Melee 2.0 Feedback: Megathread (With Template).

[Blue_Pegasus_Pony]

the Polarity for Iron Phoenix doesnt match my darka prime and heat sword, PLEASE CHANGE polarity for the stance mod!!

[Bakim0n0]

Not going to get into the template thingy, my feedback is too broad to deal with a singular weapon only.

Mod drop rates were pretty noticeably nerfed; I never used to run 20+ min with necros desecrate spamming and only getting 4 or 5 mods with over 1k kills.

Stances as mods is fine for the "rare" stances but the way the system is now really sucks the fun out of melee 2.0 entirely.

The one stance that I did find, for dagger, that I even had remote interest in using actually makes daggers perform WORSE because it gives a significant slow-down to do the same damage per swing (stance mods should not decrease the functionality of any weapon)

over 12 hours of hardcore, NOT FUN grinding on mobs that are listed as having the mod I need (~12 hours of the same f-ing map) yielded 2 different stance mods that I don't use... and about 15 tail-winds (seriously the same like 3 mods made up 90% of the drops)

I was excited to see there was a new boss added, then I saw the ridiculous grind wall to try him and immediately lost all interest.

I do love what was done to the basic mechanics of melee... but once again DE you have managed to make something equal parts cool and beyond frustrating and demoralizing. Get the hell away from adding unbelievably huge chunks of RNG grinding with every update, it's pretty ridiculous and makes it VERY hard for players like me to recommend new players get into this game.

It is super fun to run around with a katana and deflect bullets all over the place and the stances I've tried legitimately LOOK cool... but they are locked behind such a huge RNG wall that I'm basically in the same place as I was before the update:

Waiting for you to come to your senses.

[kimahn]

Weapon(s) used: Akbolto + Dual heat sword, on hydroid

Faction(s) fought: grineer, void, corpus, angels, demons and whatever

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: snake and tiger, with a huge preference for tiger, fury and LIFE STRIKE oh yeah.

 

http://goo.gl/MjQUjW + swirling tiger + life strike ( i'll probably get rid of killing blow for a shock mod when i ll master totaly the combo and the range of toxic/melee enemies, channel will become a full life saving feature for me )

Thoughts & Experiences:

 

pro :

 

- stagger immunity when properly chained

- tiger combo is exactly what i wanted in term of speed, style, efficiency and finish (with fury)

- fire finish and leap gives you exactly the time you need to chain

- leap attack do not make the enemies fall, you can shred them and build multiplier safely

- the damages are not great, but not bad either, after 40 hits, the slaughter begin

- the fluidity, the beauty of the thing

 

con : sometimes the trails are blue. i must channel to recover the color. huh ... sorry, no cons really.

 

i use channelling not mainly for damage, but just when i need to execute something too dangerous without the possibility of building on him safely (toxic much ?) AND for life strike, this mod look very greedy but it worth it. you really have to be reactive of the channel use if you use a light frame but globaly, it works :)

 

honestly, this is for me the only really balanced weapon, nami skyla is really good too, but the fire aoe add a strategic/gimmick flavor that cannot be matched. i really hope we ll have a freeze weapon with the same system one day :)

 

anyway. congrats. melee 2.0 is a total success for this weapon. not too low, not too much.

 

ps : the fact that the combo can be chained with regular swing and can be chained again with a simple hold is really efficient. swirling tiger works well, really well :)

 

 

Approximate Time Spent: 6h+

Supplementary Info: keyboard mapped ZSQD, E for aim/channel, m5 slide, m1 fire weapon / melee, m2 quick melee, guard

Edited April 12, 2014 by kimahn

[VentiGlondi]

Well, I forgot this thread exist and made a thread on this issue but... oh well.

 

Weapon(s) used: Bo

Faction(s) fought: All of them

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Clashing Forest, Flailing Branch

Thoughts & Experiences: The basic combos seem to be misplaced. Clashing Forest has a whirlwind combo even though Flailing Branch is supposed to be the whirlwind-focused stance.

Flailing Branch's second combo doesn't seem to be working properly as it doesn't do anything besides dealing damage (you've promised "lifting strikes").

Approximate Time Spent: Didn't really count

Supplementary Info: Unnecessary.

 

off-topic: How do I get rid of this bold formatting?

[Keltik0ne]

Well, I'll pop in some more general feedback on the system.

 

Weapon(s) used: Multiple, predominantly 1 hand swords (havn't found many other stances)

 

Thoughts & Experiences: It's a quick time event based system, which I'm not a fan of. Tried it against all 3 enemy types, it's mind numbing, but most effective vs infested (what a surprise). It's a really clunky way to do things, lacking in fluidity and boiled down to its basics, you just end up button spamming anyway.

 

Approximate Time Spent: 6 hours+

 

Supplementary Info: Not enjoyable at all for me, but at least my guns still work, at least until you impliment "Shooting Stuff 2.0"

Edited April 12, 2014 by Keltik0ne

[Ayraclus]

Weapon(s) used: Jat Kittag

Faction(s) fought: Grineer

Mods equipped/Stance used:  Pressure Point, Electric DMG mods, NO Stance,

Thoughts & Experiences:

Channeled attacks remove energy per enemy hit and not per attack connected. Which means up to 25 energy per swing with heavy weapons without mods.

The Kittag slam attack depleted my whole energy bar (At least 100 energy) when used on a cluster of grineers (Was playing loki, herding them to see how much energy I could actually burn).

[Playford]

Thoughts & Experiences:

While my impression of Melee 2.0 has largley been positive, I do have a few problems with it.

 

First, weapon selection - Cycling through three weapons with a single key is less clumsy than I thought it would be, and I like that there are new bindings (Switch guns and Equip melee), but I would prefer if there was a way to select each weapon directly.

 

Example purely for the sake of examples:

Pressing 1 equips primary

Pressing 2 equips secondary

Pressing 3 equips melee

 

Second, controls - quick melee attacks with the E key while I have a gun equipped are alright, but using E with the melee weapon equipped I found to be awkward and would like to use LMB for those types of attacks (channeling can always be bound to something else).

 

Third, combos - when executing combos there is no feedback on when different combos "branch off" and sometimes I get them purely by mashing buttons and sometimes no matter how hard I try, I only get the basic combo.

Some sort of indicator, like the weapon flashing or a sound would really help.

[Jinart]

Thoughts & Experiences:

There are really only 2 combos, ones like "E,E,E, (PAUSE)E,E" are very basic, but new. The while sliding press E, or jump press E, or while wallrunning press E, they are obvious moves though, and aren't really combos, the slide attack is even used by some people to move around faster, everyone knows the last four moves. I feel there is a lack of variety, since there are SOOOOOOOOO many more moves you can plug-in to this, just watch a few marital arts videos on weapons and you'll wonder "Why the tenno can't do that!?" Although, they did add more animations, but overall I feel like they would be better off putting some stances together, so that they affect ALL WEAPONS, each moving differently by weapon type and having plenty more combos. 

[se05239]

Additional feedback now when I have played Melee 2.0 for a while and got to try out stances.

 

Weapon(s) used: Jat Kittag, Scoliac, Furax

Faction(s) fought: Grineer, Infested and Corpus.

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Shattering Storm, Crushing Ruin, Burning Wasp and Seismic Palm.

Thoughts & Experiences: 

After playing with stances I have come to a conclusion.

The new combos that come with each stance are not worth using. Spamming your standard combo is more effective.

Why bother timing your combos for an additional combo and miss out on guaranteed strikes from your standard one?

 

The inability to toggle channeling attacks have made me forgot that I actually can channel them, it would be easier if the melee attack button was moved to M1 in melee stance and channeling to your quick melee button. While I keep forgetting channeling attacks exist, I cannot recall ever using parry while in melee stance to block bullets.

 

General suggestion to you, DE, is that you increase the drop rates for the stance mods as they are unbelievable hard to get. Removing warframe and sentinel ability mods from enemy drop tables could lead to an increase in stance mods dropping, effectively making everyone happier. These ability mods could be moved to under their own little tab in market and be sold for cheap credit.

 

I am still disappointed in Melee 2,0, if not more, now when I have experienced it for a while. And please make Jat Kittag the jet-powered hammer it was supposed to be and not this super slow engine on a stick. And for the love of God fix that freaking idle animation for hammers, it looks like you carry a weightless pole or something.

Approximate Time Spent: Lot of hours, lost track of time.

Supplementary Info: Mouse/Keyboard, Solo/Co-op

 

EDIT: Why the crap did my text turn all white and stuff?

Edited April 12, 2014 by se05239

[_Chaser]

Weapon(s) used: all weapons

 

Faction(s) fought: all

 

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: non-specific for this case

 

Thoughts & Experiences: melee auto targeting range should be MUCH longer, also give us keybind to walk.

 

Approximate Time Spent: few hours

 

Supplementary Info: Optional (logitech dual action with XPADDER, since you folks DIDN'T BOTHER TO IMPLEMENT ANY CONTROLLERS)

 

 

ah and the most important:

 

give us invincibility frames during roll. 

 

thank you very much

Edited April 12, 2014 by n7snk

[Azamagon]

Weapon(s) used: Most of them

Faction(s) fought: All of them

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: No stance mods (can't for the life of me get a single one to drop!)

 

Approximate Time Spent: All my free time since update 13 came out!

 

Supplementary Info: Mouse/Keyboard, 100% solo play (as I always do)

Thoughts & Experiences: Overall, very disappointed in melee 2.0.

 

Positive stuff:

* All melee weapons finally hit decently hit hard, maybe even slightly too hard in some cases. Didn't need a huge rehaul though.

 

* Ability to finally strafe-block. Didn't need a huge rehaul though.

 

* Block finally can prevent CC, something that should've been added ages ago. Didn't need a huge rehaul EITHER.

 

* Stagger on melee attacks, finally back again as well. Didn't, once again, need a huge rehaul EITHER!

 

* Melee channeling is decent and the glow looks nice, as it complements regular attacks (rather than acts as a

completely different modding category like charged attacks used to be)

 

* Combo multiplier, while not exactly perfectly implemented, makes for some decent scaling on melee weaponry.

 

Negative stuff:

* Inability to aim with melee (even if just slightly up/down) - Really bad, due to the ability to unequip your ranged weapons and flying enemies existing. Also keeps fighting in stairs a pain in the &#!.

 

* Quickblocking, gone - Should've remained but could've cost more stamina to block this way. Would've been so good to be able to counter enemies' attacks and CC with reflexes.

 

* Melee channeling - So boring compared to chargeattacks. Why wasn't it added on TOP of keeping chargeattacks?

 

* Chargeattacks, gone - The combo multiplier already gives incentive to spam lighter attacks first. You could've kept them, while letting them scale with Pressure Point + Spoiled Strike for damage and Fury (+ Berserker) for chargespeed. They often had different niches than regular attacks (AoE, Knockdown and potential for other utilities, like drag-ins for Hook-weapons etc). The problem they had weren't that they were different attacks, it was that they required different mods to improve them.

I really, REALLY miss the chargeattacks :( Most weapons have turned really dull for me because of this.

 

* Slide attacks, what happened to them? They feel extremely clunky and hard to hit with now. I used to love using slide attacks, but now they are far too hard to use (hitboxes seem to be really tiny, at least on the Fangs) and they feel really slow (despite the tremendous coptering-speed, which feels a bit pointless honestly).

It feels like you made slide attacks more for travelling and less for combat now. Backwards and unfun "development", imo.

 

* Stances, completely unnecessary as mods - You could've just baked in the new animations in the weapons themselves and it would've perfectly fine! Why do you put what is, supposedly, the most fun of this update behind such an enormous grindwall? I'd probably say this is the biggest reason of antifun for me, as I haven't gotten a single stancemod yet, despite playing frenetically since Update 13 came out

Also, from what I've heard, most combos are pointless anyway. They might look fancy, but they are often far too slow and provide far too little benefit.

 

* Quick attacks are superior to equipped melee attacks - Not joking. In the case of attackspeed, arguably the most important thing for melee weapons due to them having the combo multiplier and 100% staggering effects, not equipping your melee weapon is better than equipping it (at least for someone like me who has found 0 stancemods). Here's a good example of what I mean, using the Bo:

1) Equips Bo and spams quickattacks - Attacks with the same slow, aweful 4-strike combo like before (The 3rd and 4th strikes are what makes it particularly horrible)

2) Unequips Bo and spams quickattacks - Cycles only the 2 first attacks, making it a superfast combo, which doesn't halt your movement or anything. It might be a bit repetitive, but it's far more smooth and speedy to use.

What kind of backwards design is THAT? Aren't attacks supposed to be more smooth and faster when you EQUIP the weapon?

This issue (having faster attacks when not equipping your melee weapon) goes for ANY melee weapon. The only benefit from equipping your melee weapon is melee channeling and blocking, but at the cost of smooth and fluid attacks (meaning, generally not worth it).

 

Very, VERY disappointed in you DE. More than usual!

[DiabolusUrsus]

I'm coming back here after giving out my initial thoughts, having acquired a few stances and tried them out.

 

Weapons used: Nikana, Dragon Nikana, Dual Ether, Pangolin Sword, Machete Wraith, Cronus, Reaper Prime, Scindo, etc.

 

Factions Fought: Grineer, Corpus, Corrupted

 

Stances Used: Iron Phoenix, Sundering Weave, Tranquil Cleave, Reaping Spiral, and Swirling Tiger. Mods optimized for each faction, and non-elemental builds for testing purposes.

 

Approximate Time Spent: 16+ Hours

Thoughts and Experiences: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/212182-melee-20-and-stances-what-it-should-have-been/

 

My apologies to linking to my own thread in a feedback thread, but what I have to say definitely exceeds the reasonable limits of a single forum post. It also ranges into a few issues that are slightly outside of the bounds of what you are looking for here, but it is all relevant to improving Melee 2.0. It's a work in progress, and I'll update it as I acquire more stances to try out. I put a lot of time, effort, and consideration into this feedback, so I don't want to see it get buried under countless threads complaining about overpowered or underpowered weapons. Those topics may be popular for the same reasons that scandals and gossip are, but what I'm trying to present here is genuine refinement of actual gameplay. Stuff that makes Warframe fun, which I believe is the main intent behind Melee 2.0. 

[JDwarf]

Weapon(s) used: Lecta, Furax, Orthos, Fragor, Kama

Faction(s) fought: Corpus, Grineer, Infested

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Fracturing Wind, Shimmering Blight, Shattering Storm, Sundering Weave; general damage buffs (Pressure Point, elemental mods, Reach for Orthos, Fury for Fragor)

Thoughts & Experiences:

So far I’m enjoying the prospect of melee-focused builds, and have been tinkering with combinations involving Quick Rest, Marathon, Reflection, some run speed and general survivability mods which on the whole are functioning well.  The ability to move between engagements quickly is a strong requirement when playing this way, as in co-op enemies fall fast enough you need to keep ahead to be of use, and when on your own the need to reposition or disengage favours this sort of mobility too.  So far I haven’t been playing much as tankier frames, so the Rhino’s Iron Skin might change how it can play the melee game – I will need to look into it as I continue my explorations.

 

Weaponry-wise I’ve found the Orthos by far to be the best of what I’ve tried.  Its sweeps with the reach buff really tear groups apart while maintaining mobility, and its level of damage is deadly. 

 

I’ll revisit the Lecta once I find a whip stance, but so far its range and stun is nice. 

 

The Furax on the other hand just doesn’t quite work.  The damage seems alright for how fast it feels, but its reach is so short it has a lot of trouble connecting.  This coupled with its lack of mobility-moves really hurt it for chasing down and closing with enemies, which would be excusable if it instead could deal with crowds once it got there.  Unfortunately the jump-slam move in the Fractured Wind combo (which involves a held input) just doesn’t have either a sufficiently large or long stun involved to make it tactically viable against groups.  This leaves this weapon-stance combination focused on single-target hit-building without the flexibility of mobility or crowd control and thus really unsuited to most of the situations you’ll run across trying to use it as your primary weapon. 

 

The Fragor with Shattering Storm takes this problem in the other direction, as it trades more reach and potential crowd-control for a cripplingly slow lead-up and insufficiently powerful strikes to actually make efficient use of its swings.  Its aerial and ground slide attacks *decrease* your mobility by slowing you considerably.  So far the only positive thing I can say about this weapon is that its swings aren’t interrupted by ground-pounds, but with how sluggishly it responds, how long you’re locked into those swings, and actually how short its sweep is in comparison to the Orthos (which while having similar reach hits a larger radius with swings in Shimmering Blight), it seems to be a weapon designed for crowd work but unable to drop enemies or respond to threats fast enough to keep you alive in them.  I have yet to fully level this weapon due to how unfun it feels to play, but the only light at the end of the tunnel I can see is modding for its critical chance hard to make it viable – I seriously wonder if it might be better to just raise its per-swing damage or shorten some of its swing lead-up, as at attack speed 1.0 it *still* has too much delay for much usability in play.

 

And finally my experiments with the Kama so far seem positive (though it is the first weapon to have a matching polarity on its stance, so at lower levels it already feels better than some).  I haven’t yet seen the ends of either of its special combos, as enemies haven’t remained much past the spin-attack I use to close.  I’m loving how fast and mobile it feels, though I’m having to adjust to just how crazy-far it can fling you from sliding.  I do have to wonder though, why swinging this Kama takes more stamina than swinging the Fragor (15 vs 12) when the animations and that darned swing delay really suggest that mallet’s a harder thing to move around.
 

Edit:  And I forgot to mention that even when I'm running about like a mad thing, I still can almost never retain a melee counter from one group of enemies to the next, even when they're only a few meters away.  The 4 seconds feels too short for a full reset.

 

Approximate Time Spent: Several hours with each weapon, 1 hour with kama

Supplementary Info: Co-op mostly, keyboard and mouse (though I’ve rebound melee to f and equipping it to mouse wheel up)

Edited April 12, 2014 by JDwarf

[JerZeyCJ]

Thoughts:

 

I'm a little disappointed that all the stances seem to share the same jump, slide, ground finish, and wall run attack, especially the Glaive, because one  you guys during a stream mentioned it getting a cool new jump attack animation instead of awkwardly slamming it into the ground. Something like jumping and then throwing it into the ground below, I think.

[PhoenixShi]

Weapon(s) used: Any, as it no longer matters to this issue.

Faction(s) fought: Any.

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Outside of crit ones, they no longer matter to this issue.

Thoughts & Experiences: The new update severely nerfed Valkyr's Hysteria as it now receives no benefit from the weapon you use outside of maybe crit chance, increased power strength mods, and melee damage bonus mods don't help any more either. Then doing a stealth attack in Hysteria results in hardly any damage at all now, I really hope this is all a bug.

 

Another comment related to this, and other things is is an old issue, things aren't well explained. We should be able to see what each mod does exactly, but for things with more complexity, like frame/sentinel skill related ones, we can't. I have one stance mod (Fracturing Wind), but I can't use it, and from what the game shows me, I couldn't see why, I had to go to the Wiki to find out what weapon type it's for, as the mod doesn't. There are mods to boost our channeling damage, great, where does it show what the channeling damage on a weapon is, or how it works, so we can put those into some context? Using a weapon in focus mode consumes energy, it doesn't say anywhere how much though.

 

Finally I did manage to get a stance I could have used to drop, it was rare too, but the door to the last area wouldn't open properly, so I had to abort the mission, and forfeit the mod. This is one of the problems with your all or nothing system for mods, even if you do get it, you lose it if you hit some problem with the game, or other such things. I get that you're trying to encourage people to stay to the end, but especially when playing solo, if you find something, you should keep it.

Edited April 12, 2014 by PhoenixShi

[Cazzzz]

Weapon Used: Orthos Prime

 

Faction Fought: Corrupted (All pretty much)

 

Mods Used: Killing Blow, Molten Impact, Corrupt Charge, and other basic Melee mods (All of these mods are maxed, or a level below maxed.)

 

Stance Equipped: Shimmering Blight (Maxed)

 

Feedback: I personally love Melee 2.0, due to the fact it makes sense too me, and the 'channeling' effect interests me. The Ash i use with this weapon (modded with energy efficiency and capacity mods) makes it so i can almost constantly channel, making it more effective if i don't even bring a Primary/ Secondary weapon. The Shimmering Blight stances' description got me excited, but the result was a bit of a let-down. I was expecting more staggering effects, spinning attacks. Other than the *E,E, hold E" attack, the attacks on the Shimmering Blight stance were the same as the original attacks on the weapon before Update 13 (for the most part). More spinning and 'tornado-y' attacks would add much more fun to the game. Before Update 13, along with Melee 2.0, was released, the Orthos Prime was the reigning king of melee weapons, with its fast attack speed, and deadly charge attack, but with 'channeling' and combo-ish attacks, I made my Orthos Prime a bit over-powered. In a Tower/Tier 3 Survival, i can alone take on Gunners, and Ancients, and they die in seconds. MOAs are no different, although they set me on fire a bunch. Following up on something PrimalMayhen had said, the pausing combos are really difficult to use, because the pause can either be held for too little (Failing to execute the combo), or held too long (Executing only parts, if any, of the combo). If there was a default key to take the place of these combos, that would make the system work a bit more smoothly. And since the combos are more often executed CORRECTLY when melee is separately equipped (Using "F" key), the reload key "R" would be a great placeholder for these pauses. Other than what is stated, i think Melee 2.0 is running a lot better than some would have expected early into the update. 

 

Approximate Time Spent: About 6 hours spent on weapon alone

 

Extra Info: Some solo runs, some co-op, specifically in the Void, but also Grineer survivals.

 

Overall Rating of Melee 2.0: I'd say [7-8] out of 10 stars from me. 

 

My Input: Needs a tad bit of tweaking with Stance combos, and could make certain Stances (Such as Burning Wasp, i have gotten like 20 of those) a bit less common, and certain others a bit more common (Such as Bleeding Willow, i have killed maybe 200 Corrupted MOAs, and haven't found a single one). 

[Zext]

Weapon(s) used: Dual Zorens(mostly) , Orthos, Kama, Ether Reaper

 

Faction(s) fought: All

 

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Swirling Tigers, Crossing snakes, reaping spiral, shimmering blight, sundering weave, and a couple others on weapons I didn't use that much. 

 

Also used some of the more unique channeling mods. 

 

Thoughts & Experiences:

 

Surprisingly powerful, I could easily defeat even some of the most high leveled mobs in seconds and there are plenty of ways to improve your damage. Channeling is powerful but costly, especially with some of the more unique channeling mods. I'd recommend maybe higher chance for energy drops if you are at a certain combo count and killed an enemy with a channeled attack. 

 

Also, make the channeling mods drop from enemies or missions or something. They are currently transmute only which is a BAD MOVE because transmuting is expensive and has a ridiculously large table of mods to reward you with, making them nearly impossible to get.

 

You need to give us the ability to have melee use a different button depending on whether the weapon is equipped or not. You can change channeling to whatever, but melee has to stay as the same button as quick melee. They should be separate.

 

Although stamina is more important due to how it works with blocking, having stamina and not having stamina makes no difference in how often or how fast or how hard you hit while attacking. All it does is screw you over if you want to block after killing a guy. 

 

Combo counter is good, but instead of completely resetting when you haven't hit enemies in a while, make it decay. The speed it decays at should depend on how much combo counter you have. The more you have, the faster it decays, eventually slowing down. That way all the work you put int trying to get that 100 billion hit combo doesn't completely go away after 4 seconds. 

 

Parrying and stealth damages are weird and bugged and don't do much damage at all really. They don't seem to be affected by nearly any mods (or enemy armor for that matter) or even the actual weapon itself. Pls adres

 

Approximate Time Spent:  Believe me when I say a LOT.

 

Supplementary Info: Both co-op and solo, m+kb default controls.

[RagnaEternalCurse]

Weapon(s) used: nikana/dragon nikana, orthos prime.

Faction Fought: all of them.

Stance Equipped: Bleeding willow and Tranquil Cleave.

Approximate Time Spent: 12 hours.

Extra Info: used a mouse that has 2 extra buttons, and keyboard, solo and co-op runs.

Overall Rating of Melee 2.0: I give it 8 stars out of 10.

Thoughts & Experiences: Melee 2.0 is quite good  the channeling is  quite good and it doesn't consume that much energy even with the mods that gives an increase in some states and reduces the efficiency of channeling. however the stamina is consumed quite fast. the stances mods do need an  increase in their drop rate, and maybe this is my opinion make another slot for a secondary melee weapon, so we can bring 1 main melee and a secondary one for example daggers would be secondary while hammer and katanas would be main. and the key binding does need improvements.

[(PSN)P4NCH0theD0G]

Well, more opinions by a very interested PS4 player:

 

Combos need to be more enticing than just ramping up the combo meter. Maybe add additional damage to the combos - the higher the combo count, the harder the hit, or the longer the reach (Think God of War heavy attack combo finisher) etc.  Or add temporary attack and movement speed and attack range with sucessful combos, like being in "the zone".

Additionally, a "launch" combo (hit enemy into air, jump after) and air combos need to happen. DMC Style.

 

Eventually, a deeper system with the usual separation of heavy and quick attacks would grant more flexibility, and many more combo effects (AOE, Stun, launch etc). A game with a very nice combo system was Conan on Xbox 360 and PS3, where different combos had effects from stunning to disarming to AOEs to guaranteed health or energy orbs.

 

Also, what about an enemy with Radial (or Specific) Disarm to force those melee duels?

 

A deeper combo system would however necessitate the oft mentioned visual indicator for timing related combos. 

[SableSonata]

Weapon(s) used: Prova

 

Faction(s) fought: All

 

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Sundering Weave

 

Thoughts & Experiences: Overall experience is barely different from Melee 1.0. The controls aren't tight enough to consistently perform the combos out of combat, let alone in the fray. Melee still just ends up being mashing the melee button until the enemy falls over. 

 

Melee feels more viable only because melee weapons are doing more damage. Combat is not significantly more complex than 1.0, unfortunately.

 

Using Energy for channeling is an odd choice, since it means that caster frames, which generally should keep distance, are better suited to melee because of their larger energy pool. It should be heavy attacks, which expend stamina (while light attacks expend little or no stamina). 

 

Approximate Time Spent: 2-3 hours each with and without stance.

 

Supplementary Info: Mouse and Keyboard. Thumb button (M5) for melee attack.

 

I've also used Orthos Prime and Jat Kittage, both without stance mods because they are rare drops from either rare enemies, or bosses, so melee is effectively the same as 1.0, but with different animations and no charge attack.

 

A single-button melee system is doomed to failure without tight controls, and Warframe's controls are about as loose as they come. First step to making Melee combos appealing is to lose the pause in any combo. It breaks flow and is difficult to fit in to a combo where your inputs are half a step ahead of your actual attacks. Second step is to replace the current system (appears to be 'execute only first input entered after current animation started') with a more forgiving system ('execute only last input entered before current animation ends')

 

There are tons of ways to replace this in combos - the most obvious (and most popular among players) is to use a two-button system. From there you have far more options, such as pressing or holding either attack button, or doing an attack while hitting crouch, roll, block, etc. 

 

 

 

Channeling doesn't actually add anything other than reducing the amount of time you have to wail on enemies by expending energy.

 

Because the best course of action is still to just mash the attack button, and because coptering is still the best way to travel (sprint speed needs to be increased across the board, and its stamina cost reduced, if not removed), stamina is often low, so blocking usually doesn't last long enough to be particularly useful.

 

Parrying doesn't work yet.

 

 

Here is some more feedback, and some suggestions to fix the root issues (loose controls, flow-breaking pausing in combos), as well as additional suggestions, such as contextual attacks: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/211602-melee-20-combo-system-is-a-solid-concept-marred-by-poor-execution/#entry2474477

 

 

As a side note: I also have to change my key bindings in order to check combos. ( https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/211554-melee-combo-screen-does-not-recognize-m5-button/#entry2474112 )

 

 

Overall, Melee 2.0 is a big letdown. It's a ridiculous grind to even access the combos for some weapons, and when you do, they're barely usable because it's a one-button system with very loose controls. It's about as un-ideal as a melee system gets.

 

Edited April 13, 2014 by SableSonata

[Solus_Ipse]

Congrats on Melee 2.0, I believe it's a step in the right direction since players are getting more use out of it, and more importantly it removed unstoppable knockdowns from heavy enemies allowing it to function at least on a basic level.

 

Still...there needs to be more 'why', 'how,' and 'for what purpose.'

 

It's painful to see effort expended to do all the smooth animations and coding for a system that is only half-well received due to lingering issues.

 

I'm not going to argue against stance mods - DE needs money to function, any additions need to generate income and their method that has worked so far is putting new additions behind a grindwall to induce a flow of cash from early-bird buyers and patient traders.

 

But fundamentally melee 2.0 has issues that should've been considered in the planning stages:

 

Why should players use melee? The answer is it's fun - and DE accomplished this to some degree as many would say. Stances and channeling have buffed some weapons, and overall there's more interest in using melee as opposed to just Galatine. But this leads to...

 

Should there be a function for melee separate from guns? Aside from blocking, melee serves no purpose but to kill enemies just like guns...these continue to be mutually exclusive ways to kill enemies, except that guns continue to be superior, if only less so. Combo bonuses take so many hits to accrue they're likely worthless against high level defense/survival enemies simply due to the inability to mitigate damage while attacking.

 

How would melee work on each type of enemy? Are there types of enemies it shouldn't/can't work against? Would it make sense? DE either did not consider how ospreys would work with melee 2.0 or they decided they should be gunned down, same with cameras/laser fences/turrets/weakpoints (Lephantis?)

 

How would melee work on uneven terrain or on ramps? Melee hitboxes work only on level terrain like in a testing environment - attacking enemies down a flight of stairs whiffs on many strokes for many weapons

 

In summary: an improvement, but more like 1.5 than 2.0.

[Daedalus_Fox]

Weapon(s) used: Glaive Prime, Nami Skyla, Galatine

Faction(s) fought: Grineer, Corpus, Corrupted

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Iron Phoenix, Swirling Tiger, various melee mods

Thoughts & Experiences:

• When melee is equipped/stance/engaged it would be nice to have Mouse 1 as Melee Attack with Fire Weapon still bound to Mouse 1, it feels more natural to attack with Mouse 1 when melee is the only thing in hand.
• Melee Channeling could use a toggle function.
• I can do the combos, but for some of the combos with 'pause', in the fluidity of combat it can feel awkward at times. Edit: After playing around more got the hang of it. I have seen suggested and like the idea of ( Hold E, E, E ) or ( Forward, E, E, E ) or ( E, E, E, E ) for all combos.
• Combo counter in coop play really becomes difficult to get up as your teammates are dropping enemies around you. Added Suggestion​: Increasing the time delay till the counter resets.
• Not enjoying the fact I cannot block anymore with melee while guns in hand nor enjoying the removing of charged attacks. I just don't see the reasons to why those got removed as you can still have your melee stance/engaged mode with combos and the old blocking and charged attacks while having guns out.
• Added: I really hate how quite a few mods now really cripple channeling efficiency.

Those points asides the new animations are great and I do like melee stances. I'm not screaming death to Melee 2.0 but there is refinement work for sure to be done here. Other than that I think Melee 2.0 is a step in the right direction and making melee more rewarding, just needing tweaking and adjusting.

 

Approximate Time Spent: Since U13

Supplementary Info: Mouse/Keyboard both Coop/solo

Edited April 14, 2014 by Daedalus_Fox

[HellHeart]

Weapon(s) used: Machete

Faction(s) fought: Grineer

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used:

Sundering Weave
Max Killing blow, Max Jagged edge, Max Focus Energy, Max Spoiled Strike, Max Pressure point, Max Voltaic strike, Rank 4 Fury and Shocking touch
Thoughts & Experiences:
Low tier weapons like the Machete doesnt scale to well against armor and the grineer. There isnt a reason to use them now on melee 2.0 when you can use far superior weapons like Dual Ichors.

Its hard to do the combo when you have little to almost no visual que. Most moves just looks the same and its hard to tell where you are in the combo list especially when dealing with multiple enemies where you just end up spamming E instead.

Approximate Time Spent: A total of 24 hours since the release of 2.0

Supplementary Info: Optional Mouse/Keyboard/Solo

Note: I see that wall move, slide attack and Spin attack are buffed especially on the newer melee weapons. Maybe melee combos should take damage from those instead of the normal weapon damage and should depend on the stance used.

[DarknightK]

Weapon(s) used: Reaper Prime, Dual Ichor, Hate, Galatine, Dakra Prime, Machete Wraith, Nikana, Jat Kittag,

Faction(s) fought: Grineer, Corpus

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Too many mods to list, however Fury was a main concern: there was no reason to lower the percent speed. Slower weapons suffer greatly from this.

Thoughts & Experiences:

1) At a glance, Melee 2.0 strings hits much more cohesively, however it fails to bring any "new" features to melee. With the removal of charged attacks, players actually LOSE variability in their attacks. The main problem stems from Stance mods only adding 1-2 combos at most to the Default stance. Stance mods should not only add combos, but revamp existing ones

 

Example: Adding the "Swirling Tiger" mod to the Dual Ichors will not only add extra combos, but will allow players to add a melee attack after a Knee Slide attack. The result would be a combo of something like this: Knee Slide+E, E, E. THis combo will consist of high velocity spins, much like the Stance's namesake.

 

Example 2: The default Nikana melee set will not unholster the Nikana, but rather use the sheath together for quick smacks and jabs. Tranquil Cleave however, will allow users to unsheathe their swords and perform quick and decisive slashes and strikes.

Approximate Time Spent: Played countless T2/T3 as well as Nuovo Survival

Supplementary Info: Mouse and Keyboard were used

[faustias]

Weapon(s) used: Kogake

Faction(s) fought: Grineer, specifically ranged units. May be applicable to Corpus, too, but have not tested yet. The result maybe same anyway.

Mod(s) equipped/Stance used: Brutal Tide, the other mods are not necessary info for this feedback since my concern is the stance itself.

Thoughts & Experiences: Brutal Tide's awesome and yet annoyingly turning me into a breakdancing sitting-duck. The attack animation is hard to control, even with the auto-aim from Options.

The first two E's have inconsistent, multiple animations, making the 2nd combo(E,E,pause,E,E) unable to be executed since I really can't tell how/when to time my pause.

Another concern is its uncontrollable animations at certain point. The 1st E[spinning backhand], following 2nd E[leg-split kick, then leg-sweepers] animation sequence can't be cancelled rendering my warframe vulnerable to other damage, and also get kited if the first E missed. I am suggesting attack animations should be cancelled by rolling.

Approximate Time Spent: 1 hour, more or less

Supplementary Info: Keyboard used, no keybind changes. Second Wind is not giving stamina upon killing.

 

EDIT: Gonna add this to my feedback since this is probably where it's most appropriate than making a new thread.

Give an extended duration to the animation, or rest, for each attack, unless E is tapped early. This helps the player with combos consisting [pause] before pressing E again. It will indicate the time window for the player to press E and execute that particular combo requiring [pause].

 

Take one move from DMC3 & 4. The 2nd combo of Rebellion consists of [Y,pause,Y,Y]. After making a light overhead slash and if you don't immediately press the melee button at that moment, he stays there, idle in milliseconds. It will create a paused state thus executing combo2, instead of combo1, once the attack button is pressed again within that window.

Edited April 13, 2014 by faustias