Melee Combat Rework

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

Combat in warframe feels okay but there are some things that I think keep it from feeling as good as it should. The goal of this post is to try to list a few ideas that may make combat in warframe feel a lot more smooth, look a lot better, and be more fun.

Activating Combo Attacks

Problem #1: Occasionally enemies get staggered or move backwards and you need to move just a little closer to hit them, but the game has this system where moving causes you to start a different melee combo instead of finishing your previous one. So sometimes you get stuck performing the initial attack of both the stationary and moving combo as you ty to stay close to enemy, which can get a bit annoying. Additionally, some melee attacks feel extremely underwhelming like the wall latch melee attack where its hard to land and deals damage that never really feels worth the effort.

Solution #1 (New Combo Attack Rules): So instead of having to move to perform a different combo attack that cancels the stationary one, all combos will now allow the player to move whenever desired (this includes making current melee attacks that interupt your movement, be changed to allow the player to move if they want to), and continue executing the same combo no matter if they are moving or not. The new way to perform the other combos will now be through simply holding another button.

For grounded combat

Spoiler

 

• Melee button only

 Fast attacks that have a low chance to stagger enemies, and builds up damage that can be unleashed the moment a different combo is used. The damage buff will carry throughout the entire combo. This idea is just to make the choice to switch combo attacks a little more interesting. (This attack deals the Highest DPS)

• Aim + Melee

 Slow attacks such as large swings and heavy slams that have a high chance to stagger enemies and breaks enemy's ability to block (Highest Damage attacks)

• Crouch + Melee (Prioritizes slide attack first)

Fast, low damage, and high range or AOR attacks such as spins or dashes with a low chance to stagger enemies (Highest Range attacks)

 

 

For airborne combat

Spoiler

 

• Melee button only

Causes you to hover in place while you complete your melee combo. This is to help players execute their attacks on things like osprey. It keeps the player from just flying off while wildly swinging their melee weapon around, praying they hit something.

• Aim + Melee

 Quickly dashes you to the closest enemy you are facing

• Heavy Attack:

 Slam attack, hold the button for 1 second to charge up the attack for a stronger effect.

• Wall Latched Melee Attack

Turns the player into a deadly projectile that launches them off the wall in a horizontal direction, that is 2 times faster and longer than a normal bullet jump. It only works best horizontally, and leaves little room for vertical movement.

 

 

Other melee attacks like slide attacks work like normal. This should allow for more intentional attacks to be used and adds more reason to use some of them.

Staggers > Lifted Status

Problem #2 "lifted status": I was told this was an attempt to mimic Devil May Cry's (DMC) combat and, no. It's not close enough to DMC, It doesn't really look flashy and it creates some annoying circumstances where the enemy falls out of reach. 

Solution #2: What it does do good at however, is create some really nice cc. So if something like this must be in game, I think staggers fit the best. Maybe put the enemy in something that would be called a "weakened state" where the enemy just looks a bit tired, attacks a lot slower, and can get staggered by near anything that hits it for the duration.

Bringing in Devil Trigger

Problem #3 Combo Counter: I think its really nice the way it encourages the player to stay on a relentless assault however I don't like the way it punishes you. If teammates are killing too quickly, you like using guns, or if you use a heavy attack, you risk losing all of your combo points. Those things should be things that are okay happen however the combo counter makes them bad which I think deceases the fun of the game instead of producing a pleasant risk reward system.  

Solution #3 Devil Trigger: Below your shield and health bar will be black bar that slowly fills up with purple electricity/energy. This new bar represents the full power the operator has, that is building up over time. Holding the reload button will unleash the operator's (Sometimes called Void Demon) true potential, granting you new abilities. Your devil trigger will decay over time, but it can be slowed by continuing to deal damage to enemies.

How the devil trigger works:

Spoiler

 

To build up the bar:

• Blocking or taking damage (slowest way to build it up)
• Being near a kill (moderate)
• Dealing damage (fastest)

Abilities when the devil trigger is unleashed

• Weapon Channeling: All weapons receive a slight buff to every stat (Except zoom), with added visual and sound effects. 
• Immortal: You still take damage but you cannot be downed while using your devil trigger. Taking fatal damage while using devil trigger speeds up its drain rate but only to a max of 5 seconds. Meaning if your devil trigger can last 20 seconds, taking fatal damage can only take up to 5 seconds worth of time off of it.
• Ability Overload: Every 10 seconds the player will be able to use an ability for free, with all of the stats of the ability multiplied by 2. Drainage abilities will be free of cost for and additional 10 seconds.
• Increased Drop Chance: Killed enemies will drop more resources, mods, ammo, (A bit similar to Wukong)
• New Special Attacks:

- Elemental Blast: Heavy Attack

After defeating an enemy, your next heavy attack will deal extra damage and create a powerful wave elemental energy across 5m. The more enemies killed before casting this ability, the more range and damage it will deal. Slam attacks trigger the same effect with less damage & half the range, but spreads the effect in a circular shape.

- Uppercut: Slide/Crouch + Heavy Attack

Perform a spiraling melee attack that lifts you off the ground similar to a bullet jump. Enemies within melee range will be lifted off with you similar to Sevagoth's Shadow's Pull ability with less duration and much less range. Use this attack again to move the enemies to another location or to slam them to the ground again. This ability is good for allowing the player to keep moving to avoid getting gunned down, and it's sort of good at grouping enemies up if the player is accurate enough. 

- Teleport: Roll + Jump button

Teleports you to the last enemy you dealt damage to. May look similar to a void dash but drains some of the devil trigger.

 

 

The fastest way to max out your devil trigger by using the combination of the 3 methods above, should take around a minute (depending on the player's build), while the slowest will be 3 minutes. Players can activate it whenever they like, but doing so before the bars is maxed out will of course result in a lower duration. The longest duration devil trigger can be used for is approximately 30 seconds if the player has continuously dealt damage to enemies (Maybe 1 tick of damage after 2 seconds). If the player has dealt no damage to enemies, it will only last for 10 seconds. The ability can be canceled after activation but at the cost of 25% of their total devil trigger. Players will have to time it right and use their weapons to get the most out of the cast of their devil trigger.

Ranged & Melee Finishers

Problem #4: Parazon finishers are really hard to use and normal finishers require abilities to activate. So both of them you don't get use to much. There's also the problem of reward where using them doesn't really help you with anything.

Solution #4: The parazon mark will now have a percent chance to pop up on an enemy at any amount health "even on spawn". The chance for an enemy to be marked increases as they lose health and as an enemies within 20m of another enemy, dies. When an enemy becomes marked for a parazon finisher, there will be 2 ways to deal finisher damage to the enemy

Spoiler

 

• Ranged Finisher

Parazon marked enemies will have a small glowing spot marked on their body. If the player manages to have enough accuracy to hit the spot, melee finisher damage is applied to the enemy. Pulling this off increases the chance for a nearby enemy to be marked.

• Melee Finisher

Same as current finishers except doing it has a lower chance of marking nearby enemies, due to it being much easier to perform. You will also have the ability to perform a multi kill finisher with the parazon if enemies are within range. Now animation wise, I wouldn't expect this to be something any more complicated than mesa's 4th ability animations. I think performing a multi kill finisher looks good enough with just the warframe performing some cool moves to put down enemies, instead of having the enemies perform unique animations too.

 

 

If the previously mentioned devil trigger were brought into the game, both finishers equally fill the devil trigger bar much quicker per kill. If not, the abilities would just add to the combo counter by 30 points per kill.

What happens to mods like Blood Rush?

Blood rush will scale off of the devil trigger bar, and a percentage of the buff will be lost by not getting enough kills when the devil trigger is active. To maintain the full buff, the player will have to get at least 12 kills while in their devil state, each kill the player is behind, is a point off from the scaling of blood rush. 

What happens if the player uses a heavy attack outside of devil trigger?

It will drain 10% of the devil trigger to deal extra damage on the attack. The extra damage depends on how filled the bar was at the time of cast. This keeps heavy attacks from being too powerful by limiting the amount of uses.

 

Why would anyone want this?

I think this idea adds things that gives players something to look forward to mid mission, instead of trying to wait till the end of the mission for a rewards. It will make warframes that have some survivability issues have periods where they get to worry less about it and have more fun, it makes getting kills feel more rewarding and satisfying to do with the increase in enemy drops and damage buffs, It allows for more experimentation with builds that may lack in certain areas like ability efficiency or power strength, etc...

It also helps weaken another issue of guns feeling like they are being over shadowed by melee weapons by adding a way for them to execute enemies and aid in the scaling of both their gun in their melee through the devil trigger.

 

Thoughts?

[(PSN)xBlake360]

Finally, someone who remembers that Melee 3.0 phase 3 hasn't been released yet (Devil trigger and further reworks). Personally, I wouldn't change too much of the ground combat, since the combo changes were welcome, but aerial combat really needs a change. You have interesting ideas about knocking enemies up (that came out wrong), it would really benefit the gameplay. Combo counter and Bloodrush are the most complicated things to change (mostly, because of any possible outrage), but your idea has got many things right.

Reworking heavy attacks is necessary. They are completely disconnected from the main melee combat. There are a few ways to do that:

• have them act more like special attacks, just like you presented, they would get an additonal effects (greater range, sending a wave of energy, sth similar to Bonewidow heavy attack)
• have them still be dependent on COMBO COUNTER, but each tier of combo would improve their AoE, each category of melee already have its own heavy attack, so it would make sense for them to have different effects (that way melee would be way more diverse), so heavy attack would become more of a special attack (still cant get over the fact that heavy attack on exalted blade doesnt send a huge wave of energy)
• have them act like a buff to already existing ground combat, that way when you press the heavy attack button, you just buff the next attack that was supposed to happen in the combo you use (personally, that seems the laziest and the most boring solution)

I love how you made that Devil Trigger buff the whole performance of the player and not just the melee, really brings up the "space magic ninja" aspect back into the play.

[quxier]

On 2021-05-11 at 7:35 PM, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Solution #1 (New Combo Attack Rules): So instead of having to move to perform a different combo attack that cancels the stationary one, all combos will now allow the player to move whenever desired, and continue executing the same combo no matter if they are moving or not. The new way to perform the other combos will now be through simply holding another button.

In my opinion there should be 2 kind of combos (+ normal & special variations):

- standing (more or less)

- moving

Having same attack while you move and while you standing is not always good.

And moving combos should let you move to all direction, not only forward (backwards movement triggers normal combo as fair I remember).

 

As for now some melee combos works should work like this (a lot of stances are little random):

- standing combo: you attack with your melee, not moving too much, should be quick attacks

- standing + block: some special attack, like "charged" slam (not long like current heavy attack), spin weapon around you or move to the side (Bullet dance - gunblades).

- moving: you attack while moving

- moving + block: this moves you to the enemy (e.g. jump to enemy), it's used to shorten distance between you and enemy while there are no enemies between you.

- slide attack

 

In my opinion this is much better than your ground way. Of course implementation isn't good but the core idea is nice.

 

On 2021-05-11 at 7:35 PM, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

For grounded combat

So there are no heavy attack for ground-way?

You should consider what to do with few weapons that utilize heavy attack for special attack:

- Arum Spinosa or Quasus - shoot projectiles

- Zenistar - shoots hovering disc

How would you do it without Heavy attack button? In my opinion holding is not nice for this. For things like Quasus it should be fast, hence button tap.

 

On 2021-05-11 at 7:35 PM, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

• Melee button only

Causes you to hover in place while you complete your melee combo. This is to help players execute their attacks on things like osprey. It keeps the player from just flying off while wildly swinging their melee weapon around, praying they hit something.

• Aim + Melee

 Quickly dashes you to the closest enemy you are facing

In my opinion movement and where you look should cause to attack  given enemy. For example there are 2 enemies (in air) at 9 & 2 o'clock. When you look at and move towards enemy at 2 o'clock you attack this enemy. That kind of movement should "dash" you towards this enemy. Little bit like Arch-melee.

Why not aim+melee? There are Zaws & certain weapons (e.g. Vitrica) that uses Aim+Melee for this.

 

On 2021-05-11 at 7:35 PM, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

 

• Heavy Attack:

 Slam attack, hold the button for 1 second to charge up the attack for a stronger effect.

Looking down and attacking is more straight-forward than using special key.

On 2021-05-11 at 7:35 PM, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

• Wall Latched Melee Attack

Turns the player into a deadly projectile that launches them off the wall in a horizontal direction, that is 2 times faster and longer than a normal bullet jump. It only works best horizontally, and leaves little room for vertical movement.

This might not be as useful as you think. When you latch you latch above enemies. This should moves you (2-3x speed as you said) in a direction you are pointing.

Bonus if you bounce back to your original position or other wall (auto-latch for <1s).

 

As for Combo:

I feel it could bring some fresh air in combat but... if some Heavy gunner (or other enemy from dozen of them in the field) melts your "combo" then it won't be fun.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, quxier said:

Having same attack while you move and while you standing is not always good.

I dont understand, if you can perform an attack that can be excuted while standing still and while moving, whats the problem?

3 hours ago, quxier said:

So there are no heavy attack for ground-way?

 

On 2021-05-11 at 1:35 PM, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Other melee attacks like slide attacks work like normal.

Including heavy attacks, i hadnt thought of much for them else for them so i just said that.

3 hours ago, quxier said:

In my opinion movement and where you look should cause to attack  given enemy. For example there are 2 enemies (in air) at 9 & 2 o'clock. When you look at and move towards enemy at 2 o'clock you attack this enemy. That kind of movement should "dash" you towards this enemy. Little bit like Arch-melee.

I agree with this sorta, but being able to move your camera around while youre attacking something is really helpful, allowing you to scout for danger. Youre able to see things like rockets come your way, and dodge them. To your teammates, it would look like you just have ninja reflexes when really you just had the camera looking behind you while you were fighting something.

Its pretty neat

3 hours ago, quxier said:

Looking down and attacking is more straight-forward than using special key.

Same reason as the one i gave before this quote. Its nice being able to look at angels to keep yourself safe, however with the way things are now, looking at just a slight angel slams the player to the ground. I get why DE has it like that which is because looking straight down may feel like too much of a hassle but still, it forces the player to sort of go blind in directions. So i made this idea so that there are no problems

3 hours ago, quxier said:

This might not be as useful as you think. When you latch you latch above enemies. This should moves you (2-3x speed as you said) in a direction you are pointing.

Enemies are below you but not that far below. When you wall latach, at most enemies will be at a 30 degree angle below you so youd still hit them. The ability leaves little room for verticle movement, not none

3 hours ago, quxier said:

feel it could bring some fresh air in combat but... if some Heavy gunner (or other enemy from dozen of them in the field) melts your "combo" then it won't be fun.

Talking about the devil trigger right? Its a good point. I wanted it to be powerful but not so op where the player gets to be too wreckless with it. Ill think about it

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, quxier said:

moving + block: this moves you to the enemy (e.g. jump to enemy), it's used to shorten distance between you and enemy while there are no enemies between you

Oh yea and this, while i considered this i felt slide attacks are pretty good at gap closing. So i left it out

The devil trigger has another version of basically what youre saying tho. I made it for the devil trigger only because of the distance id imagine players could use it for. Maybe 20m or 30m

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

On 2021-05-12 at 4:30 AM, (PSN)xBlake360 said:

• have them act more like special attacks, just like you presented, they would get an additonal effects (greater range, sending a wave of energy, sth similar to Bonewidow heavy attack)
• have them still be dependent on COMBO COUNTER, but each tier of combo would improve their AoE, each category of melee already have its own heavy attack, so it would make sense for them to have different effects (that way melee would be way more diverse), so heavy attack would become more of a special attack (still cant get over the fact that heavy attack on exalted blade doesnt send a huge wave of energy)
• have them act like a buff to already existing ground combat, that way when you press the heavy attack button, you just buff the next attack that was supposed to happen in the combo you use (personally, that seems the laziest and the most boring solution

Yea this sounds pretty good. The way i have things right now, the heavy attack uses the devil trigger already so i think it would def make sense to have it use some sort of additional attack with it too. I want to do more with the heavy attack button but since i cant think of anything, i think your idea may be best for now

Also really glad you liked the post!

[quxier]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

I dont understand, if you can perform an attack that can be excuted while standing still and while moving, whats the problem?

Some attacks are better suited for when you move and some when you are standing.

Look at Bullet dance. Forward combo moves blade around you. Standing combo.. looks like it wants to move you forward/backward.

It's not that you cannot do it but... it might not look great. And to be honest that's half of the "fun" of current melee system.

1 hour ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Including heavy attacks, i hadnt thought of much for them else for them so i just said that.

I see, no problem.

1 hour ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Same reason as the one i gave before this quote. Its nice being able to look at angels to keep yourself safe, however with the way things are now, looking at just a slight angel slams the player to the ground. I get why DE has it like that which is because looking straight down may feel like too much of a hassle but still, it forces the player to sort of go blind in directions. So i made this idea so that there are no problems

I had no problem with slam attacks. So YMMV.

1 hour ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Enemies are below you but not that far below. When you wall latach, at most enemies will be at a 30 degree angle below you so youd still hit them. The ability leaves little room for verticle movement, not none

If you move at 2x speed then it won't be that easy to do.

1 hour ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

Talking about the devil trigger right? Its a good point. I wanted it to be powerful but not so op where the player gets to be too wreckless with it. Ill think about it

Yeah, devil trigger.

 

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Some attacks are better suited for when you move and some when you are standing.

Look at Bullet dance. Forward combo moves blade around you. Standing combo.. looks like it wants to move you forward/backward

Ohhh i see, no im asking those stances that make you move weirdly either be removed or allow you to move while using them as well, not just leave combos designed to force you to stop in the game unchanged

1 hour ago, quxier said:

had no problem with slam attacks. So YMMV.

Yea not everyone will have a problem with it, some havent even tried otherways to play the game to know if theyre missing out on something

Either way, such a change wouldnt hurt, and if it is that big of a deal, DE can always make it optional.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

If you move at 2x speed then it won't be that easy to do.

It should be as easy as firing a gun? Gun projectiles move way way faster

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Yeah, devil trigger.

Yea ill switch up, i think ill just place a limit on it like giving the player a gaurnteed amount of time to use the the trigger. 

[quxier]

7 minutes ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

It should be as easy as firing a gun? Gun projectiles move way way faster

Yes, but you are not moving a bullet but trying to predict where enemy should be after "N" second. Try using Ivara/Navigator with increased speed (you hold a key, I don't remember). This would be similar to your suggestion about wall attack.

 

Rest of your post:

Yeah, I guess it could work.

[(PSN)Vexx757]

Me personally I would of liked it if the combos is like DMC or the old GOW kind of what melee 2.0 was but unfortunately that will never happen plus ppl complained about melee 2.0 cuz they were lazy to pull of some combos, depside some of the combos were dumb (like the left combo) to me it was fun.

I also put up a post about my throughs about it and just to add I would like to see operators use void melee weapons. If this is a thing, the Naramon focus school would be fun as heck.

 

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

4 minutes ago, (PSN)Vexx757 said:

Me personally I would of liked it if the combos is like DMC or the old GOW kind of what melee 2.0 was but unfortunately that will never happen plus ppl complained about melee 2.0 cuz they were lazy to pull of some combos, depside some of the combos were dumb (like the left combo) to me it was fun.

I also put up a post about my throughs about it and just to add I would like to see operators use void melee weapons. If this is a thing, the Naramon focus school would be fun as heck.

 

The problem with directional combos for me is they limit my movement for no good reason. Especially the combos that require you to move backwards. Literally have to turn my camera around to properly land it. On something infront of me, like why? Its just annoying imo

[(PSN)Vexx757]

5 minutes ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

The problem with directional combos for me is they limit my movement for no good reason. Especially the combos that require you to move backwards. Literally have to turn my camera around to properly land it. On something infront of me, like why? Its just annoying imo

Yh the backward combo was dumb, in my eyes they should of just made it like DMC or GOW one thing I can say about those games no one complains about that kind of combos coz it feels good to pull of a different combo with a different animation and the animations are over the top. they are starting to make games like that again like scarlet nexus, souls aside and that babalon game (I can`t remember the name).

imo when it comes to difficulty DE should learn for Ninja Gaiden in terms of enemy AI.