Melee Finishers - Quite Possibly A Hindrance

[Casardis]

Note: I know Melee 2.0 is just around the corner. If they do address it, then good. If they don't, at least this topic's already made and I can bump it.

 

This really comes to show with the latest Jat Kittag weapon, with the slowest firing rate of all melee weapons.

 

The way that finishers are done right now is that, when an enemy's knocked down and you press the melee button while having your reticle around its hitbox, it will perform the finisher. There's four major things that are really bad about this gameplay design, in my opinion:

 

1. The finishers don't "slide" towards the target anymore (back then it did for all weapons), at least most of them don't, requiring you to be right above the target for the attack to hit. This means you'll probably miss your finisher half the time, because the move itself can be performed even if you're a few feets away from the target (enough distance for you to miss with a heavy weapon finisher).

 

2. Finishers can be performed accidentally very easily, especially in the middle of chaos, even if you're holding your melee attack to charge. If an enemy trips (for example, if they get hit by a blast proc) and you somehow attacked them while they're in their falling animation, the finisher will perform (and you'll likely miss).

 

3. Finishers cannot be interrupted by yourself. This isn't much of an issue with fast weapons, which is why I come back to Jat Kittag. Jat Kittag's finisher animation is so slow that you will most likely waste time and risk your life if you accidentally do it in the middle of a melee frenzy when lots of enemies are around, while also missing your target in the end.

 

4. Finishers have their own damage seemingly, which explains the mod Finishing Touch. Therefore, if you're doing a charge build, you would do more damage with a charge attack against a grounded enemy anyway, yet you have to be careful on how you press the melee button so you're not performing a finisher instead.

 

 

My suggestion is simple: make the finisher a separate button than the melee one. I think it can even be the "activate" button instead.

 

 

I hope that this is taken into consideration with Melee 2.0. I just hope it doesn't stick with its current formula.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Casardis

[Deidaku]

I'm pretty sure they're going to revamp it as well don't worry :) But yeah non stealth finishers are useless right now

[Adenela]

melee 2.0 in like 2 or so weeks.

[Casardis]

melee 2.0 in like 2 or so weeks.

 

I'm just putting this out there since I had it in mind recently. If the changes occur in Melee 2.0 accordingly, then all good. If not, I'll bump the topic.

[Azamagon]

Add to it another little problem:

 

1) Most weapons need mods like Killing Blow to boost the finisher damage. Thus, finishers are based on Chargedamage. However, a select few weapons (all Fist weapons; Kogake, Obex, Furax and Ankyros) have their finisherdamage based on REGULAR damage, thus boosted by mods such as Pressure Point. Inconsistent and annoying.

2) Finishing Touch boosts finisher damage. However, it only boosts finisherdamages based on Chargedamage. Thus, Finishing Touch does absolutely NOTHING for the Fist weapons! Inconsistent and annoying.

3) The Fist weapons have ONE really good thing in common: They have useful finishers: A fast, multihitting (!) and decently big radius finisher. How ironic then that you can't boost it with Finishing Touch huh? -.-

 

Hopefully, I hope they fix these problems in Melee 2.0 by doing one simple thing - DO NOT SPLIT UP THE DAMAGEMODS BETWEEN REGULAR AND CHARGEATTACKS! It just causes a huge mess of things. (Another confusion most people don't know about: Steel Charge does NOTHING for Chargeattacks! Ironic name it has then huh?)

 

Yeah, melee stuff needs a LOT of fixing.

 

@OP, I have also been saying (for like, FOREVER), that finishers should be done with the standard action-button (default X). Would help so much!

[Casardis]

I wouldn't be surprised if we commented before on a same topic.

I will add your suggestions to the first post soon.

[Bhordelik]

I agree with this.

 

All the pole arm weapons (including jat kittag and orthos for example) are so slow with the finisher. During the time it take to do one, I would deal at least three blow doing much more damage.

And there is the issue of being stuck in front of the enemy firepower to finish an enemy that either get up during animation or get killed more efficiently by another player.

 

On a side note, considering we talk about melee. I've noticed that when you parry a lot (my voip button is bind to the same button, i don't have fifteen button on my mouse) there is a lot of odd behaviour fromm the melee weapon, such as getting stuck in charge until you do a melee attack. Probably not something a lot of player may experience.

[LazyKnight]

Personally, I think that a final attack should do massive damage or be removed. Triggering it with a lot of weapons is currently less effective than just hitting them again with a charge attack or a normal attack.

 

Also, it is possible to get trapped in the finisher's animation, and ultimately miss the NPC that triggered the finisher sequence. The hit box detection for finisher can have it trigger for out of range NPC, resulting in the floor being finished-off.

 

Finisher should be Ninja Gaiden's style, where once the conditions was satisfied, and when the command key was hit the targeted NPC was guaranteed to be killed. That game had the character lock-in and home-in during the animation so it could not miss once triggered.

 

Kingdom of Amalurs had a decent finisher system. During reckoning mode, if the finisher's icon appeared on a NPC the character would always finish-off the NPC when the animation was finished.

Edited February 14, 2014 by LazyKnight

[DuWryght]

I just wish the obex and kogake's ground finishers ended with a stomp or something since they do have foot attachments.

[--GZ--Cegorach]

hope in 2.0 they will finally do something with it, because you can't stop it, f.e. on weapon reload you push hit, then you hit enemy and stop reloading, but it don't work with finisher hit, no skills can be casted before it finished, and it's quite slow, so taking too much time in massive battle.