The New Melee Bindings are as Bad as I Expected

[DiabolusUrsus]

I previously wrote a thread expressing concern that standing combos would regularly get overwritten by the W+E combos, and I'm sad to say that I feel rather vindicated after trying out Wukong's rework.

The rework as a whole is pretty great, but I am specifically addressing the melee bindings it serves to preview. The biggest problem is that the combos with W (forward) inputs overwrite the stationary combos; I rarely have a reason to remain stationary during melee combat, so having combos rely on a forward input effectively halves the number of available combos. To make matters worse:

• The distinction between the EEE and W+E combos is effectively worthless. Aside from minor animation differences, both feel interchangeable and there are no noteworthy differences in terms of effect.
• The standing slam combo (RMB+E) is pointless. There is no noticeable difference in AOE from standard jump slams, and the combo lacks their useful mobility. Need AOE range? Just use the basic combos or slide attacks. Need ragdoll? It's better to just use a jump slam.
• The gap-closer combo is also pointless. It has a needlessly narrow hitbox and poor jump range delayed by the first thrust; the player is better served by a bullet jump in practically every scenario.

None of this is helped by the clunky, jerky restrictions on movement between swings and sharply truncated transitions between combos (or even multiple repetitions of the same combo). The melee scheme is VIABLE and fundamentally functional, but it feels bad to use and offers no meaningful variety to the player.

To improve this between now and Melee 3.0, please:

• Scrap the W+E combo, and just stick to a simple EEE combo.
• Scrap the gap-closer combo. Replace it with the briefly-mentioned bullet-jump attacks.
• Change the AOE (RMB + E) combo into an alternate hitbox string. For example, the standard EEE might be mostly sweeping horizontal hitboxes and the RMB+E might provided narrower swings with more vertical height.
• Tone down movement restrictions while executing combos. It's fine for heavier weapons to limit players somewhat (due to having better range), but limited movement will hamstring smaller and faster weapons like daggers and swords.
• For the love of everything you hold dear, KEEP ALTERNATE COMBO INPUTS OFF OF FORWARD MOVEMENT. I often want to move forward as much as possible while melee attacking. I don't usually want to be limited to a specific combo while doing so. NO, forced forward movement during combos is NOT a suitable substitute.

NOTE: It's annoying to use bold/unbold on mobile, so please read CAPS as emphasis rather than shouting.

As a bonus, doing 1 standard combo instead of 2 and cutting out an entirely useless combo (standing AOE), there should be less animation work to do for each stance.

PS: Instead of giving some stances good combo effects and hitboxes, please focus in aesthetic variation between stances. For example:

Crossing Snakes: has lots of 1-2 hits and scissoring/cross-cut attacks.

Swirling Tiger: has lots of spinning/wheeling strokes mixed with sharp, swiping attacks (like claws).

Carving Mantis: Dual swords reverse grip! Do it!

Stuff like that; nobody likes having a preferred stance be straight-up worse than its alternatives.

Thanks for your consideration!

Edited June 21, 2019 by DiabolusUrsus
Improving clarity.

[Loza03]

I don't agree that the bindings themselves are a problem. There are problems, but complaining that the new bindings system is the problem is missing those points. Most of the points seem focused on issues with the properties of the single stance we've got using the new system, not the input method. In fact, the first three bullet points are that entirely. For example:

36 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

The gap-closer combo is also pointless. It has a needlessly narrow hitbox and poor range; the player is better served by a bullet jump in practically every scenario.

Because it's on a staff. Which is narrow. The range itself is more than fine. I would imagine the reason that it seems otherwise is mostly due to the lack of mobility, and that lack mobility is due to a problem in the new system - the fact they've not changed how mobility works.

A problem with the system vs a problem with the weapon.

41 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

For the love of everything you hold dear, KEEP ALTERNATE COMBO INPUTS OFF OF FORWARD MOVEMENT. I often want to move forward as much as possible while melee attacking. I don't usually want to be limited to a specific combo while doing so. NO, forced forward movement during combos is NOT a suitable substitute.

The operative word has been bolded here. This is a subjective opinion. And, ironically, your own suggestions would force you into using a specific combo as well. There are currently four combos available - removing movement combos would cut that down to two, especially since you've not suggested any new ones. That means you would have as many forward-moving combos as you do now - two. Of which one may inhibit that forward motion, as DE has demonstrated that they want to keep the full-body lock animations on at least one combo string. Meaning you would be forced into a specific combo in order to be able to move forward whilst attacking.

 

Slashing-and-burning any elements with problems in the proposed system based on the single instance of it we have to test isn't going to help. It will only hurt the system. Instead, look at the problems that are there, and think of means to fix them.

For example, looking at the Gap Closer, instead of just saying "remove it, it sucks", let's examine what's wrong with it on a level that isn't related to the specific weapon type. It halts movement, and it therefore doesn't do its job as a mobility tool or as a combat tool due to it being a forced, set distance. It could be fixed by removing the locked movement and making the input a momentum boosting option, similar to a mini Bullet Jump, or causing them to get you to lock onto a target you're aiming at, like Dread Mirror or Slash Dash. Or both, depending on the conditions - providing a burst of momentum if you aren't selecting a target or there isn't one in range, and then letting you stick to a target you want or just move there, and switch to another combo.

That would make the ability more useful, and fit better into Warframe's gameplay loop. It might not fix your specific problem, but it would alleviate it somewhat as you now have more options to maintain constant movement, which are mechanically diverse. And moreover, it provides more options for more playstyles. It opens options for using melee as a system for bursting down a single specified target, as another movement option as well as a primary damage dealing weapon class.

[DiabolusUrsus]

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Because it's on a staff. Which is narrow.

How to accomplish a wide hitbox with a staff:

• Swing it instead of thrust it, OR
• Just give it a wider hitbox. It's a freakin' magic staff that can dynamically change size.

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The range itself is more than fine. I would imagine the reason that it seems otherwise is mostly due to the lack of mobility, and that lack mobility is due to a problem in the new system - the fact they've not changed how mobility works.

And the main purpose of a "gap-closer" combo is _____?

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The operative word has been bolded here. This is a subjective opinion.

Okay, so you astutely recognized that I voiced an opinion. What exactly is the problem here? It's not my job to theorycraft about how you or anyone else might feel differently; it's your job to talk about it if you care enough to bother with responding. Most feedback is rooted in subjective opinions - there is nothing wrong with that unless you can point to where I claimed it was an objective fact.

The current system inhibits my preferred playstyle. How do my proposed changes inhibit yours? If you want to stay stationary rather than move around, you're still free to just stop moving while using either basic (EEE or RMB+EEE) combo. We would both be equally accommodated.

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And, ironically, your own suggestions would force you into using a specific combo as well. There are currently four combos available - removing movement combos would cut that down to two, especially since you've not suggested any new ones. That means you would have as many forward-moving combos as you do now - two.

1. Standard EEE combo with horizontal emphasis.
2. RMB+EEE combo with vertical emphasis.
3. Bullet Jump + EEE gap-closer combo.

When you consider that the existing EEE and W+EEE combos are functionally identical, there is no real net loss in flexibility. In fact, I'd argue that with the functionally distinct RMB+EEE combo (better hitboxes for landing headshots, striking airborne enemies, and fighting on stairs/ramps) I proposed variety would improve noticeably.

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Of which one may inhibit that forward motion, as DE has demonstrated that they want to keep the full-body lock animations on at least one combo string. Meaning you would be forced into a specific combo in order to be able to move forward whilst attacking.

That makes no sense. Where did you get the idea that DE is committed to locking movement? Did they actually say that? Making a poor melee design decision doesn't equate to deliberate intent; it could just as easily be an oversight. Moreover, what purpose does locking player movement serve?

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Slashing-and-burning any elements with problems in the proposed system based on the single instance of it we have to test isn't going to help. It will only hurt the system. Instead, look at the problems that are there, and think of means to fix them.

I vehemently disagree. Instead of searching for contrived uses for niche combos, ask yourself why we need those niches filled to begin with.

• Why do we need a separate gap-closer? We have outstanding mobility already.
• Why do we need a combo-based clone of the ground slams we already have?

We don't. They just eat up inputs that could be used for other actually distinct and useful tools, while players could already get the same effects using controls they are already familiar with.

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For example, looking at the Gap Closer, instead of just saying "remove it, it sucks", let's examine what's wrong with it on a level that isn't related to the specific weapon type. It halts movement, and it therefore doesn't do its job as a mobility tool or as a combat tool due to it being a forced, set distance. It could be fixed by removing the locked movement and making the input a momentum boosting option, similar to a mini Bullet Jump, or causing them to get you to lock onto a target you're aiming at, like Dread Mirror or Slash Dash. Or both, depending on the conditions - providing a burst of momentum if you aren't selecting a target or there isn't one in range, and then letting you stick to a target you want or just move there, and switch to another combo.

What advantage is there to this implementation that my proposed offensive bullet-jump not have?

• The jump is also a fixed distance (which the player is more accustomed to).
• The jump can be used to boost momentum, allows players to freely aim at any target they choose at any elevation, and can be used purely for re-positioning and switching to a different combo (just don't press E during the jump).
• Additionally, this would not require any special inputs. Just bullet-jump and press E.

Comparatively, gap-closer combos:

• Require a fixed-distance leap which can vary between stances.
• Only effectively operate on a flat horizontal plane.
• Eat up the RMB + E input that could be used for a functionally distinct attack.

I understand that it's possible to refine features rather than scrap them as flawed, but I don't think you have a convincing case as to why this particular feature should be kept.

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That would make the ability more useful, and fit better into Warframe's gameplay loop.

Meaningless buzzwording. More useful than useless is not exactly glowing praise, and "fitting into Warframe's gameplay loop" should be the bare minimum needed to justify the inclusion of a feature in the first place.

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It might not fix your specific problem, but it would alleviate it somewhat as you now have more options to maintain constant movement,

How is that superior to simply allowing me to freely maintain constant movement during any combo?

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which are mechanically diverse.

What does this even mean? How is a fixed lunge forward mechanically diverse from the fixed lunge forward I originally proposed as a replacement?

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And moreover, it provides more options for more playstyles.

Oh? What new playstyles are possible now, which weren't possible with my proposed inputs?

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It opens options for using melee as a system for bursting down a single specified target,

Which my vertical hitbox combos would do better, due to the aforementioned headshot potential.

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as another movement option

Why does the player need more than 1 movement option when the end result is the same? Do you have something against bullet-jumping?

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as well as a primary damage dealing weapon class.

You're going to have to explain this claim, because I got nothing. Isn't melee already a primary damage-dealing weapon class? That's what weapons do, right? Deal damage?

PS: Thanks for taking the time to respond!

Edited June 21, 2019 by DiabolusUrsus

[Loza03]

3 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

How to accomplish a wide hitbox with a staff:

• Swing it instead of thrust it, OR
• Just give it a wider hitbox. It's a freakin' magic staff that can dynamically change size.

Something something this is a problem with the weapon not the system. The ground slam attack was already a part of Primal Fury, so it being on the 'AoE' combo is a property of the weapon, not the new system. Other dedicated AoE combos may have different 

3 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

And the main purpose of a "gap-closer" combo is _____?

As I addressed later - yeah, that is a problem. Slashing and burning the input isn't the solution, fixing the problems to let it fulfil its purpose is.

4 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Okay, so you astutely recognized that I voiced an opinion. What exactly is the problem here? It's not my job to theorycraft about how you or anyone else might feel differently; it's your job to talk about it if you care enough to bother with responding. Most feedback is rooted in subjective opinions - there is nothing wrong with that unless you can point to where I claimed it was an objective fact.

The current system inhibits my preferred playstyle. How do my proposed changes inhibit yours? If you want to stay stationary rather than move around, you're still free to just stop moving while using either basic (EEE or RMB+EEE) combo. We would both be equally accommodated.

I'm not thinking about my playstyle.  I'm thinking about the long-term future, and more options lead to more depth, done properly. I want them done properly, not done away with.

6 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

• Standard EEE combo with horizontal emphasis.
• RMB+EEE combo with vertical emphasis.
• Bullet Jump + EEE gap-closer combo.

You never actually said anything about a bullet jump combo. Maybe you lost it in a previous draft?

I can't make anything out of something I don't know about. I'll not mention this again for brevity's sake. Any time I skip over it, this is why.

8 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

That makes no sense. Where did you get the idea that DE is committed to locking movement? Did they actually say that? Making a poor melee design decision doesn't equate to deliberate intent; it could just as easily be an oversight. Moreover, what benefit does locking player movement serve?

Pattern recognition. They've talked about these fancier animations every time they've brought up melee. You also talked about how full-body, movement-locking animations are a thing in Warframe, and the purpose they serve.

3 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Tone down movement restrictions while executing combos. It's fine for heavier weapons to limit players somewhat

I agree with the overall point - including the fact that movement restrictions are a good thing that should be in the system, and that does seem to be what DE is going towards, so melee is almost certainly going to include them

10 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Why do we need a separate gap-closer? We have outstanding mobility already.

Because our mobility during melee combat is limited. Bullet jumps take you 15 metres or more away at a normal angle and puts you in mid-air. A gap closer could be more subtle and precise, yet still faster than walking or sprinting - or indeed, synergise with bullet-jumping to make our mobility even more outstanding.

17 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

We don't. They just eat up inputs that could be used for other actually distinct and useful tools, while players could already get the same effects using controls they are already familiar with.

The point is I want to make it a distinct tool, which it is not. That's literally the whole purpose of the paragraph.

18 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Comparatively, gap-closer combos:

• Require a fixed-distance leap which can vary between stances.
• Only effectively operate on a flat horizontal plane.
• Eat up the RMB + E input that could be used for a functionally distinct attack. 

I understand that it's possible to refine features rather than scrap them as flawed, but I don't think you have a convincing case as to why this particular feature should be kept.

I literally suggest changes which, in brief are "Stop making it a fixed-distance leap and make it behave more like a mini version of slash dash which either gives you a burst of momentum, or if targeting an enemy within range, leap to them".

If you're worried about the number of planes, making it work mid-air is also an option, and not taken by anything already.

23 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Meaningless buzzwording. More useful than useless is not exactly glowing praise, and "fitting into Warframe's gameplay loop" should be the bare minimum needed to justify the inclusion of a feature in the first place

The feature does have a use. Its use being to provide a middle-ground between manual movement and a bullet jump for melee combat. It just sucks at that use, and I want to make it better, so it can succeed at that use, and be fun to use.

26 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

How is that superior to simply allowing me to freely maintain constant movement during any combo?

With my suggested changes, it would be faster and more precise, but less subtle as you can only move to a target or in a directional dash. Superior? Not really. Better in some instances? Yes. Ideally, it'd occupy the space between bullet jumping (long-range gap closing of around 15+ metres) and just moving a meter or so.

34 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Oh? What new playstyles are possible now, which weren't possible with my proposed inputs?

Precision burst DPS melee, using guns for AoE. "I want to hit that guy", targeting them, dashing with the gap closer. Currently possible and possible with your changes, but not facilitated, because you have to manually position, instead of being given the option to get to your intended target and stick to them regardless of if they get knocked around.

Using Melee as a utility tool, like Coptering but not broken. Given that with my proposed changes it's a momentum boost when nothings targeted (like slash-dash is), the gap closer could make tight corridors less of a hassle - or, if you could use it in the air, add to a bullet jump with more momentum, or use it like a Sonic Homing Attack to make a jump you couldn't otherwise by zipping to a nearby enemy. Completely impossible with your suggestion.

47 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Why does the player need more than 1 movement option when the end result is the same? Do you have something against bullet-jumping?

Why does Spectre Knight in Shovel Knight have his dash attack? It has the same end result as giving him a double jump.

Because it expands upon the system, offering the player more options and different options. Offering the player the options of:

1. Freely moving slowly.
2. Moving at a high consistent speed for a long distance.
3. Or a very fast mid-ranged targeted dash. 

Technically all have the same result of 'move from point A to point B', but they are experientially different, and may have different pros and cons depending on the situation.

52 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

You're going to have to explain this claim, because I got nothing. Isn't melee already a primary damage-dealing weapon class? That's what weapons do, right? Deal damage?

That is indeed what they do now. it isn't the new part.

Thing is, your changes are just made for using it as this, as your main kill tool, not a utility option or a precision DPS tool.

[DiabolusUrsus]

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Something something this is a problem with the weapon not the system. The ground slam attack was already a part of Primal Fury, so it being on the 'AoE' combo is a property of the weapon, not the new system. Other dedicated AoE combos may have different 

Ok, what do you envision being different about an "AOE" combo that gives it a useful distinction from other existing attacks?

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As I addressed later - yeah, that is a problem. Slashing and burning the input isn't the solution, fixing the problems to let it fulfil its purpose is.

My point was and remains that there is a better vessel for that purpose that does the same thing and uses an existing input. You wanted more tools for diverse play, right? So don't insist on redundant attacks.

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I'm not thinking about my playstyle.  I'm thinking about the long-term future, and more options lead to more depth, done properly. I want them done properly, not done away with.

How does adding a gap-closer add depth that can't be added elsewhere? Let's dispense with the pretense; I want good melee just like you do, but I don't see how sticking gap-closers on RMB is in any way the only (or even best) option for getting there.

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You never actually said anything about a bullet jump combo. Maybe you lost it in a previous draft?

No, it was there as its own bullet point (though perhaps not clearly enough for you outside my own head). We've clarified that, though, so it makes sense to you now, right?

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I can't make anything out of something I don't know about. I'll not mention this again for brevity's sake. Any time I skip over it, this is why.

No, don't just pretend it doesn't exist. Here, so there's no uncertainty:

Player can repeatedly press E during bullet jumps to do a brief gap-closing combo. This would be comparable in length to the 2 or so hits from Primal Fury's gap-closer.

Faster.

More momentum.

Any direction on a 3D plane.

Familiar, consistent fixed distance.

No extra binding.

Overall superior to any existing gap-closer.

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Pattern recognition. They've talked about these fancier animations every time they've brought up melee.

What? How does a gap-closer combo tie into "pattern recognition?" Why is pattern recognition even important? Players will recognize a pattern in ANY combo after repeating it a few times.

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You also talked about how full-body, movement-locking animations are a thing in Warframe, and the purpose they serve.

They serve to add perceived weight to heavy weapons, sure. But why should that apply to all weapons? It wouldn't belong on daggers or swords, and if your whole point about it being the "weapon" and not the "binding" rests on mobility, your point is rather irrelevant to mine.

Having any combo require a movement input gets in the way of combo execution on any weapon with good mobility. That is a problem with the binding, not the weapon, because the bindings are supposed to be universal. That was a huge selling point of melee 3.0; the bindings have to work well across the board.

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I agree with the overall point - including the fact that movement restrictions are a good thing that should be in the system, and that does seem to be what DE is going towards, so melee is almost certainly going to include them

If that's the overall point you're agreeing with, you don't understand the point I am making. Movement restrictions are something to be tolerated given adequate range, not something beneficial to melee gameplay. They are a counterbalancing factor, not an advantage.

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Because our mobility during melee combat is limited.

No it isn't, except for things like Heavy Blades. I can already move around at normal speed using nikanas, longswords, etc., and I can even squeeze extra distance out of "rooted" combos like Consent Decree on Decisive Judgment by sliding between swings.

I don't want to lose that mobility on those weapons, and having combos reliant on a forward movement binding effectively halves my available combos. Those shorter faster weapons NEED the movement. They have no use for forced stationary combos.

Combo inputs should be independent of movement inputs, except for the gap-closers (bullet jumps) and slams (aerial).

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Bullet jumps take you 15 metres or more away at a normal angle and puts you in mid-air. A gap closer could be more subtle and precise, yet still faster than walking or sprinting - or indeed, synergise with bullet-jumping to make our mobility even more outstanding.

Utter nonsense.

Bullet-jump parallel to the ground, and you don't stay in the air.

How is a gap closer more "subtle?" What does that even mean in the context of melee?

How would having something in-between walking and bullet-jumping make our movement more "outstanding?"

You're saying lots of things that sound nice but ultimately mean absolutely nothing. Walking is already sufficient for fine positioning. Bullet-jumping is already incredibly precise; it is trivial to end up exactly where you want provided it is in-range. Why do players need a third option?

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The point is I want to make it a distinct tool, which it is not. That's literally the whole purpose of the paragraph.

So how is an intermediate movement option more "distinct" than a replacement combo that provides different headshot-capable hitboxes?

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I literally suggest changes which, in brief are "Stop making it a fixed-distance leap and make it behave more like a mini version of slash dash

Slash Dash is fixed distance.

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which either gives you a burst of momentum,

Bullet jumps do that already.

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or if targeting an enemy within range, leap to them".

Bullet jumps don't need target magnetism.

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If you're worried about the number of planes, making it work mid-air is also an option, and not taken by anything already.

Except, say, bullet jump. I've literally already given you a superior alternative.

Okay, so I didn't make it clear enough for you in the OP. It should have been clear in my first reply and crystal clear by now, right? So if there's some problem you have with my suggestion let's hear it now.

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The feature does have a use. Its use being to provide a middle-ground between manual movement and a bullet jump for melee combat. It just sucks at that use, and I want to make it better, so it can succeed at that use, and be fun to use.

Why is would that use be useful, though? You can already cover shorter distances by controlling your jump angle. Anything shorter than say, half the jump distance is adequately covered by just walking. Still an odd range? You can slide.

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With my suggested changes, it would be faster and more precise,

How is a mid-distance Slash Dash more precise than a free-movement jump?

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but less subtle

Earlier you said it was MORE subtle. So which is it? Again, what is that even supposed to mean?

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as you can only move to a target or in a directional dash. Superior? Not really. Better in some instances? Yes.

What instances?

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Ideally, it'd occupy the space between bullet jumping (long-range gap closing of around 15+ metres) and just moving a meter or so.

Again, WHY? Do you seriously find yourself bullet-jumping PAST your intended target? If so, have you tried a slide attack?

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Precision burst DPS melee,

My proposed vertical combos would provide this.

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using guns for AoE.

What about guns with no AOE?

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"I want to hit that guy", targeting them, dashing with the gap closer.

Or just keep movement restrictions off of lighter weapons and walk? Or bullet jump if they are too far? Or carry a bigger heavier weapon so you have the range to hit them anyway?

You're creating artificial limitations that serve no legitimate gameplay purpose in order to justify a special gap-closer combo.

Why?

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Currently possible and possible with your changes, but not facilitated, because you have to manually position, instead of being given the option to get to your intended target and stick to them regardless of if they get knocked around.

Why is this useful when enemies die in 1-2 hits anyway?

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Using Melee as a utility tool, like Coptering but not broken.

... Just bullet jump. It literally replaced coptering. Why would you want a bootleg coptering on top of that?

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Given that with my proposed changes it's a momentum boost when nothings targeted (like slash-dash is), the gap closer could make tight corridors less of a hassle

So could horizontal combos with unrestricted movement.

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- or, if you could use it in the air, add to a bullet jump with more momentum, or use it like a Sonic Homing Attack to make a jump you couldn't otherwise by zipping to a nearby enemy. Completely impossible with your suggestion.

... Are you above your target? Directional slam.

Level with or below your target? Double-jump and/or roll.

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Why does Spectre Knight in Shovel Knight have his dash attack? It has the same end result as giving him a double jump.

Because it expands upon the system, offering the player more options and different options. Offering the player the options of:

1. Freely moving slowly.

But why slowly? On heavy weapons sure, because they have extra range. But these are UNIVERSAL inputs, and that would be terrible for lighter weapons.

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1. Moving at a high consistent speed for a long distance.

Unnecessary. Just parkour or jump. Why would you cover long distances with melee attacks? There are no targets, or else it wouldn't be long-distance. Just move.

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1. Or a very fast mid-ranged targeted dash. 

Like a directional slam?

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Technically all have the same result of 'move from point A to point B', but they are experientially different, and may have different pros and cons depending on the situation.

Oh? Examples, please.

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That is indeed what they do now. it isn't the new part.

Thing is, your changes are just made for using it as this, as your main kill tool,

What part of my suggestion requires melee to be a "main kill tool?"

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not a utility option

What do you mean "utility?"

Mobility? We have parkour for that.

CC? We have slams for that.

Otherwise you're left with plain damage, which is not utility.

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or a precision DPS tool.

How would it be more precise than a headshot-capable combo string?

No offense intended, but I'm not really getting many concrete logical points from you. It sounds like you just want a targeted leap, but given enemies die in 1-2 hits why would a player ever use anything BUT the targeted leap? Does always leaping from target to target because it's braindead easy actually sound like fun melee combat to you? Because that's what most players would do. It sounds a lot like Arch-Melee to me and I cannot agree that would be fun.

I think my proposal sounds a lot more flexible and varied:

• A basic EEE horizontal combo for attacking loose crowds in most situations.
• An alternate RMB+E vertical combo for headshotting heavier targets, attacking low-flying enemies, or fighting on slopes.
• A bullet-jump based gap-closer combo for quick, intuitive forward movement.
• Slide attacks for forward mobility with less max range than bullet jumping but wider hitboxes.
• Slam attacks for pinpoint positioning and CC.

Everything serves a purpose, and nothing intrudes too much on anything else. Better yet, works just fine across all grip types because none of the basic combos require movement inputs. They can be triggered independently while moving in any direction OR standing still.

Would that not serve a wider variety of playstyles?

Edited June 21, 2019 by DiabolusUrsus

[DiabolusUrsus]

@Loza03

Okay, so after writing this:

13 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

It sounds like you just want a targeted leap, but given enemies die in 1-2 hits why would a player ever use anything BUT the targeted leap? Does always leaping from target to target because it's braindead easy actually sound like fun melee combat to you? Because that's what most players would do. It sounds a lot like Arch-Melee to me and I cannot agree that would be fun.

I kept thinking about it and I actually had a bit of inspiration. Take my proposed melee setup from the end of my last reply:

• A basic EEE horizontal combo for attacking loose crowds in most situations.
• An alternate RMB+E vertical combo for headshotting heavier targets, attacking low-flying enemies, or fighting on slopes.
• A bullet-jump based gap-closer combo for quick, intuitive forward movement.
• Slide attacks for forward mobility with less max range than bullet jumping but wider hitboxes.
• Slam attacks for pinpoint positioning and CC.

And EXPAND it with the combo-based heavy attack function. For example, bullet-jump is normally just a standard gap-closer combo but by HOLDING E during the jump you can get your targeted leap where the max distance and damage scale with your combo multiplier. This would give you the desired effect while not being easily spammable. Combo-charged slide attacks could travel additional distance with rapid consecutive hits (great for hallways). Charged slam attacks get extra AOE. Charged hits in the normal horizontal/vertical combos behave like charged attacks currently do, but with actually useful damage multipliers for all weapons.

I think this provides the best of both worlds.

You get exactly what you want - a specialized auto-target gap closer for advanced maneuvering, and I get exactly what I want - movement-independent basic combo inputs so that I can use any combo while moving around a lot due to primarily using shorter, lighter weapons.

So how about it?

[Teridax68]

Agreed fully, and I think DE should've seen it coming: even in Melee 2.0, combos that require specific movement inputs are notoriously unpopular, because players expressly do not want to have to constrain their movement for the sake of combat. Similarly, "gap closer" melee moves are a mistake, as they tend to be inevitably clunkier, slower, and less accurate than our standard moveset (whose baseline speed and power makes those moves redundant in the first place). I really don't understand why DE is putting themselves through so much trouble in creating these redundant combos and moves, when there's already a huge amount of work on their plate for Melee 3.0, in addition to all the other massive goals they've set themselves for this year, i.e. Empyrean and The New War.

Personally, I'd approach melee movesets in the following way:

• Remove autoblock and replace it by having ADS manually enable blocking.
• Remove finishers and instead let our normal attacks deal finisher damage to appropriately affected enemies.
• The player should be able to cancel any melee attack mid-animation.
• There would be only two melee combos per stance:
  • One standard, "quick" EEE combo. Each of these moves should adjust so that the business end of the weapon goes towards the enemy nearest the player's reticle.
  • One "heavy" EEE combo performed by holding block. Each of these moves should take more time to perform, but would be more powerful in some form, for example by damaging enemies in a larger area of effect or applying specific effects such as more damage or guaranteed status.
  • Some combo moves could give the player momentum or move them, but should never override their movement completely.
• Beyond that, the only other move needed should be the ground slam (E while airborne and looking downwards), with no differentiation based on blocking:
  • If combos only engage the upper body, and the quick attacks are made more precise, they could be a suitable replacement to dedicated aerial attacks.
  • By the same principle, those same moves could also be performed on a slide, and would thus eliminate the need for dedicated slide attacks.
  • If the player's wall latching, they should leap off and perform the appropriate attack, instead of having a dedicated wall attack.
  • Ground slams should deal more damage to reflect the extra time and setup needed to perform them, and could potentially deal even more damage based on how far the player's travelled through the air during the slam (so hopping five feet off the ground for a slam shouldn't be too brutal, but ground slamming from the top of one of those elevator shafts in the Corpus Sealab tileset would obliterate whoever the attack hits).

This should be a sufficiently simple system, requiring animations for at most 8 different moves per stance (six combo moves + block + ground slam), as opposed to the over a dozen moves present on Wukong's Melee 3.0 weapon, most of which are redundant. Ideally, eliminating the animation locks and interruptions/override of movement should make for a much more fluid system that'd harmonize, not clash with our parkour and standard movement options.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Teridax68

[Hyohakusha]

Couldn't agree more. The reason they gave for rolling out the unified inputs is to streamline the system and open up access to more combos. Yet it accomplishes the exact opposite. Wukong's hold forward combo and slide are the only ones I ever use. Thankfully they're very good, but Wukong getting lucky with his particular moveset doesn't change the problem.

Holding forward IS the main way we close the distance between ourselves and the enemy. This is an extremely basic, common sense concept that you do in literally every game.
There's an enemy over there. I'm moving towards him. I start attacking him when he's in range.
It straight up does not matter what game it is you're playing, if there's melee involved "I need to move closer to hit this dude" is universal.

Dante's signature move Stinger from any DMC game is a perfect example of the issue. You have to lock on to an enemy first, then you move the analog towards them, and then you hit triangle to execute the move.
The key distinction there is having to lock on first. If simply moving the analog in one direction and hitting triangle without being locked on initiated a Stinger, you would end up doing it constantly. As you're constantly having to adjust your position and facing direction in relation to the enemies you're attacking. And you adjust your position and facing by MOVING TOWARDS THE ENEMY. With directional inputs.

 

The actual mechanics of the attack animation itself are irrelevant. A hold forward+triangle Stinger would have you shooting across the screen into walls and knocking enemies out of combos you're doing. A hold forward+E input that has you do a short range attack that holds you in place would be just as annoying, as would a medium range, narrow angle thrust. Not because of the properties, or the range, or whether or not you can move. The animation itself doesn't matter. It's annoying because when it's tied to a single basic movement input you're always doing, you can't avoid doing it. Its the inputs breaking the flow of combat that's the issue, and DE keeps talking about flow.

 I've posted a dozen times about this ever since they announced unifying hold forward into the combo inputs, and I know I've seen you and others talking about it too. Guess DE didn't pay attention. So here are some alternate key inputs, again.

No movement keys (no restrictions on any adjustments/ moving forward)
- E E E etc (how ever many E's long it is)
- Hold Block + E E E
- E Hold E, E E 
- Roll E E E

Left/ Right (which allows you to still adjust with the camera/ mouse while moving forward)
- E E E
- Hold Block + E E E
- Hold Left to initiate + E E E
- Hold Right to initiate + E E E

You don't run up to enemy, stop, stand in front of them for a second and then start attacking. On a final note, I agree with Teri; for the love of God, bring back manual blocking. if you have your melee out and you aim glide, you should keep the melee out and aim-glide block. If you're on the ground, you should block. If you have a gun in the air, you aim-glide ADS, if you're on the ground, you ADS. Exactly the way it used to be. Actually, in melee only sorties, you can still manual block, so it's still in the game's code, it's just disabled for some stupid reason.


 

[DiabolusUrsus]

7 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Agreed fully, and I think DE should've seen it coming: even in Melee 2.0, combos that require specific movement inputs are notoriously unpopular, because players expressly do not want to have to constrain their movement for the sake of combat. Similarly, "gap closer" melee moves are a mistake, as they tend to be inevitably clunkier, slower, and less accurate than our standard moveset (whose baseline speed and power makes those moves redundant in the first place). I really don't understand why DE is putting themselves through so much trouble in creating these redundant combos and moves, when there's already a huge amount of work on their plate for Melee 3.0, in addition to all the other massive goals they've set themselves for this year, i.e. Empyrean and The New War.

Thanks for the support and elaboration! You are exactly correct that it would be beneficial to reduce the amount of unique animations needed for Melee 3.0. I, for one, am concerned at how long it has taken while we don't even have ONE reworked normal weapon stance. Weren't DE planning to roll out stances in batches per weapon type? When is tat starting? Which will be first?

Quote

Personally, I'd approach melee movesets in the following way:

• Remove autoblock and replace it by having ADS manually enable blocking.

Yes, please, as always.

It should also include timed parries as an OPTION for stunning bosses and minibosses to make them vulnerable to melee. For example, reflecting Sargas Ruk's fireball attack into his face.

Quote

• Remove finishers and instead let our normal attacks deal finisher damage to appropriately affected enemies.

YES PLEASE.

I hate using Radial Blind and other Stun effects because of how protracted the finisher animations are.

Quote

• The player should be able to cancel any melee attack mid-animation.

+1.

Quote

• There would be only two melee combos per stance:
  • One standard, "quick" EEE combo. Each of these moves should adjust so that the business end of the weapon goes towards the enemy nearest the player's reticle.
  • One "heavy" EEE combo performed by holding block. Each of these moves should take more time to perform, but would be more powerful in some form, for example by damaging enemies in a larger area of effect or applying specific effects such as more damage or guaranteed status.

I'd like to iterate on this a bit, to explain why I think a horizontal/vertical combo pairing would work better.

1. Having a speed-based DPS distinction is inevitably going to boil down to players identifying the "optimal" combo to use and just spamming that one. This will likely take the form of players just spamming the fast combo while enemies are lower level, and switching to heavy combos once enemy scaling balloons their EHP to where heavy attacks are more efficient.

2. I, for one, hate trying to fish specific hitboxes out of combos exactly when I need them. For example, let's say I want to use the vertical swing from hit #4 of a 5-hit EEEEE combo to hit a Mutalist Osprey without jumping away from a defense objective. I have to swing an extra 3 times before I can use it, and if I happen to miss I have to start over. However, with a vertical combo chain I could simply switch combos to get what I need.

In essence, every hit of a combo should serve the same general use so that players can use them immediately on-demand with aesthetic differences between swings for variety. This would also let players string together their own mixed combos by alternating between the two (e.g., EE, RMB+E, E or any other sequence therein).

3. Vertical/Horizontal hitboxes both have broadly-applicable yet distinct uses.

Horizontal strikes are best for capitalizing on range and attacking multiple clustered enemies at once.

Vertical attacks are better for landing headshots and hitting things like Ospreys, cameras, and door traps with the trade-off being more precise aim required.

Quote

• • Some combo moves could give the player momentum or move them, but should never override their movement completely.

Yes, exactly.

Quote

• Beyond that, the only other move needed should be the ground slam (E while airborne and looking downwards), with no differentiation based on blocking:

One thing I would like to keep (albeit in modified form) would be charged attacks. I rather like them for finishing off combo strings. However:

• Rather than use unique animations, they would just be delayed normal strikes from the standard combos.
• These attacks would function the multiplier-based "heavy" attacks from DE's original concept. Build combo > get a scaling bonus. For example, charge a ground slam and get extra damage + AOE. This could also be a good place to put conditional mod bonuses, like Life Strike and Maiming Strike.
• As mentioned in my other reply, it could also add properties to some attacks, like a leap with target magnetism from a bullet-jump gap-closer.

Quote

• • If combos only engage the upper body, and the quick attacks are made more precise, they could be a suitable replacement to dedicated aerial attacks.

Y'know... I forgot aerial attacks were a thing for a bit. I was talking about bullet-jump gap-closers, but how about just rolling that into aerial attacks and allowing attacks while bullet-jumping or gliding?

Let players use either EEE or RMB+E freely while airborne and not slamming, and gap-closing is completely taken care of at all ranges.

Quote

• • By the same principle, those same moves could also be performed on a slide, and would thus eliminate the need for dedicated slide attacks.

Works for me; having a less repetitive slide attack would be nice.

Quote

• • If the player's wall latching, they should leap off and perform the appropriate attack, instead of having a dedicated wall attack.

Alternatively, don't even force them to leap off. They can already do this via bullet-jump, and it could have useful applications down the road.

For example, parkouring up a colossal boss to latch onto and attack a weak-point before getting thrown off.

Quote

• • Ground slams should deal more damage to reflect the extra time and setup needed to perform them, and could potentially deal even more damage based on how far the player's travelled through the air during the slam (so hopping five feet off the ground for a slam shouldn't be too brutal, but ground slamming from the top of one of those elevator shafts in the Corpus Sealab tileset would obliterate whoever the attack hits).

Honestly I think slams are pretty decent as they are. They are great positioning tools and I actually feel as though having too much more AOE at base could make the ragdolling a bit troublesome. Totally agreed on scaling with fall distance though.

Quote

This should be a sufficiently simple system, requiring animations for at most 8 different moves per stance (six combo moves + block + ground slam), as opposed to the over a dozen moves present on Wukong's Melee 3.0 weapon, most of which are redundant. Ideally, eliminating the animation locks and interruptions/override of movement should make for a much more fluid system that'd harmonize, not clash with our parkour and standard movement options.

This is definitely in-line with my dislike of the previewed combos. They really clash with movement, when there is really no reason for that.

[DiabolusUrsus]

40 minutes ago, Hyohakusha said:

Couldn't agree more. The reason they gave for rolling out the unified inputs is to streamline the system and open up access to more combos. Yet it accomplishes the exact opposite. Wukong's hold forward combo and slide are the only ones I ever use. Thankfully they're very good, but Wukong getting lucky with his particular moveset doesn't change the problem.

Holding forward IS the main way we close the distance between ourselves and the enemy. This is an extremely basic, common sense concept that you do in literally every game.
There's an enemy over there. I'm moving towards him. I start attacking him when he's in range.
It straight up does not matter what game it is you're playing, if there's melee involved "I need to move closer to hit this dude" is universal.

Dante's signature move Stinger from any DMC game is a perfect example of the issue. You have to lock on to an enemy first, then you move the analog towards them, and then you hit triangle to execute the move.
The key distinction there is having to lock on first. If simply moving the analog in one direction and hitting triangle without being locked on initiated a Stinger, you would end up doing it constantly. As you're constantly having to adjust your position and facing direction in relation to the enemies you're attacking. And you adjust your position and facing by MOVING TOWARDS THE ENEMY. With directional inputs.

 

Emphasis mine.

40 minutes ago, Hyohakusha said:

The actual mechanics of the attack animation itself are irrelevant. A hold forward+triangle Stinger would have you shooting across the screen into walls and knocking enemies out of combos you're doing. A hold forward+E input that has you do a short range attack that holds you in place would be just as annoying, as would a medium range, narrow angle thrust. Not because of the properties, or the range, or whether or not you can move. The animation itself doesn't matter. It's annoying because when it's tied to a single basic movement input you're always doing, you can't avoid doing it. Its the inputs breaking the flow of combat that's the issue, and DE keeps talking about flow.

EXACTLY.

Strictly speaking you CAN stop doing it, but there are few to no situations where you would WANT to stop doing it. And by simply removing movement inputs from combo strings, players can have it either way. Want to move? Use your movement bindings. Want to stop moving? Stop moving.

40 minutes ago, Hyohakusha said:

I've posted a dozen times about this ever since they announced unifying hold forward into the combo inputs, and I know I've seen you and others talking about it too. Guess DE didn't pay attention.

Such is the lot of a feedback poster - throwing stuff that matters to you at an invisible brick wall and hoping it randomly sticks.

40 minutes ago, Hyohakusha said:

So here are some alternate key inputs, again.

No movement keys (no restrictions on any adjustments/ moving forward)
- E E E etc (how ever many E's long it is)
- Hold Block + E E E
- E Hold E, E E 
- Roll E E E

Left/ Right (which allows you to still adjust with the camera/ mouse while moving forward)
- E E E
- Hold Block + E E E
- Hold Left to initiate + E E E
- Hold Right to initiate + E E E

I honestly prefer the first set. While left/right inputs aren't as obtrusive as forward inputs, I still find them kinda awkward to use and I really don't think we need that many different combos. I seriously think we could keep it to:

• EEE
• Block + EEE
• Hold E
• Aerial E
• Aerial Slam E (looking down)
• Slide + E

Roll + E would be a great extra input if we need it, though. Hadn't thought of that, but it would work smoothly.

40 minutes ago, Hyohakusha said:

You don't run up to enemy, stop, stand in front of them for a second and then start attacking. On a final note, I agree with Teri; for the love of God, bring back manual blocking. if you have your melee out and you aim glide, you should keep the melee out and aim-glide block. If you're on the ground, you should block. If you have a gun in the air, you aim-glide ADS, if you're on the ground, you ADS. Exactly the way it used to be. Actually, in melee only sorties, you can still manual block, so it's still in the game's code, it's just disabled for some stupid reason.

I believe that ADS switches back to guns so that players can use zoom before firing. However, this could be accomplished by simply adding default ADS zoom to block and holding the gun switch until the player actually fires. I'm sure you've seen me talk about this, but before anyone brings up the most common issues again:

1. Use normal zoom only for scoped weapons like snipers, Arca Sisco, etc. until the first shot is fired. If the player is at a distance where the scope is useful, they have time to switch manually.
2. Pressing switch with melee equipped should instantly switch back to whichever gun was previously equipped. This allows players to quickly pull out snipers for scoping if they want to without firing. Provided the first swap back to guns is still instant, players can simply double-tap switch to change to a different gun from melee.

The forced swap back to guns while aiming can actually cause a serious problem for gameplay:

If the player unequips their secondary weapon (e.g., to level a melee faster and keep a primary as backup) then the player will accidentally force-drop datamasses, powercells, etc. whenever they attempt to aim-glide. Picking up the object forces the player into melee mode, and gliding immediately swaps them back to their primary. It's really annoying.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Doesn't look like we can kill bosses with this new melee. Try to kill Sargas Rok, or Vay Hek, or even that Hemacyst from Plague Star with Wukong new melee combos.

[DiabolusUrsus]

9 hours ago, (PS4)jaggerwanderer said:

Doesn't look like we can kill bosses with this new melee. Try to kill Sargas Rok, or Vay Hek, or even that Hemacyst from Plague Star with Wukong new melee combos.

Well yeah; that's how it was before and it's unlikely to change until the bosses themselves are tweaked.

For Lephantis/Hemocyst I'd like to see the combo-based heavy attacks be able to temporarily cripple a leg, bringing the head down to the ground in a stunned state to he attacked. If we get timed parrying, deflecting the scythe swing could also work.

Sargas Ruk could use similar rules (stun with high multiplier heavy attack or parry him).

The Hek fight could actually use the latching attack I mentioned in my reply to Teridax: parkour up to his floating form, latch on, and start attacking while he tries to buck you off.

[Teridax68]

 

Quote

I'd like to iterate on this a bit, to explain why I think a horizontal/vertical combo pairing would work better.

1. Having a speed-based DPS distinction is inevitably going to boil down to players identifying the "optimal" combo to use and just spamming that one. This will likely take the form of players just spamming the fast combo while enemies are lower level, and switching to heavy combos once enemy scaling balloons their EHP to where heavy attacks are more efficient.

I think the idea is more that, while heavy attacks would have more damage in proportion to how much slower they are, the purpose for them would be mainly to provide some sort of utility the basic quick attacks wouldn't, i.e. more area of effect, status, or crowd control. Thus, the choice in the player's mind wouldn't necessarily be which mode of DPS to apply (and I agree that that sort of "choice" tends to get solved by factors like enemy levels), but rather whether the player's up against a crowd, whether they want to apply a particular status effect, or disable a target, and so on.

Quote

2. I, for one, hate trying to fish specific hitboxes out of combos exactly when I need them. For example, let's say I want to use the vertical swing from hit #4 of a 5-hit EEEEE combo to hit a Mutalist Osprey without jumping away from a defense objective. I have to swing an extra 3 times before I can use it, and if I happen to miss I have to start over. However, with a vertical combo chain I could simply switch combos to get what I need.

In essence, every hit of a combo should serve the same general use so that players can use them immediately on-demand with aesthetic differences between swings for variety. This would also let players string together their own mixed combos by alternating between the two (e.g., EE, RMB+E, E or any other sequence therein).

I very much agree that fishing for hitboxes is a terrible idea, and it's one of my biggest issues with melee as it currently exists. I do, however, think my proposal could address that more cleanly than switching combos for verticality: if attacks adjust depending on the player's aim or the presence of nearby enemies (e.g. stabbing slightly upward instead of always directly forward when fighting an Osprey), then there may not be a need to differentiate between vertical and horizontal attacks altogether, as any attack could fulfil both functions. Also agreed on being able to mix combos; with a basic EEE and RMB+EEE combo I think the player should be able to alternate between the two simply by holding or releasing the block button (and still keep along the combo chain).

Quote

3. Vertical/Horizontal hitboxes both have broadly-applicable yet distinct uses.

Horizontal strikes are best for capitalizing on range and attacking multiple clustered enemies at once.

Vertical attacks are better for landing headshots and hitting things like Ospreys, cameras, and door traps with the trade-off being more precise aim required.

While there are increasingly more flying/vertical enemies in the game, I'm not sure if having to manually switch to a different mode of attack just for them would necessarily be the smoothest form of combat, especially if the core problem is simply that melee animations are currently stiff and can't be made to aim properly, unlike guns. If a single moveset could accomplish both functions simultaneously, i.e. attacking ground-based enemies and reaching vertical targets, I feel that may make for a more compact system overall.

Quote

One thing I would like to keep (albeit in modified form) would be charged attacks. I rather like them for finishing off combo strings. However:

• Rather than use unique animations, they would just be delayed normal strikes from the standard combos.
• These attacks would function the multiplier-based "heavy" attacks from DE's original concept. Build combo > get a scaling bonus. For example, charge a ground slam and get extra damage + AOE. This could also be a good place to put conditional mod bonuses, like Life Strike and Maiming Strike.
• As mentioned in my other reply, it could also add properties to some attacks, like a leap with target magnetism from a bullet-jump gap-closer.

Wouldn't these basically be like the heavy attacks I proposed? I think our models are ultimately very similar, with the distinction being of having combos for vertical or horizontal attacks, plus charged attacks, as opposed to two combos for quick or heavy attacks.

Quote

Y'know... I forgot aerial attacks were a thing for a bit. I was talking about bullet-jump gap-closers, but how about just rolling that into aerial attacks and allowing attacks while bullet-jumping or gliding?

Let players use either EEE or RMB+E freely while airborne and not slamming, and gap-closing is completely taken care of at all ranges.

Indeed, that was my thinking as well: we should be able to attack regardless of where we are, and with properly implemented melee attacks, we shouldn't need a dedicated aerial attack move to be able to melee while in mid-air.

Quote

Alternatively, don't even force them to leap off. They can already do this via bullet-jump, and it could have useful applications down the road.

For example, parkouring up a colossal boss to latch onto and attack a weak-point before getting thrown off.

This sounds better actually, yeah. There's already a ton of potential for Shadow of the Colossus-style melee combat with the giant enemies we've been given, the only trouble is that a) it's currently impossible to latch onto them, and b) melee would suck against them even if we could. Letting us perform regular attacks while wall latching, without the leap off, would enable that gameplay better if ever implemented.

Quote

Honestly I think slams are pretty decent as they are. They are great positioning tools and I actually feel as though having too much more AOE at base could make the ragdolling a bit troublesome. Totally agreed on scaling with fall distance though.

This is fair, and I agree that ground slams are already useful as a mobility tool and as a method of ragdolling enemies, so I don't want to really change that (I actually think the ragdolling is currently a little excessive). My one issue with the attack is that, as an attack, ground slamming isn't actually that particularly damaging, and I think it's a missed opportunity in a game like Warframe to not reward the player for precision-landing on top of an enemy from a great height with a ground slam (especially since games like Dishonored or Assassin's Creed show just how fun it can be to assassinate an enemy from a great height). Thus, adding some distance-based scaling to make more prolonged ground slams proportionately more damaging, if only to match the speed at which we can output damage through regular attacks, I think could be a solution to this.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Teridax68

[Marvelous_A]

I think the combo system from Musou series is a better approach. 

If DE is going to make a weak attack/strong attack they might as well just make a combo system based on them.

Most people press W too when they melee coz they want to reach for more enemies (or more likely, just out of convenience).

The existence of W combo conflicts with a pure EEE combo. 

And under melee 2.9 the RMB combo conflicts with aiming.

When I'm doing RMB combo I pull out the gun instead and lost my channeling when I switch to melee again.

While I appreciate their effort I have to say the melee 3.0 demo is a mess.

 

Example combo list while 3.0 is out (L=weak attack, R=strong attack):

L, L, L ,L

Hold L, L, L, L

R, R, R

Hold R, R, R

L, R, R

R, L, L, L

Much easier to pull off than the current combo

Edited June 24, 2019 by Marvelous_A

[Ham_Grenabe]

11 hours ago, Marvelous_A said:

Most people press W too when they melee coz they want to reach for more enemies (or more likely, just out of convenience).

I think most of us press W with melee because we never actually stop pressing W. I know I don't - melee combat is "W + EEE." Or, in my case - since I put melee attack on my mouse wheel  - W + EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (deep breath) EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

Edited June 24, 2019 by Ham_Grenabe

[DiabolusUrsus]

On 2019-06-23 at 9:18 AM, Teridax68 said:

I think the idea is more that, while heavy attacks would have more damage in proportion to how much slower they are, the purpose for them would be mainly to provide some sort of utility the basic quick attacks wouldn't, i.e. more area of effect, status, or crowd control. Thus, the choice in the player's mind wouldn't necessarily be which mode of DPS to apply (and I agree that that sort of "choice" tends to get solved by factors like enemy levels), but rather whether the player's up against a crowd, whether they want to apply a particular status effect, or disable a target, and so on.

Okay yeah, that's basically what I want out of "charged" heavy attacks. This may just be personal preference on my part, but I find hold inputs to be more intuitive and satisfying for said attacks. As long as they are primarily a source of conditional bonus effects, I'm on-board with that implementation.

On 2019-06-23 at 9:18 AM, Teridax68 said:

I very much agree that fishing for hitboxes is a terrible idea, and it's one of my biggest issues with melee as it currently exists. I do, however, think my proposal could address that more cleanly than switching combos for verticality: if attacks adjust depending on the player's aim or the presence of nearby enemies (e.g. stabbing slightly upward instead of always directly forward when fighting an Osprey), then there may not be a need to differentiate between vertical and horizontal attacks altogether, as any attack could fulfil both functions. Also agreed on being able to mix combos; with a basic EEE and RMB+EEE combo I think the player should be able to alternate between the two simply by holding or releasing the block button (and still keep along the combo chain).

Hunh.

I see what you're saying, and given a demonstration of it working smoothly I wouldn't mind a limited aim-assist for melee hitboxes at all.

However, as a rule I am leery of any sort of aim-assist that noticeably impacts the applicable hitboxes. For example, I might want to hold off hitting that swarm of Corrupted Shield Drones until after dealing with the Healers underneath them, but I could be stuck hitting whichever targets the assist decides are more important.

I'm sure it would be possible to implement something that works well in the majority of cases, but I typically prefer retaining manual control just for simplicity and reliability's sake.

Manual aiming could work, but I think that would create a game dynamic where horizontal sweeps are always preferable on account of potentially hitting more enemies. I think vertically-oriented attacks are important for variety and an "authentic" aesthetic, but if horizontal attacks can do all the same things through aiming I think they'd become animation "duds" within their respective combos.

On 2019-06-23 at 9:18 AM, Teridax68 said:

While there are increasingly more flying/vertical enemies in the game, I'm not sure if having to manually switch to a different mode of attack just for them would necessarily be the smoothest form of combat, especially if the core problem is simply that melee animations are currently stiff and can't be made to aim properly, unlike guns. If a single moveset could accomplish both functions simultaneously, i.e. attacking ground-based enemies and reaching vertical targets, I feel that may make for a more compact system overall.

Honestly, I'm don't think it would be all that much of an issue assuming we

a) get back manual blocking to prevent switching to guns while aiming, and

b) retain a reasonable degree of mobility during combos.

Transitioning would be smoothly instant (just press RMB) and the mobile animations themselves would remove any remaining rough edges.

If making the system compact is that important, I think you could crunch it down even further by scrapping the RMB combo entirely and relying on your proposed aim-assist/manual aiming while using hold inputs for delayed heavy attacks to cover the gaps.

On 2019-06-23 at 9:18 AM, Teridax68 said:

Wouldn't these basically be like the heavy attacks I proposed? I think our models are ultimately very similar, with the distinction being of having combos for vertical or horizontal attacks, plus charged attacks, as opposed to two combos for quick or heavy attacks.

Essentially yes, though I think a key distinguishing factor (as far as you've written, anyway) is that my proposed bonus effects would be combo-multiplier dependent. Rather than have a given heavy attack confer something like a guaranteed proc, it would (depending on mod loadout) provide a bonus to status scaling with combo multiplier.

If you were planning to use combo as a limiting factor as well, then the only real difference between our concepts is that yours has its own combo string whereas mine is just overlaid on top of any other normal attack.

On 2019-06-23 at 9:18 AM, Teridax68 said:

Indeed, that was my thinking as well: we should be able to attack regardless of where we are, and with properly implemented melee attacks, we shouldn't need a dedicated aerial attack move to be able to melee while in mid-air.

Yep! Our movement system is already exceptionally robust - it just needs expanded compatibility with our everyday Tenno activities rather than niche alternatives.

The new Jupiter tileset does a great job of trimming out and adjusting a lot of the little snags that plague other locales (e.g., the lips above doors). I'd really like to see that same consideration carried over into things like melee and gunplay, eliminating awkward maneuvers that break pace/momentum.

On 2019-06-23 at 9:18 AM, Teridax68 said:

This sounds better actually, yeah. There's already a ton of potential for Shadow of the Colossus-style melee combat with the giant enemies we've been given, the only trouble is that a) it's currently impossible to latch onto them, and b) melee would suck against them even if we could. Letting us perform regular attacks while wall latching, without the leap off, would enable that gameplay better if ever implemented.

The closest I have gotten to something like this is with the Ropalolyst during stage 3 (when all its weakpoint hitboxes are gone). It's actually possible to jump on top of it and stay there while comboing for a bit, and it's already incredibly fun to do (albeit, not as effective as just shooting it).

Having the ability to latch on, deal focused damage, and having proper integration like the boss initiating a dive-slam to force you off would really enhance that experience IMO.

On 2019-06-23 at 9:18 AM, Teridax68 said:

This is fair, and I agree that ground slams are already useful as a mobility tool and as a method of ragdolling enemies, so I don't want to really change that (I actually think the ragdolling is currently a little excessive). My one issue with the attack is that, as an attack, ground slamming isn't actually that particularly damaging, and I think it's a missed opportunity in a game like Warframe to not reward the player for precision-landing on top of an enemy from a great height with a ground slam (especially since games like Dishonored or Assassin's Creed show just how fun it can be to assassinate an enemy from a great height). Thus, adding some distance-based scaling to make more prolonged ground slams proportionately more damaging, if only to match the speed at which we can output damage through regular attacks, I think could be a solution to this.

Totally agree with improving the precision efficacy of the slam, as well as adding height scaling. Steve mentioned wanting to add more "heroic" moments, and I honestly think the best way to go about that is expanding feats players can pull off on their own rather than giving us freebie bonus prompts like the zoomed-in last-enemy finishers they teased recently.

[Teridax68]

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Okay yeah, that's basically what I want out of "charged" heavy attacks. This may just be personal preference on my part, but I find hold inputs to be more intuitive and satisfying for said attacks. As long as they are primarily a source of conditional bonus effects, I'm on-board with that implementation.

This is fair, yeah. The scheme I was mainly thinking about, where my own preference likely stems from, was that in Assassin's Creed, at least in the older games, where holding right-click alternated between low- and high-profile moves (low profile being stealthy, and high-profile being fast/better for combat).

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I'm sure it would be possible to implement something that works well in the majority of cases, but I typically prefer retaining manual control just for simplicity and reliability's sake.

Manual aiming could work, but I think that would create a game dynamic where horizontal sweeps are always preferable on account of potentially hitting more enemies. I think vertically-oriented attacks are important for variety and an "authentic" aesthetic, but if horizontal attacks can do all the same things through aiming I think they'd become animation "duds" within their respective combos.

I agree that manual control would likely be better than aim assist, particularly as it would also bring melee weapons closer to guns in how one would be able to aim them (and the fact that melee animations are stiff, whereas our gunplay lets us aim in any direction, I think is a difference that need not exist). Depending on the sweeps, and where they take place, I also feel the issue of reduced importance on some attacks could be avoided: if our quick attacks were mainly made up of relatively short-ranged or otherwise small moves, e.g. quick thrusts or forward sweeps, and our heavy/charged attacks allowed us to hit enemies to our sides or even behind us as we attacked our main target, then every move could have a place, especially if vertical swings were better for headshots, or even simply had more damage than other attacks (and in a simplified combo system where each move were its own individual attack, it could likely be fine for each attack to deal its own amount of damage, in addition to having its own motion and other quirks).

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Transitioning would be smoothly instant (just press RMB) and the mobile animations themselves would remove any remaining rough edges.

If making the system compact is that important, I think you could crunch it down even further by scrapping the RMB combo entirely and relying on your proposed aim-assist/manual aiming while using hold inputs for delayed heavy attacks to cover the gaps.

I think the question here isn't necessarily one of instant inputs (I agree that holding RMB wouldn't make the attacks less responsive), so much as one of having separate movesets based on the angle of one's attacks, and having to alternate between the two based on the target's elevation/head, especially if one could use a single moveset with manual aiming to cover both.

To some extent, I can also agree that the system could be streamlined even further: if one reduced melee down to its barest essentials, and stripped both combo-style moves to one quick attack and one heavy attack, with whichever animation work done to make those attacks smoothly transition and adjust based on aim (and with either blocking or holding to differentiate the two), one could likely still have a solid melee combat model. In fact, with that little work needed for any given moveset, this could justify giving each melee weapon its own innate "stance", instead of remaining in the current situation where melee weapons are just empty shells that mostly compare on raw stats and the occasional gimmick. 

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Essentially yes, though I think a key distinguishing factor (as far as you've written, anyway) is that my proposed bonus effects would be combo-multiplier dependent. Rather than have a given heavy attack confer something like a guaranteed proc, it would (depending on mod loadout) provide a bonus to status scaling with combo multiplier.

If you were planning to use combo as a limiting factor as well, then the only real difference between our concepts is that yours has its own combo string whereas mine is just overlaid on top of any other normal attack.

Indeed, there is a key difference here in that my idea of a combo would mostly just be a string of moves with their own effects, and no persistent combo of counter besides just identifying which move is next in the sequence, whereas you're proposing retaining the combo counter to provide rewards. Either one I think could work fine.

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Yep! Our movement system is already exceptionally robust - it just needs expanded compatibility with our everyday Tenno activities rather than niche alternatives.

The new Jupiter tileset does a great job of trimming out and adjusting a lot of the little snags that plague other locales (e.g., the lips above doors). I'd really like to see that same consideration carried over into things like melee and gunplay, eliminating awkward maneuvers that break pace/momentum.

Agreed completely. There's likely some other post to be made about this, but movement, weapons, and abilities I think are three distinct systems that each accomplish a specific function, and no mechanic within any of those systems should seek to replace the other, or otherwise do something that is already covered well by another system: in this case, while ground slams are okay due to the unique precision repositioning they offer, our melee attacks in general shouldn't move us on their own, at least not in a way that interferes with our regular movement. 

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Having the ability to latch on, deal focused damage, and having proper integration like the boss initiating a dive-slam to force you off would really enhance that experience IMO.

Indeed. This keeps getting mentioned in discussions like these, but there's this whole dimension of boss-related melee combat that really isn't touched upon at all at the moment in Warframe. It would be awesome for large/flying bosses to react to players climbing them for melee damage in ways that would try to dislodge us, and even more broadly, parkour is used far too little in the design of most boss fights, which could be fixed by making melee consistently viable in every fight.

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Totally agree with improving the precision efficacy of the slam, as well as adding height scaling. Steve mentioned wanting to add more "heroic" moments, and I honestly think the best way to go about that is expanding feats players can pull off on their own rather than giving us freebie bonus prompts like the zoomed-in last-enemy finishers they teased recently.

Agreed, and I think "show, don't tell" gets to apply here as well: scripted moves such as finishers can look cool the first few times, but tend to grate afterwards, especially because ultimately they tend to boil down to a generous QTE. By contrast, giving us flexible systems that can create emergent (and awesome situations), such as throwing an enemy into the air and following up with a lethal hit before they hit the ground, or precision-landing directly on top of an enemy from a great height for an instant kill, would be unlikely to get stale, as they'd be the direct product of using our tools to do cool stuff, and show how awesome we are, as opposed to following a prompt to be told the same thing in rigid, cinematic fashion.

[DiabolusUrsus]

I'm taking the liberty of reordering these quotations to guide the relevance of my response.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Indeed, there is a key difference here in that my idea of a combo would mostly just be a string of moves with their own effects, and no persistent combo of counter besides just identifying which move is next in the sequence, whereas you're proposing retaining the combo counter to provide rewards. Either one I think could work fine.

While I agree your system would be viable, I can't agree with tying specific effects to individual attacks within a "string."

Unless I'm overlooking something, that inevitably creates a situation where players need to "fish" for specific attacks within a pool of potentially unwanted/irrelevant other attacks. This would likely be less obtrusive when we have 2 combos consisting of 3-4 attacks each, but I would prefer to avoid it entirely if at all possible.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

To some extent, I can also agree that the system could be streamlined even further: if one reduced melee down to its barest essentials, and stripped both combo-style moves to one quick attack and one heavy attack, with whichever animation work done to make those attacks smoothly transition and adjust based on aim (and with either blocking or holding to differentiate the two), one could likely still have a solid melee combat model.

This would resolve my "fishing" dilemma rather tidily, but I'm concerned that we'd end up roughly back where Melee 1.0 started. It was a perfectly serviceable melee "system," but suffered mainly from lacking variety (only charged attacks were consistently viable, and they all used 1 repeating animation).

The ability to aim would be an upgrade, but wouldn't do much to mitigate the monotony of overly-limited animation sets.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Depending on the sweeps, and where they take place, I also feel the issue of reduced importance on some attacks could be avoided: if our quick attacks were mainly made up of relatively short-ranged or otherwise small moves, e.g. quick thrusts or forward sweeps, and our heavy/charged attacks allowed us to hit enemies to our sides or even behind us as we attacked our main target, then every move could have a place, especially if vertical swings were better for headshots, or even simply had more damage than other attacks (and in a simplified combo system where each move were its own individual attack, it could likely be fine for each attack to deal its own amount of damage, in addition to having its own motion and other quirks).

Oddly enough, this sounds very similar to my proposal of a horizontal + vertical combo pairing, with the main difference being heavy attacks would be better for attacking crowds (wider radial hitboxes) and quick attacks would be better for dealing focused damage to specific targets (small and presumably faster hitboxes).

Personally, I think it makes more sense for the foundational combo (EEE light attacks in your example) to be attuned to the most common combat scenario (attacking disposable crowds) and the "heavy" (RMB+E) combo to be attuned to dealing extra damage/effects to rarer priority targets.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I think the question here isn't necessarily one of instant inputs (I agree that holding RMB wouldn't make the attacks less responsive), so much as one of having separate movesets based on the angle of one's attacks, and having to alternate between the two based on the target's elevation/head, especially if one could use a single moveset with manual aiming to cover both.

Fair enough, and with the inclusion of more flexible manual aiming the need to differentiate combos by attack plane would be significantly reduced.

My main remaining concern at this point is segregating combat functions by COMBO rather than individual attack, with all the individual strikes in a particular string being completely interchangeable.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

In fact, with that little work needed for any given moveset, this could justify giving each melee weapon its own innate "stance", instead of remaining in the current situation where melee weapons are just empty shells that mostly compare on raw stats and the occasional gimmick. 

I would prefer to avoid this, because it is inevitably going to produce the nasty scenario of having a weapon that is aesthetically pleasing but has a dislikeable moveset (or vice-versa).

While I agree that melee weapons within a given grip type need better differentiation than they have currently, I would prefer to accomplish this through unique bonuses and alternate effects (similar to gun alt-fires, if you will).

I think the best way to go with movesets is to simply make the available stances side-grades with mostly aesthetic differences.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Agreed completely. There's likely some other post to be made about this, but movement, weapons, and abilities I think are three distinct systems that each accomplish a specific function, and no mechanic within any of those systems should seek to replace the other, or otherwise do something that is already covered well by another system: in this case, while ground slams are okay due to the unique precision repositioning they offer, our melee attacks in general shouldn't move us on their own, at least not in a way that interferes with our regular movement.

I think a good way to express this would be as a hierarchy of precedence, where movement > combat.

So while engaging in combat should be possible while moving, the player's movement inputs should override their combat inputs when applicable.

e.g., attacking is allowed coming out of a roll, but rolling interrupts any ongoing attack.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Indeed. This keeps getting mentioned in discussions like these, but there's this whole dimension of boss-related melee combat that really isn't touched upon at all at the moment in Warframe. It would be awesome for large/flying bosses to react to players climbing them for melee damage in ways that would try to dislodge us, and even more broadly, parkour is used far too little in the design of most boss fights, which could be fixed by making melee consistently viable in every fight.

+1, and at risk of wandering off topic a bit this closely relates to ensuring mechanical consistency through balance.

Any tool the player is given should be at minimum functional in 100% of game scenarios, even if it's not the most "optimal" solution.

Things like status and melee immunity need to go, like yesterday.

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Agreed, and I think "show, don't tell" gets to apply here as well: scripted moves such as finishers can look cool the first few times, but tend to grate afterwards, especially because ultimately they tend to boil down to a generous QTE. By contrast, giving us flexible systems that can create emergent (and awesome situations), such as throwing an enemy into the air and following up with a lethal hit before they hit the ground, or precision-landing directly on top of an enemy from a great height for an instant kill, would be unlikely to get stale, as they'd be the direct product of using our tools to do cool stuff, and show how awesome we are, as opposed to following a prompt to be told the same thing in rigid, cinematic fashion.

+10.

This could honestly be as simple as expanding corpse gibs and ragdolls, especially when tied to charged "heavy" attacks.

Finishing off that last enemy with a hammer swing that craters them into the nearest wall or pinning them to the ground with a precision slam would be immensely satisfying in its own right, and feel much less "staged."

I strongly feel that Steve's teased "do this special thing to get extra loot" is really the wrong way to approach combat satisfaction... If you have to pay your players to put up with and show interest in your mini-cinematics, that should tell you everything you need to know about how appropriate they are. It will still get some praise, but it's important to stay cognizant of why the players will praise it: the conditioned response to the reward feels good, not the generic stabbing animation with a trendy zoom-in effect.

[MirageKnight]

2 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I strongly feel that Steve's teased "do this special thing to get extra loot" is really the wrong way to approach combat satisfaction...

TBH I feel that the ONLY reason for this is because of the new DOOM coming out. It's basically a "Hey, we have this cool feature too!" move to attract more attention.

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Unless I'm overlooking something, that inevitably creates a situation where players need to "fish" for specific attacks within a pool of potentially unwanted/irrelevant other attacks. This would likely be less obtrusive when we have 2 combos consisting of 3-4 attacks each, but I would prefer to avoid it entirely if at all possible.

This is a possible risk, though ideally one that wouldn't be too big an issue if cycling through with quick attacks was itself quick and useful enough to get to the move one wanted for a specific situation. If a specific move were so good as to be worth using all the time, that would be a different problem.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

This would resolve my "fishing" dilemma rather tidily, but I'm concerned that we'd end up roughly back where Melee 1.0 started. It was a perfectly serviceable melee "system," but suffered mainly from lacking variety (only charged attacks were consistently viable, and they all used 1 repeating animation).

I think the central problem with Melee 1.0, one that has persisted with current melee, is simply that melee weapons themselves are poorly differentiated, much like older guns: aside from the odd unique mechanic, most melee weapons are differentiated only by variations in stats and damage type distributions. If, by contrast, melee weapons received the same love as guns right now, so that each could use its moves for more varied gameplay (especially if the heavy/charged attacks exist to provide utility of some sort, rather than just more damage), one could avoid the problem of older melee models altogether.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Personally, I think it makes more sense for the foundational combo (EEE light attacks in your example) to be attuned to the most common combat scenario (attacking disposable crowds) and the "heavy" (RMB+E) combo to be attuned to dealing extra damage/effects to rarer priority targets.

This could also work, and I think that one could do either, so you could have melee weapons with crowd-oriented basic attacks and heavy attacks focused on single targets (e.g. whips), and others with the reverse model (e.g. nikanas). 

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

My main remaining concern at this point is segregating combat functions by COMBO rather than individual attack, with all the individual strikes in a particular string being completely interchangeable.

I think at that point if the problem is with fishing for individual attacks, then one could simply make all attacks from one combo do the same thing, and all attacks from the other combo do another, with each attack being mostly cosmetic otherwise (which comes down to the ultra-simplified model mentioned above).

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I would prefer to avoid this, because it is inevitably going to produce the nasty scenario of having a weapon that is aesthetically pleasing but has a dislikeable moveset (or vice-versa).

I think the conceptually simple solution to that could simply be to have each newly-obtained melee weapon also add its appearance as a skin for all weapons of similar dimensions: that way, if you really like the look of one particular weapon, but the gameplay of another of the same type, you could still have the best of both worlds. The fact that we're discussing this for melee weapons, though, and not guns, I think itself underlines just how interchangeable melee weapons are with each other right now.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

While I agree that melee weapons within a given grip type need better differentiation than they have currently, I would prefer to accomplish this through unique bonuses and alternate effects (similar to gun alt-fires, if you will).

I think the best way to go with movesets is to simply make the available stances side-grades with mostly aesthetic differences.

My fear with both of these is that this would limit the range of possible unique mechanics one could give to melee weapons, while not fully addressing the issue of homogeneity tied to having many different weapons do essentially the same thing. Alternate effects can be good, but I think could be done much more easily if they had a dedicated move to work with, as opposed to having to be balanced around a variety of different possible attack patterns (e.g. abusing the Sarpa stance's higher rate of gunfire with the Redeemer Prime's high status chance and shot damage).

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I think a good way to express this would be as a hierarchy of precedence, where movement > combat.

So while engaging in combat should be possible while moving, the player's movement inputs should override their combat inputs when applicable.

e.g., attacking is allowed coming out of a roll, but rolling interrupts any ongoing attack.

Agreed fully, one should be able to cancel our attacks as part of our weapon gameplay. In terms of design, though, we shouldn't be making weapons or abilities to provide movement that we can already access, and so any movement should be exceptional in some way, while still being harmonious with our regular traversal.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

+1, and at risk of wandering off topic a bit this closely relates to ensuring mechanical consistency through balance.

Any tool the player is given should be at minimum functional in 100% of game scenarios, even if it's not the most "optimal" solution.

Things like status and melee immunity need to go, like yesterday.

Agreed 100%, immunities have never worked well in Warframe, and routinely lead to frustrating and one-dimensional combat.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

+10.

This could honestly be as simple as expanding corpse gibs and ragdolls, especially when tied to charged "heavy" attacks.

Agreed. An idea I had regarding dismemberment was that any exceptional amount of overkill damage should gib the victim, regardless of status effect, and especially work on body part hits. Thus, landing that really heavy strike should splatter an enemy, and landing that sniper headshot should consistently pop the victim's head for a high moment.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Finishing off that last enemy with a hammer swing that craters them into the nearest wall or pinning them to the ground with a precision slam would be immensely satisfying in its own right, and feel much less "staged."

Agreed as well, exaggerating the impact of our last strike, including by giving enemies special death animations without the need for a cutscene, could neatly signal an end to a good fight in cinematic fashion, without forcing us into the role of a passive observer.

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I strongly feel that Steve's teased "do this special thing to get extra loot" is really the wrong way to approach combat satisfaction... If you have to pay your players to put up with and show interest in your mini-cinematics, that should tell you everything you need to know about how appropriate they are. It will still get some praise, but it's important to stay cognizant of why the players will praise it: the conditioned response to the reward feels good, not the generic stabbing animation with a trendy zoom-in effect.

Those were my thoughts exactly: the moment I heard that finishers would drop extra loot, I a) immediately shuddered at the possible finisher-centric farm strats that would emerge, and b) felt like the new mechanic was basically just bribing players to use a move that is currently undesirable, without actually addressing why that move type doesn't get used (it's slow and takes agency away from the player for a bit). We don't need loot enhancers, nor do we need finishers, and I think trying to force an unnecessary mechanic that nobody wants, and incur significantly more animation work in the process in an already packed Melee 3.0 pipeline, is completely counterproductive.

[George_PPS]

These extremely complex melee bindings should be greatly simplified if possible to make them may be just 3 universal types for all melees or for each melee type. Who can possibly remember all different bindings for all different melee weapons? Most players like me are just doing E E E.....

 

[SableSonata]

27 minutes ago, George_PPS said:

These extremely complex melee bindings should be greatly simplified if possible to make them may be just 3 universal types for all melees or for each melee type. Who can possibly remember all different bindings for all different melee weapons? Most players like me are just doing E E E.....

 

If I'm not mistaken, this is the plan for the future. While the specific combos may be different, all weapons will have the same basic combo inputs and each of the inputs will be tied consistently to a certain function (Gap-closer, CC, DPS, AOE, I think is the intent). Though as most people have realized, the gap closer is probably going to be bad no matter what, CC can be taken care of with a quick jump slam, and with one of the combos being just overridden (most people are just going to be holding forward all the time, making the neutral combo pointless), there's really only one combo.

But, as long as that combo doesn't restrict or control my movement, that's all I need, so it's all good.

[George_PPS]

1 hour ago, SableSonata said:

If I'm not mistaken, this is the plan for the future. While the specific combos may be different, all weapons will have the same basic combo inputs and each of the inputs will be tied consistently to a certain function (Gap-closer, CC, DPS, AOE, I think is the intent). Though as most people have realized, the gap closer is probably going to be bad no matter what, CC can be taken care of with a quick jump slam, and with one of the combos being just overridden (most people are just going to be holding forward all the time, making the neutral combo pointless), there's really only one combo.

But, as long as that combo doesn't restrict or control my movement, that's all I need, so it's all good.

I totally agree. I also hope that the slide attack style is maintained in the following major updates as it’s one of the most effective attack styles. If the new system can keep slide attack’s effectiveness plus all the new proposed changes you mentioned, Warframe’s melee will become one of the best if not the best melee compact systems of all similar games. 

[DiabolusUrsus]

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

This is a possible risk, though ideally one that wouldn't be too big an issue if cycling through with quick attacks was itself quick and useful enough to get to the move one wanted for a specific situation. If a specific move were so good as to be worth using all the time, that would be a different problem.

I believe this problem asserts itself no matter what. Either the player is sifting through several useless attacks to reach the useful one, or they are sifting through technically useful attacks which happen to not apply to the immediate circumstance (and are therefore effectively just as "useless").

I don't think that asking players to memorize strings of unique attacks is really in keeping with the spirit of simplifying the bindings, though. It could certainly be functional, but I don't think it would be appropriate.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I think the central problem with Melee 1.0, one that has persisted with current melee, is simply that melee weapons themselves are poorly differentiated, much like older guns: aside from the odd unique mechanic, most melee weapons are differentiated only by variations in stats and damage type distributions. If, by contrast, melee weapons received the same love as guns right now, so that each could use its moves for more varied gameplay (especially if the heavy/charged attacks exist to provide utility of some sort, rather than just more damage), one could avoid the problem of older melee models altogether.

To home in on this point a bit, I think that the critical flaw with the homogeneity between weapons mostly applies to homogeneity between weapon types rather than individual weapons.

For example, swords, dual swords, machetes, and nikanas are all effectively interchangeable save for the stats. We even have weapons that just straight-up borrow stances while arguably qualifying as entirely distinct weapon types (Dual Zoren, Dual Kamas, and every single Scythe if DE actually moves forward with band-aiding the movesets into heavy blades).

I don't think that a lack of functional difference between Skana and Cronus is necessarily a big deal, but the lack of significant difference between Skana and Heat Dagger certainly is.

Thus, I would very much like to prioritize diversifying grip types over diversifying individual weapons, with weapon-specific flavor applied further down the line.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

This could also work, and I think that one could do either, so you could have melee weapons with crowd-oriented basic attacks and heavy attacks focused on single targets (e.g. whips), and others with the reverse model (e.g. nikanas).

Yes, that's definitely something that could work nicely. I'd fold it into grip type diversity. For example:

Daggers trade low damage and range for attack speed, higher heavy multipliers, and generous parrying options.

This creates a dynamic where a dagger "playstyle" tends to be a more in-your-face stream of fast attacks quickly accumulating multipliers for picking off heavier targets and deflecting incoming attacks without really breaking stride.

Heavy Blades/Hammers would obviously be the opposite end of that spectrum, but there are lots of fairly unique grips to address in-between.

Just spitballing here, but:

Scythes could be given increased range/damage at the expense of narrower "ideal" hitboxes (requiring more precise positioning) with their RMB combo giving players options for throwing/pulling enemies into the kill zone.

Blade+Whips could benefit from the 2-combo setup, with each combo emphasizing blade/whip strikes respectively.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I think at that point if the problem is with fishing for individual attacks, then one could simply make all attacks from one combo do the same thing, and all attacks from the other combo do another, with each attack being mostly cosmetic otherwise (which comes down to the ultra-simplified model mentioned above).

Yep, exactly. Separate combos do separate things, with the constituent animations simply serving to help maintain variety.

If the player is regularly switching between combos to attack different threats and both combos share the same "sequence" (e.g., E>E>RMB+E yields the first two attacks from the main combo and the third from the alternate combo), I think that would yield a seamlessly flexible input system with plenty of emergent variations.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I think the conceptually simple solution to that could simply be to have each newly-obtained melee weapon also add its appearance as a skin for all weapons of similar dimensions: that way, if you really like the look of one particular weapon, but the gameplay of another of the same type, you could still have the best of both worlds.

That would certainly address the aesthetic/practical dilemma, but such a system hinges on each individual weapon being treated as roughly equal. After all, the value of a uniquely interesting moveset is diminished if the player is expected to move on to stronger (higher MR) variations.

I would certainly prefer a Warframe where individual weapons are not limited to arbitrary progression tiers, but within the scope of the current paradigm I would find having fun movesets stuck to "weak" weapons extremely grating.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

The fact that we're discussing this for melee weapons, though, and not guns, I think itself underlines just how interchangeable melee weapons are with each other right now.

I think that this discussion applies to guns as well; after all there is some noticeable homogeneity between almost all automatic weapons. Braton plays pretty much the same as Karak, Stradavar, and even Akstiletto (crossing the primary/secondary distinction). The most "unique" automatics are even those with abilities that let them STOP being automatics!

However, I'll point out that the main reason it's less of an issue for guns is because they maintain proper distinction between "types." Automatics feel very different from DMRs, shotguns, bows, and launchers. I think melee needs that same type-based diversity as a starting point, with the nature of the game (MR-based vertical progression) excusing the number of "duplicate" weapons somewhat until proper weapon-specific twists (akin to alt-fires) can be added.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

My fear with both of these is that this would limit the range of possible unique mechanics one could give to melee weapons, while not fully addressing the issue of homogeneity tied to having many different weapons do essentially the same thing.

Certainly a valid concern, especially given the ridiculous surplus of duplicates we have saturating some grip-types (cough dual swords cough). I believe it would be possible to address, but addressing it properly would require drafting detailed concepts of variety between grips (swords vs. dual swords) and weapons (heat sword vs. skana), so I'd like to table it temporarily.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Alternate effects can be good, but I think could be done much more easily if they had a dedicated move to work with, as opposed to having to be balanced around a variety of different possible attack patterns (e.g. abusing the Sarpa stance's higher rate of gunfire with the Redeemer Prime's high status chance and shot damage).

Interesting example! However, in this case I think that the gunfire doesn't belong on either combo at all; it belongs on charged/heavy attacks consuming combo multiplier as "ammunition" so to speak.

Thus, Redeemer and Sarpa would have their own fixed fire-rates independent of any stance.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Agreed. An idea I had regarding dismemberment was that any exceptional amount of overkill damage should gib the victim, regardless of status effect, and especially work on body part hits. Thus, landing that really heavy strike should splatter an enemy, and landing that sniper headshot should consistently pop the victim's head for a high moment.

+100. Yes, please.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Agreed as well, exaggerating the impact of our last strike, including by giving enemies special death animations without the need for a cutscene, could neatly signal an end to a good fight in cinematic fashion, without forcing us into the role of a passive observer.

This really underscores my dislike of existing finishers. Stealth finishers are ok to have (they need simplification, though) because stealth is slower and depends more on the "guaranteed" kill, but counterattack/ground finishers really don't belong in their current form.

2 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Those were my thoughts exactly: the moment I heard that finishers would drop extra loot, I a) immediately shuddered at the possible finisher-centric farm strats that would emerge, and b) felt like the new mechanic was basically just bribing players to use a move that is currently undesirable, without actually addressing why that move type doesn't get used (it's slow and takes agency away from the player for a bit). We don't need loot enhancers, nor do we need finishers, and I think trying to force an unnecessary mechanic that nobody wants, and incur significantly more animation work in the process in an already packed Melee 3.0 pipeline, is completely counterproductive.

+1000.

[Teridax68]

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I believe this problem asserts itself no matter what. Either the player is sifting through several useless attacks to reach the useful one, or they are sifting through technically useful attacks which happen to not apply to the immediate circumstance (and are therefore effectively just as "useless").

I don't think that asking players to memorize strings of unique attacks is really in keeping with the spirit of simplifying the bindings, though. It could certainly be functional, but I don't think it would be appropriate.

This is fair, but then can be said for any combo, including Melee 2.0 combos, as their functional purpose is for the player to go through the motions to eventually achieve some result at the combo string's conclusion. In that sense, getting rid of combo strings altogether would solve the issue.

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

To home in on this point a bit, I think that the critical flaw with the homogeneity between weapons mostly applies to homogeneity between weapon types rather than individual weapons.

For example, swords, dual swords, machetes, and nikanas are all effectively interchangeable save for the stats. We even have weapons that just straight-up borrow stances while arguably qualifying as entirely distinct weapon types (Dual Zoren, Dual Kamas, and every single Scythe if DE actually moves forward with band-aiding the movesets into heavy blades).

I don't think that a lack of functional difference between Skana and Cronus is necessarily a big deal, but the lack of significant difference between Skana and Heat Dagger certainly is.

Thus, I would very much like to prioritize diversifying grip types over diversifying individual weapons, with weapon-specific flavor applied further down the line.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, and I do think homogeneity among weapons of the same type is a problem as well, because these weapons come attached with stats. It is wasteful to have multiple weapons act the same way in this manner, because melee weapons need to be released with their own stats and mechanics, all of which end up amounting to nought if the most statistically efficient variant prevails. Thus, if homogeneity within grip types is the intent, one may as well simply have only as many melee weapons as there are grip types, turn all different weapons of the same type into skins, and all unique weapon mechanics into mods.

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Yes, that's definitely something that could work nicely. I'd fold it into grip type diversity. For example:

Daggers trade low damage and range for attack speed, higher heavy multipliers, and generous parrying options.

This creates a dynamic where a dagger "playstyle" tends to be a more in-your-face stream of fast attacks quickly accumulating multipliers for picking off heavier targets and deflecting incoming attacks without really breaking stride.

Heavy Blades/Hammers would obviously be the opposite end of that spectrum, but there are lots of fairly unique grips to address in-between.

Just spitballing here, but:

Scythes could be given increased range/damage at the expense of narrower "ideal" hitboxes (requiring more precise positioning) with their RMB combo giving players options for throwing/pulling enemies into the kill zone.

Blade+Whips could benefit from the 2-combo setup, with each combo emphasizing blade/whip strikes respectively.

All of these sound excellent. Regardless of our split on individual weapons vs. grip types, the models you are proposing are all good to follow, and fit the weapons they'd apply to.

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

That would certainly address the aesthetic/practical dilemma, but such a system hinges on each individual weapon being treated as roughly equal. After all, the value of a uniquely interesting moveset is diminished if the player is expected to move on to stronger (higher MR) variations.

I would certainly prefer a Warframe where individual weapons are not limited to arbitrary progression tiers, but within the scope of the current paradigm I would find having fun movesets stuck to "weak" weapons extremely grating.

Agreed completely, and this I think applies to guns as well. I do not see any value in arbitrarily defining some weapons as stronger or weaker than others based off some arbitrary progression threshold, and I'd rather make all weapons equally powerful, instead establishing MR weapon tiers based on quirkiness, complexity, and difficulty of use (i.e. start with simpler weapons, then introduce weapons with alt-fires, success conditions such as the Dual Toxocyst's headshot bonus, quirky modes of fire or attack, and so on). So far, MR power tiers have only served to further enforce a meta of optimal weapons versus MR fodder, to the detriment of diversity overall.

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I think that this discussion applies to guns as well; after all there is some noticeable homogeneity between almost all automatic weapons. Braton plays pretty much the same as Karak, Stradavar, and even Akstiletto (crossing the primary/secondary distinction). The most "unique" automatics are even those with abilities that let them STOP being automatics!

However, I'll point out that the main reason it's less of an issue for guns is because they maintain proper distinction between "types." Automatics feel very different from DMRs, shotguns, bows, and launchers. I think melee needs that same type-based diversity as a starting point, with the nature of the game (MR-based vertical progression) excusing the number of "duplicate" weapons somewhat until proper weapon-specific twists (akin to alt-fires) can be added.

This I can largely agree with, though I also feel the homogeneity of older guns is still an issue that causes specific weapons to dominate over others on pure stats. Thus, while there's not as much of a problem, there's still a problem nonetheless of weapons that are currently redundant or mutually exclusive to each other's viability.

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Certainly a valid concern, especially given the ridiculous surplus of duplicates we have saturating some grip-types (cough dual swords cough). I believe it would be possible to address, but addressing it properly would require drafting detailed concepts of variety between grips (swords vs. dual swords) and weapons (heat sword vs. skana), so I'd like to table it temporarily.

This is fair. I don't think one necessarily has to define every single unique mechanic for every single melee weapon to make the point, but I think we can both agree that some degree of differentiation across melee weapons is needed, whether it be at the level of the grip type or the individual weapon.

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Interesting example! However, in this case I think that the gunfire doesn't belong on either combo at all; it belongs on charged/heavy attacks consuming combo multiplier as "ammunition" so to speak.

Thus, Redeemer and Sarpa would have their own fixed fire-rates independent of any stance.

Agreed completely, though I think the more general point still stands that, unless stances only serve a purely aesthetic function, they are likely to favor certain mechanics over others, which introduces a meta-balancing concern and its own degree of complexity. 

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

This really underscores my dislike of existing finishers. Stealth finishers are ok to have (they need simplification, though) because stealth is slower and depends more on the "guaranteed" kill, but counterattack/ground finishers really don't belong in their current form.

Indeed. So long as finishers slow us down and make us less able to do what we'd want to do in combat (including stealth combat, which may include quickly killing a nearby enemy after assassinating the first), they will remain undesirable, so the best course of action should be to either streamline them (in which case they may as well be regular attacks), or remove them outright.