Melee's Worst Qualities

[noneuklid]

I want to preface this by saying I find melee a lot of fun much of the time. If it were a system I never used, I wouldn't care about the ways in which it was frustrating, because I'd never encounter them. So --

• Finishing/Ground Attacks Extensively Root User. Well-known issue. These should be initiated manually with a combo keypress (rather than contextually with the regular attack button) or at the least be cancellable -- or removed entirely. Few/no weapons deal damage per animation time with their finishing moves comparable to their regular or charge damage anyway.
  
   
• Stepping While Swinging. There's no need for this. If I want to keep moving forward, I'll hold the forward button. At the very least, go the Dungeon Defenders route and add a checkbox for it somewhere in the settings.
  
   
• Ranged Enemies More Dangerous in Melee Than At Range. Shockwave MOAs, while aggravating in packs, are a pretty good enemy type. They telegraph their dangerous attack and even when it's executed the 'wave' is avoidable. Heavy Gunners' Ground Punch is less understandable. It's every bit as dangerous as the Shockwave, but with very little telegraph and no general way to escape -- even leaping directly away from a gunner as soon as the short telegraph begins typically results in contact with the wave and a knockdown. All this from an enemy that's already a very credible threat at range.
  
  Abilities dangerous in melee should always telegraph, and always be escapable. Being up close to an enemy means much less time to react and less space to move in. This has nothing to do with realism, but everything to do with flow.
  
   
• Poor Single-Target Damage Scaling. As others have said, ranged weapons have a layer of damage multiplication (multishot) that melee weapons lack. This means that even strong melee weapons are frequently surpassed by much initially weaker ranged weapons. Whether by adding 'doublehit,' increasing crit rates and multipliers across the board on melee, or simply re-balancing multishot, this needs to be addressed.
  
   
• Poor Targeting. There are two aspects to this. First, hitting weak spots with melee weapons is an enormous challenge, further compounding the damage gap between ranged and melee weapons. Second, even selecting a particular target in a crowd is very difficult with target-capped melee weapons. I can understand that the idea of a longsword doesn't lend itself to "AoE powerhouse," but the game's play in other regards make it more intuitive for melee attacks to hit at least every enemy they clip through. Having the weapon do damage based on number of targets (say, as much as 100% to a single target and as little as 40-50% to each of a large group of targets) -- instead of iterative falloff -- is an acceptable means of limiting this from growing out of control with improved single-target scaling options.
   

To wrap up, melee is about mobility and burst damage. Being less mobile (and less in control of your mobility) and less accurate than while using ranged attacks feels terrible.

Edited October 7, 2013 by noneuklid

[ProjectKaeon]

I agree with the melee Targeting, It needs to be able to strike everything in range.

[Hexosaurus]

• Poor Damage Scaling.  As others have said, ranged weapons have a layer of damage multiplication (multishot) that melee weapons lack.  This means that even strong melee weapons are frequently surpassed by much initially weaker ranged weapons.  Whether by adding 'doublehit,' increasing crit rates and multipliers across the board on melee, or simply re-balancing multishot, this needs to be addressed.

Armor 2.0

That's all I'm going to say.

[CrystalTrees]

wow everything you said is bang on! if these small changes are implemented i would be very satisfied. still i crave melee depth in the form of combos, but really if the issues you stated are still around the combos wouldnt even be as much fun.

 

the one thing i hate the most is the moving forward thing, why is it impossible to just stand in one place and swing wildly?

 

also melee should at least have a 25% chance to hit a soft spot on enemies, because i cannot for the life of me predict where each melee swing is going to land,much less be able to target it.

 

please DE help us melee weilders.

[Vitras]

 

please DE help us melee weilders.

[Makemap]

I hate the part when melee Toxics or crawlers, I just move into them. There is absolutely no way to survive while melee poisonous enemies.

[Towermice]

6. The (cool) dismemberment (vertically/horizontally) never happens...like ever... 

[noneuklid]

Armor 2.0

That's all I'm going to say.

 

Damage multiplication works irrespective of enemy armor or even the specific damage mechanics involved, as long as those mechanics are consistent between ranged and melee.

[A1CZERO]

Spot on with pretty much every problem with melee.

 

While 1 and 2 are the most annoying 4 is the biggest problem. We'll see how Damage 2.0 works with that.

[SirDraco]

I agree with your points. As someone who  is very big on melee in any game, it bothers me that melee weapons are not on par with ranged weapons. They should be switched out like primary and secondary and stay out when wielding until you switch to another weapon. I primarily use my melee as my main weapon so that should be the weapon that stays in my hands. Perhaps they can add an option in the settings menu for melee weapon sheathing or something, that would be nice.

 

Also, as someone who has trained in a multitude of martial arts, it bothers me that dual swords like the dual skana are positioned on one's back the same way as a sword and dagger in an "L" formation rather than an "X" with both sword hilts extending above the shoulders. I understand that the right shoulder holds the primary weapon, but the way it is positioned currently is impractical and unwieldy. Storing a dagger horizontally across the lower back is perfectly acceptable and practical. Since the Tenno are space ninjas, they would be quite familiar with how weapons should be sheathed for maximum practicality. The dual skana are very much akin to Ninjato or Chisa Katanas that would traditionally be sheathed this way. It's really just a pet peeve of mine, most people wouldn't be bothered by it unless they've practiced Nitojutsu as I have, so I doubt it will change.

Edited October 4, 2013 by SirDraco

[Xuande]

Some other faults with the melee mechanics:

 

- Melee weapons only damage a certain maximum number of enemies at a time. Swords and daggers are well-known single-target weapons, while most multi-targeting melee weapons only target a maximum of 3 enemies at a time. The exceptions to this are the Orthos/Orthos Prime and Galatine, which can target 5 enemies per swing, and the Glaive when using Power Throw, which has no observable limit to enemy targeting. My suggestion would be to remove this mechanic altogether. A melee weapon's physical range, after all, is an obvious enough limitation on the amount of enemies you can attack anyway. Dakra Prime gives a good example on what most longswords have been missing out on due to this constraining mechanism.

 

- Melee weapons have damage fall-off. Multi-hitting melee weapons have a pesky damage fall-off system that penalizes hitting more than one target per swing. The fall-off is usually 75% for both normal and charge attacks, meaning that an unmodded Orthos would deal 200 damage to the first connecting enemy, 150 to the second, about 113 to the third, about 84 to the fourth and about 63 to the fifth in one swing. The only exception to the fall-off (according to the last datamined info before Pwnatron quit) seems to be the gram, which has no damage fall-off during normal attacks. My suggestion would be to remove this mechanic as well. It makes no sense why such a limiting system on melee weapons should exist, when multi-hitting ranged weapons like Ignis or Torid don't seem to suffer the same fault.

[Azamagon]

Great points (both OP and other posters)

 

While here is my general ideas on how to improve melee: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/89931-melee-tweaks/

... I'm also gonna point out a few suggestions (and thoughts) for some of these issues

 

1) This issue could be solved so easily: Make it trigger from the action-button! (Default key being X). Doing so for both finishers and stealth-attacks would give way better control for sure

 

3) I think this is one of the issues why people probably hate to fight Grineer the most. Just look at this:

* Infested - Swarms in plenty of enemies, have powerful attacks and can CC you easily - HOWEVER - they lack range (which is a HUGE disadvantage) and are generally not very durable (exception would be Ancients, but they are also far fewer in numbers, usually)

* Corpus - Medium amount of enemies, very powerful ranged attacks, have situational durability (shield ospreys) and very potent powerful CC - HOWEVER - their attacks are far more avoidable (not hitscan) and their CC is well telegraphed (shockwave MOA)

* Grineer - Swarm in about the same amounts as Corpus, are all heavily armored, have hitscan ranged units, a crapload of CC-units (Commanders, Scorpions, Heavies in melee etc) and deals quite high damage. No glaring weaknesses, really. Grineer are just too much of everything.

 

4) For better explanation, read my thread linked. In short:

* Streamline melee mods. No more splitting of charge and regular attacks!

* Killing Blow is the general damage-increasing mod for melee

* Pressure Point can become the "multishot" mod for melee

* ... and a lot more xD

Melee does indeed scale horribly. There is also a huge favorism for charge-attacks:

* Invisibility-mechanics increases regular melee damage by 50%, but charge-attacks by 100%. This also holds back scaling-possibilities and invisibility should thus only increase melee attacks (both regular and charge) by 50%.

* Charge-attacks are (almost) all armor-ignoring. But few regular attacks are. I really hope armor 2.0 will fix this issue.

* Even with all the above stated, regular melee attacks have horrible damage output. These needs a buffing in general (even on TOP of all the scaling fixes)

* Blade (and Serrated Blade) vs non-Blade is too big of a difference against Infested. With a 3x multiplier against the lesser Infested, this ALSO holds back scaling-possibilities. Reducing the multiplier to only 2x could allow melee to have better base stats AND better modscaling

 

So... yeah. Melee has a lot of issues going on with its scaling

 

5) Yup, this is just stupid. Taking the risk of getting close in melee should at the very least reward you with multitargetting capabilities.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Azamagon

[Archistopheles]

There is absolutely no way to survive while melee poisonous enemies.

 

You have a Trinity Avatar.... I'm not sure if you're being serious right now....

[GeoffFromAccounting]

You have a Trinity Avatar.... I'm not sure if you're being serious right now....

 

Avatars don't have to relate to the warframe they're using, for example my avatar is Volt with the storm helmet yet right now I'm using Ash and Banshee

[CY13ERPUNK]

I want to preface this by saying I find melee a lot of fun much of the time.  If it were a system I never used, I wouldn't care about the ways in which it was frustrating, because I'd never encounter them.  So -- 

 

1. 
   

• • Finishing/Ground Attacks Extensively Root User.  Well-known issue.  These should be initiated manually with a combo keypress (rather than contextually with the regular attack button) or at the least be cancellable -- or removed entirely.  Few/no weapons deal damage with their finishing moves comparable to their regular or charge damage anyway.
     
    
  • Stepping While Swinging. There's no need for this.  If I want to keep moving forward, I'll hold the forward button.  At the very least, go the Dungeon Defenders route and add a checkbox for it somewhere in the settings.

OMFG YES, +1 OP

^^^^^ THIS SOOO MUCH

finishers/ground attacks do HORRIBLE DAMAGE COMPARED TO HOW LONG THEY TAKE

and the stepping-while-swinging makes regular melee attack spam INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT AND FRUSTRATING TO CONTINUOUSLY LAND HITS ON TARGET, WHY IS THE GAME MAKING MELEE EVEN HARDER TO USE/AIM?!?!?!

Edited October 5, 2013 by CY13ERPUNK

[noneuklid]

Honestly, I'd be willing to keep a version of damage falloff as long as it meant that a) the weapon did roughly equal damage to each target it hit, b) it did single-target damage comparable to ranged weapons of at worst one 'tier' down, and c) single-target melee hits were always "weak spot" hits.

 

(So rather than doing 100%, 75%, 57%, etc... the weapon's swing would deal something like 0.5 + 1 / (1 + numtargets) -- just as a napkin example.)

[noneuklid]

Updated OP slightly to clarify some points.

[Temfist]

In regards to the finisher/ground moves, I've noticed Heavy Impact does sort of soften the blow of your slow animations with heavy weapon down attacks as they activate the Heavy Impact almost regardless, but it's not always guaranteed to work, and in some regards, isn't reliable (after further testing, I've notice Galatine doesn't get this nifty bonus very often. It would be really nice to have it be a reliable effect on a down hit, considering it's down attacks animation speed when combined with Fury). I think Finisher moves should have a high damage multiplier, making them worth the sacrifice of mobility when trying to quickly dispatch a downed ancient or grineer napalm/bombardier.

 

it's also too easy to perform a finisher by accident on a enemy you've just knocked down, especially when using Fragor.

 

+1 OP

Edited October 7, 2013 by Temphis

[Davoodoo]

Bunch of useful ideas, im really suprised to see this on these forums. +1

[castem]

Terrific points you brought up; I hope DE addresses them soon.

 

+1 to OP

[TheHeraldXII]

Armor 2.0

That's all I'm going to say.

Given that the greatest advantage of melee right now is armour ignoring damage, I don't think armour 2.0 is going to help. If you meant that it'll buff their non-charged attacks, well, you'd need to at least triple the damage of those attacks to get them on par with similarly tiered ranged weapons for DPS. Even then, 20%/rank base damage upgrade, elementals on par with any other weapon, no mulitshot... Melee weapons start off bad and their mods don't scale as well.

 

Examples of poor non-charged damage.

Skana vs Lato: Lato has 24 damage, 6.7 attacks/second=160.8 DPS vs Skana has 25 damage, 1.85 attacks/second=46.25 DPS

Next in line, the direct upgrades, Cronus and Aklato: Aklato has 24 damage, 8.33 attacks/second=199.92 DPS vs Cronus has 35 damage, 2.2 attacks/second=77 DPS

Next stage, Vasto vs Gram: Vasto has 50 damage, 5 attacks/second=250 DPS, Gram has 45 damage, 1.3 attacks/second=58.3 DPS

 

Maybe they can compete more closely with their charged attacks, but still, non-charged attacks are completely awful right now and armour 2.0 isn't going to change that at all.

[OblivionNecroninja]

In regards to the finisher/ground moves, I've noticed Heavy Impact does sort of soften the blow of your slow animations with heavy weapon down attacks as they activate the Heavy Impact almost regardless, but it's not always guaranteed to work, and in some regards, isn't reliable (after further testing, I've notice Galatine doesn't get this nifty bonus very often. It would be really nice to have it be a reliable effect on a down hit, considering it's down attacks animation speed when combined with Fury). I think Finisher moves should have a high damage multiplier, making them worth the sacrifice of mobility when trying to quickly dispatch a downed ancient or grineer napalm/bombardier.

 

it's also too easy to perform a finisher by accident on a enemy you've just knocked down, especially when using Fragor.

 

+1 OP

God don't even get me STARTED on Fragor's finisher >.<'

[Ravenlight]

Melee weapons also take waaaay longer to level in my experience than their primary and secondary counterparts. It would be cool if melee kills were worth 1.5x experience.

[Wustinhurf]

heh melee should be use as a backup to a backup or stealth weapon. Don't get me wrong I love using melee in combats, it get me to places and love those slide and slash. But why change the whole melee combat system, I think they should make a new frame that is perfect for melee only. That way you can pick a pure melee frame and enhance ur combat experience. I mean why not this game is about frames isn't it?

[PFunDaddy]

heh melee should be use as a backup to a backup or stealth weapon. Don't get me wrong I love using melee in combats, it get me to places and love those slide and slash. But why change the whole melee combat system, I think they should make a new frame that is perfect for melee only. That way you can pick a pure melee frame and enhance ur combat experience. I mean why not this game is about frames isn't it?

Or just take Loki and run with a heavy weapon. Double damage with a charge attack while invisible, have a teleport, a distraction, and force enemies to melee. Sounds like a melee frame to me.