Melee Nerf Concern

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

Never get too comfortable with the way things currently are in WF, as anything can change. 

[Jarriaga]

On 2021-06-01 at 8:21 AM, RazerXPrime said:

They should nerf it into the ground so I can go to the forums with popcorn.

It's interesting when people only look at the negative aspects of things. It's a balance update, but you choose to look at it from a "nerf" aka "negative" perspective.

No matter what happens you will be disappointed as this is the stance you've chosen towards this. Best be prepared.

Here's the thing: If you're a melee-focused or melee-only player, what good is the next update if it's only going to buff guns while nerfing melee?

I understand where you're coming from, but I see little reason to get excited if you're not into guns to begin with. 

[RazerXPrime]

Just now, Jarriaga said:

Here's the thing: If you're a melee-focused or melee-only player, what good is the next update if it's only going to buff guns while nerfing melee?

I understand where you're coming from, but I see little reason to get excited if you're not into guns to begin with.

Oh no I get it. But it's not like melee will be no longer in the game or no longer viable. Even if you deal only 50% of the damage you currently do with melee you will oneshot anything sans endurance run enemies. But maybe even those. So there's room I'd say.

[Jarriaga]

Just now, RazerXPrime said:

Oh no I get it. But it's not like melee will be no longer in the game or no longer viable. Even if you deal only 50% of the damage you currently do with melee you will oneshot anything sans endurance run enemies. But maybe even those. So there's room I'd say.

Personally, my concerns are more about attack speed rather than per-hit damage. As a Valkyr and Gauss player, attack speed stacking being killed (If no exceptions are made for abilities + mod stacking) would essentially be a double nerf for me. 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

32 minutes ago, SyberWolfe said:

My Gauss and Hirudo say hi. I use the crit attack speed bonus, and redline, to turn in to a blender of ultra high crits - which i have seen get to seven or eight digits high. Melee does need a nerf. A good, long, responsible look at what the issue might, what causes the issue, and to then fix it by either nerfing (responsibly) or buffing guns. Right now, the only meta weapons are kuva weapons, and i rather dont like using those. I want to see my tigris prime, or corinth prime, be able to handle the same level enemies as melee. 

They just need to make sure that the balance is fair, and thought through. Their history for nerfing and buffing is spotty, at best. 

You, good sir/madam, understand. Melee and guns should be equal, and there should be fun all around as its pve, not pvp. :) Certain melee mods make melee be broken, meta, and overpowered. Why shoot my tigris prime at something, and chunk only 2% health when i can melee it for 15% and kill it faster?

You’re using a frames ability to massively boost attack speed. Gauss also applies an additional 100% damage to melee weapons with Redline and Kinetic plating active.

Thats not going to give a very accurate depiction of melee performance on its own.

And you yourself are admitting you can’t even identify a specific reason why you’re saying melee is OP. You just saying “Big crit numbers on crit weapon is bad”. I mean do you want every crit weapon to have a 5% crit chance? Do you want them to go the route of shotgun status where they take weapons who’s stats were specifically designed to do one thing very well and completely neuter that to the point where those weapons can’t do the very things they were designed to do?

Also why are you using Hirudo? Sparring stances suck.

[RazerXPrime]

6 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Personally, my concerns are more about attack speed rather than per-hit damage. As a Valkyr and Gauss player, attack speed stacking being killed (If no exceptions are made for abilities + mod stacking) would essentially be a double nerf for me. 

What I personally think they will do is put a ceiling on some of the existing mods like Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds and Condition Overload. Or perhaps lower the value per stage. Either of those two. I think they shouldn't touch attack speed since that affects the actual gameplay fluidity.

I also would like to see more combo options. Right now it's beneficial to button mash. We should be able to alternate different types of attacks and combo them together and reward that to create a better melee experience.

[Jarriaga]

1 minute ago, RazerXPrime said:

What I personally think they will do is put a ceiling on some of the existing mods like Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds and Condition Overload. Or perhaps lower the value per stage. Either of those two. I think they shouldn't touch attack speed since that affects the actual gameplay fluidity.

So far they've mentioned they are nerfing attack speed above all else though. 

[RazerXPrime]

1 minute ago, Jarriaga said:

So far they've mentioned they are nerfing attack speed above all else though. 

I wonder why though. I don't recall them saying that in the dev stream, but I may have missed it. Well if they're only addressing Berserker then I don't really care as I don't use that mod. For me War Cry is sufficient to boost attack speed, because I cannot stand any faster flailing around of limbs.

[(PSN)Adometro]

If you enjoy melee, it should still play the same.  You may just do a hundred million per swing instead of a billion.

Guns will never be same as melee as long as melee has massive sweeping range and high movement speed.  They should instead create more enemy variety and do some enemy balancing to create a need for more varied playstyle.

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

Make Viral procs and Critical Damage additive with Base Damage.

That would squish our damage across the board with melee hit especially hard.

[Jarriaga]

Just now, RazerXPrime said:

I wonder why though. I don't recall them saying that in the dev stream, but I may have missed it. Well if they're only addressing Berserker then I don't really care as I don't use that mod. For me War Cry is sufficient to boost attack speed, because I cannot stand any faster flailing around of limbs.

It was on February's devstream (152) when the issue was first brought up. Scott and Geoff are not pleased with how high attack speed goes. Scott because of how it multiplies DPS, and Geoff because it's artistically a visual mess:

The implication here is that attack speed would be nerfed hard-enough as for you to "see" your attacks. 

[Jarriaga]

1 hour ago, Sloan441 said:

And there's the problem. Melee shouldn't replace guns. That's wrongheaded thinking. 

It's a complementary weapon and that's how it should be implemented and balanced. You use melee when enemies get too close for guns. 

Single target damage for melee should be nasty. It should thoroughly settle the hash of things that get too close. However, range is excessive and the AoE part of it is totally clownshoes. Those two aspects need nerfed and nerfed hard, particularly the latter aspect. 

How they go about any of this isn't really all that relevant, but it does need to happen. 

That's not how it works though. Melee has dedicated mechanics that are designed to function only when flat-out leaving out your gun. Manual blocking and melee aim-glide are examples of this as they can not be triggered while your gun is out. You can not treat melee as "complementary" while giving it mechanics that require for you to forfeit your guns. That's akin to eating your cake and having it too.

[Kraethius]

Personally I'd prefer melee to be slower with individual hits having more of an impact. At the very least, anything that goes beyond how fast you can press the melee button is too much, that being mouse scroll and/or macros.

Maybe change the combo system to a timing one, where pressing the melee button just as you land a blow gives combo. Missing the window wouldn't reset the counter, just not add to it. Would reduce smashing the melee button. Just something from the top of my head.

[Sloan441]

24 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

That's not how it works though. Melee has dedicated mechanics that are designed to function only when flat-out leaving out your gun. Manual blocking and melee aim-glide are examples of this as they can not be triggered while your gun is out. You can not treat melee as "complementary" while giving it mechanics that require for you to forfeit your guns. That's akin to eating your cake and having it too.

Missed the point. All that stuff still works when your beatstick of choice is deployed. 

It shouldn't be a complete abrogation of the use of ranged weapons. That's the issue. It should come with distinct disadvantages, which presently it really doesn't have. The two things that make it most problematic are excessive range and too much AoE--and really it comes down to range. Nerf that to the bedrock and quite a few problems will simply disappear. 

You'll still have to deal with melee-only missions, but now they will put you at a disadvantage to be overcome. Also, there are a few melee weapons that really are ranged weapons and those will now have increased importance. 

[Graavarg]

When killing enemies by shooting them you have to aim, with some weapons even tactically reload at the right moment. And with some primaries/secondaries you have to account for flight time and projectile arc.

With melee you just have to mash one button. And you do more damage even so. Attack speed mods just exacerbate this. So does range increase.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that some sort of re-balance is in order. It wouldn't have to be a damage nerf necessarily, since it could also be some sort of a mash-nerf (like removing all E-E-E-E-effects from stances, or make them timing-dependent).

It doesn't matter all that much what it is, as long as it happens. But in my opinion it is not only the (damage) values that are off, it's the whole melee damage system. A weapon (build) that feels nice (= like you are actually fighting) at one level becomes obsolete at a higher level, while enemies fall down dead just from seeing it at a lower level. That is not a "power fantasy", it is a "power insanity".

[XaoGarrent]

The nerf cheerleading attitudes in this thread are precisely what's wrong with Warframe, and it's why this entire cycle is eventually going to repeat itself.

[quxier]

54 minutes ago, RazerXPrime said:

Either of those two. I think they shouldn't touch attack speed since that affects the actual gameplay fluidity.

It affects attack speed in both way. As someone mentioned high attack speed makes "visual mess". I think they should cap (speed or/and damage).

54 minutes ago, RazerXPrime said:

I also would like to see more combo options. Right now it's beneficial to button mash. We should be able to alternate different types of attacks and combo them together and reward that to create a better melee experience.

Combos (stances) should be reworked as you said. It's a lot of work. I'm still waiting for aerial combo mod set. ;)

[Reitrix]

1 hour ago, Jarriaga said:

It was on February's devstream (152) when the issue was first brought up. Scott and Geoff are not pleased with how high attack speed goes. Scott because of how it multiplies DPS, and Geoff because it's artistically a visual mess:

The implication here is that attack speed would be nerfed hard-enough as for you to "see" your attacks. 

I've always found it pretty stupid that Attack Speed modifiers affect the animation speed rather than the time between swings. 

I made a meme build on my Kronen that got it to 2.2 attack speed and then buffed it with a Valkyr max Warcry... The entire forward combo chain had like 3 frames of animation  ...

Meanwhile, my Shildeg with a negative speed Riven takes 1.3 seconds complete just one swing, which effectively makes it unusable without Warcry.

So yeah. I advocate attack speed reducing  the interval between attacks rather than the animation speed, with the actual swings themselves having an unchangeable animation speed. 

That would finally give some actual differences between Daggers, Swords and Heavy Blades/Hammers. 

[SyberWolfe]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

You’re using a frames ability to massively boost attack speed. Gauss also applies an additional 100% damage to melee weapons with Redline and Kinetic plating active.

Thats not going to give a very accurate depiction of melee performance on its own.

And you yourself are admitting you can’t even identify a specific reason why you’re saying melee is OP. You just saying “Big crit numbers on crit weapon is bad”. I mean do you want every crit weapon to have a 5% crit chance? Do you want them to go the route of shotgun status where they take weapons who’s stats were specifically designed to do one thing very well and completely neuter that to the point where those weapons can’t do the very things they were designed to do?

Also why are you using Hirudo? Sparring stances suck.

I use the hirudo due to its ability to heal off crits. I use Gauss because it makes things attack fast. I combine that, with Berserker, and I can attack very fast, while hitting hard.

To see such larges numbers on any primary and secondary, you have to forma it eight times, have three (or four) frames that boost attack power and reduce enemy resistance, then land a headshot. Melee damage numbers can do that without requiring eight forma and four frames. On top of all that, you can get an attack speed faster than any shooting speed you can currently get in game. There does need to be a rebalance of damage to make both viable once again.

[Butterfly85]

Eh, game survived condition overload being clipped and maiming strike being nerfed to death. It'll survive this too 🤷‍♀️

[Dunkelheit]

Melee has it all:

- no reload

- no ammo

- AOE (and I mean REALLY huge AOE)

- Stances which raise the mod capacity substantially,so that lesser forma is required to make the weapon actually useful

So yeah, it needs to be nerfed.

What I would really like to make a distinction between AOE and single target weapons. A single target weapon like the Astilla Prime should do at least 3x times the damage of an Ignis Wraith. And a Rubico Prime Headshot should do 5x times the damage of an Astilla Prime.

Give me a reason for all weapons to use them. Create single target melee weapons and make single target have AT LEAST 100% of the single target damage of the AOE weapons.

 

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

Combo counter debuff. We lose 5% of melee damage per combo multiplier. Max 60%.

Our melee hits get weaker as combo goes up encouraging us to heavy attack.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, SyberWolfe said:

I use the hirudo due to its ability to heal off crits. I use Gauss because it makes things attack fast. I combine that, with Berserker, and I can attack very fast, while hitting hard.

To see such larges numbers on any primary and secondary, you have to forma it eight times, have three (or four) frames that boost attack power and reduce enemy resistance, then land a headshot. Melee damage numbers can do that without requiring eight forma and four frames. On top of all that, you can get an attack speed faster than any shooting speed you can currently get in game. There does need to be a rebalance of damage to make both viable once again.

Ok you realize melee does as much damage as it does because before rivens could give them +4m range they were relatively short ranged weapons, especially when compared to guns, and to balance that they made melee the strongest weapon type.

Guns are starting to fall behind because they haven’t been updated for years while the average enemy level we face has increased. The idea that melee should be nerfed because DE has been neglecting guns is asinine.

[Venus-Venera]

Am 1.6.2021 um 13:10 schrieb KVenom:

Dear DE,

I know that you guys already decided on nerfing the Melee in general, so there is no point on begging you to reconsider that.

But please, heed my plea: NERF RESPONSIBLY.

Don't overnerf Melee too much. You guys don't have a history of responsible nerfs, starting with Covert Lethality/Life Strike, ending with Frost and Helmynth.

So please, just try to not go overboard with that.
 

For me, personally, melee is practicly the primary reason to play Warframe. You may call your game a "looter-shooter", but for me(and many other players) - it's a Looter-Slasher. So if you take that away, this would make the whole game for me a very unpleasant process. For me, and maybe more than a few players.

Thanks in advance.

why the panic?
thanks to so many warframe skills, you can even build an absolute killing machine with your current primory weapons! arcanes and mods are there even now .......

and you don't want to spend hours camping in SP, do you?

and if warframe is no longer causal and playing becomes a second job, then the devs harm themselves. online player stats will go down drastically.

[dudefaceguy]

5 hours ago, Dunkelheit said:

What I would really like to make a distinction between AOE and single target weapons.

This is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of before. Melee as a whole suffers from sameness - sure we get different models and animations but the basic button mashing AOE style is the same for all of the melee weapons. Having more variation in range might be interesting but it would be very hard to get it right. Back when range mods used a % increase instead of a flat increase, short-range weapons were basically unusable compared to their long-range counterparts. So, players would only really use single target melee if the AoE melee weapons were nerfed into the ground. Warframe just isn't a game for single target weapons. The flat range bonus makes more weapons usable in more situations, so I think it's a clear improvement.

I would like to see game modes with difficult individual enemies that aren't cheesy bosses, but the only place I've actually seen this is in long Index runs. Warframe will always be a horde game at its core, and single target weapons will never really be popular. I personally love my Daikyu, but just because it's fun to get those headshots.

So, single target melee weapons would only work if there were single target game modes. Then we could always just mod for single target damage versus AoE. In my Prodman runs I didn't mod for range because I was taking down individual enemies, for example. It's a matter of making single target builds viable, rather than restricting weapon range, and this will only happen if there are game modes that reward it. The main thing Warframe has always needed is better enemies.