Melee Revisit: Phase 1 Feedback Megathread

[DroopingPuppy]

No quick melee, no melee.

I had kicked melee weapons after the Wolf is gone and it doesn't force me to grab a Redeemer ever since, aside gain the affinity of the new melee weapons. I just have to....

After the disaster, EVERY TIME I want to only make a melee attack, my warframe is forced to fully grab the melee weapon. EVERY TIME, NO EXCEPTION. After making the melee attack I have to manually press aim button to set it to normal. EVERY TIME. That's why I just cast aside the melee weapons at all - if you know no melee weapon is on you, you will not press it and mess up the flow at all.

I do draw my melee weapon and fully use it sometimes, when I need it. Sometimes I do need to block the enemy attacks or I need to save the ammo. Else occasionally my both primary and secondary are bad but I have a good melee weapon and want to clear the mission with the melee weapon and ability. But why you force me to fully grab the melee weapon when shooting the stuffs and only needs a swing or two slashes of melee weapon? That's why it mess up the flow of the battle. I have to change it manually all the times, even if what I need is only some swings, so it is annoying as hell.

It also mess up the order of primary/secondary and non-weapon equipments(scanners) as well, but it can't be compared by the ban against a kind weapon slot. Man, I cannot use the melee weapon with this. I cannot.

[xdeathhungerx]

On 2019-10-26 at 3:38 PM, (PS4)BY-51 said:

Blocking needs a button. Guardian derision gladiator mods all depended on blocking and now it’s just gone.

Update 26 has a roll back to include block button. We let them know no block would break everything but they really needed to see it for themselves and took it away for a little while. Good news is it's coming back with melee 3 phase 2 THIS WEEK!!! console gets it in 3 months like always I'm sure.

[Galataya]

I hope I can get my controller buttons back to the layout before this update, haven't really been changed since before melee 2.0 and there was some overlap that functioned well but I was afraid if they were changed I would never get that layout back. Haven't played since 2018 except my attempt in the spring so really going to notice if button actions and values are amiss. My mind is still blown these block removal actions were taken in the first place..

[xdeathhungerx]

18 hours ago, Galataya said:

I hope I can get my controller buttons back to the layout before this update, haven't really been changed since before melee 2.0 and there was some overlap that functioned well but I was afraid if they were changed I would never get that layout back. Haven't played since 2018 except my attempt in the spring so really going to notice if button actions and values are amiss. My mind is still blown these block removal actions were taken in the first place..

The changes were rough. I stopped using guns so my block function would work. But the new system looks slightly more complex to add flavor to the spin to win tenno.

I personally play with a controller and a mouse. I am not sure what I'll have to neglect on my controller to make it work. Though I'm pretty sure I can drop my fire weapon, change weapon, and action buttons on my controller to make room for the assassination (light), medium, and heavy attack buttons. Might remap to resemble a mortal Kombat style set up.

[SilviaS12]

Melee is finally back! I can do something like a ninja instant transmission and slash my enemy dead and keep my back turned to them, and for the pesky too far away ones the ranged will handle them. no more snipe scoping through glides with my sniper and I can still rock my nikana!!!!!!!!!!! This is really awsome!!!!

[DroopingPuppy]

No because there is no quick melee. I am starting to wonder that can I grab the melee weapon again before I quit the game.

Edited November 1, 2019 by DroopingPuppy

[VanFanel1980mx]

I don't know who tested all the stances before deciding how the combos would perform because I keep seeing neutral combo attacks launching me with little to no control (whips for example), running combos that slow me down to a crawl and the so-called gap closers only closing a gap no bigger than 30cm assuming warframes are 2m tall.

[MBaldelli]

4 hours ago, VanFanel1980mx said:

I don't know who tested all the stances before deciding how the combos would perform because I keep seeing neutral combo attacks launching me with little to no control (whips for example), running combos that slow me down to a crawl and the so-called gap closers only closing a gap no bigger than 30cm assuming warframes are 2m tall.

We PC Players are the guinea pigs..  While I would continue to suggest reporting this here and Reddit (because who knows what will be cherry picked and from there), patience is also the key as they tend to look more at internal reports more than listen to us.  Perhaps if enough people recreate the same mistake they'll get it fixed.

[VanFanel1980mx]

1 hour ago, MBaldelli said:

We PC Players are the guinea pigs..  While I would continue to suggest reporting this here and Reddit (because who knows what will be cherry picked and from there), patience is also the key as they tend to look more at internal reports more than listen to us.  Perhaps if enough people recreate the same mistake they'll get it fixed.

When they mentioned gap closers I could imagine ONE movement akin to Stinger/Streak/Stiletto from the better known action games, some stances have a move that could be recycled and it hasn't been used as I expected, the worst part for me are those attacks that move your character which I was hoping would disappear with the melee rework.

[SOUP.CAN]

[Phelkan]

You have nerf the Zenistar to useless 😞

The Zenistar is the only melee weapon I like (because I could put it on the floor).  

So far, i press my Melee key 3s and drop she on the Floor and she have over 30s Time. 

 

Now. I muss press Melee key to switch and press a 2. key vor Heavy-Attack and she have 9s time ... this make she useless 😞

 

The Zenistar use very few people. Why do you nerf that so strong?!

 

I am total unhappy. 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Phelkan

[ReclusiveMerc]

Why on earth is auto blocking and FORCED aim glide still a thing? You also absolutely annihilated my zaw into oblivion.

 

My feedback is "T R A S H"

[SilviaS12]

13 hours ago, DroopingPuppy said:

No because there is no quick melee. I am starting to wonder that can I grab the melee weapon again before I quit the game.

well there is a "quick melee" when you are in ranged mode. So it's a bit harsh to say it is so slow.

[SilviaS12]

2 hours ago, Deevy said:

Why on earth is auto blocking and FORCED aim glide still a thing? You also absolutely annihilated my zaw into oblivion.

 

My feedback is "T R A S H"

you have to change your weapon state to melee by manually swapping to melee. Aim glide is not there when you change state. Read the patch notes.

[SilviaS12]

On 2019-10-30 at 1:21 PM, xdeathhungerx said:

The changes were rough. I stopped using guns so my block function would work. But the new system looks slightly more complex to add flavor to the spin to win tenno.

I personally play with a controller and a mouse. I am not sure what I'll have to neglect on my controller to make it work. Though I'm pretty sure I can drop my fire weapon, change weapon, and action buttons on my controller to make room for the assassination (light), medium, and heavy attack buttons. Might remap to resemble a mortal Kombat style set up.

Change to melee mode when using melee to disable aim glide and bring back block glide. if you use "quick melee" in "ranged mode" it will keep quick swapping and aim glide.

[DoomFruit]

5 hours ago, SilviaS12 said:

you have to change your weapon state to melee by manually swapping to melee. Aim glide is not there when you change state. Read the patch notes.

That's only useful if you want dedicated melee mode. For those of us who prefer guns, we're still getting stunlocked by our own weapons.

Incidentally, these new melee changes are even worse than what we had before. Sure, polearms got back the ability to move freely while attacking... while nikanas, staves and (stanced) rapiers lost theirs. Glaives and gunblades got beaten into uselessness and the maiming strike changes from additive to multiplicative made it useless when compared to the other crit mods and took away its niche.

[DroopingPuppy]

7 hours ago, SilviaS12 said:

well there is a "quick melee" when you are in ranged mode. So it's a bit harsh to say it is so slow.

Not really. There is only the command that fully grab the melee weapon, and it is never be a quick melee at all.

[YourFriendlyNoggin]

Ultra quick impressions here, I tested out one of my old favourites, gram with tempo royale in one of the gift of the lotus missions:

Quick melee is still funky, but as I never really touched quick melee after melee 2.0 it's not a major concern for me. First impressions of the update however are a bit... well... mixed to say the least. Melee mode is back, which is a massive plus for me, however the controls are all over the place, which is usually not a problem due to the magic of keybinding, HOWEVER you can't edit the melee mode keys the same way you used to be able to due to the holdover from the first phase of the rework; mixing guns and melee. So if I try to change any melee mode keys that interfere with firearm mode keys it clears the firearm keys, which means I can't have heavy attack on the same button that I use for alt fire on firearms. Not to mention you still can't have a dedicated "switch to melee mode" button, something which we had in 2.0 (not by default, you had to bind a key to it in options).

Controls aside, I always felt like channelling was an interesting concept which needed expanding, now that it's gone I miss it way more than I expected, chiefly because heavy attacks completely kill all momentum(an issue that plagues this new update unfortunately), leaving you stranded for a crucial second that in any higher level gameplay than what I tested would be suicide for my nearly shieldless valkyr against grineer or corpus enemies. You might say "well then just don't use heavy attacks", sure at level 30-40 enemies that would be fine, but as a melee fighter survivability is key, armour helps somewhat but high firerates still melt you, so you need some kind of regeneration which I used to get from a handful of frames skills and LIFE STRIKE aka "only on heavy attacks" strike. So in order to heal up in the heat of a fight I fight myself stopping suddenly to heavy attack and taking damage during the recovery animation for the attack, there need to be normal speedy movement available during heavy attacks in order for heavy attacks to fit into warframe.

This brings me to my chief complaint(which doomfruit and SOUP.CAN touched on), the new attacks and stance rework(at least for tempo royale, I'll check others later) have butchered momentum. Your animations are great, the knockup is an interesting concept on paper and aerial combos could be fun with the right melee systems, but right now they are getting in the way of movements. Animations now either do or don't have momentum, instead of allowing the player to move around freely you are locked into whatever momentum the animations give you, which means some attacks slow you to a crawl and some have insane forward movement followed by halting combo finishers(like the downward slam at the end of one of the tempo royale combos). This system could work in a slower game like devil may cry(feels weird to call dmc slow but compared to warframe it is) where you can focus on maintaining combos within often limited arenas( looking at you red barriers), however when you need to hop from enemy to enemy and tile to tile it slows you down.

 
Combos unfortunately aren't the only ones to suffer this effect, I will have to confirm with other weapons but for the gram when you use an aerial attack you throw out a limp swipe and hit the ground within the animation, gone are the days of slicing past osprey and other aerial enemies like the old ninja/samurai trope ( See here ). Now we get locked into DMC style aerial combo animations only without the hover/lift that made those moves useful in those games, instead you flop to the ground. 
It's clear they are aiming for this style of aerial combos:

but that doesn't work in warframe unless there is forward and/or upward movement.


So my suggestions are:

-aerial boosts on aerial attacks, like a bullet jump but with damage.

-heavy attacks combo-able, maybe even make 'pause' combos require a heavy attack input instead

-make it so that attacks can speed you up but never slow you down, if one of the combo hits fires you forwards that's fine but if combo attacks lock you in place it messes with the momentum. For example :

 This eleventh storm combo shot you forward, which works great in warframe where horizontal movement feels very important.

-melee mode controls completely separate from firearm controls(allow keybinding for switching to melee mode as well) so that we can reuse keybinds that become empty when you switch modes like alt fire and reload keys.

-free movement during heavy attacks, so sprinting and jumping mid attack

-if not free movement on heavy attacks then lifestrike needs a new home, since the pause caused by heavy attacking is counterproductive to survivability that lifestrike is designed for

None of the issues I've said above actually kill my desire to play(unlike melee 2.9) so you're heading back in the right direction DE in my opinion.

 

Other than that, I'm so happy to have block back, I agree with most of the mod changes, slam attacks no longer flinging enemies away brings a tear to my eye and god damn just having melee mode is bringing me back into warframe and it feels mostly good to be back... mostly.

 

*edit*
Double checked the other weapons, every single one of the weapons I tried has severe movement and momentum issues, the system isn't fundamentally bad like the last rework phase but it has some serious flaws that need ironing out. I feel terrible looking at all the work put into the rework and realising how much needs tweaking, but on the bright side at least this system is salvageable.

Edited November 2, 2019 by YourFriendlyNoggin

[BriarBlack]

the rest of the melee changes will shake out as they may, whatever. It is what it is. Change is inevitable. Fine and dandy.

Just please give me back my zenistar.

It was a good utility option and now it's just another subpar melee weapon.

Please give me back my zenistar.

That's all I want.

Please.

[Olteonz]

Tatsu stance redesign is not good. The new combos are clunky. Foreward combo stops movement, spin attack is in stand still combo for no reason instead of foreward combo. Swap foreward combo 3rd attack with stand still combo's spin and it would be alot better.

[Akura-archangel]

Actually I want to say "thank you" to DE. About year was ago system 2.1 allmost killed the melee. That was as bad as possible. But last upgrade returned manual blocking and permanent melee switching with other equipped weapons and this is just gorgeous. Thank you DE! Thank for listening us. More than that you upgraded melee combo system and this good too. Now I can normally use sword (for example) without pain in my *ss. Combos now easy to make and easy to remember. That's cool - I really like it. Thank you for leave to us both methods to change weapon to melee (quick and by holding F) - I not need to relearning - very comfortable. I actually like how I can striking in air now - with combos. This is not really necessary but this is usable - I can kill enemies with small jump without stopping when just run.

 

Parazon (parason?) - new thing. Something between hiding blade of assasins (assasin's creed) and harpoon of Skorpion (MK). Two things about it. When you rude insert piece of metal in electronic console - console breaks without any possibility of hacking after that - really. And why you need to use it for making fatality on standart enemies? Ok ok, if I holdin gun in my hands so ok - parazon is good choise, but if I hold some melee weapon that mean I need to use melee, even for making fatalities.