1 new combo and the normal attacks are just the old animations, the dash and wall attacks are pretty much the same old ones with new names except for a few stances that actually changes these two attacks, i really hope DE makes the current system more deeper and easy to do, because some combos are really odd, pretty much all the "EE Pause EE" combos feels slow and hard to actually use in a big room filled with enemies, maybe DE can use the "Reload" button for more attacks, and PLEASE keybindings for melee 2.0, you CANT swap the melee key because if you do that you CANT fire your gun, same with the channel system, it needs to be a toggle just like other games with similar "empower your attacks" mechanics

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

-snip-

 

That's an EXCELLENT analogy, yes. Good combat comes from having control over the situation, not waiting for opportunities to arise from the situation. That can make for good combat, too, but not open engagements. That's more geared towards stealth-oriented gameplay. *Coughcough* Stealth 2.0*Coughcough*

 

My advice to you is to definitely get Swirling Tiger ASAP. It only "adds" two combos, but they're both good attack sequences. You can execute the pause combo fairly consistently just by mixing periodic pauses into your EEEEEEEEEEEEE stream, and both combos are honestly equally effective.

[Darkmoone1]

The only thing that annoys me about melee 2.0 is that some rare mods like Iron phoenix does not have the extra unique animation in it's basic E combo. Stances like the Crimson Dervish do. I assumed that it was rare mods that had the extra animation and flair and uncommon mods didn't(Would've made sense), but now it appears its all over the place.

 

.....I hope that eventually all stances have a equal amount of animated combos because having one stance do more than another doesn't seem fair. My only complaint of melee 2.0.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Checking back in once more, as I have now tried out the Burning Wasp stance with the Scoliac. I'm starting to see a recurring pattern in the stances I try out: Each stance that is geared more towards wide-area attacks is indisputably superior to stances that are geared more towards narrower attacks. Narrow stances like Iron Phoenix and Tranquil Cleave (I say it's narrower because the Nikana's reach is deceptively short...) have decreased effectiveness versus crowds on account of their difficulty hitting more than one target, as well as the awkward pauses that seem to be worked into their transition animations. These pauses would be fine if they matched up with the pauses required for their input sequences, but they don't. The pauses between EE and EEEE must be timed in the middle of a swing, and the delay in movement occurs during one of the subsequent E presses. 

Input pauses are an acceptable form of combo variation - Devil May Cry did combos like that spectacularly well. However, it is imperative that the pauses be timed intuitively, and the combo animations should reflect the need for a pause. (Or a hold, for that matter.)

 

Narrower stances are conceptually fine, and I think a necessity for catering to varying aesthetic preferences, but they really need something to sell them when compared to their crowd-slaying counterparts. Increased damage per hit. Input combos that provide rapid hit-counter accumulation. Movement during attack sequences that allows players to quickly switch from enemy to enemy. They need help. A lot of it. This might take a month, it might take three, or even longer than that depending on what the changes I'm suggesting require, but please, DE, tell us you'll make it happen. 

 

Burning Wasp, for its lack of variety, is a great stance. It provides very useful attacks and executes very smoothly. My one complaint is that whip slide attacks keep the whip retracted. Why is that? Maybe have that be the case in the basic whip stance, but adding a stance should allow the Tenno to extend the whip for a better slide attack combo utility. 

 

One last thing occurs to me: DE, you need to change up your combo instructions a bit. E (Hold) EEEE is unclear as to whether the first or second press of E needs to be held (in this instance, it is the second...) I suggest marking hold inputs with the conventional E key image in bold, with "hold" in parentheses above or below the icon. This tells players what they need to do, and when they need to do it. The same thing goes for whichever stance it was that contained a combo involving some sort of arrow-key icon in it. What's that supposed to mean? move forward? Jump? Dodge roll? I think someone said it was just another hold input. Point being, some of your instructions are confusing. They could  use some clearing up. 

 

Please keep in mind that, for all of my criticism, the problems here are relatively minor and should be easily fixed. Melee 2.0 for the most part is excellent, and the well-executed stances are absolutely wonderful to use. 

[K_Shiro]

I have to agree on pretty much all counts, here. I was surprised that they didn't go with a basic variation of light and heavy strikes (E for light, Left Click for heavy.) and alternate between them for the necessary interrupts. (e.g. EE LeftClick EEEE rather than EE Pause EEEE) That system seems much less prone to suffering from input lag or host-client issues. At least one of my friends can't pull off most of his combos because of the framerates he gets most of the time. A non-pause-oriented system would alleviate that issue somewhat.

 

+1000 to polishing up the input responsiveness a bit. That said, I want to once again caution against getting too involved in combos. The way Warframe is set up lends itself to nothing but EEEEEEEEE, not skillfully executed and concentrated attacks. This is mostly on account of how the enemy AI behaves. A grineer lancer is more likely to try to open up distance if not already trying to elbow the player than continue to attack in melee. This makes sense because it has a gun. Most games with extensive combos - Devil May Cry, God of War, etc. - primarily feature enemies that readily engage in melee. Warframe combos need to be focused on helping the player keep up with enemies that are moving around and finish them quickly.

 

 

When melee 2.0 first started out, I expected it to essentially be charge attacks with varying animations to make them less boring. I think the ideal system I have in my head would be best described as was above, with the exception being that holding down E or the LMB would delay the next strike a bit. It might afford slightly increased damage per strike, but for the most part it would allow players to begin attacking but hold off just long enough that they can continue to close with an enemy and attack when they can connect. Looping attacks on E. Slower, more powerful looping attacks on LMB. Alternate between the two for specific combos.

Still, unless DE is really open to some drastic feedback, I suppose we'll have to make do with Channeling and E strikes. I saw a suggestion for slaving the R button to an alternate attack, which would work rather nicely. What I'd REALLY like to see, however, is channeling moved to a toggle through R, and have block be given the properties it was initially advertised with. A true timed block for accessing the blocking bonuses afforded by channeling (Resistance to pretty much all CC and the opportunity for a parry.)

For example - holding block negates incoming enemy fire as it does now, and gives an inherent +50% chance to resist knockdown effects. Auxiliary debuffs like on the Ancient Disruptor's energy drain or staggering elbows are resisted entirely. Blocking for 0.5 seconds or less before being hit with an attack raises the knockdown resist chance to 100%. The enemy has a chance of being opened for a riposte. Successfully parrying an enemy attack resets the parry timer to 0.3 seconds. This is important because it allows players to avoid being trolled by a second, third, or even fourth shield lancer attacking in succession, or those instances where there are two Heavy Gunners next to each other.

 

As it is now, Channel-blocking completely negates radial blasts and shield bashes, which is great, but the unresponsiveness of blocking and channeling at the same time makes forgoing all other activity in order to block a necessity. That's kind of tedious and disengaging after a while. The most annoying attacks are actually fairly telegraphed. I know 0.5 seconds is very forgiving as far as timed blocking goes, but Warframe is hardly a game that focuses on skillful parrying, and the nature of its network connections discourages any "hardcore" skill-based inputs. It's an arcade-style game, so keep it that way.

The last thing that needs to happen is rolling of any sort needs some invulnerability frames added to it. Moddable invulnerability frames, even. And I mean all rolling, not just Shift rolls. Even those annoying "I'm falling from slightly higher than usual, so I'm gonna roll even though I'm in a suit of power armor and don't suffer fall damage" rolls. This makes how difficult it is to stay on your feet less irritating, and even benefits gunplay a bit. The biggest thing I can see this alleviating is the ridiculous AOE on Napalm and Bombard projectiles that extends far past the particle effects shown and ignores solid objects.

PS: Why is Reflection still not a melee mod? I can understand Reflex Guard, but Parry was moved to a more sensible place. Why not Reflection as well?

 

Indeed, it seems weird for melee mods being at some other place than melee. It's not like you have anything that changes ranged weapons in your frame-arsenal, so why melee?

 

Oh, and a bit more detailed post of mine on the combos that I made in the april11 hot topics:

 

Stance mods/combos

 

Description is one thing, the combo-system itself fell quite short of the promise it might hold.

First of all, a combo of "EEE holdE E" isn't a combo. That's... well, I know the game is out for PS4 too but please, don't look down on controller bearing people, it has more buttons than one. Hell, this vid came to my mind when looking at the combo lists:

 

We don't need incredible depth, this is not a mortal kombat (not that it has sooo deep and hard controls), but a E, Left+E, Jump, E seems much more like a combo meant for players who actually have a brain and possibly more than one finger on each hand.

 

Of course more combos than the current repertoir would be nice, right now we have a combo of slide-spin (as before), an overhead strike (press attack while in air, as before), a finisher on a downed enemy (as before) and a combo of consecutive strikes. That's... well. With all this waiting and hype... The animations look nice, that I admit and welcome with open arms. We actually lost the ability to do heavy attacks (charge) thus it's actually more shallow than before. Yes, more viable due to channeling but the actualy veriety is lower.

 

I know some might have noticed that I always bring this game up when Melee comes into picture, but ONI (2001, Bungie, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_%28video_game%29) had it all right. It was easy to control (even without any true aiming help), without low-kick,high-kick,medium-kick and a dozen other special buttons. It operated from roughly the same amount of keys as Warframe (actually less), and it was still capable of providing combos and different moves. The Jedi Knight series, mostly the Jedi Academy title had nice ideas too. Like pressing the forward when attacking with sword produced frontal/vertical attacks, while pressing one of the side buttons produced a horizontal slash. Small things like this create an immersion, a true feeling of control.

 

Also, the way the button-presses are registered can cause a bit of trouble and annoyance, especially in the heat of battle. If you press the melee key more than once, the character remembers it and after the attack proceeds to do another since you pressed the button more than once. This is bothersome, since if you want a system where you can do combos with ease, the character must never do "phantom" strikes because you pressed the button twice - it can easily break a combo, especially since the current combos frequently have "hold" or "pause" in them, and one extra hit causes it to miss and do not do the combo.

So it should work like this:

- You press the key, animation starts.

- Even if you press the key a hundred times during animation, it won't make the character do another melee strike after the current one.

- If you release the initial melee key-press that induced the current melee strike and then press it again, the game will check at the end of the strike if you are still holding it. If you do hold it, it will register as key-press and a new strike will start.

Thus you can stop when you want, simply press the button and hold it one more time at least till the animation finishes to do another melee strike. You need for a "hold E" in the combo? Simply keep pressing it. If the combo is there, the animation will show that your "holding" is registered.

Also it would be nice if you could always hold attacks for a larger hit. That was nice before. I wouldn't make it a different damage stat like before, simply double the normal amount or give it more crit chance. Whatever.

 

By the way, the Frost doesn't have shining details while channeling.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Indeed, it seems weird for melee mods being at some other place than melee. It's not like you have anything that changes ranged weapons in your frame-arsenal, so why melee?

 

Oh, and a bit more detailed post of mine on the combos that I made in the april11 hot topics:

 

That's a very nice post you've got there, and I agree with pretty much everything you've said. First, I can't really comment on ONI or any of the Jedi games, as I haven't played them. Second, I think EEEHoldEE does constitute a combo - Devil May Cry and such made numerous combos involving the pressing of a single button. Of course, those games also had many more combos using a variety of directional inputs, but those are understandably outside of the scope of Warframe. The MAIN thing DE needs to do to improve their combo input system is alter the animations, transitions, and delays in animations to reflect the timing of the necessary inputs. If we have a pause in a combo string, it should feel like the pause should be there. Same thing for a hold. Currently, the animations do not reflect that. You are absolutely write about the one press = one attack, but two presses during the same attack =/= two attacks being absolutely necessary for improvement. The frenetic pace of the game does not allow the player to carefully measure out the number of times they press the E key. They need to be able to see two attacks, pause, and then continue.

 

Moving on, I have acquired one of the Sparring stances... Fracturing something-or-other. However, I have absolutely zero interest in using the Furax, Ankyros, or Ankyros Prime, and the mod doesn't seem to work on the Obex, so if anyone who has this and has tried it out could provide some feedback on it that would be much appreciated. Do the combos work? Are they awkward or smooth to execute? Do you think (as I am predicting,) that it would benefit from the "no damage applied until the combo finishes, but ensures that all of the hits count" property I mentioned for building damage multipliers? Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help me out.

[TinFoilMkIV]

First off this thread has soo many great points and ideas. I was really hoping for at least some heavy attacks and other singular type moves that weren't all stuck at the end of a 5 hit combo that would kill anything reasonably near your power level before finishing. Honestly I really thought one of the parts of original melee that felt the best was being able to sprint past an enemy while slicing them in half with a charge attack.

 

...

 

Moving on, I have acquired one of the Sparring stances... Fracturing something-or-other. However, I have absolutely zero interest in using the Furax, Ankyros, or Ankyros Prime, and the mod doesn't seem to work on the Obex, so if anyone who has this and has tried it out could provide some feedback on it that would be much appreciated. Do the combos work? Are they awkward or smooth to execute? Do you think (as I am predicting,) that it would benefit from the "no damage applied until the combo finishes, but ensures that all of the hits count" property I mentioned for building damage multipliers? Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help me out.

 

The combos for Fracturing Wind are okay, the delay input is a bit awkward but its probably less so with some increased attack speed. It suffers a bit from the overkill before combo enders, but more from serious lack of range and area of effect with unimpressive damage and virtually no mobility.

 

Also I'm quite convinced that the real problem with the inputs is caused by (in my opinion) questionable queuing methods for animations and player states, the same stuff that causes you to repeat interrupted actions (melee is the most blatant offender here), as well as seemingly perform two actions at the same time. Heck with the Fracturing Wind both combos can actually be performed at the same time, as the only difference is the 'delay' and 'hold' commands located at the same point in the combo, so if you delay, then hold E, you end up doing the delay combo and the last part of the 'hold' combo gets tacked on afterwards. Which honestly is kinda neat, but its quite impractical, and once its queue'd you cannot stop from doing the whole thing.

 

 

EDIT: also for anyone who has some of the less well made stances, I cannot recommend Swirling Tiger enough, it really is a well made stance that stands out vastly above most of the others in terms of quality.

 

Also I'd like to note that I see quite a bit of potential in some of the other stances as well. One I personally like is the Sundering Weave Machete stance. Although it's not quite practical in its current state, both of its alternate combos have promise once the system is smoothed out and improved. For one the final hit in the hold combo is a really nice move, that either launches forwards in a mini slash dash type move when not moving, or doing a strong frontal attack with the same animation but no launch if you're manually moving, which does allow for movement and positioning during the charge up phase and will still launch if you stop moving before the actual swing. It would be a really excellent move if it wasn't stuck at the very end of an almost absurdly long combo with no mobility and a further issue with the animation queuing causing you to perform the first hit of the combo again before the actual hold attack starts up, delaying it even more than was intended.

 

 

EDIT2.0: Almost forgot, I have no issue with some common moves such as the standard jump/slide/wall attacks for weapon types, but I would actually like to see some weapon specific special moves, for example the heat sword/amphis/darksword/etc already have a special jump attack, and would like to see them get altered names for that move under the combo list, and have at least a few weapons that have modified version of 'common' type moves.

Edited April 20, 2014 by TinFoilMkIV

[DiabolusUrsus]

First off this thread has soo many great points and ideas. I was really hoping for at least some heavy attacks and other singular type moves that weren't all stuck at the end of a 5 hit combo that would kill anything reasonably near your power level before finishing. Honestly I really thought one of the parts of original melee that felt the best was being able to sprint past an enemy while slicing them in half with a charge attack.

 

 

The combos for Fracturing Wind are okay, the delay input is a bit awkward but its probably less so with some increased attack speed. It suffers a bit from the overkill before combo enders, but more from serious lack of range and area of effect with unimpressive damage and virtually no mobility.

 

1. I know that feel. So well. Slicing enemies in half with a single timed strike was immensely satisfying. It's honestly the only thing I particularly miss from Melee 1.0. I would really like to see a number of the melee inputs for stances incorporate some optional minor hold delays with small increases in power. Something to let us measure our timing. 

 

2. Thanks a ton for taking the time to comment on Fracturing Wind. It sounds like the combo would benefit from a slight increase to the amount of time the player has before the combo counter decays (giving them more time to move between enemies,) and from locked-on combos that deal no damage until the final strike (allowing for the player to build up to some crazy hit counts for boosted damage.) I think that would go a long way towards catering to the fist weapons' whole "not much range and only decent damage, but really freakin' fast" characteristics. 

 

3. I cannot agree more with you concerning the source of the issues with melee input controls. Our inputs need to match our actions, and we need at least one or two reliable cancels. Something that allows us to transition from attacking to defending smoothly. Jump attacks could use more diversity. Wall attacks could be more reliable. 

[Ryden]

3. Get rid of the superfluous flips. Tranquil Cleave is particularly guilty of this. You guys know time is of the essence during Warframe gameplay. You cut down "Taking Flight's" triple slash to a single one for that reason. Flips, jumps, rolls, cartwheels and the like have no place in combos outside of moving the player into a better position to strike the next enemy. When we're using melee combos, we're looking at the cool slashing effects, not the character flipping. We get enough of that just moving around in the game, and it interrupts otherwise effective attacks in an obnoxious manner. Go ahead and keep some combos with flips and rolls, but make them serve the purpose of helping players weave through crowds of enemies while still attacking, similar to what you can accomplish with well-timed slide attacks.

Make an attempt to use Bleeding Willow for the Orthos Prime. It is the most effective melee stance in the game, and impliments flips the way you deem worthy. With this stance, an animation is never wasted for simply looking good. Rather, it looks good in being efficient and maneuverable. The combo of the stance makes it so that the player effectively covers a great distance quickly while still maintaining a controlled pace of attacks. http://y2u.be/Omiqnra2J2M

[DiabolusUrsus]

Make an attempt to use Bleeding Willow for the Orthos Prime. It is the most effective melee stance in the game, and impliments flips the way you deem worthy. With this stance, an animation is never wasted for simply looking good. Rather, it looks good in being efficient and maneuverable. The combo of the stance makes it so that the player effectively covers a great distance quickly while still maintaining a controlled pace of attacks. http://y2u.be/Omiqnra2J2M

 

Looking at the video you provided... yes, that is the sort of flipping I'm talking about. Not superfluous, serves a definite purpose, integrates an attack... Excellent. Have you seen the flip in Tranquil Cleave? It's terrible. 

[[DE]Artarrwen]

Some very good points raised there. Hats off to you.

Really hope DE sees this thread and listens.
 

Also I'd say the Clashing Forest (Staffs, i.e. Bo and Amphis) is a pretty good stance. Its "advanced" combo has two noticeable lunges forward which actually hit stuff in the process, it has a good reach overall (to be expected from staff type weapons, I suppose) and even the basic combo keeps you moving. Both combos seem to loop somewhat (pausing once and keeping on mashing E will continuously execute the Battering Roots combo).

Have yet to try the Flailing Branch, though.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Artarrwen

[Basilisk1991]

I agree that Swirling Tigers is an great stance, the combo are easy to pull off reliably, the visuals are satisfying, and it's functional. Some of the stances are a bit unresponsive (Specifically the Machete stances has a really slow swing speed and the pauses required for the combos can be fiddly at times).

 

Personally I have no problem with the current key-mapping, but I do agree that switching from guns to melee should be more responsive, I hate the second and a half long pause as my warframe attaches their gun to their back/hip and draws the sword, same goes for switching back to guns. Heck I'd be happy with an option to quickfire my pistol with the R button (much like how you can do the quick swings with your melee weapons when you have your guns drawn), that would help deal with flying enemies without forcing me to sheath my sword, draw my pistol, fire, and redraw the sword.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Basilisk1991

[Ryden]

Looking at the video you provided... yes, that is the sort of flipping I'm talking about. Not superfluous, serves a definite purpose, integrates an attack... Excellent. Have you seen the flip in Tranquil Cleave? It's terrible. 

Horrible, I know

[Kamikiri]

So having tried out the Swirling Tiger stance now with my Dual Ichor (Thank goodness for the = polarity match) I must agree that it's a very fluid, practical and most of all useful stance. The alternatative combo is easy to pull off, the last spin is a bit on the weak side. (I've seen strikes ranging from x0.25 to x1 of the normal swing damage, and that on the weapon type that deals up to x6 times the normal damage on the spinning slide attacks) with rather terrible horisontal range on the same spinning finisher. I do like it for the occasional knockdown it causes however, but if the damage was upped to reflect what makes dual blades stand out then it'd be perfect in my opinion, and thank you everyone that reccommeded it in this thread!

 

And I've also had the chance to try out Shattering Storm on my Jat Kittag, sadly the polarities didn't match but it didn't matter in the end, it's a very good stance, letting me use the good old 4 hit combo that the Kittag used to have, while the charge spin isn't included it actually goes rather well together since the down combo makes use of the Kittags huge ground slam radius twice (the first blow having a bit of a smaller radius than the second one)
But with a slight drawback in damage comparison there again, but it's hardly noticable in this case, and it's alot of fun to use!
I have to try it out with some other hammers however to double check that the slam radius is reliant on the weapon and not a set range.
(If it is anything like the Crossing Snakes groundslam combo however then I'm certain it's reliant on the weapon, since dual heat swords has a much longer range with that combo than any other dual blade does)

Thirdly I've been able to test out the Reaping Spiral on my Reaper Prime (it's like they were made for eachother), I can't say it's bad, the main combo sweeps really well with no downtime that I can recall. But the delay combo is a bit tricky to pull off, to the point that it's dangerous to even try using it without the proper attackspeed to be able to pull off pause combos without a problem. But once pulled off it's rather good since the final step has the weapon spinning (at a deceptivly close range) and it keeps spinning in the center of your vertical sight so it can be used to hit more than one enemy if you spin the camera quickly.
I don't have too much else to say regarding Scythes however, since damage wise they're not that great, atleast from what I think.

 

Lastly, Tranquil Cleave and Dragon Nikana. It was a bit better than I expected, but anything besides the standard combo makes me feel awkward.

I mainly ended up using the stance as a mod point increase and kept the weapon unequipped to use as a channeling-free stealth weapon, the iai-type horisontal slashes are meant to put the user up close to the target and let you cut straight through them before the enemy has a chance to retaliate, which is what this weapon allows me to do... makes me feel a bit like I could be one of those crossroads slasher type of ronin, which is a rather dark way of interpreting a weapon of such power...

The short range of the slashes in and out of the stance are too short to ever cut a capture target that is running away from you, so I always had to run ahead of the target to ever get a chance of taking them down, and the groundslam range leaves a bit to be desired.

So besides feeling like a crossroads slasher, I also feel like I'm swinging a glorified dagger... a very powerful glorified dagger.

So my final thought on the Nikana and Tranquil Cleave is that I actually like the weapon given it's flaws and undesired combos and range.

 

 

I'll make sure to come back and give my opinions on any more stances I get the chance to try out aswell.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Upon some further rumination, I am going to level a couple of suggestions. 

First: Melee really needs a punch-through mod. I see a lot of calls for melee multi-slash, but that strikes me as silly unless it was a "increase the combo counter by more than 1 each strike" kind of thing. We don't need more damage boosters; those are boring. What we need is the ability to cut through shield lancers' shields, and the ability to damage otherwise-invulnerable revamped bosses. Perhaps the bosses still have defensive bonuses that might make waiting for their weak points/ phases initially more favorable. Let's say... 80% damage reduction on melee attacks. However... building the combo counter allows the player to eventually overcome that initial setback. This makes melee-only runs viable against bosses that currently invalidate that particular strategy, and opens up a variety of interesting possibilities. 

Second: A quick fix to the rate at which the combo counter decays would be easily implemented as allowing blocking to delay the decay. Let's say you finish off a group of Grineer and are running hot at a miraculous 30+ hits. You want to engage the next group, but they're too far away. Closing the distance by parrying their bullets would not help build your combo, but would stop your counter from resetting long enough for you to close the gap. This would also make it so that defending against boss attacks would not destroy the 2-3x multiplier you have going to counteract their damage resistance. 

[FatedWolf]

About the shortcomings of single target combos : My first instance using Gnashing Payara with my Fang Prime made it very clear that the use of any combos was completely pointless. There's just no point.

The only stance I've come across (I haven't used many.) that caters decently to area of effect would be Bleeding Willow, which on my Orthos Prime weaves fairly well through enemies. Could use some improvements, but so could everything else.

(Note, Bleeding Willow lacks a certain fluidity to it's combo. Perhaps a timely "E" or some kind of click could incite some kind of wide sweeping slash, leading into an opening to operate the combo again.

Secondary Note : The stamina cost seems a bit too steep on this particular stance, even with maximum stamina and maximum stamina regeneration, it simply drains far too quickly. Perhaps adding "Second Wind" could solve this, but I haven't tried.)

 

Note to DE : Other stances should be more like this :P

As to your other points, very well stated, but I'm too lazy to comment on them all.

 

To make a point of my own -- Styles should have only partial influence on the main type of physical damage dealt. Using Bleeding Willow (Regardless of the different polarity) on my Orthos Prime shouldn't cause it to deal mainly impact damage. It's still a bladed weapon, and should act as such.

Edited April 22, 2014 by FatedWolf

[DiabolusUrsus]

I have now acquired and tested out Decisive Judgment for the Nikana. My Orthos Prime just finished building, so hopefully I'll have time to try out Shimmering Blight later this week when I am not quite as swamped with deadlines.

Let me start out by saying "thank you very much" to DE for implementing this stance. For me, it is leaps and bounds ahead of Tranquil Cleave when it comes to gameplay integration. The stance itself features a much narrower variety of strikes than Tranquil Cleave - they are mostly variations on horizontal sweeps, whereas Tranquil Cleave integrates a few out-of-the-way overhead cuts, but each of the animations on Decisive Judgment feel useful. The combo itself flows much more nicely, and there is none of the jerkiness that show up in nearly all of the combos attached to Tranquil Cleave. I get that the animators were probably trying to add a sensation of precision to the strikes, but Decisive Judgment feels precise without feeling obstructive. The simplistic hold-inputs and smooth pause transitions make it easy to dynamically switch between combos without extensive lulls in attacking during combat.

 

More importantly, the jumps in Decisive Judgement are both useful. The leaping twirling slash on Consent Decree allows the player to cover distance more easily and allows them to hit airborne targets like Ospreys, and the short vertical jump on Swift Retribution accomplishes the same thing to a lesser extent. I found myself using Swift Retribution in particular to reverse the direction of my attacks and carry me towards retreating enemies.

 

This stance has taken a seat right next to Swirling Tiger and Burning Wasp in terms of quality and my esteem. I do miss some of the more conventional looking cuts from Beyond Reproach, the effectiveness of Decisive Judgment more than makes up for its simplicity. This further strengthens my impression that a greater degree of free movement is necessary for the success of melee combos. We need to be able to adapt to highly variable enemy spacing, and worry less about conserving stamina for sprinting after foes that are in full retreat. Ideally, more fluid movement during the process of attacking will make it so that less enemies have the time to consider fleeing. There is room for combos that more or less root players in place, but not without the implementation of the hit-counter-oriented combos I have previously mentioned, where a small number of enemies is subjected to a full string of attacks and strong CC for the purpose of attaining a higher subsequent damage output. Attacks that are not focused on striking a single enemy multiple times must not prevent the player from positioning his or herself more effectively.

 

Lastly, this stance also proves beyond all doubt to me that wide, sweeping attacks ideal for hitting groups of enemies will be indisputably superior to stances like Iron Phoenix that are narrower and more focused until some sort of mechanic is implemented to give single-target attacks some sort of benefit for consideration over their counterparts.

 

As it stands now:
Sweeping attacks are easier to land, making them more efficient.
Sweeping attacks hit larger numbers of enemies, which means that the hit counter actually goes up faster.

Sweeping attacks finish off more attackers more quickly, making them substantially more defensive than focused attacks.

Sweeping attacks have equivalent flinching properties, meaning they are equally effective on more resilient foes like Heavies and Ancients.

 

There is literally no reason to use attacks like Taking Flight or the stab component of Breathless Lunge outside of aesthetic preference. I'm sure none of us want to see stances forced into conformity for the sake of practicality, so it should be safe to say that narrow attacks suited for striking single targets need quite a bit of help, just as single-target longswords and daggers did under Melee 1.0 mechanics.

[K_Shiro]

...Second, I think EEEHoldEE does constitute a combo - Devil May Cry and such made numerous combos involving the pressing of a single button. Of course, those games also had many more combos using a variety of directional inputs, but those are understandably outside of the scope of Warframe. ..

 

As you said, if the hold or stop part worked fine I would have no problem (or at least not this much) with the EEE holdE kinda combos but the current melee system registrates keypresses in an annoying way.

Actually now we have combos that use directional keys - problem is that you can only assure properly executing them if you keep pressing the corresponding directional key and plain smash E one after another, regardless of the order of the combo's moves :)

 

Just for better clarity I've tried to rephrase the melee mechanic I'm so hell bent on - instead of the current one where you frequently end up being unable to stop slashing air while the enemy is already meters away:

- You press key to initiate attack (or to charge heavy strike if we want that back - wouldn't be bad).

- Attack commences (or attack commences when you release the key that you held to charge your heavy strike).

- While the attack animation is played, you press the key down again (after releasing it once).

- When the animation ends, if you are still holding the key, either the next attack starts or the next heavy-attack charge up period (if there is such).

 

Even if you press the button a hundred times during the original attack animation, as long as you are not holding it at the end of it, there will be no following attacks right away thus no "I can't stop slashing!" problems yet we still have a way to chain attacks one after another fluidly in a precise manner.

[DiabolusUrsus]

As you said, if the hold or stop part worked fine I would have no problem (or at least not this much) with the EEE holdE kinda combos but the current melee system registrates keypresses in an annoying way.

Actually now we have combos that use directional keys - problem is that you can only assure properly executing them if you keep pressing the corresponding directional key and plain smash E one after another, regardless of the order of the combo's moves :)

 

Just for better clarity I've tried to rephrase the melee mechanic I'm so hell bent on - instead of the current one where you frequently end up being unable to stop slashing air while the enemy is already meters away:

- You press key to initiate attack (or to charge heavy strike if we want that back - wouldn't be bad).

- Attack commences (or attack commences when you release the key that you held to charge your heavy strike).

- While the attack animation is played, you press the key down again (after releasing it once).

- When the animation ends, if you are still holding the key, either the next attack starts or the next heavy-attack charge up period (if there is such).

 

Even if you press the button a hundred times during the original attack animation, as long as you are not holding it at the end of it, there will be no following attacks right away thus no "I can't stop slashing!" problems yet we still have a way to chain attacks one after another fluidly in a precise manner.

 

Thanks for the clarification; I misread you slightly. I can definitely agree 100% that DE needs to refine the responsiveness of the game to player input. Backlogging inputs was actually one of the things that added difficulty to Dark Souls (and makes a return in 2,). Players had to stay calm and measure out how many times they wanted to attack so that they would still have stamina to defend or escape in between attacks. It did a really good job of rewarding players who could keep their cool when facing down bosses, but that mechanic seems a bit out of place here.

PS: To anyone else who is interested, I have acquired and tested a much larger number of stance mods. Just slogging through finals week before I take the time to write them up.

[gell]

See DE, this is a good proposal. I don't know what was happening with Melee 2.0 when you guys said it was getting too complex, but if it was too complex, you did it wrong. If you design it poorly, it will seem too complicated. If you design it well, as the OP's suggestions indicate, then you get a system that allows complexity with the simplicity for any player to execute the simplest of spam attacks. It's a win-win, and neither side will feel it's too much one way or the other.

 

Just look at most of the attacks you've made, DE. I hate to say it, but they are mostly worthless. They look cool, and I'm sure everyone at the office is wowed by the flips and tricks the Tenno can pull off. But it's not practical. When you're in the middle of fighting for your life, blocking incoming rockets, marking priority targets, you can't waste time doing a strangely slow flip against one opponent. Think about melee with crowd work in mind. Every weapon can be different, some better than others at large crowds or single targets, but don't design every attack to be a 1v1 cool looking combo and call it a day. Form follows function, and it's incredible how much you've forgotten this.

 

Also, trust your players to not be idiots, please. I don't need you to buffer in two whole attacks if double tap the attack button. Melee should be well timed for the most effectiveness, and I hate getting stuck in the second attack animation even though I pressed attack a second time in the first millisecond of the first attack. This is all internal complexity, and it won't affect the player's ease of use. Spammers can still spam. But for people who want to time attacks, only buffer in the next attack in the latter portion of the current attack. Block canceling would also be good, within reason, of course. No instant Roman cancels or anything like that, but at least allow some interrupts. Sometimes my ninja feels like an old geezer, otherwise.

Edited May 12, 2014 by gell

[Draciusen]

Don't quite understand the dislike for Iron Phoenix, it's eons more mobile than Crimson Dervish, albeit less damaging, and at higher attack speeds you shred through enemies. I dont particularly like the extra baseball swing combo it comes with, I never notice the AoE knockdown and feel like it does less damage than the lunging strike of the basic combo, with none of the mobility.

Its mainly outclassed by the Crimson Dervish stance because of the lack of a massive damage multiplier. Oh, and Swirling Tiger is perfect, I just wish Crossing Snakes wasnt such a load of crap. Doesn't even have to be compared to Swirling Tiger, it's just disgusting in general. The combo that forces you into an extremely delayed dash is horrific, and the animations make it very difficult to see if you have actually suceeded in pulling it off until you've completed it (unlike Bleeding Willow, where you can tell if you start the series of flips)

Edited May 14, 2014 by Draciusen

[Casardis]

I've constantly been nagging about Melee 2.0 and how it should have been focused from the start. IIRC they said that it was to be a foundation to work on, which would explain the lack of gameplay preview until a few weeks before launch. However, the truth is that they released the foundation and then didn't even start building on it from community feedback, even after a whole month and a half.

 

I'm glad they've finally brought the subject back to the table, but that should have been done sooner. More importantly, they need to focus on it  and keep working on it for an extended period of time, not just for one update and leaving it there to work on Dark Sectors and whatnot, which wasn't even the main hype for this update to begin with. In fact, Dark Sectors seem to be way more interesting in a future update (U14?) rather than this update.

 

I keep saying this and I know I sound like a broken record by now. U13 should have been "The Sword Alone," not "The Dark Sectors." Though my concerns have been slightly lowered, they will never go away as long as they don't start showing they're focusing on Melee 2.0.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Goodness I have been slacking off about updating this. Still have to write out a bunch of stances... but... I'm going to continue slacking a bit longer.

 

Don't quite understand the dislike for Iron Phoenix, it's eons more mobile than Crimson Dervish, albeit less damaging, and at higher attack speeds you shred through enemies. I dont particularly like the extra baseball swing combo it comes with, I never notice the AoE knockdown and feel like it does less damage than the lunging strike of the basic combo, with none of the mobility.

Its mainly outclassed by the Crimson Dervish stance because of the lack of a massive damage multiplier. Oh, and Swirling Tiger is perfect, I just wish Crossing Snakes wasnt such a load of crap. Doesn't even have to be compared to Swirling Tiger, it's just disgusting in general. The combo that forces you into an extremely delayed dash is horrific, and the animations make it very difficult to see if you have actually suceeded in pulling it off until you've completed it (unlike Bleeding Willow, where you can tell if you start the series of flips)

 

Well, I haven't managed to collect and test Crimson Dervish stance, so I don't have much to say on that particular comparison. While Iron Phoenix may be more mobile, it's not more mobile in a manner that makes it more valuable, efficient, or effective than the normal V-formation unmodded longsword stance. The stab tacked on to the end of Wings and Beak is useful as a range-extender of sorts, but it doesn't add more range than a normal swipe would if melee handled player movement effectively. 

 

I've constantly been nagging about Melee 2.0 and how it should have been focused from the start. IIRC they said that it was to be a foundation to work on, which would explain the lack of gameplay preview until a few weeks before launch. However, the truth is that they released the foundation and then didn't even start building on it from community feedback, even after a whole month and a half.

 

I'm glad they've finally brought the subject back to the table, but that should have been done sooner. More importantly, they need to focus on it  and keep working on it for an extended period of time, not just for one update and leaving it there to work on Dark Sectors and whatnot, which wasn't even the main hype for this update to begin with. In fact, Dark Sectors seem to be way more interesting in a future update (U14?) rather than this update.

 

I keep saying this and I know I sound like a broken record by now. U13 should have been "The Sword Alone," not "The Dark Sectors." Though my concerns have been slightly lowered, they will never go away as long as they don't start showing they're focusing on Melee 2.0.

 

If it makes you feel any better I took the luxurious liberty of PMing this thread to the devs, and I received a fairly positive response on the feedback we've pieced together here. It IS something that they are aware of, and what we have to say is fairly similar to what they think needs to change. How quickly, efficiently, and effectively they go about making those changes is another matter entirely, but I'm satisfied that this thread in particular hasn't flown completely beneath the radar. I agree with you completely concerning the priority of Melee 2.0, though. Dark Sectors could have done with being a little less raw on release. 

[Casardis]

If it makes you feel any better I took the luxurious liberty of PMing this thread to the devs, and I received a fairly positive response on the feedback we've pieced together here. It IS something that they are aware of, and what we have to say is fairly similar to what they think needs to change. How quickly, efficiently, and effectively they go about making those changes is another matter entirely, but I'm satisfied that this thread in particular hasn't flown completely beneath the radar. I agree with you completely concerning the priority of Melee 2.0, though. Dark Sectors could have done with being a little less raw on release. 

 

Thank you for doing that, and for starting this topic in the first place (very solid suggestions). This is good news to me, for one. I don't want to undermine the work and hype they're putting in Dark Sectors and UI, but that's no reason to nudge them back into what they were hyping in the first place.

 

Cheers.