Auto Block MUST DIE

[AreeSoothsayer]

I've been patient.

I've been polite, if a bit whiny.

No more.

 

For the past months I have had to use the Zenistar simply because it works without autoblock #*!%ing it up.

Jump smash? *bang* Nope you're aimgliding because one grineer shot at you.

Combo that will wreck an entire line of enemies.. *DENIED* as it's canceled by incoming fire.

Taking aim for a headshot for nightwave... *nope* guy you weren't aiming for shot at you and your melee comes out sometimes to block it.

Just make the main fire button switch to gun out. The Aim/Block button should work like it used to. So I block when I want to, and can even pull off the combos attached to that button.

 

don't get me wrong, the switching back and forth is a good thing.... IF it had been attached to the gun fire button and not the Block/Aim button.

[Hello]

Yes! I like most of what they're doing for melee. Auto Blocking is by far the worst part though. A good example is repeating the Zenistar moment. One to throw the disc out? Good luck getting it out there on the first or third try.

Even certain abilities have been screwed over with auto blocking, dodge out of the way of a grenade, no no no, can't have that either. If I can go 5 missions without dying because of auto block, then I consider myself lucky. 

Oh and Exodia Contagion is horrible now with auto block.

Just a toggle in the settings "Disable auto block". I'd rather die from not blocking at all, than being killed by something I have zero control over.

[Rawbeard]

what's the problem with auto blocking?

[marelooke]

13 minutes ago, Rawbeard said:

what's the problem with auto blocking?

That It interrupts whatever else you are trying to do.

[lifulo]

I don't even use melee most of the time and I know auto block is hot garbage. I love this post. Switching weapons on aim can also screw up aim gliding when you hold something in your hand and it makes you drop it. The ONLY advantage of auto block is that it can sometimes prevent knockdowns.

[NinjaZeku]

1 hour ago, --Brandt-- said:

Oh and Exodia Contagion is horrible now with auto block.

This is my biggest gripe, let only manual Aim presses trigger the projectile launch conditions
... or simply make the projectile not have self-damage, you deal meh damage [in regards to enemy Health] when up-close, anyway.

[Drasiel]

The problem with swap only on lmb is that a large subsection of the community uses lmb for melee attack. I'd rather channeling was removed and we could use alt fire to swap instead

[shut]

20 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

The problem with swap only on lmb is that a large subsection of the community uses lmb for melee attack. I'd rather channeling was removed and we could use alt fire to swap instead

I think it would be better if manual blocking were reintroduced to melee mode entirely (so RMB either aims or blocks depending on which weapon is out), and "Reload" became the "switch back to gun" button instead. So if you tapped R while in melee mode, it would insta-swap back to the gun without actually reloading.

Makes intuitive sense to me, since it's on a gun-related button that everyone's already used to pressing, and it doesn't require sacrificing any of melee mode's functionality.

[StariousMariousPie]

Yes! I totally agree with this. Auto blocking makes any type of pause combo completely impossible to do sometimes. I do a hell of a lot of melee and always get stopped from doing my best combo because of this.

[Rawbeard]

3 hours ago, marelooke said:

That It interrupts whatever else you are trying to do.

just go back to doing it afterwards. there is nothing in Warframe where an "interruption" matters anyway

[AreeSoothsayer]

48 minutes ago, Rawbeard said:

just go back to doing it afterwards. there is nothing in Warframe where an "interruption" matters anyway

Tell that to trinity when autoblock stops her from healing in a long survival with no downed arbitrration.

[TaylorsContraction]

reload or alt fire seem like great suggestions to me to quick swap to guns versus right click

[Drasiel]

4 hours ago, SortaRandom said:

I think it would be better if manual blocking were reintroduced to melee mode entirely (so RMB either aims or blocks depending on which weapon is out), and "Reload" became the "switch back to gun" button instead. So if you tapped R while in melee mode, it would insta-swap back to the gun without actually reloading.

Makes intuitive sense to me, since it's on a gun-related button that everyone's already used to pressing, and it doesn't require sacrificing any of melee mode's functionality.

I would be totally down for that change. It already half works too if the gun can be reloaded tapping reload will bring it out and reload it. It should also work on console which has to be part of the consideration since context action is reload to save button space.

[DCaedus]

The thing I find the most annoying about this is autoblocking in mid-air. Why? It changes the trajectory and completely messed the jump. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

16 hours ago, AreeSoothsayer said:

The Aim/Block button should work like it used to. So I block when I want to, and can even pull off the combos attached to that button.

Just to be clear on this, I know you're angry, but do you know why Auto-block is now a thing and doesn't work like it used to?

Because, on statistical data, only tiny, miniscule amount of the population of players ever actually used it. So they're removed the manual block for under-use. It's gone because many players didn't even know it existed. They even wrote the function into the starting quest, Vor's Prize, so that players would know it exists because players didn't even see the great, big floating text saying 'Block his beam with your Melee!' right in front of them (you can see it by simply watching streamers and content creators play the starter quest, over and over they don't even see the on-screen instructions... it's very frustrating as a viewer).

So even when DE puts it literally right there in front of you saying 'you have a block!' nobody uses it.

That's why manual block doesn't exist anymore.

So, as angry as you can get over the new mechanics, they aren't going to bring that back, it's a dead function to them. All you're going to get is iterations which may end up being improvements to the current auto-block. Not a revert.

[ArcKnight9202]

It does have its problems. You can get locked in blocking animations. There are also issues where if you are in the air, you can glide right into pits because the blocking caused you to soar past your intended landing points.

Overall, it's not bad. But it does have drawbacks sometimes.

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

The "Reason" I never used manual block, was because I only used Quick-Melee, because I hated the combos (they all root you or fling you around past enemies, dancing all around real fancy, but doing nothing good.) ... so manual block was never an option for me. I didn't even have a clue that manual block could defend against the ground punch and fire waves that push you back.

If I could have my quick-melee back, with a button to manually block, I'd be quite happy...

 

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Just to be clear on this, I know you're angry, but do you know why Auto-block is now a thing and doesn't work like it used to?

Because, on statistical data, only tiny, miniscule amount of the population of players ever actually used it. So they're removed the manual block for under-use. It's gone because many players didn't even know it existed. They even wrote the function into the starting quest, Vor's Prize, so that players would know it exists because players didn't even see the great, big floating text saying 'Block his beam with your Melee!' right in front of them (you can see it by simply watching streamers and content creators play the starter quest, over and over they don't even see the on-screen instructions... it's very frustrating as a viewer).

So even when DE puts it literally right there in front of you saying 'you have a block!' nobody uses it.

That's why manual block doesn't exist anymore.

So, as angry as you can get over the new mechanics, they aren't going to bring that back, it's a dead function to them. All you're going to get is iterations which may end up being improvements to the current auto-block. Not a revert.

I don't think that's particularly sound reasoning:

1. Most melee moves were hardly if ever used, and not just blocking, because the optimal usage of melee weapons was quick-melee. This is, in fact, the very reason DE chose to overhaul melee in the first place, because the diverse array of melee moves at our disposal were all being abandoned in favor of simplistic melee button spamming.
2. Block's base functionality was and still is crap (who really cares about 35% damage reduction or the like when you could be doing so many other things instead?). If base blocking worked more like a full parry, for example, and could legitimately negate incoming damage with the right timing, there would likely have been more incentive to block.
3. If block was really such a dead-end function then, how does forcing it upon players via automatic activation improve the matter? Why not just remove it altogether?

I think with our new input scheme for melee, shifting block back to manual and combining it with ADS would both cause it to be used more (because ADS gets used frequently anyway), and solve the current problems with autoblock interfering with our actions. Beyond that, though, I also think the current problem with blocking is simply that directional damage reduction doesn't feel all that amazing or impactful, even when it's strong, so refining block into something more like a timed parry, e.g. by implementing a temporary initial window of total negation and attack reflection, would also make it desirable to use even as an optional move.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

If block was really such a dead-end function then, how does forcing it upon players via automatic activation improve the matter? Why not just remove it altogether?

Don't ask me, it's literally their own words from the Workshop threads and DevStreams.

[Aesthier]

I never played through Vor's Prize so didn't really know anything about manual blocking.

However giving players who would like it back the option to toggle autoblock on or off in the options doesn't sound bad to me.

 

What's wrong with options?

[Steel_Rook]

As I've said before every time this comes up: auto-block is not the issue. Animation priority is. Block priority needs to be set as low as possible so that it can't interrupt anything but movement and so that everything else interrupts it. The Glide component also needs to be removed from it. The only reason it's there is leftover code because someone hardcoded the glide to the BLOCK function rather than to the block action key, and it's been following block around. In short, the issues are technical and solvable - and should probably be solved sooner rather than later.

[Xzorn]

25 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

As I've said before every time this comes up: auto-block is not the issue. Animation priority is. Block priority needs to be set as low as possible so that it can't interrupt anything but movement and so that everything else interrupts it. The Glide component also needs to be removed from it. The only reason it's there is leftover code because someone hardcoded the glide to the BLOCK function rather than to the block action key, and it's been following block around. In short, the issues are technical and solvable - and should probably be solved sooner rather than later.

 

I made a post a while back about Quick Thinking and similar issues.

DE tried to "Fix" it and the community set fires so they reverted it however they did not revert all the changes and it saddens me most of the community thought and probably still does think everything is fine. The Stagger animation priority was changed with that QT nerf attempt and not reverted back.

Stagger now has priority over all other animation effects including Dodge which is the more important one. You can be mid dodge and a Grineer roller touches you and brings you right out of it losing that mitigation and movement causing you to get hit even harder than if you'd just eaten a shot instead. It's really stupid.

______________

Don't worry OP, it's pretty obvious they have no idea what to do about certain interactions or the combo meter with Blood Rush and similar mods so you could probably expect the next Melee update phase in a year or so to fix some of these issues. I wish I were joking....

[ikkabotz]

On 2019-08-10 at 11:46 AM, Rawbeard said:

what's the problem with auto blocking?

Did you not read anything from the post or thread replies or something? Plenty is mentioned on what's wrong with it, especially its interruptions of what players are intending to do. Most people want more control, not less of it. I would almost like to see a way of countering ourselves if it does still exist, something I time myself when desired to use.

Edited August 12, 2019 by ikkabotz

[AriaSTG]

b-but i like my amalgam javlok+shield combo, with channeling my inner weeb i glare enemies to death.

[MJ12]

On 2019-08-11 at 2:45 AM, Teridax68 said:

If block was really such a dead-end function then, how does forcing it upon players via automatic activation improve the matter? Why not just remove it altogether?

Melee in Warframe seems to be intended to be a fully viable alternative to gunplay, rather than a 'backup' weapon. This isn't completely true in all aspects (sadly you can't kill Eidolons, Orbs, and several bosses via melee) but that seems to be the intent. Moreover, melee damage output in Warframe is relatively lower than in a lot of games where melee is mostly intended as an emergency close-range backup or humiliation move.

Ergo, block exists because melee attacks, by forcing you to close distance against enemies, expose you to more damage. Therefore, wielding melee weapons gives you frontal damage reduction so you suffer less harm. Now, block is kind of implemented in a meh form for that (the highest damage and longest-range melee weapons also have the best block stats, while the weakest melee weapons due to their poor multi-target ability have the worst block stats, even if literally punching bullets out of the air is cool as hell) but it seems to me the intention is to make gap-closing using melee weapons much less dangerous-even in a relatively fragile Warframe-compared to say, using soft cover to partially hide behind a corner or a crate and shoot at enemies.

Would melee still be viable without the damage reduction? Probably, given that people still used quick melee. But I don't think removing it altogether encourages the ideal sort of aggressive, close-range gameplay DE seems to want and Warframe is best at.