(PC) Melee Phase 2: TECHNIQUES Feedback

[TheEternalJester]

To be honest, I feel like you guys took too much from DMC. A game like that doesn't mesh with a "Horde" game like this. More inspiration from a game like the Warriors series and their musou attack combos would be better for Heavy attacks: Dumping Combo counter for slam to the ground that deals AoE in a decent radius.

[Andele3025]

Just now, TheEternalJester said:

To be honest, I feel like you guys took too much from DMC. A game like that doesn't mesh with a "Horde" game like this. More inspiration from a game like the Warriors series and their musou attack combos would be better for Heavy attacks: Dumping Combo counter for slam to the ground that deals AoE in a decent radius.

If anything not enough was taken from DMC as much as someone in DE had a surgery or frankenstein fetish to dismember and then reattach good stances that didnt need touching and made charged attacks still not charged but at least you cant "release a CHARGED (WHICH WOULD IMPLY AVALIABLE INSTANTLY JUST CAPABLE OF BEING POWERED UP AS YOU HOLD IT) strike too soon to get nothing"

Tho current heavy slams do exactly what you say (not that its obvious since combos talk of heavy attacks as just holding e instead of the channeling key, to whatever one might have bound it), having a 7-9m range.

[LadyWyvernne]

Reposting from the general Old Blood feedback thread, since this is a better place for it in retrospect:

Speaking as someone who ran staves in my melee slot exclusively between the release of Melee 2.5 and now: the new Clashing Forest stance feels absolutely awful and runs counter to most of the stated design goals for the combo redesign.

 

Old forward combo: Resolute Flurry.  Three very quick attacks where the first lets you move at full speed and the other two stop you from running but come with a nice, big forward step.  It wasn't exactly a combo you wanted to mindlessly spam while running down a hallway, but those forward steps did a great job of keeping you moving from enemy to enemy without making it hard to stick to a tough target when you needed to.  It felt great.  Excellent mix of power, mobility, and control.  Only Vulpine Mask on rapiers had a more fluid forward combo.

New forward combo: Ostensibly created with mobility in mind, this is in fact dramatically less mobile than the old Resolute Flurry was on the exact same input.  The swings are sluggish and you feel like you're trudging through molasses.  Resolute Flurry was moved to the neutral combo, where it lost most of its mobility (it really isn't the same without it).

 

Old blocking forward combo: Skyward Limb.  Okay, technically this was the neutral combo, but if you held block while moving forward you'd do it instead of Resolute Flurry, exactly how tactical combos work now.  Anyway, this combo was a short string of sweeping attacks which allowed full movement followed by a leaping forward lunge.  The lunge was more than a little awkward, and the damage was rather poor, but you were moving at full run speed or faster for the whole combo, so it was good for swatting away weak enemies while moving.  It complimented Resolute Flurry well as a utility combo that traded damage and control for even more mobility.

New forward blocking combo: The old awkward lunge followed by a totally stationary follow up.  I never want to be forced into a dead stop during a forward combo.  There is no combination of forward and tactical combo inputs that let you feel like you retain decent mobility in the new stance.

 

The old forward and "tactical" combos were strictly superior to the new ones for keeping your mobility.  With these changes, staves went straight from being one of the most mobile weapon types to one of the least mobile.  I really don't see any good reason to use them anymore.

My recommendation: Revert Resolute Flurry to the old version with the forward steps and move it back to the forward combo.  Don't replace the neutral combo, so you do Resolute Flurry both standing and moving (one of the polearm stances is already like this).  Bring back the old Skyward Limb as the tactical combo (you can switch the attack order to put the lunge first if you absolutely must, for consistency).  Retool the current forward combo into a standing block combo (it's practically stationary as it is anyway).  This would feel way better and fit the stated design goals of the new combo system better.

 

These issues are not by any means unique to staves; it's just especially jarring because they were so much better before.  Probably over 75% of stances are similarly ruined by sluggish, awful-feeling forward combos that don't suit the purpose they were intended for.  In a way I guess this is still an overall improvement, since up until now I considered a grand total of two stances to feel tolerable in the mobility department, but there's a ton of room for improvement here.

[SteveCutler]

I'll add some more thoughts to this thread after more time playing with melee.

Good:

• Standardized melee combos. This is wonderful. It's so much easier to remember and more intuitive. Having different input combos on all the stances before was a nightmare, and the pause combos were unusable in practice. This is a big improvement.
   
• Combo counter changes. I'll go against the grain here and say that I'm a big fan of these changes. Why? I felt like the old system was too biased towards a pure melee style, heavily punishing players for mixing in guns or abilities. With the old system, it took a long time to build up a combo, requiring non-stop melee attacks, and all it took is one mistake to lose it all which felt terrible. With the new system, it feels much more fair and balanced for a playstyle that mixes different weapons and abilities. I no longer feel like I'm severely gimped with a hybrid playstyle, because I can actually get a full combo counter quickly from scratch at any time. I even now feel like Drifting Contact is no longer an essential mod, but is instead an optional "nice to have".
   
• Increased melee range and additive Reach mods. The gap is now much smaller between different weapon types, and small weapons like Fists, Sparring, Swords, etc. are now much more viable than they were before. Wonderful change.
   
• Using the interact button to perform finishers. Thank God. I've been wanting this for years. No more suddenly getting locked into a slow finisher animation because something was blinded, when I could've just mowed them down faster with a normal swing. Sometimes the prompts don't seem to appear though, so maybe you could fix that or make it more noticeable. Actually, why do normal melee finishers even still exist? Why aren't they replaced entirely with the Parazon finishers?
   
• Channeling mod changes. These are mostly improved across the board, having more practical use. Some of them are still quite weak though. Any chance of boosting the duration of Dispatch Overdrive?

Okay:

• The 100% blocking reduction. It's okay I guess. I honestly haven't really felt a big difference here.
   
• Tactical dodging. Meh. I don't see any need for it, but if others like it, whatever.
   
• The hover air melee attacks. It does make it easier to hit aerial targets, but there's still a lot of gravity effect. I thought it was going to let us basically hover indefinitely, so it's a bit disappointing. It's still difficult to melee flying enemies because of this. It also doesn't seem to let us perform the normal melee combos as far as I can tell?
   
• The slam attack changes. While I'm not a fan of chasing enemies all over the place, I felt like the ragdolls on slam attacks were incredibly satisfying. Now they just feel much less impactful. Heavy slams also seem a bit strange, as they occur even if you're aiming forward or up into the air, instead of only when you aim at the ground.

Bad:

• The implemented stances. While the standardized combos are a great change, the actual implementations of the stances is terrible overall. There are absolutely some good, cool, appreciated changes. For example, the quick slam that Tempo Royale has available on-demand with a block combo - that's nice. But almost every stance has animation locks or slowed movement on the forward combo, which is honestly just unacceptable. You yourself have acknowledged that it's been a big complaint, and it's still there. Please, please fix it. The stances also often have animation locks or forced movement on the neutral combo, instead of letting us stand still or strafe freely. It's also very sad and disappointing that many stances are entirely missing some of the combos.
   
• Unique weapon powers (e.g. Vaykor Sydon's Radial Blind, or Orvius's Suspend) are now much more difficult and clunky to perform. Before, it was as simple as double-tapping the channeling button to use a unique weapon power. Now, we have to hold F to do a slow, clunky switch to full melee, then hold block, then tap the heavy attack button to use the power, then press F to exit full melee mode, then press F yet again to get our preferred gun back out (because the previous F input switched gun), and then press E to get the melee weapon back out to get to where we started from. Yikes! See how much worse this is? Please, please, please rethink this. You implemented the full melee mode to appease people that wanted to do aim glide blocks or use mods like Guardian Derision. But in the process you've also destroyed the ability to quickly access unique weapon powers for people that liked the quick melee mode. Please change the input to activate these unique weapon powers to literally anything else that doesn't require blocking from full melee mode. Some suggestions are: Crouch + Heavy Attack, Back + Heavy Attack, (Hold) Heavy Attack, Reload, Heavy Attack while standing still, etc. Literally anything else.
   
• The Condition Overload change (stacking additively with Pressure Point). Personally, I'm still shredding high level enemies with my melee weapons, so I don't quite understand other people saying melee is very weak now. My issue isn't really with damage. Instead, I have a few other problems with this. Firstly, this change makes Primed Pressure Point and Sacrificial Pressure Point (both legendary mods) basically obsolete, as Condition Overload is strictly superior. Secondly, this significantly devalues riven mods that add base melee damage - people have invested a lot of time, Kuva, and Platinum into these mods. Thirdly, this skews the balance between critical-focused and status-focused melee weapons: critical weapons get a final damage multiplier, while status weapons just get an additive base damage value. I really do think it was more fair being a separate multiplier - you just need to tweak that multiplier according to balance. It doesn't need to be exponential like it was before, and it doesn't need to be disgustingly overpowered - but it should be a separate damage multiplier.
   
• Blood Rush makes True Steel and Sacrificial Steel (a legendary mod) basically obsolete. Unlike some others, I don't have a problem with Blood Rush not being a multiplier to the final crit chance anymore. In fact, I think that is a welcome and much-needed change. The way it was before was disgustingly overpowered at high combo counts, and made high crit chance weapons just get better and better, while low crit chance weapons fell behind more and more. So, no problems there. But now that it works as a normal additive crit chance mod, it basically makes True Steel and Sacrificial Steel obsolete, in a similar way to Condition Overload and Pressure Point. There's no point in using True Steel or Sacrificial Steel, because Blood Rush does the same job but better. To be honest, I think the solution here is to remove Blood Rush entirely, or change it to a completely different function. I know, that's going to frighten some people. But consider this: there's currently little benefit to using heavy attacks, and Blood Rush is the only mod that gives benefit to the combo counter for normal melee attacks. People will never want to use heavy attacks, because it will mean losing their combo counter, which will mean losing their crit chance. You can't lose your crit chance if you didn't have it in the first place! *taps head* This would mean the combo counter would exist only for heavy attacks, and people would be able to use it freely and happily without feeling like they're losing anything or getting punished for doing so.
   
• Heavy attacks are just lacking and it feels like there's no good reason to use them. The charge-up time is very slow and sluggish, and in a horde-killing game we mostly don't feel like we need a big power attack to kill just another grunt. For a start, I think the wind-up time should be removed entirely - the attack itself already seems to be slower than normal, so can't that be enough? Furthermore, I think the focus on heavy attacks should be on massive AoE. Why? Because this is a horde-killing game, and killing hordes faster is appealing. You know how people like range on melee, so why not give us an occasional AoE blast that we can use? Look at something like Syndicate Procs or Radial Javelin (not in terms of power because it's awful, but the general concept). I think the heavy attack should be a massive AoE. Maybe keep the single-target ground attack if you really want, and modify the slam to be a massive AoE. But a massive AoE is basically the only thing that would make it worth using. Maybe make the AoE size depend on the combo counter.
   
• The Inner Might change solidifies Zenurik as the number one Focus school, stealing melee power away from Naramon. Naramon is supposed to be the melee-centric school, but now Zenurik has a powerful melee boost. Previously, it was related to channeling, which made sense for Zenurik as it was related to energy drain. But it's now no longer about energy, and therefore makes no sense. I suggest moving Inner Might to Naramon or just removing it entirely. This node would probably make more sense being used for the future Rage Mode system in some way.
   
• Holding E no longer has any separate function, and yet we still can't hold it to continue meleeing. We still have to mash the melee button like a madman, hurting our fingers, causing injury, and reducing the effectiveness of high attack speed weapons. Please let us hold the button to spam melee!

Edited November 2, 2019 by SteveCutler

[Turbozis]

Please revert Defiled Snapdragon stance's combo called "Heart of Naga" to it's previous version with it's sick spinning leap

 

It was one of my favourite combos in the entire game

And the new "Fangs of Linwurm" combo is a joke:

Old:

New - extremely lazily made single spin attack.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Turbozis
Added one more combo

[Svarlos]

My biggest issue so far, beyond screwing with good stances and removing a lot of procs that were nice (Grim Fury being able to quickly give you a finisher for when you needed it for instance, and removing a decent firing combo with the gunblades instead of just relying upon slow charge attacks) is that you can't use a heavy ground slam unless you already have your melee weapon out. Realistically this is kind of a minor issue, you can still normal slam, but usually when i'm looking for the crowd control from a heavy slam it's when i come around a corner with my ranged weapons last fired.

I do like the additional combo levels, and the added crowd control. It feels like melee is heftier, but at the same time, when it was mentioned for better flow... I'm not feeling that on most weapons. Swords are a perfect example of this, though. The combos on swords are generally faster, but remove all real changes between the stances. Crimson Dervish was quite different from any of the other stances, they seem pretty exchangeable now.

I do love the changes to tranquil cleave, it feels a lot better. Anyway, there's my feedback! Good luck, and I'm glad you're still working on this :) I do love the melee in this game! Just feels like a little more tweaking hehe.

[Svarlos]

On 2019-10-31 at 3:46 PM, OvisCaedo said:

I'm really not digging how Bullet Dance feels now. Why on earth was the "violently roll backwards" combo kept as the neutral?? That doesn't feel like it flows very naturally at all.

The first quick strike while moving forward being a slash instead of the previous responsive quick shot is very unpleasant feeling. So is the bizarre throwing the weapon attack on the first input of the hold right combo. I don't really wanna swing this thing.

I agree with this one entirely, the hold back and fire from previously should have been moved to the neutral click stance. It didn't move you all over the bloody place, and make it hard to aim.. It would make sense to have that there, hehe.

[DoomFruit]

7 hours ago, Maganar said:

Return ordinary melee weapon finishers to E by default (melee key), not X by default (use key) as it has been changed to.  This detriments everyone now that the slide-crit meta is gone.  The only possible argument for finishers to be on that key was from slide-crit abuse.  At the bare minimum, let us bind Use and Melee to the same key so we can "opt-in" at our own discretion to doing finishers with melee key.  Currently, if I try to bind the alternative key for Use to the same as the primary key for melee, the game unbinds the melee key entirely, rendering me unable to melee at all.

Put it back on melee by default? Absolutely not. I've hated being forced to do finishers for more than 6 years now. If I find a patrol of (relatively) low level enemies and charge at them from behind, I expect to cut them all down in one swing from my range-modded weapon. I do not want to get locked in to some stupid dance with one single enemy.

Give us an option to do so, yeah, but definitely don't force finishers to be on the melee key. This change is one of exactly 3 beneficial outcomes of the entire update (the others being that polearms can finally move freely while attacking and that we finally don't get the simaris scanner kicked out of our hands after meleeing).

[kevoisvevo]

thanks i hate your new stats and reworked melee system here. hate it to its core sorry. you lost a customer now. i won't come back until you revert your worthless melee changes

[HyokaChan]

12 hours ago, Noctah said:

The Fist stance Gaia's Tragedy has lost its "Thousand Punches" part of the stance, which was my favorite!

It was the end of the hold combo, where the frame with do 12 hits in a split second.

No other stance was as close to allowing use to MUDA MUDA MUDA or ORA ORA ORA.

 

I said this earlier, but it is part of Fracturing Wind now

[Acos]

I feel like the "fluidity" of many of the popular stances is gone (or otherwise shuffled around). Tranquil Cleave as an example had pretty consistent forward movement, and seems to have many awkward pauses while moving forward. I think people would prefer the forward+attack to be more fluid in general w/ less pausing.

OTH slide attack + air attack + gap closer seem to fill a crowd clearing aspect, so maybe a "learn to play" issue.  

I am noticing that a few melee weapons in particular bug out and stop sprinting when you attack. I imagine these will get hotfixed quickly as we go. So far I have noticed GRAM PRIME & SKANA PRIME. 

I really do like the potential build options the revision of the combo system brings. Killing Blow + Combo Efficiency allows heavy hitters to shine. Combo Duration + Blood Rush + Crit Damage allows speed/crit heavy weapons to go full lawn-mower. Feels more flavored to making playstyles viable and less forced into "best" mod choices. Good job. 

[beercritch]

for my 10p I would love to see the changes to to melee kept as is BUT with the old stances. 

The new stances seem to break the fluidity of melee play. I am yet to find an exception. The main culprit across the board seems to be the forward+attack+RMB combo which seems to be a big animation that draws the frame closer to the enemy you are facing. In most cases these are just overly clunky awkward attacks that become annoying in time (i'm looking at you polearm stances).

I can see why DE have made the change. It unifies across all weapons what happens when you press a certain combo, but all its done is shift what weapons people will play rather than making all weapons accessible. As I opened with I would like to try the new mods with the old stances so I can better keep the "feel" of melee and see how it works.

Other than that on the whole I like the changes but who in heaven decided to put madurai polarity on weapon exilus slots when theres so few exilus mods to chose from?

[Violet_Xe]

Reflection is still a channeling mod

[DroopingPuppy]

I wonder why they don't bring back quick melee. Just why?

[Andele3025]

3 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

I'll add some more thoughts to this thread after more time playing with melee.

Good:

• Channeling mod changes. These are mostly improved across the board, having more practical use. Some of them are still quite weak though. Any chance of boosting the duration of Dispatch Overdrive?

Id like to note, death of life strike from all but scythes, tonfas, nikanas and claws means death of (fun) drain tank setups. Its only now possible because said weapon groups (and whips and daggers tho their heavies are S#&$) force slash procs which get the life strike lifesteal on them. LS should be universal, even if its nerfed to just be 1% lifesteal OR AT LEAST allow it to trigger for 15 seconds after a heavy attack or heavy slam attack.

3 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Bad:

 

• The implemented stances. While the standardized combos are a great change, the actual implementations of the stances is terrible overall. There are absolutely some good, cool, appreciated changes. For example, the quick slam that Tempo Royale has available on-demand with a block combo - that's nice. But almost every stance has animation locks or slowed movement on the forward combo, which is honestly just unacceptable. You yourself have acknowledged that it's been a big complaint, and it's still there. Please, please fix it. The stances also often have animation locks or forced movement on the neutral combo, instead of letting us stand still or strafe freely. It's also very sad and disappointing that many stances are entirely missing some of the combos.

Tempo royale block slam was its back attack (which was the good double spin then slam) forever and the way one would keep up with broken bull, tho skipping the starting attack isnt a issue, issue is the rest of the stance got completely butchered with the animation locks you mentioned DESPITE BEING PERFECT FOR THE NEW SYSTEM.
On topic of back attacks, wouldnt it be better if "LMB combo" was "LMB or LMB+↑ combo" with 0 animation locks or slowdowns and the static non block attack was "LMB+↓" that kept you in place (at base speed/1.0 so you would move slightly forward while holding sprint), both ofc allowing stafe (as all combos should). I mean currently (on topic of the butchered remains of tempo royale) holding back and spamming LMB actually moves you forward faster than the forward combo.

 

[LordDoom01]

One issue so far.

Let me back stab and finish with the melee button. It is very jarring to walk up to an unalerted enemy, go to backstab him, and just bop him on the head instead cause I didn't hit the interact button.

Edited November 2, 2019 by LordDoom01

[Tyreaus]

Seeing a number of people talk about the lack of fluidity with charge attacks reminds me of something.

I believe there was a "Rage" mechanic, or something of that sort, that was planned for implementation somewhere down the line.

Why not do that for this, instead? Grant a temporary damage boost, maybe even a range and attack speed boost, to melee weapons based on combo counter, using all the flashy Channelling effects. At minimum it'd be smoother. Best case, it'd deplete the combo counter gradually, so there's a few moments of peak power with combo-based mods like Blood Rush before it drains, instead of the entire stack flying out the window in one go and forcing a "one or the other" sort of scenario.

Not a terribly original idea or anything, but it's there.

[IfritKajiTora]

I'm disappointed with MELEE CHANGES PHASE 2
The most importand thing that as told on Older Devstream about melee 3.0 was the free movement with melee, but it isn't with all stances. Many stance still suffer from interrupting your movement.

Many melee stances while holding Forward and then pressing melee, stops your movement foward. Which was the key in melee 3.0 to not let that happen. Please fix that all melee stances don't interrupt your movement while holding moving forward.

Still thing that doing different combos doesn't change much if combo doesn't have for example slam.

[Zaphrinn]

vor 8 Stunden schrieb ValinorAtani:

Its not the damage outcome most people are complaining about. The most problems are simply quality of Life things which screwed up by DE.

I know that the people don't complain about that - not before and not now and I wasn't saying this at all - it was more like a surprise to me that no one else mentioned that aspect. I meant it more like a question - if others noticed it too.^^ I'm not sure, if I would like it, when slashing enemies becomes even more easy. But thats how it felt for me after playing a couple of hours. Maybe it's just me? 😄 So no problem there.

 

And yeah I get it, there are to much other things, that are bothering people about the new melee and I can unterstand some of them, even though I am not one of the players who really used all of these melee techniques before... but now I'm more interested and maybe because i don't miss anything much, it is a bit easier for me to adapt. My boyfriend for example loves the new combo counter stack. 🤷‍♂️ So it will always be difficult to make changes and keep everyone happy, but I hope DE will listen to the more experienced players of you 👍

[Fantal_Master]

could we please have the option to toggle aiming and block separately?

i like it to toggle aiming but with the new combo system the toggle block takes the fluidy away.

Or is it already in the game but I'm too stupid to find it?

 

[-S-O--Sephiroth-Crescent]

The Bullet Dance Combo is broken now.
old: press e while moving(w) for quick shot was good aswell as the hold e for 2 shots. was good
new: press e while moving(w) now swings the weapon( which would fit highnoon more) 

 

[Xardis]

Air attack on Vulpine Mask is totaly useless. A small stab that only after that combos it a slash is totaly unusable in context of what air attacks are used for normaly, a wide strike to damage/kill flyers. Its impossible to hit it with a stab, and after that, the enemy already moved on and you cant hit it with a inferior slash. Give rapiers the sword air slash back.

[Modus-Pwnens]

Overall, I really, really like the new system.

The new combos feel great. It's a breath of fresh air. So many stances feel so much better to use, and even for stances I already used a lot, I'm realizing how great some of their other combos are - combos that I never used before because they were too annoying to input. I think that the general concept of the combo inputs makes sense.

The intelligent auto-targeting is something I didn't know I wanted. But it turns out I really wanted it.

The range changes more than probably anything else have made so many more weapons viable. Adding more range to so many weapons was great, and making the mods fixed values instead of percentages was perfect: now instead of making the best weapons better, it still improves them, but improves the shorter ranged weapons even more to help close the gap. I do think that it would probably feel better to veteran players if the ranges were 2m for Reach and 4m for Primed Reach though - that doesn't seem excessive, would put many weapons at closer to the ranges they had before (so it wouldn't feel like a nerf like it does now), and it would also mean that Reach is a better early boost to melee for newer players.

The change to Condition Overload is downright bad. Conditions are not good enough to compete with crit weapons. You know what's a better condition than viral, heat, or any other condition? Death. Crit weapons are condition weapons that apply the condition Death. Condition overload needed to be nerfed, but it still needs to be competitive so condition weapons can compete with crit weapons.

I do not like how Blood Rush works. I know it's kind of a sacred cow, like Maiming Strike was, but now it's even more essential than it already was. Maybe more importantly, it flies in the face of the changes to combo. If combo is no longer a multiplicative ramp-up, but rather a build-and-spend resource, then there shouldn't be a mod that makes your damage ramp up as your combo increases. This mod feels very out of place, like a holdover of the old system. It should be changed - perhaps to something more like Berserker. Don't just nerf it into unviability like Condition Overload. It doesn't need balancing, it needs a conceptual overhaul that fits the new system.

The biggest thing: in general, I think that the change from multiplicative scaling via combo to build-and-spend is really healthy, and in terms of inputs it makes sense and feels good. But the problem is that heavy attacks are terrible. This is not a game where we fight small numbers of high-health enemies, which is what the current system would work well for. Heavy attacks should be huge AoE attacks (ideally AoE that scales in size with multiplier). Right now it never feels worth it to use them since it means losing Blood Rush benefits. Even without Blood Rush, it would still feel terrible - they're just extremely underwhelming. They feel like they were designed for an entirely different game. When fighting high level enemies, this feels especially bad: it feels like I lost the ability to clear waves of high level enemies and in return I was given the ability to do higher damage to singular targets - I lost something essential to Warframe's gameplay and gained an ability that is rarely needed in Warframe's gameplay.

Most of the animations for the heavy attacks are also pretty lame compared to the rest of the stances - a lot of the flashiest stances have heavy attacks that are things like little basic chopping motions. Although the lack of flashy animations is less an issue than the feeling that they don't make sense in Warframe's gameplay. At this point I would rather we just have no animation at all and the heavy attack would just be a big damaging radial pulse of energy or something simple and uniform between the weapons like that - that would be better than the heavy attacks right now.

The juggling ideas seem similar to the heavy attacks: conceptually really neat, but in practice extremely underwhelming and seemingly pointless. Virtually nothing survives long enough to be juggled. and anything that does survive that long, I would be better off on the ground. Why would I spend my combo to apply the Lift status to something and juggle it when I could just...kill it? If it's not already dead! I don't really know how this could be solved though without adding or changing enemies to actually give you enemies there's some reason to do this to. Maybe a mod could give me damage reduction while performing aerial hits? I'm still not sure I would use it, and that's coming from a person who loves this idea and loves games with launcher and juggling systems similar to this one.

It would also be nice to see the ranged-melee exalted weapons better integrated into the system. Gunblades give combo on bullet hits, so why doesn't Baruuk's Serene Storm give combo on ranged hits? This would be a perfect opportunity (especially combined with better heavy attacks) to make Serene Storm less of a red-headed step-child among exalted weapons.

So, to summarize things I would like to see:

1. Find a better middle ground with Condition Overload so status weapons can compete with crit weapons.
2. Change Blood Rush so it doesn't feel like a holdover of the old combo system.
3. Make heavy attacks worth using. Potentially, make them an AoE that scales in area with combo.
4. Maybe try to figure out a point to Lift status and aerial attacks, and/or a way for them to function in a game where enemies have horde shooter health values and not a beat-em-up health values.
5. Put combo generation on the rest of the ranged-melee weapons, just like the gunblades and glaives. Particularly on Baruuk's Serene Storm.
6. Maybe a small increase to range from Reach and Primed Reach, probably to 2m and 4m, which would put us near where we were before while also giving shorter weapons a buff. This one isn't a very big deal though - the current values aren't bad.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Modus-Pwnens

[NovusKnight]

I think my biggest grievance right now are finishers going to hell. They are so clunky and hard to execute right now. Parazon appears 100% RNG based, which is *stupid beyond words.* 

something that got removed was PARRYING. I loved this feature, where activating channeling a split second before an enemy struck you would briefly stun and open them for a finisher. It required timing and, compared to most melee shenanigans, actual skill.

with channeling gone, I think it would be great if there was a "timed block" feature similar to that found in some Skyrim mods- where blocking just before an attack struck would stagger the target, while being riskier than simply holding block, which only reduced damage.

DE even made blocking give immunity, and even combo. This feature would be awesome.

 

on the topic of finisher moves: Heavy attacks could be given a simple, but signifficant buff: MAKE THESE IGNORE ARMOR - and depending on weapon (if its status or crit based) gain an **additive** 20% crit/status chance value. this would mean, at as little as 3x combo, you have a +60% critical chance on something like a Paracesis. This would make heavy attacks SO MUCH BETTER. You would need some buildup, and you can't spam it like crazy, but this one feature would make almost every weapon class feel as satisfying as before the mod Nerf kerfuffle. Only on heavy attacks though, so... Yeah.

 

[Nssheepster]

My thoughts for now, after my own testing and the melee alerts:

The new stance system being standard-ish, I love. Not having to memorize individual combos, hold and release nonsense.... This is simple and effective and I like it. It FEELS better to use, and that was clearly your point. Keeping it to three buttons definitely helps.

Some of the new stances are a little.... Odd, in animations. High Noon on my Redeemer Prime sends me into some weird flip thing? I'm not even clear how I did that. Void MacGuffin explaining that, I guess? Whatever.

I seem to have lost damage on non-Heavy attacks. I don't like this at all. Because of how many changes there are and my refusal to do the damage, I have no idea where that damage was lost, I just know it's taking more swings than it used to to kill things.

Heavy Attacks themselves seem.... Unrewarding. I need to melee to build combo, then do a fairly slow animation, then do.... Not all that much more damage, really. Or, I could just shoot them in the face from across the room, as it's both faster, and safer, and won't put me in Nullifier bubbles. It doesn't help that the Heavy Attack animations seems significantly slower than just the basic attacks. I'll be honest, maybe at 12X Combo those are worth it, but in practice, I don't think I've ever seen more than 4X combo in a mission, even when I've been melee only. That was before the update.... After the update, I've only seen 3X. If the Heavy Attacks don't seem worth it NOW.... I can only imagine that wasting more time and effort building more combo..... If anything is still alive by then, then it should be almost dead and totally not worth wasting that built up combo ON.

The major, IE only, use I've found for Heavy Attacks, is with Initial Combo Counter and the Heavy Slam.... Because if your attack speed is just so, you can Heavy Slam, Lift everything, and jump into the air to Heavy Slam again, and have that Initial Combo Counter back up before you contact the ground. So, smaller Rhino Stomp, for everyone, for free...... I now have even more reasons to use Nezha over Rhino. If I can sort through the mods that have changed and maybe find one that "Increases Lifted Status Duration" or some such, it'll be even better.

Games in general struggle to make melee a THING, when ranged is available and good. Generally, games either give melee inherent defenses, which Warframe can't really do, or they make melee damaging enough to be worth the added risk.... Which Warframe was doing a wonderful job of, and now.... Isn't. Or at least it doesn't seem to be on the basic attacks, just the heavies.

 

My major conclusion? Remove Heavy Attacks. Balance damage around JUST the base melee system you added. Leave it be. As the saying goes, K.I.S.S., Keep It Simple S-. This "Rage Mode" you're thinking about adding? Don't. This isn't Devil May Cry, or Bayonetta..... While you've got us doing fancy moves, we're getting shot and killed. I've already gotten nuked because of where the Parazon finishers put me. You made a horde shooter game. Spectacle Fighter mechanics have no place here, and never really will, because they're about being showy and dramatic rather than actually fighting, about cool moves rather than just killing the enemy. If I "Bayonetta-d" every Infested in an Exterminate, I'd be at it for over an hour. Or I could shoot them all, and take a few minutes. No mattter how "fun" or "cool" you make it.... Players need a reason to use melee over just shooting things. Making it slower, or more complicated, is specifically fighting your end goal. The basic attacks feel great. Keep them, use them. Then STOP f-ing with it, you're done. No new additions, no fancy alternate modes.... Simple, clean, and if you get the damage right, a competitive option against ranged weaponry.