(PC) Melee Phase 2: TECHNIQUES Feedback

[shappers]

One change I would really like to see would be to be able to use heavy attacks with the quick change system. For example if I want to hit an enemy with a heavy attack to use life strike to heal, I have to melee attack with E or manually change to my melee weapon and then heavy attack. Changing it so you can just go into a heavy attack when you have a gun equipped would fell much smoother.

[Trav243]

My only gripe is we lost the 3 button mash from Shimmering Blight Polearm stance. I think we could add it as a Third combo to the stance. As a forward combo (up + attack button) Please add it back somewhere in the stance. It just feels really weird without it there. Twirling Spire is fine in my eyes. Both Shimmering Blight and Bleeding Willow are missing one combo in my eyes.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Trav243

[Tubsie]

I like this new melee combo system. Also buffing all of the weapons suddenly made, even the ones that were useless before, useful. For example the Ether Reaper or Ether Dual swords. Personally I am really liking how scythes got some much needed love (really liking the Hate scythe) and I also like to use Fang Prime now, as well as glaives like the Falcor.

On to the combos: Before, the combos were "static" so to speak. Now you can fluidly combine any of the combos into a more flashy, longer and deadly combo which is a very good thing. I also like that you can fluidly do any of the combos even if you are not in the melee-dedicated mode and use quick melee instead. Also really like the mechanic that it auto-blocks if you are using quick melee which I hope will stay. I also really like the new heavy attack system along with the 2 different types of slam attacks. Those heavy slam attacks high from the air into a pile of enemies look and feel so satisfying, along with the proper oomph in sound effects! Take that nullifiers! And the effects are very cool as well. You can get some really fancy looking ones if you play around with some energy colors. Tested this with Gram Prime (which showed like a surging lava/fire effect along with the ground shatter effect), Jat Kittag, Fang Prime, Falcor and Hate. I also love how you kept the ragdoll effect for Jat Kittag, so thanks for that!

Another good thing are the universal combo binds. As in you no longer need to remember each stance's combo specifically. And getting rid of the "Press melee button and then pause before continuing the combo" -mechanic... SO GOOD! It was really annoying to try and do that if you had too much attack speed due to some buffs for example. Now that the combo binds are universal and use the same approach as well (like if you want to do a forward advancing combo move, it's always block + forward + melee), it works on all. This is a really good feature. The spin-to-win moves like in the Cleaving Whirlwind stance also feel much more fluid and movement friendly.

The new "Lifted" status is useful in a CC kind of way. Some weapons do it much easily in their combos than others. Standing still and pressing E with Hate for example immediately lifts the enemy up. I guess there are some heavy weapons that might lift up a whole group of enemies with a heavy slam or something, not sure since have not tested them all, but that would be pretty flashy. Sometimes if there are no walls to hold the enemy in place so to speak, it can get a bit iffy to try and hit them if they float away over an edge for example. But I consider that a pretty minor thing.

I'm not sure what the last phase of the melee will contain in the future, but I would hope it would at least contain more combos to some stances. For example Gnashing Payara only has 3 different combos. Technically 2 if you don't count the standard melee button mash while standing still. Gladly there's Spinning Needle to save the day.

All in all, an excellent update to the melee system as a whole. Looking forward to the final phase! 

[IntoTheVoidDied]

Excalibur's main build, being a life-strike, rage, and quick thinking focused set up, has become incredibly frustrating to use. It was already somewhat annoying when channeling was middle mouse button, but now that heavy attacks are so much slower he has a lot of issues utilizing life-strike to heal. Sometimes in harder content you just outright die before you finish the heavy attack. The heavy attack does not seem to extend it's range with waves of energy either, meaning it has incredibly short range on the heavy attack. Considering Excalibur builds don't use primed reach this is also exasperated further.

If Exalted Blade's heavy was just made faster, even at the cost of a lot of damage, this would probably be less of an issue.

[Mynex]

Personally ive only used the heavy weapons stances so everything i say is put towards them, i feel all of them are useless now i loved the old tempo royal but nows its really weird, ive never really like cleaving whirlwind so i cant really say anything about it, now im using the other heavy blades mod (i forgot the name), regardless id like if it they got changed back.  I understand this is just my opinion ill suck it up if i have too but if they could get changed back id really like it

[pokpla]

I think more customization regarding melee mode would be good

Melee mode mada possible to do the close gaping attack without aiming your weapon mid fight, which is good, but locks you to manual block. A toggle option on game options to make possible to use automatic block would be good in my opinion. 

Option to manual block out of melee mode is good too, for example for redeemer, since its a nightmare to use with blocking

2: sometimes some people just prefer some combos over anothers, giving option to change which sequence corresponds to which attack may be good, even if it doesnt make much sense with the directional attacks. 

3: using mesa's peace maker cancels melee mode, so every time i use peacemaker i need to reenter the melee mode

4: Its more of a suggestion than a feedback now: the close gaping attack is amazing, i just really feel like close gaping attack while being mid air would be cool, and good. Maybe only E(+block on manual blockin) while mid air does the normal air attack, while holding W+block+ E does a close gaping attack on air

5: heavy attacks feel too slow to use, indeed they are powerful when chaged but there is no point in pending 11x to kill 1 strong enemy, after a looong animation, even with mods that makes the heavy attacks faster this animation feels to be speeded up,when this counter can make me do higher damage on every attack. May be doing 2 separate counters 1 that charges and decays normally like now, other that is spent when heavy attacks is used would make heavy attacks worth it. Buy heavy attacks to be used mid combat, not 1 ocassional enemy needs to be much faster, even if its much weaker, but if its just a random strong attack im gonna forget it. Heavy heavy slam, not really sure what to call it, but the lifting effect is really good, but needing to spend combo counter every time to lift enemies is bad, just the lifting alone would be cool. MMaybe its not a good idea to put lifting on the normal slam, maybe someone doesnt like i dont know

6: nikana and single sword stances are amazing. polearm ones not so much, not really sure why, maybe i just really like the nikana and single sword stances.

7: Blinding justice, overall perfect just sometimes the w+e just makes you go past enemies very often, the lifting effect on this attack is so cool. Close gaping very frequently goes past enemies, maybe its just me not knowing where to aim, so not a big deal, and going past many anemies at once is kinda cool so i think maybe its ok as it is, not really sure. 

8: mid air blocking sometimes make jumps take longer, putting the said close gaping air attack would help solve this problem

 

Edit: Melee is awesome now, and there is much more choices about which melee to use

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by pokpla

[warpLightning]

Having tested almost every stance I can say that I like the changes this update has brought, great job, for most parts. There's one thing I'm just so happy to see: forward combos don't lock you on place. Except for one stance - Wise Razor. Its forward combo doesn't only slow you down, but also locks you for a couple of seconds on one place. Its basic combo, however, is just fine for being swapped with the forward one, since it gives both forward momentum and in general more useful. 

Same goes for the Scythe stances. They all are just clumsy despite the weapons having decent attack speed. They only deal damage in a very narrow arc too. 

Hope you'll look into it.

Edited November 2, 2019 by warpLightning

[Arkhenbarn]

As far as I've tried the new system, while the Lifted Status is cool, it can be a hindrance, as enemies tend to float away and makes me miss strikes. Grim Fury for example triggers a Lifted Status on normal combos, and enemies start to float away. Because we are not "stuck" to the target, it is easy to punch into nothing but air. Also, it tends to send enemies where you can't follow (catapulting them far away, or drifting upwards). If the enemies were just into place floating (no drifting at all), this would make it less frustrating (given some Stance just "proc" it by default on some combos, whether you want it or not).

Edited November 2, 2019 by Arkhenbarn

[Fiedra]

I LOVE the stance changes, they're really nuts! My only exceptions would have to be for Bullet Dance (never liked the backwards roll attack in the first place), coiling viper basically only having 2 combos (unfinished?) and the Nikana stances restricting movement heavily. Unlike the opinions I've seen stated here, I love that the w combos let you move forward freely in almost all cases, it's intuitive. If you're holding forward while attacking, it's natural to expect to be able to move while doing so, right? Nothing frustrates me more than holding forward while attacking and going... really... slowly... forward... while locked in an animation. That was a big problem with the previous melee iteration that you've completely fixed here, and I appreciate it.

There IS something I'd like to point out about the new heavy attack system- maybe if a heavy attack misses, it shouldn't consume the combo counter? That's just a suggestion though. I like how much faster you build up the combo counter now as well, it lets you hop into a fight with more confidence.

[tyrael7]

For anyone feeling the Redeemer Prime's double shot nerf frustrations as I did, I made a massive update to my original post here which may offer some relief.

As well, GHS just posted a few encouraging words about the Redeemer rework (0:22 to 1:05)

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by tyrael7

[Very_Melon]

Vengeful Revenant stance, the neutral combo (Impending Dread) moves you forward a lot, I think that's not how the neutral was supposed to be.

Shimmering Blight and Bleeding Willow, both have only 2 combos, and the default one is the same in both. Probably should've just merged them instead.

 

Also I'd like an option that makes it so you have to hold the attack to do a slam instead of it being based on what angle your camera is.

[Diezen]

On 2019-10-31 at 11:19 PM, HyokaChan said:

it got moved to fracturing wind block combo.

Completely different animation, not the same. The second part of the multi punch combo doesn't exist anymore unfortunately. The e e pause has only part of the forward moving punch animations used in middle of the rest of Gaia's Tragedy's stance combos too, but it overall feels smoother to use compared to the changes to Fracturing Wind or Seismic Palm. Sadly we lost Seismic Palm's forced finishers too, but it overall has better aoe with the range changes at least.

Gaia's Tragedy is still overall my favorite though.

[Sword0fLotus]

We could use drainless charged/heavy attacks.

I enjoy running Blood Rush builds but miss using charged attack from time to time, especially given how little combos we have now we could use some variety. Now they empty your Combo Counter that you want to keep.

Adding drainless charged attacks on "hold melee" with no CC drain and damage bonus and maybe without channeling glow effect on warframe's body would be nice.

Keeping draining heavy attacks on "alt fire" with their glow effect on body and drain capped at, let's say, 30 Combo Counter instead of all of it would add much needed variety and incentive for tactical use of your new resource if you use anything stacking with your Combo Counter like Blood Rush, which is very satisfying to play.

[Sword0fLotus]

"W + melee" combos shouldn't stop you or slow you down a lot.

Since they don't do a lot of damage and don't give a much of Combo Counter and are supposed to keep you mobile, I found it dissapointing that they stop you on some stances (Decisive Judgement for nikanas from top of my mind).

[DrBorris]

Heavy attacks need simple fix,

Have the combo multiplier also multiply (or add) range

 

There, done. The largest issue with heavy attacks is that killing single targets or even small groups isn't worth burning the combo or waiting for the wind up. It doesn't much matter how much damage heavy attacks deal, normal melee attacks deal enough damage to get the job done.

Heavy Attacks need to not only be good, but be amazing to justify modding for them. While you can make a heavy attack build, it isn't very rewarding or even that different feeling than a what normal melee combos provide. And if Heavy Attacks were more worthwhile, it would also 'fix' some of the problems with the combo changes.

[Sword0fLotus]

Many melee weapons are suffering form lack of mobility.

Removing "forward" input requirement and swapping it with "sprint" would solve some issues.

"Melee" and "melee + block" combos could be performed no matter "WASD" inputted and allow a bit of mobility, while

"Forward + melee" and "forward + melee + block" could be swapped to "sprint + melee" and "sprint + melee + block" staying the most mobile ones.

[Sword0fLotus]

3 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

Have the combo multiplier also multiply (or add) range

I can't agree. The abilities and guns are for ranged combat. Melee should be close quarters weapons - not a room/corridor cleaner. Making every warframe launch single strike of Exalted Blade from time to time would be silly. Small Combo Counter cost (idk, maximum of 30) for those strong heavies would make sense to use on tankier enemies and add much needed variety while common enemies would be dispatched with normal attacks.

[Metsudo]

Zenistar needs some work. I'd suggest that instead of having to build combo before casting to get good duration, have it charge via melee attacks AFTER it's been cast.

Give it, say, 15 second base, and then once the disc is cast, the player can melee attack enemies to increase its durration. By doing this, the player still has to work to get the full effect, but the problem of being unviable at high levels is mitigated, as the 15 seconds will allow some short CC for starting the melee attacks. It also would allow the disc to effectivly be out indefinitely by continuing to melee while still being balanced. Using the heavy attack could be used to recall the disc too.

[SpiralSilver]

Overall I'm really liking the new combo system, it definitely feels like there's a lot of thought and work put behind some decisions. A handful of stances could use some tweaks but no one is actually plain bad and unusable like it was before. Good job!

My only real gripe is the fact that heavy attacks, consuming all the combo counter, directly work against counter-based mods like blood rush and don't deal enough damage to make up for it. Even on normal builds though, one good charged strike is still less effective and takes more time to do than a couple regular swings. I would kinda like it if heavy attacks, more than simply dealing more damage, had some cool kink like extra range/criticals/guaranteeed procs depending on the weapon class, but more importantly I would really love it if they used less combo hits and/or if there were more effective mod options for efficiency.

[ScytodiDaedalus]

The Combos: So far the new Melee Combo system is fine, simpler in most regards but gladly we can still choose which "Combo" to use... except for the Stances where movesets just got removed, I understand a few Stance Combos would get removed, hard to account for all of them, but I'm sure those that really deserve to come back will do so in due to time.

Fluidity: Locking into Melee only after the quick Melee is fantastic, also unlocking the Melee while attacking to then be able to reswap to gunning is extremely fluid, that's amazing. However where this loses it's fluidity is when you Wanna Swap into and out of Melee Only when you aren't attacking, either gunning or trying to Melee:

Quick Example and Replication: Hold F to Swap into Melee mod, and try to Melee or Shoot during the Unsheathe animation, you just can't do anything. this is also the same if you Press F to go back to gunning mode, you just can't shoot or bash things. On the other hand while you Quick Melee you can Lock into it and play around with that sweet block, also Unlock it at will and quickly start shooting or aiming while you are swinging a blade to go back to good old gunning.

Regarding Autoblock: This feature really increased the Survivability on a lot of Frames by just running Meleeing enemies, but it seems to have made things too easy and whenever you Lock into Melee you completely lose the Auto Block, it just feels bad, I'm not saying we should keep Autoblock at all times but the fact it was given at the start very freely can make people unprepared to hits as soon as they go Melee Only. A quick fix and Idea I thought for this was give half or a portion of the DR on Autoblock and maybe keep the 100% only during Manual Block, so as to encourage more active gameplay.

[StormSaber1]

I think the combos in stances still need a bit of work, some of them don't fit their supposed role, like stationary combos should make you stationary, but they move you forward so you tend to miss your enemy (e.g.Malicious Raptor, especially with really high attack speed), or the forward combos still restrict your movement too much (e.g. Cleaving Whirlwind).

I think the basic combos (no movement and forward movement) should have only upper body animations, which would result in completely unrestricted movement, and keep the specialized right click combos as they are. Shimmering Blight does this and it's pretty nice, even though it only has two attacks in its basic combo and doesn't have a stationary special I think. This would also probably result in some unused animations, but those could probably be used for new stances.

[StormSaber1]

53 minutes ago, SpiralSilver said:

I would kinda like it if heavy attacks, more than simply dealing more damage, had some cool kink like extra range/criticals/guaranteeed procs depending on the weapon class, but more importantly I would really love it if they used less combo hits and/or if there were more effective mod options for efficiency.

That's a pretty good idea, right now heavy attacks are just boring charged swings with increased damage, which I've found not really worth using, even with mods for it, simple attacking still beat them in dps.

And why leave it at that? Maybe heavy attacks could even be some sort of special ability unique to a weapon class.
Staves and polearms could have a room cleaning spin with increased range, similar to Wukong's Defy.
Claws could have an attack that makes you jump at an enemy that's closest to your crosshair and deal massive damage with increased crit and increased frontal cone range or something.
Fist and sparring weapons could have a kinetic punch similar to Arca Plasmor like weapons or Baruuk's fist attacks.
Whips could have a sweeping attack that pulls enemies together or applies bleed.
Nikanas could have a forward charging slice through enemies attack etc.

[SirSquirrelis]

So there is a lot of clunky stuff with this system obviously, but my main issue is that it doesn't feel good to use heavy attacks.  They don't seem to scale well with attack speed, and the wind up feels like it takes too long even with the mods that decrease it.  Maybe if something could be done where if you use a heavy at certain parts of a combo it just, made that combo attack a heavy variant? 

The other thing is that dumping all the bonus stats you get from bloodrush or weeping wounds to perform a heavy attack doesn't feel good (and bloodrush already feels not great anyway but that's a stat concern).  Maybe we could get a buff of some sort to our normal attacks when we execute an enemy with a heavy attack, or based on enemies hit with a heavy attack? Something like that to help incentivize it a little more in normal attack rotations and to make it feel less awkward on our normal attacks.

However, the update isn't terrible, I really like the fact that everything has been put under one combo tree now, and I picked up weapons I used to never use because of the range changes (hello tonfas).  This was a huge overhaul, and while it definitely could have landed better, thats the point of the feedback threads anyway.  Thanks for taking the time to read.

[Mattoropael]

On 2019-11-01 at 5:49 AM, tyrael7 said:

Try it out before you knock the redeemer completely. (I found it's functionality became more apparent in live testing rather than the simulacrum.)

On the contrary, using it in live convinced me further that it's hot garbage.

Heavy Attack taking as much time to fire as DE releasing U26 makes it almost unusable in live combat, both for survivability concerns and the fact that you have to keep your aim on the target for far longer than before in order to hit.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Mattoropael

[Nezha-Prime]

Not being able to trigger heavy attacks while you have your primary or secondary out feels bad. Most of the time I want to trigger a heavy attack , I seem to have my rifle out, and the button does nothing, so I have to equip melee, re-position, and then trigger the heavy attack.

An example of when this really feels bad is when you are aim gliding and want to slam attack a group of enemies below you.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Nezha-Prime