First impressions as a polearm user w/ new melee

[Ventricle8]

I like the new FX and hits sound/look cleaner. Weapon handling is great. Ground slams are fine. Only thing that I found myself missing was the highly mobile, free moving, and fast melee combat that was polearms. May it rest in peace. The combos are slower, root movement, or control your movement causing leaps I don't really need/want to be doing. I find myself having to do slide attacks more just to keep moving while attacking.

Also, the combos actually cause me to kill less enemies slower than alternating a series of the old quick attacks and a couple slides here and there when I wanted to hit large groups. Melee feels like a chain gang now.

As I write this I can't help but wonder what has become of speed Volt polearm. I guess I should try that to see how janky it is.
Decided to try before submitting. It's pretty bad. Single key press and final combo are the worst.

It would be great if I could just be the walking continuous blender of side-to-side twirling death smoothie maker like in the olden times. Leave the stop-animation to Gumby. 👌
 

[(PSN)Moosegomoo]

Are you sure it's not your stance? Obviously I've not played the new melee yet so the heck do I know, but I was under the impression all quick melee was the starter combo for one of the stances.

Edited March 8, 2019 by (PS4)Moosegomoo

[(PSN)caoshen0625]

Really wished they would keep the fast melee as the regular combo, guess we are shet out of luck...

[Ventricle8]

You are correct about the stances having different combos. I used Shimmering Blight on Lesion and now Bleeding Willow on my Zaw. Previously, both stances had the exact same quick attack which is now about in the middle of the E, E, E... combo chain, the twirls on each side. The problem is now that both of these stances cause a slow in the tempo of fighting due to the aforementioned rooting of movement and such.

Shimmering Blight starts off strong with a nice flow of attacks and allows moving forward but at the end it stops your movement to do an around-the-back wide swing. Not ideal. Bleeding Willow is similar but the ending attack is an across the front swing. Still halts movement.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Ventricle8

[Ventricle8]

Dear lord. I just equipped Twirling Spire. It got worse.

[STEPONMEKIMJISOO]

#justiceforpolearms #weliveinasociety #oppressedpolearmsriseup

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

I KNEW IT!

I told everyone in CC to say goodbye to the quick polearm attacks that made polearms so loved and may didnt believe me.

But now it has come to pass, and now Staves with their superior mobility in the awesome Clashing Forest moveset are the new kings!

Mwahahahhahaha!

[Redthirst]

It's really sad that polearms are now basically pointless, since not being locked into animation was the main reason to use them.

1 hour ago, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

But now it has come to pass, and now Staves with their superior mobility in the awesome Clashing Forest moveset are the new kings!

Tell me more

[Teridax68]

I absolutely love the changes, personally, but I have to agree that the one remaining problem is stances. Stances as they currently exist aren't very good, at least not the ones that haven't yet been updated. Wielding a heavy blade feels incredible and fluid, and I hope that translates to the rest of the arsenal over time.

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

2 hours ago, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

I KNEW IT!

I told everyone in CC to say goodbye to the quick polearm attacks that made polearms so loved and may didnt believe me.

But now it has come to pass, and now Staves with their superior mobility in the awesome Clashing Forest moveset are the new kings!

Mwahahahhahaha!

... Until you start front cartwheel spamming with Clashing Forest and not hit any enemies, get back to me with your Stave feedback when it hits consoles.

[Ventricle8]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Lei-Lei_23 said:

... Until you start front cartwheel spamming with Clashing Forest and not hit any enemies, get back to me with your Stave feedback when it hits consoles.

He won because he used his quick attack and not the combo. hehehe

Edited March 8, 2019 by Ventricle8

[Redfeather75]

I tried out shimmering blight, twirling spire, and bleeding willow. 😓

Can't smoothly attack while keeping movement which just kills the weapon's appeal.

I wonder if the change was intended to kill it off like that.

[Ventricle8]

35 minutes ago, Redfeather75 said:

I tried out shimmering blight, twirling spire, and bleeding willow. 😓

Can't smoothly attack while keeping movement which just kills the weapon's appeal.

I wonder if the change was intended to kill it off like that.

If it was intended it was a bad decision. One that should not have been part of phase 1. Should have either stopped short of the change that caused it or just gone to the next step that "fixed" it before it even happened.

No free moving quick attack = no good.

[Kainosh]

24 minutes ago, Ventricle8 said:

No free moving quick attack = no good

So.....Devil May Cry is a bad game? 

And Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is great only because it has "ninja run slashing" ?

 

Heh....  Maybe its just you guys all too used to mindless spam?  

[TurningDrop]

I would say this is definitely better off this way. Since now you have to actually use your melee weapon.

[Ventricle8]

15 minutes ago, Kainosh said:

So.....Devil May Cry is a bad game? 

And Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is great only because it has "ninja run slashing" ?

 

Heh....  Maybe its just you guys all too used to mindless spam?  

I've never played any of those series, and if I did it would only be MGS5, so I'm not sure what you are getting at. The combos in WF are just as "mindless" as repeating quick attacks. As far as button presses go, the only difference is that one animation stops you from moving and the other doesn't. Are you saying you like to be flat-footed during combat? Weird.

TERA's Warrior class improved(haven't played in several years) by having locking/rooting animations removed. Jedi Academy series was great because it allowed movement while melee fighting. Even SWTOR has(had? haven't played for a few years also) very few rooted animations outside a few channeled abilities and it's less about action than WF is.

Why are you so against having mobility and freeness of movement in a fast paced movement-centric game?

I will say this, as having previously no interest in DMC, I have even less now.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Ventricle8

[Ventricle8]

5 minutes ago, TurningDrop said:

I would say this is definitely better off this way. Since now you have to actually use your melee weapon.

It was being used before so...

[Redfeather75]

34 minutes ago, Kainosh said:

So.....Devil May Cry is a bad game? 

And Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is great only because it has "ninja run slashing" ?

 

Heh....  Maybe its just you guys all too used to mindless spam?  

Before I could run down a hallway using my guns and seamlessly do a quick combo to clear some body blockers. It was very smooth and fit the nature of this game's movement. Now it feels like someone driving a manual transmission who doesn't know how to use a clutch. lol

This update was to force people to use stances even if that made some melee less fluid. I doubt this will be fixed and I'm bummed about it.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Redfeather75

[TurningDrop]

30 minutes ago, Ventricle8 said:

It was being used before so...

 I personally wouldn't call spamming quick attacks using a weapon compared to using the actual combos for the weapon stance.

[Ventricle8]

17 minutes ago, TurningDrop said:

 I personally wouldn't call spamming quick attacks using a weapon compared to using the actual combos for the weapon stance.

If the combos were good and didn't lock animation it wouldn't matter what anyone thought. As it is, since the combos are bad and quick attacks were more usable the weapon was actually able to be used more outside of equipped combos. Which is the whole point. People keep trying to make this combo vs quick attack argument(as if this is some skill vs no skill argument when it has nothing to do with that) when you could easily have both. The fact of the matter remains: The quick attack should exist since there is no reason for it not to as there is no better alternative due to the lack of usability of the combos.

Will the combos be okay without locked animations and have better TTK than quick attacks did? No way to know but it would certainly be an idea better than only locking combos and no mobility. There's no reason to be against quick attacks since the new system allows the same automatic switching to melee from holding a gun, you still have to mash melee, the combos are still just as repetitive but yet they restrict gameplay more.

Also, combos are just a different spam.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Ventricle8

[DoomFruit]

On 2019-03-08 at 12:44 PM, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

I KNEW IT!

I told everyone in CC to say goodbye to the quick polearm attacks that made polearms so loved and may didnt believe me.

But now it has come to pass, and now Staves with their superior mobility in the awesome Clashing Forest moveset are the new kings!

Mwahahahhahaha!

Unfortunately, staves also make your character abruptly halt while attacking under the new, nerfed melee system. That was the first thing I tried out, to see whether my Tipedo could substitute for my poor Lesion (spoiler: no).

EDIT: it's not as bad, but it's still there and still worse than pre-nerf polearm attacks. And there's the problem that since you're now forced to do stupid combos, pausing your attack for a little bit (say, to close the distance with the next enemy) will result in you flying off somewhere into the distance.

Edited March 9, 2019 by DoomFruit

[KRATOS_GOD_OF_WAR]

Ventricle8, I completely agree with you. I used to avoid those combo moves like the black plague. It's slower, choppier & clumsy as hell. I suggest having combos with a toggle on/off switch, so that whoever wants to use it can while others like me can opt on combos. It really interferes with my melee striking while parkouring, & WF has the  best parkouring I've ever seen. 

Edited March 9, 2019 by KRATOS_GOD_OF_WAR

[Ventricle8]

2 hours ago, KRATOS_GOD_OF_WAR said:

I suggest having combos with a toggle on/off switch, so that whoever wants to use it can while others like me can opt on combos.

That's pretty much what I suggested in the mega thread. There's no reason to cut out quick attacks unless the combos themselves are functionally better and they are not currently.

They have fire modes for guns. They can have attack modes for melee. And the same button can be used for both depending on which one is "equipped". The equipped state should not dictate the state of attack but rather the state of attack should dictate the attacks of the equipped state.

Quick attacks(or free movement combos that do the same thing) for people that like to go fast and get it done, (current) combos for people that want an impromptu dance off vs some machine guns and explosives.

[KRATOS_GOD_OF_WAR]

1 minute ago, Ventricle8 said:

They have fire modes for guns. They can have attack modes for melee. And the same button can be used for both depending on which one is "equipped". The equipped state should not dictate the state of attack but rather the state of attack should dictate the attacks of the equipped state.

Right on brother! I'm with you! Us polearm melee gods have to stick together on this. 

[--PV--DeadRoy]

Polearms were my favourite for the exact reason you wrote: their quick melees didn't slow you down or rooted you in place, and they also have a huge range. In my opinion, 2 things need to be done to make melee better:

1.) A complete check / overhaul on all combos in-game. Make them so that they don't slow you down or root you in place, never. If it doesn't work / looks bad on an existing combo animation, replace it with another one.

2.) Make all melee attacks and combos cancellable by rolling, shooting, etc.

I realise that my first suggestion could take a lot of time to implement, but in a game as fast paced as this, melee shouldn't keep you in animation or one place, because it feels clunky when you want you roll, slide or bullet jump away from harm's way. This can be somewhat counteracted by using melee weapons with really high attack speed, but to me they feel like the only choice if you want to keep the same mobility you have with firearms.