My Melee 3.0 concerns

[Fuzzorz]

For a second time i need to suggest Assigning What combo inputs are for each combo, and more options for combo inputs. For disabled melee lockon moving in a direction is how you melee in a direction i.e melee 9 o'clock while aiming 12 o'clock like most other 3rd person hack and slash. The issue of a single combo having no directional input means you need to point in a direction then pause then attack(so now every stance will a movement pause combo?).... If the ^+aim+melee input was the only directional combo it would be perfect, but  the opposite was done.This NEED'S to change or its is a step back for how melee works not forward.Whoever decided on the new combo inputs has never played Dark Souls 🧂

 

TLDR: Read ^

Edited July 19, 2019 by Fuzzorz

[Steel_Rook]

Realistically speaking, what even IS the point of having multiple combos per weapon? I can see maybe having a couple, but why bother with a full four like the reworked Wukong has? Slash the number of combos available to each stance, split up existing stances into a bunch of different ones and you're set. No need to worry about control inputs if you only have a couple of combos to do. Also...

 

16 hours ago, Fuzzorz said:

Whoever decided on the new combo inputs has never played Dark Souls 🧂

Good. Warframe is not Dark Souls and wouldn't benefit from that kind of slow, static, manual-lock-on combat to begin with.

[Birdframe_Prime]

The reason we have the new setup, according to DE, is because it's a stepping stone to the next point. They're getting us used to the idea that we have a combo for damage when standing still, a combo for movement and clearing a few enemies as we go, a combo for performing area-of-effect attacks and a combo for quickly closing the distance to a targeted enemy.

After this they'll be introducing some fairly major changes, such as the Heavy Attacks which can be worked into combos on the fly and have specific modding around them, the removal of the Combo Counter Scaling and replacing it with a new trick that uses the combo counter as a resource, maybe introducing a 'devil trigger' mode that replaces the Channelling function and uses the Combo Counter as its fuel.

As a result, all the melee weapons will be having a balance pass to buff their base damage and/or supplementals, melee ranges on most weapons will be buffed and the range mods will be dialled back to compensate. They even previewed a particular function I think you might like, which is that once they have this system in place there will be better enemy locking as long as you're in melee mode and have 'enemy lock on' ticked on in your settings, where if you dive-roll sideways, it will not only do a shorter, sharper roll, it will circle the enemy and maintain the lock on.

The whole idea is that melee is genuinely, completely changing, and this is just a precursor to check that the base functions actually do function. Iron out the kinks, like... the way the Scanners and things un-equip when you melee now instead of being something you can keep active and use melee if an enemy is threatening you.

So your concerns? Wait and see. If you're not pleasantly surprised by the changes, then come on back and propose some more.

[(XBOX)DA ZACHYZACHY]

My take on this is that they should scrap/improve the combo system. Spamming and holding a button isn’t very interesting, nor is it necessary. Melee needs more attacks, like a ground sweep and a heavy attack that you don’t need to spam attack for. 

I find my targets are already dead anyway...

[Fuzzorz]

On 2019-07-18 at 9:27 AM, Steel_Rook said:

Realistically speaking, what even IS the point of having multiple combos per weapon? I can see maybe having a couple, but why bother with a full four like the reworked Wukong has? Slash the number of combos available to each stance, split up existing stances into a bunch of different ones and you're set. No need to worry about control inputs if you only have a couple of combos to do. Also...

 

Good. Warframe is not Dark Souls and wouldn't benefit from that kind of slow, static, manual-lock-on combat to begin with.

My exact words were "For DISABLED melee lockon moving in a direction is how you melee in a direction". Maybe read the whole post. I dont use lockon in Dark souls,I dont want a lockon dependent melee system.But it looks like DE is making Devil May Warframe. 

 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Fuzzorz

[Aldain]

On 2019-07-18 at 8:27 AM, Steel_Rook said:

Good. Warframe is not Dark Souls and wouldn't benefit from that kind of slow, static, manual-lock-on combat to begin with.

I applauded so hard for this comment I bruised my hands.

[Fuzzorz]

On 2019-07-18 at 10:58 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

The reason we have the new setup, according to DE, is because it's a stepping stone to the next point. They're getting us used to the idea that we have a combo for damage when standing still, a combo for movement and clearing a few enemies as we go, a combo for performing area-of-effect attacks and a combo for quickly closing the distance to a targeted enemy.

So your concerns? Wait and see. If you're not pleasantly surprised by the changes, then come on back and propose some more.

I dont know about you but i dont stand still when i melee/shoot or anything when playing warframe except hacking.  I dont need to wait and see, i was here for Stam bars, DE isnt infaillible hence my concerns. Again this whole issue can be fixed with assignable combos.Just let us decide what we want  for inputs, not a hard fix and everyone is happy.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Fuzzorz

[Fuzzorz]

7 minutes ago, Aldain said:

I applauded so hard for this comment I bruised my hands.

is this for Fanboi remarks or feedback? We get it. You like warframe more than other games.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Fuzzorz

[Genitive]

On 2019-07-18 at 3:27 PM, Steel_Rook said:

Realistically speaking, what even IS the point of having multiple combos per weapon?

Even if combos aren't practical I appreciate variety. For me personally, it would be boring to have only one/two combos per weapon. And now they're attempting to make combos have specific functions, so it's even better.

What they did with Wukong's staff is pretty good, so I'm mostly optimistic, at least regarding the combos.

Now if they only updated us on next steps...

Edited July 19, 2019 by Genitive

[Aldain]

2 minutes ago, Fuzzorz said:

is this for Fanboi remarks or feedback? ffs

It is feedback, feedback indicating I agree with Rook.

The forward combos are much better than the pause ones are currently, I constantly lag in and out of them if the connection to the host is bad.

Also dropping the "Dark Souls melee combat is better" thing isn't going to win you any points from me because DS is deliberately weighty and classically clunky as a design choice that is supported by the rest of the game mechanically, where as Warframe is near weightless and fluid to a fault (the aim combos are still coded weird right now in my opinion) so it would be impossible to copy that system in any way without messing with many other aspects of the game.

[Fuzzorz]

You are arguing with no one. i dont want dark souls combat. It was an example of basic movement function. You still dont get it. You are agreeing with someone that was wrong about what i said in the first place. 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Fuzzorz

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Fuzzorz said:

DE isnt infaillible hence my concerns

And yet we haven't seen all the changes. You can't presume failure before the outset, otherwise you will completely miss the positives when it happens.

DE aren't perfect, but what they do is actually fix the problems with things they implement. We'll never stop them from implementing something, but we can give the feedback that fixes it after they do.

So when you look at the current state of Melee, you have to take that in mind; it's still being changed, they aren't done. Watch and see, then when you see it, give the feedback, because this current state is not staying as-is, and the state we've had previews of is still disconnected and may make complete and total sense when we actually get it put together.

[Steel_Rook]

3 hours ago, Genitive said:

Even if combos aren't practical I appreciate variety. For me personally, it would be boring to have only one/two combos per weapon. And now they're attempting to make combos have specific functions, so it's even better.

Do you actually use all of the combos available to a weapon, though? Honest question. I'm not opposed to having the option to choose between multiple combos. Indeed, one of the most important parts of picking a good weapon for me personally is finding a stance with animations I like. I absolutely hated the Skana when using the old Quick Melee, for instance (because my Warframe wielded it like a fly swatter), but I picked up a Prisma Skana from a recent Baro visit and have fallen in love with the Crimson Dervish attack animations. Same weapon, same stats, effectively the same combos (just mash attack and don't worry about it), but infinitely more enjoyable because my Warframe wields it with such grace.

My problem is more so with trying to cram four combos onto a weapon, all of which are essentially interchangeable, and one or two of which are actually terrible. When I use my Paracesis, I use pretty much only the Cleaving Whirlwind -> Broken Bull combo. When I use my Arca Titron, I use pretty much only the Crushing Ruin -> Raging Whirlwind combo. I can see the point of adding maybe a couple of combos per weapon - light/heavy, static/mobile, AoE/single-targer, etc. But having a whole host of four combos seems needless.

And I say "needless" because having too many combos starts causing input issues. You end up having to trigger combos off of gun aim, or holding a particular direction which doesn't always correspond to how the combo moves, or pauses or holding buttons and so on. By contrast, having a single combo achieved by mashing buttons and maybe another, heavier combo achieved by chaining held attacks together would, in my opinion, be more than enough variety without having to worry about extra control inputs.

Others have talked about customising our own combos. I don't expect we'll ever get a full combo customisation system ala Remember Me (nor should we, that was a terrible idea), but I would like to have the ability to swap inputs around on Stance combos. You could have Stances come with 4-6 combos, allowing you to pick 2 to take into battle with you. That should offer enough visual variety to be exciting, enough versatility to vary up your melee arsenal AND avoid causing control input issues at the same time.

 

30 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

So when you look at the current state of Melee, you have to take that in mind; it's still being changed, they aren't done. Watch and see, then when you see it, give the feedback, because this current state is not staying as-is, and the state we've had previews of is still disconnected and may make complete and total sense when we actually get it put together.

While that's true, we do get an idea of what they're planning by observing Wukong's reworked Iron Staff combos. That weapon retains all four of its combos, and as a result has double-button-hold mechanic in order to access one of them. Even assuming DE will find a way around using a "gun key" (i.e. aim down sights) to trigger melee combos without swapping away from the melee weapon temporarily, you're still left with a combo which requires holding Aim + Forward + mashing attack. Considering three of his four combos are basically the same combo with different attack animations, it seems to me that Melee 3.0 is still going to come out overly complicated and padded with redundant but very expensive-to-make animations, just like Melee 2.0.

Me personally, I'd rather have fewer but more mechanically distinct combos, with potentially some amount of customisation in terms of which combos we trigger by what inputs. I brought up the Raging Bull combo above. If I had the option to do so, I'd trigger that combo just off of mashing attack, rather than doing a short pause or holding aim. Just as an example.

[Genitive]

14 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Do you actually use all of the combos available to a weapon, though?

Yeah, pretty much, unless it's uncomfortable to use, like one of the Craving Mantis combos, where you have to press left, Sundering Weave is also a bad stance. But if I like the stance I generally try using all the combos.

17 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

And I say "needless" because having too many combos starts causing input issues. You end up having to trigger combos off of gun aim, or holding a particular direction which doesn't always correspond to how the combo moves, or pauses or holding buttons and so on.

This is the thing I like about the melee 3.0 stances rework, that it cuts down the number of inputs and makes them the same across all the stances. I agree that now some of them are annoying to use now, like hold combos, but this should be alleviated eventually. And based on Wukong it seems we will have much more control over combos, since you don't have to wait until the end of the combo or stop attacking to perform a different one.

The problem I have is that we have no idea what DE are going to do with the rest of the system – blocking, charge attacks, etc. But what they're doing with stances seems fine to me.

[Fuzzorz]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

And yet we haven't seen all the changes. You can't presume failure before the outset, otherwise you will completely miss the positives when it happens.

DE aren't perfect, but what they do is actually fix the problems with things they implement. We'll never stop them from implementing something, but we can give the feedback that fixes it after they do.

So when you look at the current state of Melee, you have to take that in mind; it's still being changed, they aren't done. Watch and see, then when you see it, give the feedback, because this current state is not staying as-is, and the state we've had previews of is still disconnected and may make complete and total sense when we actually get it put together.

All i'm suggesting is the choice to change inputs. How is a suggestion of having the option a reason for you to dissuade me  when i can clearly see what they plan for all stances inputs with wukong? 

[Fuzzorz]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

Me personally, I'd rather have fewer but more mechanically distinct combos, with potentially some amount of customisation in terms of which combos we trigger by what inputs. I brought up the Raging Bull combo above. If I had the option to do so, I'd trigger that combo just off of mashing attack, rather than doing a short pause or holding aim. Just as an example.

I agree with most of what you said but this is my main point ^ people would have never complained about pause combos if we could do this from the start.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Us console users are very limited with buttons. Wukong Iron Staff is okay in my book. Just wish we can just hold Melee Attack button rather than mash it. Attack speed and melee doesn't mix well. Archmelee has an auto lock feature if that's what you guys want. It's weird, but it is lock on.

[Steel_Rook]

12 hours ago, Genitive said:

Yeah, pretty much, unless it's uncomfortable to use, like one of the Craving Mantis combos, where you have to press left, Sundering Weave is also a bad stance. But if I like the stance I generally try using all the combos.

Fair enough, I guess. Whenever a game gives me combos, I tend to find one or two which work well and stick to them. That makes the combat system easier to commit to muscle memory and easier to remember if I don't play for a while.

I do wonder, though - are you trying to use all of the combos for the sake of visual variety, or in an attempt to use all of the game's systems? I ask, because the former can be addressed via cosmetic alterations to combo attacks, rather than having entire separate combos. Imagine a theoretical four-hit combo, where every hit has three separate animations. Every time you go through the combo, a random animation is selected for every attack such that the combo is almost never the same over its entire chain. Would something like that be a good substitute for having a larger number of manually-triggered combos?

Or alternately, take the above-mentioned combo with random animations, and let players manually pick the animation they want. We can already customise our Warframe's idle animation. If a player doesn't like randomness but really likes a particular chain of animations, could we maybe let that player pick-and-choose the attacks their Warframe goes through? I'm envisioning this being purely cosmetic, of course, with all attacks in a given "slot" having roughly the same speed and resulting in basically the same combo, but just looking different. Mostly saying this so as to not force people into randomness they might not enjoy.

 

12 hours ago, Genitive said:

This is the thing I like about the melee 3.0 stances rework, that it cuts down the number of inputs and makes them the same across all the stances. I agree that now some of them are annoying to use now, like hold combos, but this should be alleviated eventually. And based on Wukong it seems we will have much more control over combos, since you don't have to wait until the end of the combo or stop attacking to perform a different one.

We do have better control over Wukong's Iron Staff combos, this is true. Dropping wait combos and hold combos is a step in the right direction. I even like the ADS combos, to be perfectly honest. The problem is that right now, Wukong makes extensive use of non-melee controls in melee combos, causing players to pull out their guns temporarily. Sure, if you do it fast enough the transition is almost imperceptible, but you're still having to hold "aim with gun, sheath melee" in order to pull off a melee combo. Maybe that's not going to be the case come Melee 3.0, we obviously don't know. I'm not entirely sure what they COULD use, however, short of creating more buttons. Holding a direction does "sort of" work, but it creates weird situations such as having to deliberately stop moving in order to trigger a combo, else you end up triggering another one because you held down Forward.

The reason I proposed pairing melee weapons down to just 2 combos is because it allows us to use purely melee controls to trigger them. One could be triggered by mashing the melee attack key, the other can be triggered by chaining charged attacks.

 

10 hours ago, (PS4)jaggerwanderer said:

Us console users are very limited with buttons. Wukong Iron Staff is okay in my book. Just wish we can just hold Melee Attack button rather than mash it. Attack speed and melee doesn't mix well. Archmelee has an auto lock feature if that's what you guys want. It's weird, but it is lock on.

I've thought about this as well. Just let people hold down the melee attack key in order to continuously loop through a melee combo. After all, plenty of our guns are capable of firing on their own as we hold down the fire button. I think with melee, though, the distinction between "press" and "hold" is a bit too important to just discard, as I feel that can be used to trigger alternate combos as I said before. I don't believe it should be used to fire gunblades or throw throwable melee weapons, incidentally. I'd personally rather tie THAT to aiming with a firearm and then pressing melee. Thrown and shooting melee weapons use firearm mechanics, so they may as well be tied to firearm controls.

[Genitive]

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I do wonder, though - are you trying to use all of the combos for the sake of visual variety, or in an attempt to use all of the game's systems?

Just for variety, differences in utility between combos are minimal. But if they group them by function and it works well, then I suppose I will utilise the combos as a game mechanic rather than cosmetic thing.

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Imagine a theoretical four-hit combo, where every hit has three separate animations. Every time you go through the combo, a random animation is selected for every attack such that the combo is almost never the same over its entire chain. Would something like that be a good substitute for having a larger number of manually-triggered combos?

That sounds too random, I prefer to have control over what combos I execute.

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Or alternately, take the above-mentioned combo with random animations, and let players manually pick the animation they want. We can already customise our Warframe's idle animation. If a player doesn't like randomness but really likes a particular chain of animations, could we maybe let that player pick-and-choose the attacks their Warframe goes through? I'm envisioning this being purely cosmetic, of course, with all attacks in a given "slot" having roughly the same speed and resulting in basically the same combo, but just looking different. Mostly saying this so as to not force people into randomness they might not enjoy.

Sounds better, maybe in the future they might implement custom stances, who knows?

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

We do have better control over Wukong's Iron Staff combos, this is true. Dropping wait combos and hold combos is a step in the right direction. I even like the ADS combos, to be perfectly honest. The problem is that right now, Wukong makes extensive use of non-melee controls in melee combos, causing players to pull out their guns temporarily. Sure, if you do it fast enough the transition is almost imperceptible, but you're still having to hold "aim with gun, sheath melee" in order to pull off a melee combo. Maybe that's not going to be the case come Melee 3.0, we obviously don't know. I'm not entirely sure what they COULD use, however, short of creating more buttons. Holding a direction does "sort of" work, but it creates weird situations such as having to deliberately stop moving in order to trigger a combo, else you end up triggering another one because you held down Forward.

I agree on the inputs. RMB is not ideal currently. But I don't think there is a perfect solution for this, they could squish the bug that swaps to gun after RMB combo or return manual blocking as a totally new key bind. Or do something else entirely.

[Steel_Rook]

39 minutes ago, Genitive said:

Just for variety, differences in utility between combos are minimal. But if they group them by function and it works well, then I suppose I will utilise the combos as a game mechanic rather than cosmetic thing.

Got it, thank you for the perspective. I feel the feel and pace of combat would benefit from combos constituting mechanically different, situational game mechanics, but I think I see what you're saying now. Fair enough.

 

42 minutes ago, Genitive said:

I agree on the inputs. RMB is not ideal currently. But I don't think there is a perfect solution for this, they could squish the bug that swaps to gun after RMB combo or return manual blocking as a totally new key bind. Or do something else entirely.

True, though there are a few solutions. One of them is reducing the number of combos available to players at any one time, which is why I've brought it up a few times. We've established you're not a fan of it, so moving on. There's the option of introducing a brand new keybind to hold or to press, either a mode change or a separate "heavy attack." Additional controls would definitely make melee combat more involved, but I'm not sure Warframe really merits this much melee complexity and it's an extra keybind that gamepads might not have room for.

Another option would be to use movement directions as combo modifiers, which is what Wukong's Iron Staff does. This can actually work pretty well, but it comes with the heavy caveat that combos must correspond in some way to the direction held. That is to say, the Forward + Melee combo must be in some way advancing, while the Back + Melee combo must be static. The problem is that auto-advancing combos can be problematic, as they often include massive uncontrolled lunges which keep lunging me off the map. A lot of existing combos which use this mechanic further don't actually match their own control inputs, such as holding Back for a combo which ends up advancing and doing jump flips.

There's another option still. A while ago, someone proposed decoupling "aim" from firearms and making it into a hybrid firearm/melee key. It would offer a standard very slight zoom (the same as your average pistol) but not actually pull out a gun. If the player were to attempt to fire, THEN their gun would appear and shoot, but not before. This allows the key to be used for melee with less awkwardness and random scope zooms, as well as to be used to target ranged attacks with melee weapons (Glaves and Gunblades, as I said). This system could retain the existing "hold aim to modify combo" without feeling like I'm randomly reusing my gun controls.

Honestly, I don't know that any of what I've said is actually a good approach, but troubleshooting hypothetical melee systems can be fun in its own way 🙂