RIP melee 3.0

[ECCHOSIERRA]

It feels like DE had this noble intention of a unified combo system with melee 3.0 and over the months/years since then a lot of stances just havent felt.. right. 

And probably one of the biggest annoyances of mine has been that theres so many things that can increase melee attack speed (usually wisp or volt) and actively make your melee weapon feel *worse*. Because entering inputs with the wrong timing would just kinda make you stop awkwardly.

I don't hate the auto melee, I'm actually grateful it exists because it solves that problem, and i appreciate that it is optional.

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

 

[LittleLeoniePrime]

people did combos and weren't just holding w and mashing e or spamming heavy attack repeatedly? news to me o.o

Edited May 1 by LittleLeoniePrime

[johnno23]

1 hour ago, LittleLeoniePrime said:

people did combos and weren't just holding w and mashing e or spamming heavy attack repeatedly? news to me o.o

sounds about right to me......i have over 10,000 in game hours over the last 7 plus years and never really got into combos. Most time I tried the animations were simply annoying as they broke the fluidity of play.....always enjoyed the ability to jump aim hit E and smash into enemies a few quick presses of E and all enemies in that group dead done and dusted.

I also love using daggers and yes pressing W to move forward with sprint toggled to always on and mashing E as I hack n slash my way forwards with the occasional heavy attack on an enemy that is not fodder. Sad to say LittleLeoniePrime just nailed my playstyle with the above quote.

Edited May 1 by johnno23

[Zahnrad]

Only thing I'd want out of the Melee system is to make Tennokai an innate feature, and then just have mods that change its behavior or stats.

[CalvinaPrime]

1 hour ago, LittleLeoniePrime said:

people did combos and weren't just holding w and mashing e or spamming heavy attack repeatedly? news to me o.o

It was generally spamming melee, or spamming melee + holding block for alternate repeatable combo.

Using other combos would generally be used for stronger enemies, some combos and stances which had cool stuff like auto-finishers at the end or status procs.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, LittleLeoniePrime said:

people did combos and weren't just holding w and mashing e or spamming heavy attack repeatedly? news to me o.o

"A little". Standing or moving are combos as well but not something unusual. I sometimes use block combo depending on type/stance. For example some heavy blades has moving & spinning combo for block+move. Bullet dance (gunblades) have broken moving combo so I either do block+moving or just move & shoot (but that's problem of broken stances).

And of course slamming.

1 hour ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

Some of things are dead or not very useful because it's either broken (e.g. bullet dance's moving combo stops your frame) or there are better alternatives (e.g. one combo just do more damage/range/something). Stances are mostly 2 maybe 3 usable combos.

[Xzorn]

I quickly had doubts about melee though when they added the directional slam attack which sent enemies flying 15m away on a 3m reach weapon. Thankfully they listened and fixed that but I guess they didn't realize why it was bad since they just added similar debilitating effects like lifted and staggered movement to stance combos.

Crushing Ruin for hammers was fun. The fact you sent enemies flying was compensated by how much ground you covered. Tempo Royal was the lesser damage but higher mobility stance which now has neither. After a decade they managed to ruin Swirling Tiger by adding lifted for no reason.

I prefer what they were starting to do with Carving Mantis. Left and Right combos. Not stationary or holding block. You can also tell many of these were designed with auto target in mind as they lung so quickly with such a small hitbox you can't actually realistically aim it by hand.

IMO they also just recently deleted heavy attacks from the game with Melee Duplicate. I don't slot combo duration on valid weapons anymore.

[Himerance]

3 hours ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

It feels like DE had this noble intention of a unified combo system with melee 3.0 and over the months/years since then a lot of stances just havent felt.. right. 

And probably one of the biggest annoyances of mine has been that theres so many things that can increase melee attack speed (usually wisp or volt) and actively make your melee weapon feel *worse*. Because entering inputs with the wrong timing would just kinda make you stop awkwardly.

I don't hate the auto melee, I'm actually grateful it exists because it solves that problem, and i appreciate that it is optional.

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

 

I think I know where you're coming from with this.

I remember many years ago when I first got my hands on the galatine greatsword and purposefully put spoiled strike on it to make the attack speed even slower. I had this idea in my head of a very slow but hard hitting weapon. Plus I'd be able to see the swing animations from the stance I'm using instead of everything being a blur like now. You can imagine how awful it was damage-wise 😂

I wouldn't mind melee being more methodical and being rewarded for pulling off hard combos. Like in the Devil May Cry series I guess. Then again I can also see why some wouldn't.

We'll see what the future brings.

[Venus-Venera]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb ECCHOSIERRA:

It feels like DE had this noble intention of a unified combo system with melee 3.0 and over the months/years since then a lot of stances just havent felt.. right. 

And probably one of the biggest annoyances of mine has been that theres so many things that can increase melee attack speed (usually wisp or volt) and actively make your melee weapon feel *worse*. Because entering inputs with the wrong timing would just kinda make you stop awkwardly.

I don't hate the auto melee, I'm actually grateful it exists because it solves that problem, and i appreciate that it is optional.

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

 

Combos were always more “fun,” right?
Because Warframe is usually played for several hours and gameplay is like ancient chewing gum that hasn't tasted good since the Stone Age.
and people don't want to pound on keys. but rather chill and farm and listen to music/youtube at the same time. That's why hardly anyone plays this ranged garbage where you have to hammer the left mouse button several times per second.

[UnstarPrime]

8 hours ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

It might help to unpack what "combo" means to you.  There are different schools of thought on what the benefits of combos are:

• Some focus on the "functionality" of each combo, which makes the primary purpose of combos player empowerment and engagement via choice.
• Some add a layer on top of that that focuses on "execution", where actually performing combos requires some amount of skill, making execution a kind of feat.

To illustrate these two different schools of thought, we can compare Smash Brothers with Guilty Gear.  How do you do a special move?  In Smash you just press a cardinal direction and press the special move button.  Meanwhile, in Guilty Gear, special moves can require stuff like half-circle-back-forward + B to execute.  In both games you can technically botch the execution of a special move, but it's drastically more common in a game like Guilty Gear because that's kind of the point: Guilty Gear doesn't just want you to know what you want to do and do it, because part of the game is having the dexterity to pull off "tricks" that are possible to fail.

To be clear, I don't think one of these systems is innately better than the other; I think there's room for both.  But I do think it's worth pointing out that the Smash method is less gatekeepy, because it intentionally puts the smallest possible barrier between translating a person's desired action into an in-game action, which makes it more accessible to people who for physical, mental, or whatever other reasons would have more difficulty performing more complex inputs.

Personally, as a user who has developed wrist and hand impairments over the course of my life, I greatly prefer games with simple inputs.  The current melee system gives me access to (generally) 4 combo chains with a weapon, and choosing which one I'm executing at any given moment is as simple as adjusting which permutation of holding/not holding L1 and holding/not holding forward that I'm doing.  So I get the functionality I want without any of the difficulties that came with the old combo system.  And with Tennokai layered on top of that, I'm a very happy camper.

But that's just me, of course; I wouldn't be surprised if your experience differed.

[TARINunit9]

9 hours ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway

In Devil May Cry or Dynasty Warriors, or in fighting games, the entire point of having combos is that different moves have different uses. Different hitboxes, different effects. An uppercut puts an enemy into the air for more vulnerability, a charge closes the gap, a dodge moves you out of harm's way but breaks your combo

If DE wanted this kind of finesse, if they wanted combos to matter, they were more than welcome to design their game for it. But they chose not to. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

10 hours ago, LittleLeoniePrime said:

people did combos and weren't just holding w and mashing e or spamming heavy attack repeatedly? news to me o.o

Yes they're fun, and also strategic i.e. lunging forward towards a group of enemies, slashing a few times and watching the bleed procs finish em off.

[Kaggelos]

my pet peeve is the fact that some stances have the same animations for different combos.

Why would i do something different if its the same result?

Yes i know different combos have different stats, like forced procs, dmg multipliers, etc, but thats a number's game and its boring, i want visual variety and stimulation.

Also stances that force me forward stop me from aiming properly my melee at an enemy, attacking past him and always having to adjust my camera -_-

Edited May 1 by Kaggelos

[ominumi]

The old melee was bad. Terrible bad. There was just one combo in all the stances. Quick melee. Being forced into animation lock with no escape is horrible. I can not understand anyone who would enjoy such torture. 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

14 hours ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

I'd argue DE tried to address this issue with the Tennokai system: much of the enjoyment of melee combos is getting the timing down and knowing that when you do, you'll pull off a specific moveset with certain effects, like how some melee attacks have multipliers/guaranteed procs etc, though unlike in other games, all you really need here is the combo that's either fastest to pull off repeatedly or the one with highest damage; we do have moves that specifically lift enemies, but when do we ever really need them?

with Tennokai, they made it so that with the right timing you get a free heavy attack that's more powerful@: it's really basic and simple, but it still can give that feeling of "maybe I shouldn't just mash like a crazy person", though it's up for debate on whether or not the system succeeds in this, I'm only saying that this is probably what DE *intended* with the system.

that's just my opinion, but I'd also argue that the benefits of auto-melee outweigh the "feeling" of the old system: like yeah, it felt nice to nail a combo, but should it come at the cost of carpel-tunnel syndrome?

2 hours ago, Kaggelos said:

i want visual variety and stimulation.

so do I, the problem though is that means new animations, which take a long time to make. this is why we hardly ever get new stances now, except when it's a weapon type DE wanted to add and had no choice but to make new rigging for it (Ghoulsaw and Heavy Scythes). it's a shame as I would LOVE a new stance for Two-Handed Nikanas..

[Berzerkules]

IDK after 3.5M+ melee kills I'm pretty pleased with how melee feels.

Some stances are garbage imo but there are quite a few that are a lot of fun. The stances that I've used extensively I know exactly what each input will do and can seamlessly traverse to battlefield combining combos or parts of combos if I want to. Being able to slide attack in any direction really helps with positioning yourself to make use of specific of combos as well. 

I probably just melee more than most, it's intuitive at this point and I don't really have to think about what I want to do anymore. 

[trst]

The whole problem is that there's no incentive for using combos. Nor is there really anything DE could do to incentivize using them.

More damage? Spam is already well enough overkill. And when it isn't Heavy Attacks are there for yet more overkill.

Other stat buffs? Why when damage is taken care of and speed is already high enough via mods or abilities.

More range could make them useful but that runs the AOE automation risk. Something melee is already partly guilty of.

 

In the end they're really just there for fun and that's probably all they'll ever be there for.

[_Anise_]

On 2024-05-01 at 9:36 AM, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I don't hate the auto melee, I'm actually grateful it exists because it solves that problem, and i appreciate that it is optional.

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

automelee finally got me to invest in melee where I initially hated spam enough to ignore it for literal years!

now I think automelee with tennokai is actually a lot more fun and engaging than spamming 1 button

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

On 2024-05-01 at 5:17 AM, Venus-Venera said:

Combos were always more “fun,” right?
Because Warframe is usually played for several hours and gameplay is like ancient chewing gum that hasn't tasted good since the Stone Age.
and people don't want to pound on keys. but rather chill and farm and listen to music/youtube at the same time. That's why hardly anyone plays this ranged garbage where you have to hammer the left mouse button several times per second.

Uhhh, I have no idea what this is or is trying to say. 

[quxier]

On 2024-05-01 at 12:51 PM, Xzorn said:

 

IMO they also just recently deleted heavy attacks from the game with Melee Duplicate. I don't slot combo duration on valid weapons anymore.

Why? Is Duplicate good to replace heavy attacks? Have you tried tennokais? I don't like them but you get free & faster heavy attack. "On 4" makes you basially free heavy ever 5th attack.

On 2024-05-01 at 2:17 PM, Venus-Venera said:

On 2024-05-01 at 10:36 AM, ECCHOSIERRA said:

It feels like DE had this noble intention of a unified combo system with melee 3.0 and over the months/years since then a lot of stances just havent felt.. right. 

And probably one of the biggest annoyances of mine has been that theres so many things that can increase melee attack speed (usually wisp or volt) and actively make your melee weapon feel *worse*. Because entering inputs with the wrong timing would just kinda make you stop awkwardly.

I don't hate the auto melee, I'm actually grateful it exists because it solves that problem, and i appreciate that it is optional.

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

 

Combos were always more “fun,” right?
Because Warframe is usually played for several hours and gameplay is like ancient chewing gum that hasn't tasted good since the Stone Age.
and people don't want to pound on keys. but rather chill and farm and listen to music/youtube at the same time. That's why hardly anyone plays this ranged garbage where you have to hammer the left mouse button several times per second.

I'm not sure if all but for me it's little different. It's not that I want afk in this game. I want to play this game. I just want to react to game events (e.g. enemy rushing at you) using in game action. The key point is my reaction time and action taken (e.g. block or roll). Old combo system basically overcomplicate inputs, forcing you to remember & execute certain key combination for basic movements. In real life I don't think about moving every single muscle. I think about destination, path, strength etc. It's much more "fun" to know what to do under certain situation. It's much less fun to understand your body so you can do basic moves. Something like this.

19 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

On 2024-05-01 at 10:36 AM, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I just cant help but feel like its a little bit of an oof that the "combo" mechanic of actually doing well, combos feels completely dead now. To me anyway.

I'd argue DE tried to address this issue with the Tennokai system: much of the enjoyment of melee combos is getting the timing down and knowing that when you do, you'll pull off a specific moveset with certain effects,

I disagree, to be more precise:

19 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

with Tennokai, they made it so that with the right timing you get a free heavy attack that's more powerful@: it's really basic and simple, but it still can give that feeling of "maybe I shouldn't just mash like a crazy person", though it's up for debate on whether or not the system succeeds in this, I'm only saying that this is probably what DE *intended* with the system.

^ this. What they wanted to do is NOT simply hold melee and react to something. It's not about executing combos.

Sadly they half-failed at this because we are reacting to some random events rather than game events. It's like you play defense and all of sudden gold fish appears that nuke whole map for few seconds.

19 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

we do have moves that specifically lift enemies, but when do we ever really need them?

The problem is that such combos are at the end of chain... sometimes. When I want to lift enemy I need it now. Heavy slam does it.

[Xzorn]

2 hours ago, quxier said:

Why? Is Duplicate good to replace heavy attacks? Have you tried tennokais? I don't like them but you get free & faster heavy attack. "On 4" makes you basially free heavy ever 5th attack.

 

If a weapon can get near 100% Crit with Umbra Steel you save a mod slot by dropping Drifting and replacing it with Bane or Candis Mandible.

The resulting per strike damage is more than double.

If you like Heavy Attacks then by all means but Duplicate makes some melee far surpass others. Kinda not a fan or it.

[Lord_Chibi]

On 2024-05-01 at 6:17 AM, CalvinaPrime said:

It was generally spamming melee, or spamming melee + holding block for alternate repeatable combo.

Using other combos would generally be used for stronger enemies, some combos and stances which had cool stuff like auto-finishers at the end or status procs.

Wait which ones had finishers?!

[Tiltskillet]

29 minutes ago, Lord_Chibi said:

Wait which ones had finishers?!

The ones I know of have/had them as part of their heavy attacks.   Daggers (still have them), Sparring (supposedly still have them, but I can't get them to work), and Machetes (no longer have them).

 

[RPColten]

On 2024-05-01 at 2:36 AM, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I don't hate the auto melee,... and i appreciate that it is optional.

Is there a toggle for auto-melee?

 

[Tiltskillet]

24 minutes ago, RPColten said:

Is there a toggle for auto-melee?

Just letting go of the button.