Dev Workshop - Melee Rework Phase 2: TECHNIQUE

[HolySeraphin]

34 minutes ago, (PS4)Dyin-Kyo said:

Ok make it 40% cap at 10procs. 28x damage maxed. Sounds fair to me lol

28x sounds fair to you? lvl500-4000 or not, this "potential" is too big compared to any other mod, even bloodrush. It is one of the reasons why nobody use the+15% status chance mods, because the +60% are far superior. If you give CO 28x at max, it will become a mandatory mod for status weapons, and once again, forgot the 3.4x weapon buff.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

3 minutes ago, Bioboygamer said:

Okay, I just want to say this. I'm on the opposite side of this - I'm not even at the point where I'm confident in my ability to do Sorties even with my tankiest frame. I have no interest in doing the super-difficult game modes, and I'm generally in favor of making "spin2win" less of a thing, since it means that melee loadouts are super-heavily weighted towards a handful of mods.

But I have nothing but the upmost respect for you here. You're providing a counterpoint, but you're being respectful and thoughtful in how you do it. You're not blindly attacking everything the other person said, regardless of whether or not there was any truth to it. You're sharing your opinion and giving insight into a different perspective that others might not initially see. 

We may have different views on these melee changes and the validity of the current gameplay, but you are a gentleman and a scholar, and I applaud your poise and levelheadedness.

Where you are in the game, these high-end mods are completely pointless.  I was of the opinion that I would never use spin-to-win exclusively on crit weapons when I was in the same spot.  You can literally get through the majority of the game, including sorties, in totally BS gear.  Just whatever you want, as long as you've modded it decently.  That's honestly a lot of fun, too.  I run relics in BS gear all the time.  Lith relic?  Let me pick some stuff out of the hundreds of frames and weapons that I haven't used in forever and run it in that.  That way when there's inevitably an MR 5 in there, I'm not forcing them to follow a wake of murder and reactant all the way to extraction.

Just staying alive in an Arbitration, especially if you've decided to bring a non-tank frame, or just getting to zone 8 in ESO isn't a just a challenge without following the meta, it's a frustrating mess.  The fact that ESO exists in its current state runs counter to the ENTIRETY of DE's game design philosophy when they talk about it on stream.  What they want is cool, flashy gameplay; they want the enemies and mechanics to require the use of crowd control, they don't want us map wiping in seconds.  What they built (if you actually want to get to reward rotation C.) is something that requires enemies dying so fast that there is no time to crowd control them.  If you spend the time to pull off combos and flashy, interesting maneuvers, that's time you aren't killing the next pack of enemies.  It's like stopping to pose in the middle of a relay race.  The next pack is waiting and that timer is ticking down.  They built that.  They had PC test it.  And they left it.  It's the same with Arbitration.  Enemies left alive mean they're firing on your defense targets, murdering you, removing your only life for the mode, or not dropping life support, depending on what you're doing.  More enemies alive is more enemies Arbitration drones can rally up and shield, making a bigger and bigger threat.  You can crowd control some of them, unless the drones are shielding them.  You can't get them all though, and at that level of enemy, they can end your arbitration faster than you can react to receiving damage.  

I swore the meta wasn't needed until I started in with high level content and arbitrations, when they added those.  And you and DE are right, it DOES unbalance the rest of the game.  But who do you balance for?  Me or you?  Starchart or endgame?

[Bioboygamer]

1 minute ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Where you are in the game, these high-end mods are completely pointless.  I was of the opinion that I would never use spin-to-win exclusively on crit weapons when I was in the same spot.  You can literally get through the majority of the game, including sorties, in totally BS gear.  Just whatever you want, as long as you've modded it decently.  That's honestly a lot of fun, too.  I run relics in BS gear all the time.  Lith relic?  Let me pick some stuff out of the hundreds of frames and weapons that I haven't used in forever and run it in that.  That way when there's inevitably an MR 5 in there, I'm not forcing them to follow a wake of murder and reactant all the way to extraction.

Just staying alive in an Arbitration, especially if you've decided to bring a non-tank frame, or just getting to zone 8 in ESO isn't a just a challenge without following the meta, it's a frustrating mess.  The fact that ESO exists in its current state runs counter to the ENTIRETY of DE's game design philosophy when they talk about it on stream.  What they want is cool, flashy gameplay; they want the enemies and mechanics to require the use of crowd control, they don't want us map wiping in seconds.  What they built (if you actually want to get to reward rotation C.) is something that requires enemies dying so fast that there is no time to crowd control them.  If you spend the time to pull off combos and flashy, interesting maneuvers, that's time you aren't killing the next pack of enemies.  It's like stopping to pose in the middle of a relay race.  The next pack is waiting and that timer is ticking down.  They built that.  They had PC test it.  And they left it.  It's the same with Arbitration.  Enemies left alive mean they're firing on your defense targets, murdering you, removing your only life for the mode, or not dropping life support, depending on what you're doing.  More enemies alive is more enemies Arbitration drones can rally up and shield, making a bigger and bigger threat.  You can crowd control some of them, unless the drones are shielding them.  You can't get them all though, and at that level of enemy, they can end your arbitration faster than you can react to receiving damage.  

I swore the meta wasn't needed until I started in with high level content and arbitrations, when they added those.  And you and DE are right, it DOES unbalance the rest of the game.  But who do you balance for?  Me or you?  Starchart or endgame?

Well, they've said that these melee changes will be the start of "pulling off the band-aid" of fixing armor and scaling, so hopefully the answer could soon be both.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

Don't mean to double post, but I have a question and didn't want to put it in my reply to someone else.

How will weapon switching and auto-block change for exalted weapons?  Currently, EW's don't damage arbi drones or nullifier shields.  With auto weapon swap, you can pop out of your EW, shoot the drone or shield, then pop right back in seamlessly.  Is that going away?  Because that's a decent nerf to any build centered around EW use.

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Don't mean to double post, but I have a question and didn't want to put it in my reply to someone else.

How will weapon switching and auto-block change for exalted weapons?  Currently, EW's don't damage arbi drones or nullifier shields.  With auto weapon swap, you can pop out of your EW, shoot the drone or shield, then pop right back in seamlessly.  Is that going away?  Because that's a decent nerf to any build centered around EW use.

You can still quick switch from melee to primary/secondary, they're just adding the option to "lock" yourself into Melee by holding the swap button. So no loss here. And they didn't say anything about removing auto-block. so I assume it will remain the same for when you're not locked into melee.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

2 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

You can still quick switch from melee to primary/secondary, they're just adding the option to "lock" yourself into Melee by holding the swap button. So no loss here.

With normal melee, yes.  What about exalted weapons like Iron Staff though?  Will it still autoblock and aim still take you to your guns, or will casting it count as "locking" in your melee and now you block manually instead of going into aim mode?  There's going to be 2 options for normal melee, but with a cast-summoned weapon they're going to have to pick one of those.

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

With normal melee, yes.  What about exalted weapons like Iron Staff though?  Will it still autoblock and aim still take you to your guns, or will casting it count as "locking" in your melee and now you block manually instead of going into aim mode?  There's going to be 2 options for normal melee, but with a cast-summoned weapon they're going to have to pick one of those.

No, casting the skill won't count as "locked", at least that was what I understood from the devstream.

[KamishiniNoYari3]

The phase 1 quick swap was much better than holding buttons for eternity. How is the old one better? Again changing things because one player isn't happy and probably complained on twitter. Make blocking active when holding another button, not the aiming one.

[(PSN)Dyin-Kyo]

23 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

28x sounds fair to you? lvl500-4000 or not, this "potential" is too big compared to any other mod, even bloodrush. It is one of the reasons why nobody use the+15% status chance mods, because the +60% are far superior. If you give CO 28x at max, it will become a mandatory mod for status weapons, and once again, forgot the 3.4x weapon buff.

Even with the 3.5x buff that only exist because they are getting rid of the damage you gain with the combo counter

[Brasten]

9 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Don't mean to double post, but I have a question and didn't want to put it in my reply to someone else.

How will weapon switching and auto-block change for exalted weapons?  Currently, EW's don't damage arbi drones or nullifier shields.  With auto weapon swap, you can pop out of your EW, shoot the drone or shield, then pop right back in seamlessly.  Is that going away?  Because that's a decent nerf to any build centered around EW use.

With the Weapon Switching, if HOLD down F (default on PC) you will be put into a  "Melee Alone" mode. For Exalted Weapons this will "lock" your Exalted Weapon out so you can't accidentally switch back into gun mode.

While it isn't stated, very likely if you TAP F again, this will Unlock your "Melee Alone" state.

So for Arbitrations you can either choose to NOT LOCK your EWs and stay flexible, or be ready to F to unlock before shooting a Drone. Seems like plenty of play style choices to go around. 

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, (PS4)Dyin-Kyo said:

Even with the 3.5x buff that only exist because they are getting rid of the damage you gain with the combo counter

You're still getting 28x, and that is too much by its own.

[(PSN)Dyin-Kyo]

26 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

28x sounds fair to you? lvl500-4000 or not, this "potential" is too big compared to any other mod, even bloodrush. It is one of the reasons why nobody use the+15% status chance mods, because the +60% are far superior. If you give CO 28x at max, it will become a mandatory mod for status weapons, and once again, forgot the 3.4x weapon buff.

How about this, we get rid of this weapon buff keep the old combo counter scaling n make it so that heavy attacks doesn't 1shot your whole combo counter. Sound a whole lot better than wtf they trying to do tbh

[Ramflare]

I have to say I'm not exactly getting the complaints around higher levels. Yes enemies over level 100 will start to take a couple more hits to kill... Isn't that the point? In every other game high levels actually mean more challenge, in Warframe currently it's just a cheese fest of broken mods. There's plenty of places in the game where you can still feel the power fantasy or you could just do arbitrations for 30 minutes instead of 3 hours. These sorts of changes are necessary so that we can actually have challenging and interesting content in the future.

I'm really looking forward to what these changes might open the door for so I hope DE doesn't waste all this time they spent reworking melee just to yield and leave us in the same broken spot we are in now.

[(PSN)Dyin-Kyo]

4 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

You're still getting 28x, and that is too much by its own.

But it's not currently 6procs is 16.7x which is basically on par with a normal crit weapon using blood rush currently not even including the gladiator mods

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, (PS4)Dyin-Kyo said:

But it's not currently 6procs is 16.7x which is basically on par with a normal crit weapon using blood rush currently 

And Bloodrush is broken too, I said it like 3 times now. Bloodrush, CO, and Maiming Strike scale a lot compared to any other mod, just like Chroma's Vex armor ourshined most damage buff abilities. While A bane mod gives 55%, CO gives 66x, Maiming Strike basically gives 200% (with the potental of 500%), BloodRush, 15x, while an elemental mod is +90%

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

5 minutes ago, Brasten said:

With the Weapon Switching, if HOLD down F (default on PC) you will be put into a  "Melee Alone" mode. For Exalted Weapons this will "lock" your Exalted Weapon out so you can't accidentally switch back into gun mode.

While it isn't stated, very likely if you TAP F again, this will Unlock your "Melee Alone" state.

So for Arbitrations you can either choose to NOT LOCK your EWs and stay flexible, or be ready to F to unlock before shooting a Drone. Seems like plenty of play style choices to go around. 

Speculation or have they said that?  I'm fully aware of how it's going to work with normal weapons, but casting the weapon means that you have to pick one style or another, or there are additional controls that will have to be used, like casting your EW, then locking or unlocking, which is STILL cumbersome to what is currently in place.  As long as they keep the system currently in place without adding additional steps, that will be fine.  DE seems to just love adding additional steps to things when they change stuff.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

1 minute ago, HolySeraphin said:

And Bloodrush is broken too, I said it like 3 times now.

Kill efficiency is literally required by the game for several areas of play.  Why does everyone want this game to be balanced down to startchart?

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Kill efficiency is literally required by the game for several areas of play.  Why does everyone want this game to be balanced down to startchart?

Not starchart, but having 3 mods that are capable of lvl1000 while the rest is lvl100 doesnt make any sense. You have to balance every mod around a designed value.

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Speculation or have they said that?  I'm fully aware of how it's going to work with normal weapons, but casting the weapon means that you have to pick one style or another, or there are additional controls that will have to be used, like casting your EW, then locking or unlocking, which is STILL cumbersome to what is currently in place.  As long as they keep the system currently in place without adding additional steps, that will be fine.  DE seems to just love adding additional steps to things when they change stuff.

There's no difference between Exalted Weapons and melee weapons at the moment. Casting an exalted weapon is the same as equipping a melee weapon by attacking, so it is pretty reasonable to believe you will be able to quick swap, or lock if you want for some reason

[Bioboygamer]

1 minute ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Kill efficiency is literally required by the game for several areas of play.  Why does everyone want this game to be balanced down to startchart?

Because that's basically what the devs have said that they want? Because, to anyone not already neck-deep in the game, the star chart represents the entirety of the game? Because, in terms of assets and development, the star chart is essentially 90% of the game? Because having such a huge, huge, huge disparity between optimized and non optimized loadouts is absurd? Because there should be more than one or two meta-viable strategies in order to ensure that the supply and demand for certain mods isn't steeply inflated?

I could probably go on, but hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. 

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

8 minutes ago, Ramflare said:

I have to say I'm not exactly getting the complaints around higher levels. Yes enemies over level 100 will start to take a couple more hits to kill... Isn't that the point? In every other game high levels actually mean more challenge, in Warframe currently it's just a cheese fest of broken mods. There's plenty of places in the game where you can still feel the power fantasy or you could just do arbitrations for 30 minutes instead of 3 hours. These sorts of changes are necessary so that we can actually have challenging and interesting content in the future.

I'm really looking forward to what these changes might open the door for so I hope DE doesn't waste all this time they spent reworking melee just to yield and leave us in the same broken spot we are in now.

Other games where the enemies take more hits to kill also don't kill you instantly at higher levels, or completely negate your powers, including your survivability with literally the brush of a bubble.  The game itself is not balanced, nerfing the players does not fix that, the enemies will still be unbalanced.  Getting one-shot by anything on the screen while taking a whole magazine to kill one enemy isn't "interesting" or "challenging" to me, it's frustrating and boring.

 

 

4 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

Not starchart, but having 3 mods that are capable of lvl1000 while the rest is lvl100 doesnt make any sense. You have to balance every mod around a designed value.

If both level 100 and level 1000 enemies can both exist in the game then you have to balance for both of them.

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Other games where the enemies take more hits to kill also don't kill you instantly at higher levels, or completely negate your powers, including your survivability with literally the brush of a bubble.  The game itself is not balanced, nerfing the players does not fix that, the enemies will still be unbalanced.  Getting one-shot by anything on the screen while taking a whole magazine to kill one enemy isn't "interesting" or "challenging" to me, it's frustrating and boring.

 

 

If both level 100 and level 1000 enemies can both exist in the game then you have to balance for both of them.

lvl1000 exist just because people are able to push endless modes far beyond their intended levels with broken mods like Bloodrush and CO, unlike lvl100 which is quickly available in sorties/arbitrations. There's a reason why rotation repeats itself after 20min. 

[Brasten]

15 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Speculation or have they said that?  I'm fully aware of how it's going to work with normal weapons, but casting the weapon means that you have to pick one style or another, or there are additional controls that will have to be used, like casting your EW, then locking or unlocking, which is STILL cumbersome to what is currently in place.  As long as they keep the system currently in place without adding additional steps, that will be fine.  DE seems to just love adding additional steps to things when they change stuff.

They said it on the Dev Stream Friday. Based on that information EWs do not go into "Melee Lock" by default. Lets clear up some things.

1) Phase 1 "Quick Melee", is the default melee behavior we currently have in Phase one, Shoot (LMB) and Melee (E) to quickly change between gun and sword.

2) Phase 1 "Melee Alone", is optional behavior set if you remove your Primary and Secondary weapon in the Arsenal, Melee Weapon Only.

In Phase 2 DE is simply adding the option to Hold down F (Switch weapon) to swap between "Quick Melee" and "Melee Alone" in mission, without having to strip your Primary & Secondary.

If you don't want to have "Melee Alone" behaviors, do not hold down F. Simple as that.

For Exalted Weapons they will behave according to whatever mode you're currently in. "Quick Melee" or Melee Alone".

[Bioboygamer]

1 minute ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Other games where the enemies take more hits to kill also don't kill you instantly at higher levels, or completely negate your powers, including your survivability with literally the brush of a bubble.  The game itself is not balanced, nerfing the players does not fix that, the enemies will still be unbalanced.  Getting one-shot by anything on the screen while taking a whole magazine to kill one enemy isn't "interesting" or "challenging" to me, it's frustrating and boring.

Yeah, I think that's honestly a fair complaint. DE has said that these melee changes will be the start of them finally getting around to fixing armor scaling, so it's possible that the balance issues with the later part of the game will be toned down.

1 minute ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

If both level 100 and level 1000 enemies can both exist in the game then you have to balance for both of them.

I don't know about that. Sure, they're technically accessible, but they represent such a small percentage of the level of enemy a player could face that it's kind of silly to weight them too heavily when considering the game's balance.

[KamishiniNoYari3]

21 minutes ago, Brasten said:

They said it on the Dev Stream Friday. Based on that information EWs do not go into "Melee Lock" by default. Lets clear up some things.

1) Phase 1 "Quick Melee", is the default melee behavior we currently have in Phase one, Shoot (LMB) and Melee (E) to quickly change between gun and sword.

2) Phase 1 "Melee Alone", is optional behavior set if you remove your Primary and Secondary weapon in the Arsenal, Melee Weapon Only.

In Phase 2 DE is simply adding the option to Hold down F (Switch weapon) to swap between "Quick Melee" and "Melee Alone" in mission, without having to strip your Primary & Secondary.

If you don't want to have "Melee Alone" behaviors, do not hold down F. Simple as that.

For Exalted Weapons they will behave according to whatever mode you're currently in. "Quick Melee" or Melee Alone".

What if I want to have manual blocking but still be able to quickly change between weapons? I don't want to spend an eternity holding down a button. The presented way is not good and ruins the phase 1 systems which are pretty great.