Melee Complexity Suggestions (or: How much complexity can one button do?)

[MJ12]

Melee in this game is supposed to play a big part in the game, but right now, especially with the shield nerfs, kind of doesn't. So here's some feedback on that.

The first thing is that melee can either be high risk high reward or it can be balanced with about as much survivability and killing power as ranged combat. Due to the extremely high RoF and DPS of small arms, the first isn't particularly true. The second isn't either, right now it's high-risk low-reward, especially since melee weapons are generally lower level and you can be knocked out of heavy melees.

So how to modify this?

The first thing is that you can't easily melee people running away. So I suggest a change to movement. Unlimited sprint (so you can actually catch up to enemies in a reasonable amount of time), as well as a ~10% buff to base Warframe move speed. Enemies don't seem particularly less accurate if you're sprinting, so it's not going to throw your defenses out of whack (especially since you can't sprint while ADSing anyways, and there's plenty of cover to recharge it). Instead of "Stamina", Frames will now have "Focus". Focus will be used exclusively for melee attacks.

Second is to change the operation of most melee attacks. Instead of just a light and heavy melee, you should have different tap melee/hold melee attacks depending on stance.

For example, while sprinting, you might have:

Tap Melee: You lunge forward a limited distance to make a high-damage melee attack, which has a heavy Focus drain and a slow recovery, leaving you open to attack while recovering.

Hold Melee: You hold your weapon up in a defensive stance, which provides protection against incoming non-melee attacks (cut bullets in half!) from the frontal arc but drains Focus while holding. This is actually part of the "melee will provide equivalent survivability to non-melee", as it means you don't have "cover", instead you have to make sure you don't get surrounded while charging into a mob of dudes and cutting them apart.

While jumping, you might have:

Tap Melee: You do a fast, low-damage jump-kick that knocks a single enemy down.

Hold Melee: You hit the ground and knock nearby enemies down while doing moderate to heavy damage.

While crouched, you might have:

Tap Melee: Standard melee attack

Hold Melee: You sweep a target's legs out from under them, knocking them down.

Similarly, melee weapons can/should have entirely different charge attacks, like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and how the adrenaline attacks with different melee weapons were all different. For example, what if you could throw daggers (another one gets summoned out of thin air because this is the future!) as your charge attack? I mean, Ash's first power is kind of weak as a power, but if you nerf it a bit more (by giving it, say, ballistic drop) and turn it into a charge melee? Now you're cooking.

There is also the fact that melee is just 'mash the button' right now. So instead, you should be able to parry enemy melee attacks and also do melee combos. If you time a melee attack so that it's done while the enemy is in the middle of a melee animation, you should deflect their attack and stagger them, so you open them up for an attack. And you should be able to time melee attacks so that if you do them while in a certain point of the animation, you transition into a combo. These combos should probably be listed, but they should come with benefits (like knockdowns, extra damage, guaranteed criticals, faster power-attack charging, etc).

And the best part? None of this requires a single additional keybind. All of this can just be done with the current keybindings.

[Ronyn]

This is on the right train of thought.

What is good

1: A variance to the jump attack by either taping or holding the melee button would be nice.

2: The sweep attack for charged crouch melee would be good because it would knock down enemies that arent going to die from one hit.

3: "Combos" are interesting,it really depends on how they flow. more on this later.

What I is not so good

1: Im not fond of what infinite sprint would do to the game overall. movement capability and limitations exist for reasons.

2: Melee is a bit more than just mash the button now. jump, charge and slide attacks are something.

3: Run and hold melee currently lets you set up charge attack and i'd hate to loose that capability.

4: A new focus meter seems unnecessary. Stamina does what it needs to do.

5: messing with ashs shuriken skill isnt required to give the knife a throw anymore than messing with rhinos radial smash is needed just because the furax can also punch the ground.

Other ideas or different ways to acheive some of the same goals.

1: For a defensive action perhaps..

While holding the melee button press aim down sights to make the sword do a defensive state.

That button combonation currently doesnt do anything so we wont be loosing anything.

2: Back to combos, devil may cry had a system where pausing at the right point between moves would change the nature of the next swing.

DMC 4 specifically got to a point where the specific timing cadence would vary the combo between single target damage focused, multi target sweeping focused or heavy impact focused.

This would seem like the proven way to acheive the variable combos you seek.

3: I'd like to add that DE made a game called the darkness 2.

It had a system where you could direct the angle of the slash by holding the button for a sec so the slash would move in the angle the camera was paning.

Gave stuff like upercuts and slam down attacks on a single button.

very cool, functional and we know they can make it happen!

Anyway, more melee would be great.

happy that its developed as far as it is but more would be much loved. :)

Edited January 12, 2013 by Ronyn

[astrobird]

If you don't mind me adding to this idea, it wouldn;t be a bad idea to have a sort of DMC style combo system with the E taps in that you get different combos depending on the patterns of your button presses. Lets say you ahve a normal two hit combo, but if you hold E on the last hit for a brief moment, you can swing an additional two times, giving you a 4 hit combo. Or if you hold the E button long enough, you unleash a spinning slash that could be done twice at the cost of stamina. Maybe even give a unique combo for holding the key down on every attack, instead of just simply chaining heavys.

Actually, why stop at simply E tapping, why not include a universal melee tree for those of us that wish to unleash a devestating onslaught of attacks?

Why not have this skill tree be able to replace your abilities or work with them?

For example, instead of ember's fireball as a power on it;s own, you could spec it into a melee ability, giving you a new combo and maybe fire damage on your blade for a short duration? Hell, you could even make it so that your charge melee slaps the enemy from a distance with a whip of fire extending from the blade.

Or what about excalibur's blade rush turning into a multi hit attack instead of a single sweeping strike? So if you lock into a boss, or steer correctly, you can strike multiple times for gratuitous amounts of damage.

While we're on the subject of blade rushing by the way, what if Volt's sprint could be linked to a melee in the sense that yo uactivate it, and you blink over to the enemy you targeted to cut them up a bit. Y'know, fun stuff like this.

How about choosing to replace your ability in the 1-4 slot with an improved melee combo, granting you 3-4 extra hits and making your sword an actual equippable weapon, instead of a simple tool for close combat.

You and I should seriously brainstorm about melees more often. You ever read my Melee Diversification thread? You might get some more ideas.

[LordLokai]

My own thoughts are, making melee weapons an actual switch to weapon and having E remain a sort of side arm style weapon. Ie everyone has a basic sword, or knife they use for E attacks, then having melee weapons an actual weapon you swap to. The basic issue with current way melee works is that its kind of limiting...its a one swing attack, not much can do with it outside of hold it for a stronger attack, or tap tap hold combos ala DCUO.

By making it an actual weapon could have Mouse 1 do quick swing and mouse 2 do a heavy swing, by combing heavys and lights you create combos, holding down the attack key, will do a variance of the attack. By adding special melee strikes based on the class to the frame could additionally add some depth to actual melee combat, or prehaps this is only for melee oriented frames, either way! by doing this do add a ton of depth to the actual melee system which i think is a major thing for this game it definatly stands out.

Also not sure but are there insta kills for stealth attacks, or back stabs? that would be great to have killing smaller units instantly and having, it damage bigger units quite a bit more like say an auto crit. Would be a great addition as well. All in all only had a short chance to play the game...but untill match making is fixed i cant really get an indepth feel for the game...but so far i have to say... the game feels AMAZING!

[Tetsmeha]

As much as I'd like to see melee combos and stuff like this, it would just be more melee attacks to use while dealing the same amount of damage. Plus the melee animations wouldn't fit the game's hitstun, and would need a hitstun rework to make it look right. You'd just be doing all these crazy combos while the enemies repeat the same 1 second hitstun you get from the current melee attacks.

[WolfySoul]

Maybe more melee weapons? I thought about axes, glaives, spears, something heavier (much slower att speed but dealing more damage - splash or wider arc). Also there should be an option for us melee-lovers to completely switch to a melee weapon. For example, you change your rifle to a sword, but that gives you 10% movement speed and bonus damage.

Edited January 12, 2013 by nano5hell

[eelektrik]

I don't think unlimited sprint is necessary, but I would not mind seeing new melee attacks added for Sprint+tap and Sprint+charge. The current mechanic of charging while moving would remain with standard movement. I also would like to see more distinction in how different types of melee weapons function and eventually more variety there.

However in addition to expanding the melee options, I want to see the general acrobatics options expanded as well. Unreal Tournament style double-tapping a direction to dodge in that direction would be one I would like to see. Some form of wall jumping would be cool.

Also combining the two, there is something you can currently do in the game right now that I would love to see additional functionality to as it was the first thing that popped in my head when I realized it. Being able to start a slide in mid-air. While yes you can use the slide melee tap out of that, the manuever itself needs some attack properties added to it so I can jump kick a Grineer in the face. Also on the ground being able to slide tackle enemies would be neat.

[Sealgaire]

Yea, gonna throw in my vote for no unlimited sprint as well. Managing your stamina to stay mobile enough to survive is a large part of what makes melee challenging in high level missions. In fact, I think dodging should use a small amount of stamina, too.

More combos I can definitely get behind. One in particular I miss is a unique attack out of a flip jump. It could do more damage than the current jump attack while only being ably to damage one enemy and have no knockdown effect. Not to mention looking amazing, it would be a useful situational attack. Your idea for a crouch sweep attack is great too. It again could be differentiated from the jump attack by targetting only one enemy but doing more damage in exhange for the short loss of mobility from crouching. An attack out of a dodge could be cool as well. Make it a thrust with a long range and maybe add a small stagger effect to make it worthwhile.

I think there needs to be a distinction between charged and normal attacks when doing any combo. This would add variety and make +charge damage builds much more viable as currently those mods don't apply to slide or jump attacks. You can kind of do a slide charge attack right now by holding down the melee button while sprinting and then crouching, but it's not as useful as the standard slide attack. You could balance the charged combo attacks the same way charged attacks are now; make them harder to time and easier to interrupt.

More combos with the ability to chain them more fluidly would allow for a higher skill ceiling in melee combat and make it look and play more interesting. It doesn't seem like a feature that would be too hard to implement either, but I'm not usually comfortable making a strong statement on that due to my lack of development experience.

Edited January 12, 2013 by Sealgaire

[MJ12]

Yea, gonna throw in my vote for no unlimited sprint as well. Managing your stamina to stay mobile enough to survive is a large part of what makes melee challenging in high level missions. In fact, I think dodging should use a small amount of stamina, too.

Actually it makes melee practically worthless in high level missions. Melee weapons should broadly speaking be balanced with firearms if you want melee to be fun and satisfying. Call of Duty does it by making melee attacks instant kills. Obviously Warframe didn't and can't go that route, so melee attacks should be easier to hit with (thus infinite sprint, which is also a very useful convenience feature because it lets you move through cleared rooms faster, if you really insist on 'balancing' it make it so that after ending a sprint your ranged accuracy is heavily penalized for a few seconds.

Because the current sprint meter length makes melee basically worthless at high levels until you run out of ammo.

"I can use my Gorgon/Hek/Braton/Burstron/Latron/Snipetron and kill this dude really quickly... or I can sprint at him, hope he doesn't decide to move away (which I can't follow because my non-sprint movement speed is the same as his movement speed), then attack him with my melee weapons for much less damage per second."

Edited January 12, 2013 by MJ12

[Ronyn]

Actually it makes melee practically worthless in high level missions. Melee weapons should broadly speaking be balanced with firearms if you want melee to be fun and satisfying. Call of Duty does it by making melee attacks instant kills. Obviously Warframe didn't and can't go that route, so melee attacks should be easier to hit with (thus infinite sprint, which is also a very useful convenience feature because it lets you move through cleared rooms faster, if you really insist on 'balancing' it make it so that after ending a sprint your ranged accuracy is heavily penalized for a few seconds.

Because the current sprint meter length makes melee basically worthless at high levels until you run out of ammo.

"I can use my Gorgon/Hek/Braton/Burstron/Latron/Snipetron and kill this dude really quickly... or I can sprint at him, hope he doesn't decide to move away (which I can't follow because my non-sprint movement speed is the same as his movement speed), then attack him with my melee weapons for much less damage per second."

practicaly worthless?

perhaps our experiance or builds are different.

My excaliber is modded out for +50% sprint speed, +100% melee damage and some serious armor penetration on my blades.

I often blaze through most enemies, darting in, out and around obsticales so fast the enemies often barely get a beed on me.

I love the run,jump,crouch,slash attack! keeps me moving and killing without any slowish animations!

I'm talking solo runs even.

Thats not to say I'm not all for a bit more function to melee to bring them up to on par with guns.

Infinite sprint would mess up other things like level pacing and enemy encounter viability so its better to look elsewhere.

The idea is that we should look to answers other than sprinting to bring melee more in line with guns.

For one thing, melee should be the ideal solution for close combat situations.

Dual skana hiting multiple targets is one example of the right direction.

Bo should be more capable of knocking enemies around to the point that they get knock each other down.

Etc....

AND you were talking about some defensive stance aspect. That would change the nature of closing distance as well.

Edited January 12, 2013 by Ronyn

[Sealgaire]

Actually it makes melee practically worthless in high level missions. Melee weapons should broadly speaking be balanced with firearms if you want melee to be fun and satisfying. Call of Duty does it by making melee attacks instant kills. Obviously Warframe didn't and can't go that route, so melee attacks should be easier to hit with (thus infinite sprint, which is also a very useful convenience feature because it lets you move through cleared rooms faster, if you really insist on 'balancing' it make it so that after ending a sprint your ranged accuracy is heavily penalized for a few seconds.

Because the current sprint meter length makes melee basically worthless at high levels until you run out of ammo.

"I can use my Gorgon/Hek/Braton/Burstron/Latron/Snipetron and kill this dude really quickly... or I can sprint at him, hope he doesn't decide to move away (which I can't follow because my non-sprint movement speed is the same as his movement speed), then attack him with my melee weapons for much less damage per second."

My Excalibur can solo Hades without firing his guns once. This is after the shield stacking exploit fix. If he wasn't limited by stamina, it would be too easy. It wasn't a simple or quick process to get him to the point where he could do this, but if you specialize in it, melee is far from "practically worthless" at higher levels.

Is it as easy as slapping some multishot mods on a gorgon or hek and mowing enemies down? No, but it's way more fun and satisfying.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Ronyn]

My Excalibur can solo Hades without firing his guns once. This is after the shield stacking exploit fix. If he wasn't limited by stamina, it would be too easy. It wasn't a simple or quick process to get him to the point where he could do this, but if you specialize in it, melee is far from "practically worthless" at higher levels.

Is it as easy as slapping some multishot mods on a gorgon or hek and mowing enemies down? No, but it's way more fun and satisfying.

I'm with you on the melee dominance!

it rocks.

[MJ12]

My Excalibur can solo Hades without firing his guns once. This is after the shield stacking exploit fix. If he wasn't limited by stamina, it would be too easy. It wasn't a simple or quick process to get him to the point where he could do this, but if you specialize in it, melee is far from "practically worthless" at higher levels.

Is it as easy as slapping some multishot mods on a gorgon or hek and mowing enemies down? No, but it's way more fun and satisfying.

So you pile on a bunch of mod slots which could be used for other things... then you fully mod your weapon... and then and only then is melee only somewhat weaker than using guns.

This is not doing anything except proving my point.

Also, I said nothing about allowing you to spam melee attacks, I just said you shouldn't have to choose between melee attacks and sprint.

Edited January 13, 2013 by MJ12

[Sealgaire]

I didn't say it was neccessarily weaker than guns, the example I gave was a gorgon or hek (or any gun really) with multishot, which in it's current state is broke as hell. My point was that I think the difficulty of using melee is at a satisfying level right now. It's challenging but rewarding if you succeed. It's guns that need to find that sweet spot now, not melee weapons.

Having to learn to use your stamina wisely is one of the things that makes melee more challenging in a rewarding way in my eyes, and would only serve to make the melee system less interesting if it wasn't a factor.

[Ronyn]

So you pile on a bunch of mod slots which could be used for other things... then you fully mod your weapon... and then and only then is melee only somewhat weaker than using guns.

This is not doing anything except proving my point.

You said "practically worthless".

On the contrary...

Depending on your warframe, personel skill set and how you mod yourself it can be various levels of use.

this is why its best not to exagerate. it muddys up the water.

Look everyone is agreeing that we want more melee depth and use in some way (in fact DE steve mentioned its coming eventually)

The only real contention here is the idea of infinite sprint.

We all recognize a problem with melee but we want to look for different solutions.

How about we get passed usuelessly nitpicking over exactly how useful melee can be and keep looking into potential solutions.

Also, I said nothing about allowing you to spam melee attacks, I just said you shouldn't have to choose between melee attacks and sprint.

Having to learn to use your stamina wisely is one of the things that makes melee more challenging in a rewarding way in my eyes, and would only serve to make the melee system less interesting if it wasn't a factor.

For what it is worth I have no trouble doing my melee craziness with the current stamina system.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Ronyn

[Babalenong]

I think melee is still real fun, i only need roll - strike and hold down charge, really annoying when your charged melee attack is a centimeter too far to hit the enemy, and you should be able to hit enemy at point blank range

[MJ12]

You said "practically worthless".

On the contrary...

Depending on your warframe, personel skill set and how you mod yourself it can be various levels of use.

this is why its best not to exagerate. it muddys up the water.

An unupgraded Gorgon can put out approximately 500 dps. A fully upgraded Cronus does something like 1/3rd to 1/5th of that. Even a Braton with no upgrades puts out 225 dps not counting headshots. I am literally better off using a unranked Braton as a melee weapon than I am using a level 30 melee weapon. This is assuming I run up to people and shoot them at point-blank range. If I don't, I am much more survivable than the melee guy.

Look everyone is agreeing that we want more melee depth and use in some way (in fact DE steve mentioned its coming eventually)

The only real contention here is the idea of infinite sprint.

We all recognize a problem with melee but we want to look for different solutions.

How about we get passed usuelessly nitpicking over exactly how useful melee can be and keep looking into potential solutions.

Look, the current system means:

1. You can't catch up to enemies who decide to flee from melee attacks (which fortunately enough, current bad AI means they don't do very often) without sprinting.

2. Sprint and melee use the same resources which means when you catch up to an enemy you may not be able to hit him. Now, this adds 'skill' in the game, but it's kind of fake difficulty. If I screw up melee it should be because I got overextended and shot to pieces, not because I have to *huff* catch my *huff* breath because I sprinted for *huff* ten seconds. I'm not some kind of special forces commando ninja in power armor and I can sprint for at least a minute full-out.

3. You can't sprint for very long, meaning that sprinting is kind of weak and slowing the pace of the game because you have to catch your breath. It also makes a lot of moments extremely boring.

Infinite sprint is a good idea anyways. People are going on and on about how being able to spam melee attacks will somehow break the game... except the point of the Focus system is to create a depletable resource that is specifically limiting on melee attacks while not limiting mobility, because mobility is pretty important in a game where you don't take cover and you are supposed to rely on agility.

Mass Effect 3 MP has extremely powerful, spammable melee attacks and infinite sprint. Somehow, this has not completely broken the game. It won't in Warframe where guns are far better than melee attacks.

For what it is worth I have no trouble doing my melee craziness with the current stamina system.

And neither do I. Except it's not a viable alternative to gunplay now, and if the AI gets better (and it should) it will be even worse.

Edited January 13, 2013 by MJ12

[Ronyn]

An unupgraded Gorgon can put out approximately 500 dps. A fully upgraded Cronus does something like 1/3rd to 1/5th of that. Even a Braton with no upgrades puts out 225 dps not counting headshots. I am literally better off using a unranked Braton as a melee weapon than I am using a level 30 melee weapon. This is assuming I run up to people and shoot them at point-blank range. If I don't, I am much more survivable than the melee guy.

I mentioned melee mods in the warframe that can greatly increase its damage.

The possible damage numbers need to be adjusted to reflect that.

There is simply no equivilent general gun damage mod for warframes I am aware of.

Also consider other factors.

Such as sliding melee attacks doing additional damage beyond the number show.

Such as the charge attack of the furax doing particularly high damage and inherently pericing armor.

So actual damage can be quite different than the base number value shown.

There is more use, utility and damage output than your simple example acknowledges.

Again, I am not saying melee is equal to gunplay.

Just that the gap is not as wide under some circumstances.

Look, the current system means:

1. You can't catch up to enemies who decide to flee from melee attacks (which fortunately enough, current bad AI means they don't do very often) without sprinting.

With sprint speed mods I have found it easy to reach them quickly with plenty of stamina left over.

Not to mention the basic combat reality that using the right tool for the right job will have an advantage.

So I am not looking to melee when its best to be sniping or sniping when its best to melee.

2. Sprint and melee use the same resources which means when you catch up to an enemy you may not be able to hit him. Now, this adds 'skill' in the game, but it's kind of fake difficulty. If I screw up melee it should be because I got overextended and shot to pieces, not because I have to *huff* catch my *huff* breath because I sprinted for *huff* ten seconds. I'm not some kind of special forces commando ninja in power armor and I can sprint for at least a minute full-out.

I'm not interested in debating whether or not it makes sense for a space ninja to run out of stamina in a video game.

Seriously, I wont get into what is beleivable or realistic for any longer than to say I wont. lol

3. You can't sprint for very long, meaning that sprinting is kind of weak and slowing the pace of the game because you have to catch your breath. It also makes a lot of moments extremely boring.

I disagree. I feel it helps create an ebb and flow of pacing.

That is subjective, my pace verses yours, so there is no point on arguing over it.

Im serious, some folks feel dead space is too slow some say too fast.

is either right or wrong? nope.

Infinite sprint is a good idea anyways.

We have a different view on the ideal flow of the game.

People are going on and on about how being able to spam melee attacks will somehow break the game...

Not a point I made so not my issue.

except the point of the Focus system is to create a depletable resource that is specifically limiting on melee attacks while not limiting mobility,

If I ever ran into an issue where i felt impeded in a way that detracted from my experiance I may be more concerned about it.

I havent so I am not.

because mobility is pretty important in a game where you don't take cover and you are supposed to rely on agility.

Yes it is. That is laregly why I like it to be limited so I have to think about when to use it and when not to.

Mass Effect 3 MP has extremely powerful, spammable melee attacks and infinite sprint. Somehow, this has not completely broken the game.

You just mentioned how different the two games are...

It won't in Warframe where guns are far better than melee attacks.

I didnt say it would "break the game".

I said it would "mess up other things like..." etc.

To re-state in a more diplomatic version.

It would make various things different.

in a way that I belive would negatively impact the partiocular type of flow that I personally enjoy.

including the use of guns because id have an easier time deciding distance.

And neither do I. Except it's not a viable alternative to gunplay now, and if the AI gets better (and it should) it will be even worse.

Has anyone argued that its equal to guns in a straight up comparison?

But more importantly...

Lets get something straight. Arguing that melee isnt good enough COMPARED to guns right now is useless because I am not disagreeing.

Its only the exact level of "lesser effect" that is in question here.

At any rate If I can use it effectively to do well in the level I will never refer to it as "practically useless".

If you insist on using that term than you will. I dont like its implications.

We will have to agree to disagree.

And as someone else pointed out, perhaps it is not the melee that is at the wrong level of power currently.

Now as I said...

I am open to changes to improve the viability of melee attacks in the game.

Heck I'd love it! I'm a big fan of melee.

I am simply not a fan of the infinite sprint idea.

There are other answers to consider here.

Various impact differences from combos and special attacks will alter a lot of things. does a lot in other melee games.

Potential defensive stances that may go as far as deflecting projectiles will alter a lot of things. did great things in Unreal championship 2.

We havent even got into the potential improvements to stealth which could greatly change the nature and intended placement of close combat.

Or looked at the abilities hitting a better state of balance and frequent use.

Two things DE is currently working on that would factor in.

heck, even a simple increase to melee damage would do a lot to close the gap between the things.

With all due respect here we cant go at this as though the only possible solutions revolve around infinate sprint.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Ronyn

[Absurdan]

I think a slow mo' Critical/Final kill with the melee weapon would greatly increase the reward for melee kills with a charged attack and even such an animation that if you were to continue to fast melee attack in slow mo' it would inflict more dissmemberment to the body.. that be another thing i think this game should have..more dissmemberment like in the game 'metal gear solid rising'. and since that game is no longer under construction and dissmemberment being the only part of that game i ended up looking forward to. i think some one else should step up to the plate.. with that appart of this game it could never turn out a failur just saying.. by the way..infinite sprint would be a terrible idea to put in this game.. the missions and everything would just be to quick.. not to mention you'd be able to overkill with all the combos since you wouldn't need stamina to execute the move.. just a bad idea.. perhaps adding mod's that can increase your maximum stamina but really i wouldn't want to go any further than that.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Absurdan

[Absurdan]

firstly sorry for the double post and hopefully this can fit into this thread.. But i was thinking and how complex do we want to actually go into this ? do we just want to better the melee fighting or perhaps even the way that the warframs interact with their surroundings, possibly enhancing the way they use melee ? say they could momentarily run up wall's performing back flips and ninja like techniques to confuse and hopefully maim the enemy.. could enhance the melee combo capability as well, Broadening the moves without, the need to add extra keyboard shortcut commands and even having different stances could excite this idea.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Absurdan

[Ronyn]

firstly sorry for the double post and hopefully this can fit into this thread.. But i was thinking and how complex do we want to actually go into this ?

As a general thought process I would like the melee skill ceiling to match the gunplay skill ceiling.

That is to say that in shooters there is a lot of room to grow, to improve. Higher skilled players will be nailing headshots and perfecting distance.

They earn it through practice.

The melee equivilent would be games like devil may cry or ninja gaiden.

Where timing your strikes, combos, special moves and various counter/evasion tactics meet in a glorious symphony of death.

That is where my head is at anyway.... :)

do we just want to better the melee fighting or perhaps even the way that the warframs interact with their surroundings, possibly enhancing the way they use melee ? say they could momentarily run up wall's performing back flips and ninja like techniques to confuse and hopefully maim the enemy.. could enhance the melee combo capability as well,

I'm very open to more enviromental aspects to combat.

Wall runs would be appreciated.

Broadening the moves without, the need to add extra keyboard shortcut commands and even having different stances could excite this idea.

Button combonations, cadence control and timing should offer enough input variation to create more melee options without the need to have new buttons or key board shortcuts. Not that I automatically reject more buttons...depends on what I am presented with.

I'm just saying that we can do a lot with what we have to work with now.

As for "stances", depending on what you mean by that exactly, I am probably not a fan.

In real life swordfighting stances are only the begining of any movement and quickly become irrelevant once motion happens.

Example: If I start with my sword low for quick suprise upercuts, as soon as I actually do an upercut, it becomes a high stance better suited to powerful downward strikes. As soon as I do a downward strike..it is now set up for uppercuts.

Movement flow and economy of motion reject the notion of fixed stances despite their common use.

Stance systems in games tend to have a certain "power stance" and "quick stance" type of paradigm and that is more about overcoming input limitations than anything else.

Some games get around this of course, heavenly sword and the newest dmc are examples of that.

The stances are about instant weapon switching and then flow into each other seemlessly.

heh heh. can anyone guess what I do what for a living?

Edited January 13, 2013 by Ronyn

[Absurdan]

of course the gun and melee should be on the same level, i've got the same kind of idea going on.. but by stances i mean that coordinated flow of attacks, for instance what you said.. having starting a low-attack or high powered one, and immediately after that the out come of the combo will be determined by what ever direction/attack/key command the player would press to activate the sequence combo/s. not necessarily haveing to cycle through low/medium/high powered attacks personaliy i find that could be quite tedious at times. i believe though having more of an ability to interact with the enviroment to use different warfares could make a big impact on the game play.. allowing players to exacute more deathly means of taking enemys down as well as in a more timely and fashionable manor additionally they could add an enemy counter that would itself have the ability to climb along walls and disengage players from the walls and ceilings .. i just hope they have a think about these imputs and incorporate them somehow.

[Ronyn]

of course the gun and melee should be on the same level, i've got the same kind of idea going on..

right on.

but by stances i mean that coordinated flow of attacks, for instance what you said.. having starting a low-attack or high powered one, and immediately after that the out come of the combo will be determined by what ever direction/attack/key command the player would press to activate the sequence combo/s. not necessarily haveing to cycle through low/medium/high powered attacks personaliy i find that could be quite tedious at times.

Ah ok. I can dig it!

i believe though having more of an ability to interact with the enviroment to use different warfares could make a big impact on the game play.. allowing players to exacute more deathly means of taking enemys down as well as in a more timely and fashionable manor additionally they could add an enemy counter that would itself have the ability to climb along walls and disengage players from the walls and ceilings ..

Aw yeah. I like what youre talking about right there.

i just hope they have a think about these imputs and incorporate them somehow.

me too.

DEsteve said they would be doing something to increase melee combat depth in time.

I wonder how similar, if at all it will be to forum suggestions.

[Absurdan]

we can just hope they stumble upon this thread and notice the good idea.. heheh

[FreshJB2]

So many different melee threads, but this one is closest to what i had in mind.

This is on the right train of thought.

What is good

1: A variance to the jump attack by either taping or holding the melee button would be nice.

2: The sweep attack for charged crouch melee would be good because it would knock down enemies that arent going to die from one hit.

3: "Combos" are interesting,it really depends on how they flow. more on this later.

What I is not so good

1: Im not fond of what infinite sprint would do to the game overall. movement capability and limitations exist for reasons.

2: Melee is a bit more than just mash the button now. jump, charge and slide attacks are something.

3: Run and hold melee currently lets you set up charge attack and i'd hate to loose that capability.

4: A new focus meter seems unnecessary. Stamina does what it needs to do.

5: messing with ashs shuriken skill isnt required to give the knife a throw anymore than messing with rhinos radial smash is needed just because the furax can also punch the ground.

Anyway, more melee would be great.

happy that its developed as far as it is but more would be much loved. :)

I agree that stamina should not be thrown out. Instead either slow the enemies running speed by a small percentage or increase the player's base and sprint speeds by a small percentage (i'd prefer the former).

It would be nice if stance affected you melee attack as well as direction. One thing i would personally like to see that i haven't seen mentioned, would be the ability to hit enemies while they're down causing more damage and/ or a higher crit chance. It is very frustrating when i try to melee fallen enemies and can do no damage whatsoever until they start getting up.

Actually, why stop at simply E tapping, why not include a universal melee tree for those of us that wish to unleash a devestating onslaught of attacks?

Why not have this skill tree be able to replace your abilities or work with them?

For example, instead of ember's fireball as a power on it;s own, you could spec it into a melee ability, giving you a new combo and maybe fire damage on your blade for a short duration? Hell, you could even make it so that your charge melee slaps the enemy from a distance with a whip of fire extending from the blade...

You ever read my Melee Diversification thread? You might get some more ideas.

Rather than changing the power sets, why not tie those ablilties to the swords themselves. There are already so many swords that, you could reasonably define each one as an elemental of sorts. The Cronus could have increasing electric effects and the heat sword fire effects. In addition, what if when Volt used the Cronus, it did even more passive electric damage. Right now there are so many similar melee items that they kind of blur together. If each warframe had, at least, its own optimal sword, it would help set the swords apart and give us a reason to hold onto more of them as we got more warframes