[Suggestion] Melee Overhaul

[Humongous_Koi]

With the copious amounts of weapons in the game, the melee weapons feel like the 5th wheel on the back of a Jeep, where you use it only when a tire goes out (or run out of ammo), especially in the late game stages. They're used as more of a utility than a killing weapon, like knocking down enemies or leaping 70 feet forward with the Zorens. Enemies also have almost no reaction to being bludgeoned to death by a Fragor, or being diced by a Fang, they'll just stand there and attempt to melee back. Additionally, in my opinion, melee combat is pretty slippery, literally, you often walk sideways of the enemy when slashing at them with a Plasma Sword and miss hits.

 

There is so much potential in the melee system, especially since the melee weapon system is very basic. Changes can be made to keep up with the fast paced action and enhance gameplay elements to keep players in the game, and melee weapons can have the potential to become a root of the big Warframe tree, instead of a branch. Here are some of my suggestions for melee improvement.

 

1) Proportional Damage System

• Melee weapons would gain certain amounts of damage per enemy level

• Like 10 Zoren slashes to kill a level 20 enemy and 30 slices to kill a level 50 enemy

• Instead of 200 Zoren slashes to kill a level 50

• Mods would increase the damage per level

 

Melee weapons stop being useful for damage output in the later levels. Trying to hit a level 60+ Grineer Lancer with a Gram is like a mosquito to them, except when charged, which would be more like a kick to the shin.

 

2) Executions

• Warframes can execute enemies, using a special animation when their health is low enough

• Animations can be the ones already implemented

• or

 

We could go for more of that badass Ninja vibe by adding fast, but cool execution animations

 

3) Lock-On Melee System

• Instead of pressing E to use your melee, you can take your melee out and slash with it with left-click

• Right-click can be to lock on to a single enemy

• Strafing to avoid attacks

• Being straight on an enemy means you won't miss very much

• Optional melee mode, you can still slide past enemies as you swing at them when not locking on

 

• Or we can go for Batman (with swords and stuff)

• It would especially be amazing if we can flip over enemies :)

 

4) Better Response

• They should flinch more

• and stagger

• They're being sliced to death by an Orthos, they should stagger more

 

5) Additional Combat Maneuvers

• Sidestep?

• Flipping over heads?

• Sliding between enemies' feet?

• Better blocking? (Almost NO ONE uses blocking when fighting enemies)

 

What do you guys think of these ideas? Good? Bad? Great? Terrible? Cheeseburger? Potatoes? Tell me!

Edited September 8, 2013 by Kunchoi

[VoidPunch]

I use my melee weapons quite a lot actually, more then my secondary hands down. I like your execution idea tho. 

[Vitras]

i think the proportional idea would help a lot for late game scaling. but that damage system is being redone so it might not matter as much by then. for an execution move for the scythes it could decapitate like a Grim Reaper :D if the lock-on would work so it looked like it does in the batman games that would look so awesome slicing up enemies while looking realistic (even though this is a space ninja game). and maybe for another maneuver it could be a hostage thing, so you could put a sword up to their neck and use them as cover.

i love melee in games as you can tell

Edited September 8, 2013 by Vitras

[Humongous_Koi]

You'd think that space ninjas would have more skills wih melee weapons. Right?

[Hayden11121]

You'd think that space ninjas would have more skills wih melee weapons. Right?

We are space wizards spamming 4. "Ninjas Play Free" is outdated! Didn't you know?

 

On topic: I agree with executions so much, and a "Set Standard" for how much it takes for you to die. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be feeling very strong after getting 30+ slashes from a sword, no matter how dull the sword is or if I have "Armor"

[Paprika]

I think a combo system would be interesting. If you land an uninterrupted stream of hits, each successive hit would scale with a multiplier.

[Humongous_Koi]

We are space wizards spamming 4. "Ninjas Play Free" is outdated! Didn't you know?

"Wizards play free"

[Xymos]

Looks good, I just think this game needs a similar system like:

 

Batman Games: Where you need reflexes to block and dodge attacks, and fluid animations for movements and attacks. But you need to change the camera a lot for this system.

 

Warhammer 40K Space Marine: The system it's simple enough, you can chain differents attacks depend on the press of the button, you can execute the enemy on low health and all that stuff.

 

All those games have good melee, and are fun to use, that's what Warframe needs. The melee right now have nothing good... Exploitable movements, bad animations, boring chains of "combos", no complexity or anything.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Xymos

[alocrius]

I very much agree with enemies needing to react to melee damage.  When I swing my fragor and it swishes right through an enemy even though it does damage.. feels like I've been robbed each time.  Melee skills could be upgraded by having a series of specialized combat mods.  That way they would be intuitive to trigger and you could chain them as well.  Take a look at my post on it:https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/68907-tenno-foundation-for-martial-excellence/?hl=%2Btenno+%2Bfoundation

[AlricTheWh1te]

I don't agree on the execution thing, as I think it would slow the player down too much, and since there are so many enemies, especially when defending a cryopod, it would mess up my Gram Death Dance. Like really, why I got a gram instead of an orthos: DeathDance

[Vitras]

I don't agree on the execution thing, as I think it would slow the player down too much, and since there are so many enemies, especially when defending a cryopod, it would mess up my Gram Death Dance. Like really, why I got a gram instead of an orthos: DeathDance

and the execution moves for heavy weapons don't already slow you down? ._.

[noneuklid]

I think they mentioned they wanted to integrate melee and stamina in the last Livestream, and sort of indicated not just as "charge attacks take Stamina."

 

But I do like these ideas!  I'm not so much a fan of proportionate damage, although I can see where you're coming from -- I'm just not sure it would play well with the direct damage scaling of other weapons.  Instead, how about more interesting melee Mods (like vampirism, armor reduction, permanent life reduction, etc... maybe even a "proportional lite" mod that increases crit damage by a small % of the target's total health)?

[Humongous_Koi]

I think they mentioned they wanted to integrate melee and stamina in the last Livestream, and sort of indicated not just as "charge attacks take Stamina."

Do you mean that melee weapons have a possibility to not use stamina anymore?

[Psicomax]

i would like something like the shinobi combos

 

http://youtu.be/DvyxNGDghOY

 

look the kanjis in the top right corner

 

also i want in game scarfs plz

[noneuklid]

Do you mean that melee weapons have a possibility to not use stamina anymore?

 

No, they said want to make Stamina use more meaningful for melee (and maneuvering).  The implication was that attacks might take more Stamina, but that there would be more options available.