Melee Revisit: Phase 1 Feedback Megathread

[SilviaS12]

6 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Wasn't this thread stickied? Melee 3.0 isn't done yet, so why is it not stickied anymore?

We've been waiting a long time for updates or news related to this. Are we going to get any more changes soon? Waiting for the revamped melee weapon combos that you said you'd be giving to us one by one...

Could you at least tell us which weapon stance(s) you're working on currently now that you've done Wukong's Iron Staff?

It's kind of obvious why it isn't stickied anymore.

[DoomFruit]

16 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Wasn't this thread stickied? Melee 3.0 isn't done yet, so why is it not stickied anymore?

Simple. They weren't expecting the massive backlash against what was an obviously blatantly unfinished change to a core game mechanic, so they're hoping that if the complaints go away then everything will be right again. The only problem is that it's not something we forget - every single damn time we swing our swords, we get reminded of this steaming pile of trash that replaced our previous fluid combat system.

[Pizza-delivery]

Cannot use burst fire on my primary without switching to it. I don't know how (if) blocking works anymore. I can't kill anything with my dagger, it has me dashing all over like an idiot in lengthy whirling combos, I can't stand still and just stab something a few times

Thought melee changes were supposed to be an improvement, really missing the old system.

[(XBOX)Duke DEFCON]

Sorry for the late entry. I just found this thread and wanted to add links to 2 topics I've made regarding melee;

Regarding Electromagnetic Shielding and Javlok Magazine Warp mods not working at all well with auto blocking in 3.0;
 

As a suggestion, I'd automate the bonus from any blocking related mod. For example, Electromagnetic shielding will be on at all times while Ack and Brunt are the active weapon, causing the user to block the damage of their teammates in range. In this way, the player can effectively turn off the damage absorbing affect by simply switching to their primary or secondary weapon.

And the second thread addressing my combo meter resets with exalted weapons, though I don't see this as specifically 3.0 related, it is still a melee issue;

One last related suggestion is for blocking to add to combo meter, and apply said effects to reflected damage.

Edited September 4, 2019 by (XB1)Taz Deduction
Addendum

[Gene_Freak]

I've been trying to find a solution to this, something that would solve the biggest languishing problems with the current melee iteration and evolve the system into something more substantial while also requiring the least amount of man-hours to implement. This is where I'm at.

 

First, the combo counter should be on the screen next to the ammo counter regardless of what's currently in-hand. If you're trying to break down the barriers between gunplay and melee, this is absolutely vital.

Next, re-implement quick melee using the proposed combo system demonstrated with Wukong's Iron Staff and shown in several Devstreams - with attacks executed based on movement and gap-closers on an aim>melee combo. While this is close to what you've already shown intentions to implement, the most important part is that these attacks are on quick melee. The current system for weapon switching is responsible for several flow-breaking problems that would require more fixes to make work than is worth it. If you want us to have those cool "Devil May Cry" strikes on the ready at all times, this would be the way to do it that wouldn't be disruptive to the current game mechanics.

Now the meat: holding the switch weapon key should equip melee like it used to in 2.0, but while before this was called sword alone, now we're calling it channeling. While channeling, your melee, fire, alt fire and aim keys are now your melee, charge attack, gap-closer and block keys (with players able to redefine these controls, of course). Channeling doesn't provide additional damage by default anymore but, while previously the damage bonus was component to the combo counter and was modified by mods, now the bonus damage is dictated strictly by "Channeling Damage" bonus mods and is applied as a total damage multiplier (as opposed to being additive with Pressure Point, rivens etc). And while previously channeling cost the player 5 energy per strike, it now grants the player 5 energy per kill. Mods and focus powers that affect "Channeling Efficiency" grant bonus energy based on their percent, and mods that penalize energy reduce the bonus until it reaches zero (without going negative and costing the player energy per kill).

Very few mods would require any alterations. Focused Defense, True Punishment and Quickening should have their efficiency penalties converted to ~60-80% bonuses (as the other effects of the mods are so anemic) and Life Strike should have its "Life Steal" value at a fixed amount (20%?) while its penalty is reduced with each level (80-60-40-20?) to make it worth leveling. Otherwise, the other mods (even rivens!) already line up with my proposed alterations - you wouldn't even need to change the phrasing. Exalted melee weapons would count as channeling when active, changing their mod dynamic and opening up some interesting possibilities. As for the "one handed melee, one handed gun" systems that have been partially demonstrated, this could be implemented by having your quick melee count as channeling while still giving you normal use of your sidearm. The choice of modding for channeling becomes considerably more meaningful with these changes.

What I'm proposing would require no new content, no new systems and no significant changes to what you've already demonstrated. At the same time, this fixes the most crippling problems currently affecting melee combat, provides a new means of active energy gain that's readily accessible to new players, adds much more variety to the melee modding process, and satisfies both the want of immediate access to flashy combos alongside gunplay and the want of a dedicated melee mode with precise controls and a unique power dynamic.

[Maxim_M_Payne]

They could also do the simple, logical thing after this catastrophe and revert it to what was always a smooth, intuitive, and better system. 

Literally the only conceivable things about melee that ever needed changing were the uselessness of channeling, the speed of holstering, and how using melee attacks would soft-lock our movement.

They only changes I EVER WANTED were faster holstering, the ability to sprint and melee at the same time, and for channeling to actually be energy-efficient enough to make using it worthwhile.

Instead, everything that allowed me to actually enjoy or fully control melee combat got ripped crudely out of the mechanics. Now we don't even HAVE holstering; just spastic, flashing, painful flickering between all three weapon slots if we so much as breath on our keyboards. Now my blades are nothing but a source of migraines from all the needless energy glitz that got added to swings and elemental effects; and as I watch that abominable automatic AI-controlled block interrupt my actions, constantly, every passing day, I'm frankly losing interest in the game altogether.

I didn't join Warframe because I liked its shooter elements. If it had been primarily a shooter game, I wouldn't have been interested. I loved it for letting me be a space ninja; and how it allowed me to answer the swearing and diesel and loud gunfire of the Grineer with the edge of an axe or the crushing strike of a hammer. I loved feeling like I was a close-combat boss in a FromSoftware game; feeling akin to Artorias or Gerhman as I cut down hundreds.

Warframe has none of that to offer for me or any other melee-main players now.

In order, I haven't been capable of doing any of the following for seven months:

• Keeping my melee weapon out indefinitely; instead of having to mash E mindlessly to keep it toggled every single time something lightly punches me, or I hit right-click out of muscle-memory of the old, good system that let me melee aim-glide.
• Controlling my own blocking; which like all other things I do with my Warframes and weapons in-game, is something that should always be under my control and never should have been removed from player control to begin with.
• Aim-gliding with my melee weapons; which as I've said before, again and again, just switches me back to the guns that were never what primarily interested me in the combat system of Warframe to begin with; but clearly I was just being silly before, sincerely preferring to fight with 90% melee combat until February of this miserable year, so what does my opinion matter? I'm only one of the many players for whom melee was combat source numero uno. It was my fun, and it was killed.
• Using elemental mods on my weapons without my eyes being assaulted by a swarm of bubbly fuzz-effects that don't look particularly like any element they're supposed to be; except for my dear friend Electric damage, which now flickers so blasted fast it is definitely capable of triggering an actual epilepsy sufferer's seizures.
• Swinging my melee weapons without genuine pain in the first place; since every weapon-borne energy effect in-game has become an eye-searing, 300% opaque smear that both obscures and trails from the weapon's model ever since Buried Debts.

I don't know why I'm bothering to type this, seeing as the only developer response so far has been from @[DE]Bear. I now can only finish typing my full list of grievances with this saddening gun-centric parade; a list that's grown so long I've had to keep it in a Word document as backup. And then, still seething and exhausted with this mess, I will post it with every single screenshot I have been accumulating on Imgur for over half a year.

I've had enough. I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm just plain tired and bored, and I will remain so until we have the basic pleasure of a genuine melee mode and controlling our own blocking again; and that is the minimum of things that need to be restored.

 

To blatantly plagiarize HALO's Gravemind:

I̫͉̖͔F̜̬ ̹̫̫̼̰Y͇͍̭̟̼̫ͅO͙̬̘̹̤̤͍͓ͅU̟̩̥̼ ̦̱̖͍̳̫̼W͎̭̫͔͍͚̮͇̟I̦̲̣͉̜̩L̻͔̭L̰̟̜͓͖ ̺͓̳̰̟̝N̬̥O̬Ṭ̩̼̦̤̞͙̣ ̭̩͉̱̖H̟͇̗͎̳͖ͅE̖̥͓̤̱̣͓ͅA̭̬̫͈R̪̳̖̹͈ ̠͍̖͚̪T̝H̩̮̯̟͉͍̭̺̬E͖̝͍̟̠̝̲ ͈͕͈̳̦̗Ț̟̜R̬͉̞̳̗U̜̩̟͙͇T̬̟̥H̼̮͍̰̰̰,̰̙̞͈̣̱͎͚ ̻̞͈̝̘T̼͈͕̯̜̘̯͚H̞̰̯̗̠̥ͅE̘N̼̫̲͓͙͓͓̘͓ ͇̮̙I͉̜̣̹͇ ͓̟̩̟̣ͅW͉I̹̦̩̯̜̩̝͉̭L̤̮͚͍̹L͎͔ ̟͉̹͔̳͉͇͇ͅS̗͓̙̪̥̹̬H̯̠O̳̙̫̗̩̻͍W̙̼̟̮͇ ̦̤̝͕̹I̲̻̼̜͎͈ͅT͇̭̹ ͍̹̘̟͉̩͇T̳͖ͅO̬̲̯̥̲̠̥͔ ̪̮͈̫̠̬Y̖O͕̙̤͈̗̗̫U͓͇̺̹̣̩̩.̳̝̥̮̜̬

 

 

[Maxim_M_Payne]

Sorry to go off in the above fashion, DE; but I'm genuinely not having fun, and I'm trying to tell you that as devs. Try to understand that. I don't need further adjustments to what were bad changes in the first place; I want the bad changes reverted altogether and my old level of control, personal input, and precision restored.

[YourFriendlyNoggin]

Nice to see DE finally acknowledge there is a problem, would be nice if they undid the changes in the mean time but I guess I'll check back in another week or two to see if I can enjoy playing again 

[Nichivo]

Why couldn't DE have added the slam attacks, and made using combos universal, while keeping the rest by simply speeding up weapon swap, and tie fire a round to draw weapon, keeping the separate bind option for both primary, and secondary? Which would have left manual block, on mouse right click, and channel on mouse left click, giving at least PC users the best of all worlds? 

These changes feel like they are console centric. Those of us using keyboard, and mouse on PC want more control not less. Auto block, and channel on a toggle are both horrible.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Nichivo

[SilviaS12]

I eagerly await to see DE's response so I can know if I should download and install warframe again. I have not played since and removed it. Without melee how it was before I simply cannot play, it's just all lackluster and generic and feels like low quality cheap gameplay. It was exciting and immersive before. Now it's just another shooting game. Boring and nothing to do but shoot and pretend melee has any use. So much players are affected and yet so little interest on this topic...it makes me wonder....why?

[Guest]

For the love of everything is right and good,bring back manual blocking. I wanna be back as knighty nighty Knight with my Shield and meele

 

[xdeathhungerx]

4 hours ago, Syq111 said:

For the love of everything is right and good,bring back manual blocking. I wanna be back as knighty nighty Knight with my Shield and meele

 

If it helps you get your block button back if you dedicate yourself to melee only and remove primary and secondary.

[xdeathhungerx]

12 hours ago, SilviaS12 said:

I eagerly await to see DE's response so I can know if I should download and install warframe again. I have not played since and removed it. Without melee how it was before I simply cannot play, it's just all lackluster and generic and feels like low quality cheap gameplay. It was exciting and immersive before. Now it's just another shooting game. Boring and nothing to do but shoot and pretend melee has any use. So much players are affected and yet so little interest on this topic...it makes me wonder....why?

(DE)bear was nice enough to reply a few days ago. They wish to do it in phases because the system is too big now

[OrsonBear]

Wukong is really solid now, but keep pressing E really make me worry about my keyboard... can we just hold E with arrow keys to perform all combos and bind charge attack to some other key?

[MBaldelli]

1 hour ago, Laudator said:

Wukong is really solid now, but keep pressing E really make me worry about my keyboard... can we just hold E with arrow keys to perform all combos and bind charge attack to some other key?

Pressing keys repeatedly even with cheap keyboards will last for years.  I've worked with medical transcriptionists that have used the same keyboard for 5 years that while the letters and the key covers are worn down, still work well.  Banging the keys like a monkey with a hammer however is the problem.  Perhaps you should work on a lighter touch instead of being so heavy handed if you're that concerned.  

[Uhkretor]

5 hours ago, MBaldelli said:

Pressing keys repeatedly even with cheap keyboards will last for years.  I've worked with medical transcriptionists that have used the same keyboard for 5 years that while the letters and the key covers are worn down, still work well

... I'm using the same keyboard since 2000 and even then it had 15 years of use... xD

[xdeathhungerx]

On 2019-09-04 at 1:19 PM, (XB1)Taz Deduction said:

Sorry for the late entry. I just found this thread and wanted to add links to 2 topics I've made regarding melee;

Regarding Electromagnetic Shielding and Javlok Magazine Warp mods not working at all well with auto blocking in 3.0;
 

As a suggestion, I'd automate the bonus from any blocking related mod. For example, Electromagnetic shielding will be on at all times while Ack and Brunt are the active weapon, causing the user to block the damage of their teammates in range. In this way, the player can effectively turn off the damage absorbing affect by simply switching to their primary or secondary weapon.

And the second thread addressing my combo meter resets with exalted weapons, though I don't see this as specifically 3.0 related, it is still a melee issue;

One last related suggestion is for blocking to add to combo meter, and apply said effects to reflected damage.

We were telling them it breaks mods 3 months before they did it. All block mods and weapons are broke if primary and secondary are equiped, Electromagnetic shielding, and guardian derision, vaykor sydon, party, reflection. They knew. They just did it anyway.

[Snoit]

Well, we suffered enough. You are happy DE? 

Perhaps the time has come to return everything as it was and let us play on without these torment?

[000l000]

Le 10/09/2019 à 17:02, Syq111 a dit :

For the love of everything is right and good,bring back manual blocking. I wanna be back as knighty nighty Knight with my Shield and meele

Blocking could definitely replace charged attack command while using a sword & shield. It could build combo points while blocking and perhaps launching a charged attack when one stops blocking.

I don't mind autoblock cause blocking was a niche gameplay only a vocal minority seems to care about but since some mods still require it, adding a way to block without removing what has been done yet could definitely be viable. Problem is that we don't have enough details yet about what will be done with combos and charged attacks (if it is even set in stone).

[Snoit]

21 minutes ago, 000l000 said:

Problem is that we don't have enough details yet about what will be done with combos and charged attacks (if it is even set in stone).

The problem is that they made controversial changes and do not at all talk about what they will do next.

[vaarnaaarne]

43 minutes ago, 000l000 said:

Blocking could definitely replace charged attack command while using a sword & shield. It could build combo points while blocking and perhaps launching a charged attack when one stops blocking.

I don't mind autoblock cause blocking was a niche gameplay only a vocal minority seems to care about but since some mods still require it, adding a way to block without removing what has been done yet could definitely be viable. Problem is that we don't have enough details yet about what will be done with combos and charged attacks (if it is even set in stone).

It isn't solely about blocking, it's about the detrimental effect on CONTROL that autoblock comes with. Autoblock itself is a disruptive effect in most conditions, for example it can cause you to glide against your will or interrupt your charge attacks or combos. But equally crucial is that with the RMB switch you have far less ability to use glide effectively for platforming, and RMB combos are far more disruptive to use (and basically inconvenient to the point of nonviable if you use toggle aim).

Basically, autoblock doesn't need to be canned (but should be if it can't be made to be more sensitive to your actions and never glide), but RMB to block instead of switch must brought back.

[DoomFruit]

Another patch and still none of these problem have been fixed.

[SilviaS12]

19 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

Another patch and still none of these problem have been fixed.

It seems we are swept under the rug 😞

[motorfirebox]

On 2019-08-26 at 5:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

Greetings Tenno!

In brief, we owe you an update on Melee changes. Last Devstream had one remark about something maybe making it into Gauss’s Mainline, but this is no longer the case. You can see the clip here: as stated by Steve on Devstream #130.

We wanted to give you some insight into our process and why this decision was made.

The melee “beast” is a large one to tackle, and while we could add in some minor changes, the knock-on effects to other aspects of melee (such as Stances, blocking, Mods, Augments) may cause more issues than improvements. Frankly, we need to look at the system more holistically and make decisions based on thorough testing, and re-works of the varying components involved.

Those reworks are not going to make it into the system before our up and coming mainline update, and while we would have loved for these changes to make it sooner rather than later, we simply need more time to implement these changes to the expansive collection of melee systems in place.

What we can say with certainty is that your concerns have been heard, and they are at the forefront of our minds when we consider alterations. The changes to quick-melee, how channeling and blocking are affected all the way to how Valkyr’s power set has felt the knock-on effects of blocking changes. As we are sure you can understand, this transition will be much more complicated than the transition from Melee 1.0 to 2.0, and we want it to be the best that it can be.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we hope you enjoy all that the Mainline Update has to offer when it reaches you at supersonic speeds!
 

Holistically, right now we've got two buttons for switching from melee to guns: the switch weapons button, and the button formerly known as block. We really only need one, and removing manual block has caused all manner of issues. If you apply the instant switch to the switch weapons button when you've got melee equipped and restore block, it seems like that would resolve the biggest issues with Melee 2.9.

Edited September 20, 2019 by motorfirebox

[Maxim_M_Payne]

On 2019-09-16 at 6:42 AM, Snoit said:

The problem is that they made controversial changes and do not at all talk about what they will do next.

There's plenty to be said beside this, and BOY OH BOY do I have that final behemoth document cookin' to finally let it all pour out; but yes, this seems a succinct short-term summary of players' anger.