Jump to content

4MostlyHarmless2

PC Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    914

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by 4MostlyHarmless2

    Melee 3.0 Feedback – What makes Melee Fun and what needs to change!?

    in General

    Posted

    2 hours ago, r0ckwolf said:

    Hey dude, regarding your first point i admit that i didn´t really adress the whole suggestion. Well i do think building towards a pay off as you metioned is a cool idea. This could be a big damage boost for Heavy Melee or a big AoE Attack of some sort that expends the combo counter. Conceptually i like this a lot, however i think there are some issues with this idea. The fast paced, horde nature of the game makes building towards a big pay-off attack not quiet worth it in most cases, which is the problem with combos to begin with in my opinion. So, while i honestly do like your idea, i don´t think it solves the issue i have with melee. 
    
    The cool factor of Enemys with different melee weapons is something i could apreciate for sure btw. 🙂

    Hm, you have a point about that fast-paced horde nature of the game. I do agree that in their current form the combos don't fit so well into the game, but at the same time removing them really just seems like a waste of all the effort they put into designing them. I guess that's DE's decision in the end, though. 

    And thanks for that, glad to know that someone else appreciates the cool factor. It's still the main reason that I come back to play Warframe every time. 

    Melee 3.0 Feedback – What makes Melee Fun and what needs to change!?

    in General

    Posted

    1 hour ago, r0ckwolf said:

    This is great Feedback and very simmilar to what i´ve been trying to advertise here.

    I´ve some additional thoughts though. On your first suggestion you talk about simplifing the combos by input, to make them easier to execute. That´s great, i´m in total agreement with you there, however as i tried to emphazise in my OP, it´s not enough. Why would i use any of those combos other then the simplest one?? Does it have a function other then looking cool?? The Combos or Moves need to be redesigned to have distinct functionallity as well or we´ll end up where we started as far as i can see it. 

    Your second suggestion is also great. However having elaborate moves and animations for the AI is usually not very noticeable, since Enemys tend to evaporate when we come remotely close to them. Building of your suggestion, i´d like some tougher Melee only Enemys though, something as unique and formidable as a Nox, just Melee focused. I always felt the Melee Enemys from the Melee 2.0 rework (forgot the name) were terribly underdeveloped and generally not good designed. 

    Thanks for the feedback r0ckwolf!

    First Point: I agree that having distinct functionality per combo would be amazing to see. I also agree that Warframe is more of a horde-mode style game. What I've seen, though, is that it currently rewards efficient enemy-killing builds over skillful gameplay (though one day I hope it will do more of the latter) No matter how many changes are made to melee, any player that prefers effectivity over gameplay won't really use melee mode (with stances/ combos and everything) because room-clearing ranged weapons and Warframe powers exist.

    That being said,  I feel like you may have missed the second part of my first suggestion, the part about survivability. My reply to your question of "why would I use any other combo than the simplest one?" would be "...well, why not make the simplest combo build up to something bigger?" I've quoted my earlier suggestion about the combo counter and heavy attacks below, but here's a tl;dr: Instead of removing the simplest combos, I think we should make them build up towards a heavy attack with a big payoff. It's all well and good to do a complete redesign of melee combos, but it also feels like DE would just be throwing out a lot of the work they put into making their current ones. 

    Spoiler
    6 hours ago, 4MostlyHarmless2 said:

    B. SURVIVABILITY --- As for survivability, against high-level enemies Life Strike practically becomes a required mod. With the possible removal of channeling, however, Life Strike may also be removed or reworked, which will make melee even less desirable against high-level enemies.B

    There is a possible creative solution, though: the interaction between the Combo Counter and Heavy Attacks. Right now it seems the Combo Counter damage multiplier may end up applying only to heavy attacks, and a heavy attack will spend all the points. To actually make spending all the points worth it, I think that DE should cut out a few parts and add them somewhere else. What I mean is that they should remove Channeling Mods, then make the built-up combo level add the current Channeling Mods’ buffs to the Heavy Attack. It could go something like this:

                  1x: +25% Damage to Heavy Attack
                  1.5x: +50% Damage, +25% Life Strike to Heavy Attack
                  2x: +75% Damage, +50% Life Strike, +25% Crit Chance to Heavy Attack
                  2.5x: +100% Damage, +75% Life Strike, +50% Crit Chance, +25% Crit Damage to Heavy Attack
                  3x:+ 125% Damage, +100% Life Strike, +75% Crit Chance, +50% Crit Damage on Heavy Attack

    … and so on and so forth. Of course the values and buffs don’t have to actually be the ones suggested. It’s just that it makes sense to have a system where multiple Light Attacks build up buffs for a Heavy Attack that, when executed, should knock back/ kill everything it touches and keep you alive at the same time.

    It even meshes together with my first idea of simplifying the melee combos. Light Attack combos could give a boost to Combo Counter buildup if all attacks hit, allowing you to charge a Heavy Attack faster. Combos that require a Heavy Attack input to execute will have more powerful, room-clearing strikes included, as compared to combos that are simply repetitive light attacks. 

     



    Second Point: As for the second, I wasn't really considering giving them elaborate moves or animations (aside from the MOA): I just wanted to see the enemies using proper melee weapons to try and hit me so that there's that imminent threat of getting hit hard. I think the best example of what I'm talking about here is the Grineer Tusk Predators that we find on the Plains. Complaints about harpoons and getting one-shot aside, they are the kind of threat that I want to be up against when I use melee in higher level. You can kill them fairly quickly, but if you screw up against them they can lay one hell of a smackdown on you. 

    Also, never underestimate the cool factor. Imagine jumping in front of a group of two Lancers, two Elite Lancers, and a Heavy Gunner. The four Lancers immediately draw Sheevs and Machetes and charge, while the Heavy Gunner takes out a Manticore and starts running towards you. While you can shoot them down, I'm of the opinion that it's just way cooler to immediately pull out your own melee and attack them back. 
     

    Melee 3.0 Feedback – What makes Melee Fun and what needs to change!?

    in General

    Posted

    Glad to see someone else offering their suggestions for Melee! I actually came to the same conclusion that melee has to be to be simple and functional. Seeing the title of this thread I thought I'd add my post from the Dev Workshop to this discussion. 


    The default enemy reaction when the player gets too close is to elbow them in the face, then back the f*** up and keep shooting. This is a very realistic behavior, but it’s also why a lot of combos can feel awkward when you use them. They’re spinny and flashy and superbly animated, but unless you have a long weapon + reach mod all you’re doing is dancing in front of enemies and asking to be shot.

    Despite all that, I still love melee and the combos. I can see that a lot of work has gone into developing them, and I think it sucks that you don’t see these combos actually being used as much in the game. Plus there's just something so satisfying about running around and chopping enemies up while they're shooting at you. So I have two suggestions in their melee rework: one that involves the players, and one that involves the enemies.

    SUGGESTION 1: FOR PLAYERS
     

    Spoiler

    The rework of stances and combos should focus on three main ideas: mobile, simple, and survivable. The whip + memeing strike spin2win combo works not just because efficient, it’s effective. It lets you move around, it’s easy to use, and properly built it wipes out everything, eliminating the worry of surviving. Having seen DE’s solution for Mobility (dodge-cancels and directional slam attacks), I hope they’ll consider the other two factors as well: making melee simple and giving it survivability.

    A.) SIMPLICITY --- They mentioned in the first post that there will probably three separate keys for regular attacks, heavy attacks, and blocking. I believe they should change the combos to be based only off these three inputs. For example let’s look at Swooping Falcon, the stance that they were using in the sample videos. It currently has the following main combos:

                  Swift Pursuit: E E E
                  Slicing Talon: E (Pause) E E E E E
                  Keen Broadwing: E (Block) E E E E E
                  Diving Kestrel: E (Up Arrow/ W) E E E E

    If we were to substitute these with Light (L), Heavy (H), and Block (B), then you don’t have to worry about pausing or pressing a directional arrow to execute a certain combo. You’ll be able to use light, heavy, or blocking as you wish, but stringing them together will allow you to execute combos that are more intuitive and less memorized. For example:

                  Swift Pursuit: L L L
                  Slicing Talon: L(H) L L L L L
                  Keen Broadwing: (While Holding Block) L L L L L L
                  Diving Kestrel: (While Holding Block) L (H) L L L L

    One thing I want to stress is that combos including a directional arrow should really be replaced, since they’re either impractical (looking at you, back-arrow combos) or lock you into a combo you don’t really want to do. It’s counter-intuitive to move back when the enemy is already retreating out of range, and in fact the instinct is to chase them. But if you’re meleeing while you chase them, you simply end up doing one combo over and over again. Stopping to execute the combo isn’t a great option either, because many of the regular combos on the stances lock you in place once the animation starts.

    B. SURVIVABILITY --- As for survivability, against high-level enemies Life Strike practically becomes a required mod. With the possible removal of channeling, however, Life Strike may also be removed or reworked, which will make melee even less desirable against high-level enemies.B

    There is a possible creative solution, though: the interaction between the Combo Counter and Heavy Attacks. Right now it seems the Combo Counter damage multiplier may end up applying only to heavy attacks, and a heavy attack will spend all the points. To actually make spending all the points worth it, I think that DE should cut out a few parts and add them somewhere else. What I mean is that they should remove Channeling Mods, then make the built-up combo level add the current Channeling Mods’ buffs to the Heavy Attack. It could go something like this:

                  1x: +25% Damage to Heavy Attack
                  1.5x: +50% Damage, +25% Life Strike to Heavy Attack
                  2x: +75% Damage, +50% Life Strike, +25% Crit Chance to Heavy Attack
                  2.5x: +100% Damage, +75% Life Strike, +50% Crit Chance, +25% Crit Damage to Heavy Attack
                  3x:+ 125% Damage, +100% Life Strike, +75% Crit Chance, +50% Crit Damage on Heavy Attack

    … and so on and so forth. Of course the values and buffs don’t have to actually be the ones suggested. It’s just that it makes sense to have a system where multiple Light Attacks build up buffs for a Heavy Attack that, when executed, should knock back/ kill everything it touches and keep you alive at the same time.

    It even meshes together with my first idea of simplifying the melee combos. Light Attack combos could give a boost to Combo Counter buildup if all attacks hit, allowing you to charge a Heavy Attack faster. Combos that require a Heavy Attack input to execute will have more powerful, room-clearing strikes included, as compared to combos that are simply repetitive light attacks. 

    SUGGESTION 2: FOR ENEMIES

    Spoiler

    As for the second issue, I think that it’s time our enemies got better melee weapons and behavior. We’re one step in the right direction: The glowsticks have mostly been replaced with Sheevs and Provas when the enemy is disarmed.

    We just need to take it further by letting the enemy actually use their wide variety of melee weapons instead of… I dunno, letting us steal the tech from them every time they develop with something new? It’s kinda sad, really. The Tenno get all the cool toys, but then regular enemies are stuck with can openers and cattle prods. You’d expect planet-conquering empires like the Grineer and Corpus to at least have a bit more efficiency when it comes to distributing weapons. I mean it'd be great if we could see things like these:

    Grineer
    Lancer: Sheev
    Elite Lancer: Machete
    Eviscerator: Ripkas/ Single Ripka
    Ballista: Dual Cleaver
    Trooper: Furax/ Single Furax
    Seeker: Sydon
    Scorch: Twin Basolk/ Basolk
    Shield Lancer: Ack (no Brunt)
    Commander: Twin Krohkur/ Krohkur
    Bombard: Jat Kittag
    Heavy Gunner: Manticore
    Napalm: Brokk
    EXIMUS: Any Grineer Weapon

    Corpus
    Detron Crewman: Obex
    Elite Crewman: Ohma
    Sniper Crewman: Lecta
    Corpus Tech: Serro/ Arca Triton
    MOAS: Kick/ Headbutt
    EXIMUS: Any Corpus Weapon
    MOA EXIMUS: Lunging Kick/ Headbutt that can Knockdown/ Stagger

    For the behavior, they can go with a simple one where all the enemies immediately switch to melee when they’re within a certain range of the player (10-20m, maybe?) So rather than them backing away and continuing to shoot, they immediately charge in and start whacking at them. I’m sure that little behavior will make all the difference in making melee feel more engaging.

    The Enemy Strikes Back: Making “Melee Mode” Better

    in Weapons

    Posted · Edited by 4MostlyHarmless2
    Formatting issues and spoilered for convenience

    You know what’s missing in Warframe’s melee? Good melee enemies.

    Think about it. We don’t like using melee against high level Corpus/ Grineer/ Corrupted because we get curbstomped by overwhelmingly superior firepower (a.k.a Reality Ensues). However when it comes to high level Infested, we’re still more willing to whip out the weapons and spam E (or whatever button you’ve bound melee to) like there’s no tomorrow. Why is that?

    It’s because of the nature of the enemy. When the Infested attack, they hardly give you room to fire a rifle. While you can spray and pray, there’s a rather satisfying feeling when you pull out a melee weapon and carve a path to survival through the horde.

    When we’re faced with a wall of lasers and bullets, however, the satisfying feeling disappears. The reality of facing off against ranged weapons with a melee weapon sinks in, and attempting to kill one target with your sword results in you getting riddled with projectiles from everyone else.

    It’s a small wonder why melee weapons like greatswords and polearms tend to dominate the melee scene: with their long reach and sweeping stances, they nullify the danger of being shot in the back by just hitting (and killing) everything at the same time. On the other hand, the short range but powerful melee weapons like high crit Dual Swords, Nikanas, and Dakra Prime/ Broken War (with Crimson Dervish) also remain favorites with their capability to eliminate enemies quickly; the faster the enemy dies, the less time his (or her) buddies have to shoot at the player.

    While many would decry the current melee system to be flawed, I am of the opinion that it’s not the system that needs changing. What really needs changing is how the enemies react to us when we pull out our melee to start the dance of death.

    Let’s make the Enemy Strike Back.

     

    ENEMY AI AND WEAPONS

    As we all may have noticed, regular enemy “melee” is currently very limited: either they have a dedicated melee weapon (Butchers, Scorpions, Prod Crewmen, etc.), have the ability to elbow you in the face with their weapon (any ranged enemy), or they groundslam you to knock you away (most grineer heavy units).

    The ability to switch between melee and ranged forms at will is currently held by boss-type characters (Vor and Kril). Of course, applying this to everyone will probably be quite difficult as it means adding additional AI to every single ranged unit in Warframe.

    The best solution is to change the glowsticks that all ranged units use when disarmed, into actual melee weapons that vary per unit. I’ll give a list of suggestions later per unit for each faction.

    Each faction (aside from the infested) should also have a unique way of approaching melee combat with the Tenno. Here are a few suggestions:

     

    GRINEER 

     

     

    The Grineer are currently the only units with a decent variety of melee AI. If you take a moment to observe the behavior of their current melee- only units, you’ll see what I mean. Scorpions, Powerfists and butchers don’t always rush in blindly: they often hide themselves behind available cover when they can before rushing in. Flameblades teleport in behind you to whack you with a glowstick (which has just been recently changed). Drahk Masters can block damage with their forearm. Shield lancers block damage and charge you with a shield bash if you get within range. Bailiffs have a slash dash that can knockdown and even kill the players. The Prosecutors on Ceres are the only enemy units who attempt to negate damage by blocking with the Amphis.

    So what could be done is to apply these AI behaviors as secondary behaviors for their ranged units that will only activate once in a disarmed state. Instead of wasting time creating all new melee behaviors for Lancers and Elite Lancers and Troopers and every other ranged unit, it would be much faster to recycle the melee AI that already exists and distribute it accordingly. Here’s a list of ranged units, their substitute melee weapon, and the melee AI they should adapt:

     

    Lancer: Cleaver :: Butcher AI
    Elite Lancer: Machete:: Scorpion AI
    Eviscerator: Ripkas (or one Ripka):: Powerfist AI

    Ballista: Sheev :: Butcher AI
    Trooper: Ack and Brunt (or just Brunt) :: Shield Lancer AI
    Seeker: Sydon :: Prosecutor AI
    Scorch: Twin Basolk (Or Basolk) :: Butcher AI

    Commander: Dual Cleaver/ Dual Machete (DE pls) :: Prosecutor AI
    Bombard: Jat Kittag :: Bailiff AI (without dash)
    Heavy Gunner: Manticore :: Prosecutor AI
    Napalm: Brokk :: Bailiff AI (without dash)

     

     

    CORPUS

     

     

    The Corpus don’t have any good melee AI, as the current list of their melee units include the Prod Crewman, the Comba/ Scrambus units with the energy barriers or the Lecta, the Shockwave Moa (arguably a form of melee), and… that’s it. In my opinion, though, their faction has the most hilarious melee attack in Warframe: the MOA kicks. That attack alone is enough to convince me that the Corpus don’t really need a more sophisticated melee AI. After all, there is nothing more hilarious (and humiliating) for a Tenno to get kicked to death by a bunch of angry MOAs in melee mode.

    While the idea of applying the MOA’s melee AI to the crewmen would make for a very interesting sight (The crewmen do have boots that look like they could cause some damage though), the Corpus seem to be the type to prefer proxies or ranged weapons rather than get their hands dirty in melee. So the first option for the Crewmen, once disabled, should be to run away into cover. To prevent them from becoming entirely useless, however, the variants of crewmen should provide minor buffs to nearby MOAs and Ospreys when forced into melee mode.

    Crewmen: Prova:: Speed buff

    Elite Crewmen: Prova:: Damage buff

    Detron Crewmen: Obex:: Shield buff

    Sniper Crewmen: Obex:: Accuracy Buff

    Corpus Tech: Serro:: Health Buff

     

     

     

    OUR MELEE

    So you know how I said earlier that it’s not the melee system that needs tweaking? Well I kinda lied. There’s one thing that I’d like to have added to our current melee system, and that is to give channeling while blocking ranged damage a chance to disarm the enemy. The chance to disarm per weapon should vary, but these are the general rules:

     

    Hammers, Scythes, Heavy Blades, Nikanas, Polearms, Sword and Shield, Machetes

    DAMAGE REDUCTION WHILE BLOCKING: HIGH
    CHANNELING DISARM CHANCE WHILE BLOCKING: NONE- LOW

    These weapons, which currently have the highest damage reduction when blocking, should have the lowest chance to disarm while channeling. Exceptions here are Machetes: they can have high damage reduction and decent to high chance to disarm while channeling, since they currently don’t have anything near decent damage. 

    Swords, Dual Swords, Blade and Whip, Staff Weapons

    DAMAGE REDUCTION WHILE BLOCKING: MEDIUM
    CHANNELING DISARM CHANCE WHILE BLOCKING: MEDIUM- HIGH

    These weapons should have decent to high chances to disarm while channeling.  These weapons can be considered as the middle ground, having decent damage reduction as well as decent to high chances to disarm opponents.

    Daggers, Dual Daggers, Tonfa, Claws, Sparring, Glaives, Whips, Nunchaku

    DAMAGE REDUCTION WHILE BLOCKING: LOW
    CHANNELING DISARM CHANCE WHILE BLOCKING: LOW- MEDIUM
    CHARGED ATTACK DISARM CHANCE: HIGH

    These weapons should have a low to decent chance to disarm while channel- blocking, but with a twist: they have a very high chance to disarm the enemy when using charged attacks (whether channeling or not). Nunchaku are the exception: they should have either a decent or high chance to disarm the enemy while channel-blocking.

     

    CONCERNS

     


    You may be wondering, “Why not just make it a bunch of mods?” Personal reservations about the mod system aside, giving each set of melee weapons the ability to disarm is a good way to make the melee playstyles different. A player with a Heavy Melee weapon may have amazing attack and defense, but unless they are playing Loki they will have to brave the gunfire and hope it doesn’t kill them first. A player with a medium melee weapon can easily switch between attack or defense, either going for the enemy first or blocking so that they can disarm the opponent and force them into melee. Those wielding lighter weapons will try to use charged attacks to disarm ranged opponents, or just run in slashing wildly if they wish.

     

    OTHER CONCERNS

    1. “But I can still use a gun and do the job better by killing the enemies faster”

    - Perhaps, but the point of my suggestion is not to make killing enemies more efficient: it is to make killing them feel slightly more rewarding because you’ve been fighting them on more equal terms.

    2. “Even though everyone has fancy melee weapons, I’ll still end up mashing E ”

    - Okay, but at least you’ll be trying to dodge their melee weapons while doing it. The problem now is that we just mash E mindlessly while the enemy keeps shooting at us, making melee feel ineffective and useless. If the enemy has their own melee weapon out, at least there’ll be the feeling of fighting enemies on slightly more equal terms.

    3. “That’s a lot of coding and AI behavior to be applied to all the units, wouldn’t it be easier for them to do X?”

    - While I admit I have no practical knowledge of coding and programming, DE’s recent “experiments” into enemy behavior and attack patterns (most notably in Rathuum) have proved they are capable of the coding to put in more complex behaviors. 

     

     

    And there you have it, my suggestions for melee. It's a lot bigger on the inside, so open those spoilers wide. 

    Comments, feedback and suggestions are very much welcome. 

     

    I've Only Got One Problem With Razorback

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    You know while we're at it, they should allow us to ride the Razorback and put a tiny, heavily armored and shielded spot on his back that allows us to stagger it without having to rely on the Bursas. Personally I loved the boss fight, but I have to admit that it gets a bit tedious having to hack over and over again just to stagger him for a few seconds. 

    Warmeme

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    bit late, but has anyone ever posted the fact that misery's chest plate armor is on his crotch?

     

    Well, armor is supposed to protect the most important parts...

    Spores And Ruin

    in PSAs and Announcements

    Posted

    C7V0gC1.png

     

    Still image for those who don't want to watch the video.

     

    Huh. 

     

    That headpiece sticking out reminds me an awful lot about a certain Egyptian female Pharaoh... 

     

    Plus the moving things at the back remind me of snakes... 

     

    Cleopatraframe confirmed

    So, Now That We Have The Staticor, Mios, Destreza, And Ether Reaper/ Hate................

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Glad I'm not the only one that this came to when I saw staticor lol

     

    tfw I'm now wondering how to Fashionframe my current Warframes

     

    Not considering gender... 

     

    Ivara+Hate + Vulkar Wraith (Ruby)

    Atlas+Staticor+Tekko or Akbronco P+Ankyros Prime (Yang)

    Saryn+Lex P + Mios or Lacera (Blake) 

    Frost+ Destreza (Weiss)

     

    It's bad enough I already have a pink Valkyr wielding a Jat Kittag and a Tonkor modded exclusively for Blast Damage...

    So The New Trinity Skin Was Named Strega...

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    That's a weird thing to name a healer after.

     

    it should've been called Curandera.

     

    Not really, most "witches" in medieval times were women who were good at healing people with medicines of their own making. Just so happens people became suspicious of them and ended up believing they only managed to heal people by selling their souls to demons or something. 

×
×
  • Create New...