Stances Should Be More Like Fighting-Styles

[Xarteros]

So, first impression of reading the Stance list: Wow. That's a lot of confusing, theme-less stances

Currently, stances are just a series of combos attached to very specific weapon groups, that slightly augment the style of fighting. I've tested most of the stances, and some of them share a similar theme, but too much is just specific to the type of weapon, and doesn't serve enough of a purpose.

What I propose is an overhaul, where stances are more like proper fighting styles and can be used on any melee weapon. Each stance would be set to a very specific theme, like defensive combat/counterattacks, endless combo chaining, single-target combo focus, broad area sweeps etc. I think the benefits brought in by Melee 2.0 would be a thousand times cooler if you could look at another tenno and see, no matter what weapon they were using, what stance they were using just by how they fight.

I propose that stances be much more style/role-based, with more upgrade capability (at least 5 levels instead of 3) and maybe some inherent bonuses that improve along the way. Some might even have penalties to counter higher bonuses, that all fit the theme. To clarify my proposal, let me throw a few examples together.

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Iron Mountain stance: A stance that boosts parrying/countering/bullet deflection passively. Has powerful counterattacks against staggered foes. Strikes are close and do not overextend the user, but hit hard. Combos would be based around parrying and counterattacking, with powerful single-target finishers.

This stance would be ideal for tanks/guardians, and healers or frail warframes who want a bit more survivability. This would suit slow weapons (like heavy hammers) for their powerful strikes, as well as fast weapons (dual daggers) because they could more rapidly counter-strike the enemy (and because deflecting with fast dual weapons looks cool).

Flowing River stance: A stance that endlessly chains attacks together, with a passive increase to attack rate. Attacks and combos flow from one to another with no hinderance to your movement speed. You could run through combat, attacking everything you move past with ease.

Ideal for fast, agile warframes. Suitable for heavy weapons for the wider swings (still slowish swings, but not hindering your movement speed), or lighter weapons for the quick lashes that let you run circles around your enemy

Raging Dragon stance: A more frenzied attack stance, increases channeling damage passively. Combined with wide-sweeping combos that attack all around you and charging/leaping strikes, this stance would be aimed at ferociously attacking group after group. Mostly AoE based attacks, with jump/charge strike combos triggered by finisher attacks

Ideal for in-the-fray offensive warframes. Suitable for large weapons for the AoE strength as well as quick weapons for their flurry speed.

​_______________________________________________

Those are just really really rough examples of what I think would be better for stances. I know that not every stance will be as good for every weapon, but not every mod or aura is a good choice for each weapon/warframe, but we still have the creative control of having completely custom loadouts, even if they seem obscure.

The stances would each have attack patterns that are separate for each type of grip obviously. Daggers will still have stabs and slashes with the same Stance that gives a hammer crushing blows. It's about the style of fighting, not the actual attack pattern. For instance, with Rending Crane (heavy overhead strikes with Axes/Large swords), It might keep heavy weapons with their overhead strikes, but give daggers and light weapons jump-attack combos. It would keep with the theme of the stance, and it would visually look like an actual style of fighting, rather than random generic combos.

You wouldn't even need to make a different stance for thrown weapons. Something like Iron Mountain stance might throw the weapon in a combo after a deflection, but with no extra bounces and/or shorter flight distance. Raging Dragon stance might be full of quick slash-and-throw combos, ending in a throw with a high bounce number to ricochet around the last enemies as a final move. Maybe an overhead strike stance makes you throw the weapon vertically, letting you hurtle it down lines of foes if you have Punch-Through equipped.

Existing attack animations could of course still be used, but different stances would use different attacks and combinations of those attacks; certain stances might share a particular attack animation at varying points in their combos. Existing stance mods could all just be converted into the new stance that they suit/resemble most, so nobody would lose anything

Further rough ideas for fighting-style themed stances could include:

Cleaving attacks: Increases number of enemies hit per strike (punch-through)
Overhead strikes: Better vertical strikes, jump attacks
Lunging strikes: Combos started off with a charge/leap to close distance, high knockdown
Single-target combos: Focuses damage on single targets, incredibly powerful finishers
Dismembering attacks: Higher chances to cut foes in half, strong vertical/horizontal strikes and finishers
Channeling finishers: Penalty to channeling efficiency and large boost to damage for powerful finishing strikes
Broad sweeps: Combos move you in circles, spinning your weapon to give a larger AoE
Disarming parry: Chance to disarm enemy weapon in combo, bonuses to parry chance.
Charge attacks: Bring back charged attacks as a stance attack, in a Iajitsu single-strike kill move sort of thing
Crit strikes: Pause combos with extra crit chance & damage for the final strike.

​_______________________________________________

In closing, I think it would be amazing to see a more concise array of stances. I would love to look at another Tenno and know that their close, guarded strikes are that of the Iron Mountain stance, even though I could just ask them. It would be visually cooler, simpler to plan loadouts for, more versatile and it would be more interesting to use. I think it would be a really great change to the system, and I hope it's considered.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Xarteros

[BlurrE_Tempo]

I agree with you. Not everyone play style is the same. SO different types of styles would be nice. I'm glad I'm not the only perso n who thinks that there should be more play style stances refering to what you said.

[Gelkor]

I will say some of the stances drastically change style, playing around with kogake I found the differences between grim fury and brutal tide to be very stark, for one, brutal tide converts all melee to multitarget, allowing kogake/obex to fight multiple targets more effectively, however, it is less mobile and roots you for some of the combos.

[Xarteros]

I will say some of the stances drastically change style, playing around with kogake I found the differences between grim fury and brutal tide to be very stark, for one, brutal tide converts all melee to multitarget, allowing kogake/obex to fight multiple targets more effectively, however, it is less mobile and roots you for some of the combos.

I haven't actually tried those ones yet, and from the sounds of it those are quite good examples of different styles. It's that sort of style that would really benefit from being a general style usable across the different weapons. I can imagine using Dual Ether in that Brutal Tide sort of stance, being rooted in part of the combos but slashing out in every direction. 

I think it just has so much potential, where the current stance system will just mean you'll end up having more stance mods than melee mods altogether, and you'll have to farm for each one and upgrade it individually, all to gain a slight benefit or change. 

[Paddon]

I was really hoping it would be more like this really. Not a fan of the endless grind just to get a rare stance mod that holds one combo and a bunch of new names for old moves. 

[Ariarch]

More play-styles = Yes

 

Period.

[Xarteros]

This is the sort of discussion I wish DE would prompt us for in the Design Council. All they really give us is their almost completed work to vote on, and the occasional vote on what item/warframe to make next.

The entire point of having a design council was to have a player body providing feedback on ideas while they get made, and it saddens me that there's no room to voice opinions like this in the DC thread. 

[MechaTails]

This is the sort of discussion I wish DE would prompt us for in the Design Council. All they really give us is their almost completed work to vote on, and the occasional vote on what item/warframe to make next.

The entire point of having a design council was to have a player body providing feedback on ideas while they get made, and it saddens me that there's no room to voice opinions like this in the DC thread. 

 

That's because if they asked you guys to design a combat system youd all come up with crazy &#! ideas that would take years to implement, just so a topic like this can pop up about that system not being good enough lol

 

As far as the fighting styles go.... meh. A whip cant be used like an axe. An axe cant be used like a boomerang. A boomerang cant be used like a whip, etc.

 

The current system is on the right track, altering the playstyle of the specific weapon, problem is the stances just dont alter it enough.

 

For example, dual axes could have 2 stances:

Angry Mantis: Combos focus on quick slashes to a single target, they cause bleed procs that stack.

Casual Butcher: Combos have slower more powerful attacks with high chance to dismember foes

 

Angry Mantis could probaly be recycled for other bladed dual weapons

Edited April 18, 2014 by DarkTails

[Xarteros]

That's because if they asked you guys to design a combat system youd all come up with crazy &#! ideas that would take years to implement, just so a topic like this can pop up about that system not being good enough lol

 

As far as the fighting styles go.... meh. A whip cant be used like an axe. An axe cant be used like a boomerang. A boomerang cant be used like a whip, etc.

 

The current system is on the right track, altering the playstyle of the specific weapon, problem is the stances just dont alter it enough.

 

For example, dual axes could have 2 stances:

Angry Mantis: Combos focus on quick slashes to a single target, they cause bleed procs that stack.

Casual Butcher: Combos have slower more powerful attacks with high chance to dismember foes

 

Angry Mantis could probaly be recycled for other bladed dual weapons

I'm not saying complete community design, i'm talking about DE offering a few different choices and asking the community which direction they would prefer, and vote on it. Everything they've let the community have high creative control has turned out pretty bad IMO (Looking at you Nova, with your name and powers that have nothing to do with how antimatter works)

Secondly, I'm not talking about using a whip like an axe, or using an axe like a boomerang, i'm talking about the general purpose for which you wield a weapon.

For example: If you are fighting defensively, you use more blocking and counterattacks, with the aim of striking an enemy when they overextend or expose themselves. So put that on an axe, you parry their attack and perform a quick jab with the hilt to stagger them, then while they are staggered, you hit them hard. Normal attacks don't carry you very far forward, so you don't overextend yourself. Now, use that on a whip, same deal, completely different animations. Parry an attack, and maybe it opens up the ability to trip your enemy with the whip (basic knockdown effect) and you strike while they are down. Same deal again with a dagger, parry their attack and then strike, but this time without needing to stun them because a dagger is fast enough to strike while they recover from the parry (compensates perfectly for the lesser damage, and suits the speed of a dagger)

All I propose is that combos vary for each melee weapon based on a role in combat, a 'fighting style'. It doesn't need to be overly fancy, many existing animations could be used for different stances, as part of regular combos or whatnot. Adding more animations would definitely be preferable, to make them visually appealing and different, but the animations themselves won't take all that much extra work, with the software DE has. 

Putting the different attack types into the combos is easily done, DE have already shown they can do it. All it means is instead of a regular attack on a certain strike in the combo, it's a stun-attack or a knockdown or a ragdoll, or has an extra crit/status chance, or can inflict extra status effects, with each extra bonus tweaked to suit the weapon type. Hammers shouldn't get extra slashing procs in the same combo strike as a sword would, so it would just need to be tweaked to suit. 

It's well within DE's capacity to do, even if it's only done small steps at a time. Most of the content we have is added to regularly, so it never gets too boring, and that would work just fine for the fighting style's I have proposed, The combos could be fairly limited per stance, but could be added to as time goes on, while still letting us diversify our actual purpose/role/fighting style with the current available choices. 

The current stances (in general) do not have nearly enough purpose, short of a slightly different attack pattern with more/less of one type of feature (one has more charges/rolls, one has less).

Sure, not every fighting style perfectly suits every type of weapon, but you should always have the choice to use a weapon the way you want it. If there's a heavy stagger-based stance, suited for heavy hammers, swords and axes, why not use it with your dagger, and bash with the hilt for a stagger before unleashing a quick flurry of attacks instead of one big swing? Why not use a fist weapon with a slow, powerful strike to stagger the enemy, before unleashing the quick flurry? You could easily bridge the gap by requiring more strikes from the weapon to stagger, the lighter the weapon(s) weigh. That same principle applies to all the weapons, with some clearly more suited than others, but others still a possible option; particularly for the cunning expert. 

It opens so many more possibilities for different tactics. Running with the stagger-stance example, maybe using large weapons with that stance is better for controlling crowds, but using lighter weapons is more adept at stunlocking a single enemy (bashing away at them and not letting them recover). Go for a different stance, maybe it's a trip/knockdown stance; heavy weapon users might actually use a kick from the Fist&foot weapons, to trip/knockdown their enemy as a quick strike in the middle of a combo.

I can't see any reason yet why it would be bad to have the ability to use the stance you want on the weapon you want, just the way you can use the mods & auras you want on any warframes/weapons you want. 

[notionphil]

honestly, this is pretty much what i thought stances were going to be...i cant imagine why they arent.

[MechaTails]

Honestly I'm skimming the posts, because lolvideogames, but I don't see why your idea, or something very similar, can't be implemented using the system we already have.

 

Using Gelkor's example:

 

I will say some of the stances drastically change style, playing around with kogake I found the differences between grim fury and brutal tide to be very stark, for one, brutal tide converts all melee to multitarget, allowing kogake/obex to fight multiple targets more effectively, however, it is less mobile and roots you for some of the combos.

 

Those particular stances have drastically different fighting styles, why isn't that good enough? DE just has to spread that level of variety across the other stances.

 

Your system would give all weapons access to the same type of fighting style, the weapon would then be used in a way to sort of fit the theme, like you show in that heavy hammer/dagger stagger stance example, is that right? Like, give all weapons access to a "stagger stance", a "block everything stance", a "light-footed stance" etc.?

 

Eh, that's alright I guess. Your idea is more like a side-grade than an upgrade though.

 

I'd rather the Devs give each weapon type a few stances that play to their strengths, not arbitrarily have them be used like something they're not suited for, like putting a super fast combo stance on a heavy &#! weapon, or a stealth-stance on the Jat Kittag.

 

The more I think about melee possibilities the more my head hurts lol. I think DE first needs to establish what kind of game they're trying to make here, and then we can throw out suggestions that make sense for their goal. The suggestions for melee I've seen seem to imply that players think DE wants to make a hyper-customizable martial arts game... which I don't think in the case because we have tons of guns and Melee 2.0's combo system is kinda "meh".

 

Oh hey, there's a thought for DE, F*** the guns! Replace them with more melee weapons and go full hog on the most brutally awesome melee system ever.

[Xarteros]

Honestly I'm skimming the posts, because lolvideogames, but I don't see why your idea, or something very similar, can't be implemented using the system we already have.

 

Using Gelkor's example:

 

 

Those particular stances have drastically different fighting styles, why isn't that good enough? DE just has to spread that level of variety across the other stances.

 

Your system would give all weapons access to the same type of fighting style, the weapon would then be used in a way to sort of fit the theme, like you show in that heavy hammer/dagger stagger stance example, is that right? Like, give all weapons access to a "stagger stance", a "block everything stance", a "light-footed stance" etc.?

 

Eh, that's alright I guess. Your idea is more like a side-grade than an upgrade though.

 

I'd rather the Devs give each weapon type a few stances that play to their strengths, not arbitrarily have them be used like something they're not suited for, like putting a super fast combo stance on a heavy &#! weapon, or a stealth-stance on the Jat Kittag.

 

The more I think about melee possibilities the more my head hurts lol. I think DE first needs to establish what kind of game they're trying to make here, and then we can throw out suggestions that make sense for their goal. The suggestions for melee I've seen seem to imply that players think DE wants to make a hyper-customizable martial arts game... which I don't think in the case because we have tons of guns and Melee 2.0's combo system is kinda "meh".

 

Oh hey, there's a thought for DE, F*** the guns! Replace them with more melee weapons and go full hog on the most brutally awesome melee system ever.

 

Some of the stances are currently pretty different, but the issue I have is that so many of the other weapons are practically just the same, and there isn't any real difference. I'd be happier if they spread the variety to the other weapons in a more simple way too, but even then it's more about bland combos that don't actually change anything.

What I want from stances is to have a purpose put in each, rather than some generic pattern of normal attacks that doesn't really differ from spamming E. So yeah, one might have better staggering strikes, one might deliver better critical hits, one might be designed for blocking & counterattacking, etc. Something that's a simple enough bonus that can apply to any weapon, with obvious differences of course, but has a basic bonus and incorporates a bit more interest into the combos.

I'm not asking for some ultra-in-depth martial arts style (not for now anyway, they can improve on it when they get the basics fixed), just that different attacks in the combo chain have effects that suit a role/purpose, so you can find the stance that suits your style. The animations don't need to be fancy at all, in fact i'd rather tone-down some of the over-the-top animations (Like Tranquil Cleave, full of random stabs, slashes and dodge rolls that don't flow very well).

It may seem a bit like a side-grade, but it's reducing the amount of pointless farming for the 1-2 stances for each of the dozen or so different weapon 'groups', and it would in general allow you to use melee weapons with more diversity, letting you be more capable of using the weapon you like, to fit the role you want it to. If some stances really strongly make no sense to use with a certain weapon group, then i guess it'd be fair to not let you use it, but that'd only happen if they made stances that have an overly-specific bonus that doesn't apply to certain weapons (like having a bleeding proc stance, hammers wouldn't make sense) and I don't think anyone would complain about that.

I think it'd be a fairly easy change for DE to make, and it would give melee a variety of purposes like so many of the guns, instead of just being a way to deal X damage within Y amount of time.

 

[GSDAkatsuki]

I agree as it is now is just a bunch of fancy animations that do not reflect what the weapons can actually do. There are no other functions that they added to make each weapon and it's stances to really stand out. No launchers, charge power damage for stuff like hammers, no actual aerial approaches like divekicks. DE has no understanding of the fighting game and action platformer genre, and they dared to hype and compare melee 2.0 to god of war and devil may cry.

[MechaTails]

Sounds like you wanted wackier attacks than the more grounded plausible stuff we got.

 

Didn't we read somewhere that they used martial arts movies as reference for the moves? Would be interesting to see if the people who like those movies are fans of the moves in Melee 2.0

 

And I like wacky, its fun for fighting games, I'm not sure it would work too well with Warframe's tone though.

Edited April 19, 2014 by DarkTails

[Xarteros]

Sounds like you wanted wackier attacks than the more grounded plausible stuff we got.

 

Didn't we read somewhere that they used martial arts movies as reference for the moves? Would be interesting to see if the people who like those movies are fans of the moves in Melee 2.0

 

And I like wacky, its fun for fighting games, I'm not sure it would work too well with Warframe's tone though.

I don't want wacky at all. Where have I said that this should be wacky?

I want it to look cool. As I said earlier, if a particular stance really strongly didn't make sense for a certain weapon group, they should limit it. I just think a lot of weapons could benefit from a variety of different fighting styles without breaking the 'tone' of Warframe. 

To be more constructive, I'd prefer if you listed an example of why you dislike the idea or think it wouldn't be fitting. Feel free to mention a stance type (you can choose from some of the ones I suggested in my first post) and how it wouldn't suit a particular group of weapons.

[MechaTails]

I was responding to the guy who posted before me talking about DMC and divekicks and stuff lol

Edited April 20, 2014 by DarkTails

[Xarteros]

I was responding to the guy who posted before me talking about DMC and divekicks and stuff lol

haha sorry, misinterpreted. 

I actually counted the current number of different weapon groups, out of curiosity.  There's currently 15... with 27 total stance mods that i could see, so when they add more stances for content updates, having only 2-3 stances per weapon group would mean 30-45 different stances to farm for =/

I wouldn't mind a compromise at all, you could compress the styles into more basic groups but still be limited in-between, if the stances really don't suit the other groups. Instead of having groups like Hammers, Large Swords/Axes, Dual Swords, Dual Daggers, Staves, Polarms etc, you could condense them all into really general groups, like Thrown, Large/Heavy weapons, Dual weapons, One-handed weapons and polearm/staff weapons. Instead of 15 groups, you'd have 5. Now, the animations would still be unique for those 15 groups, using a One-handed sword stance should look different between a machete and a Nikana, just the way it is now, but the stance mod would work between those groups

Also, DE have shown that they have the capacity to limit mods from certain weapon groups that otherwise share mods, like how bows are Rifle weapons but have unique Bow mods. They could easily make the most basic stances (crit stance, endless combo stance, etc) be usable on any melee weapon, with the more specific stances (quick flurry stances, or heavy ragdoll/knockdown stances) be limited to the types of weapon.

Do you think that would be more fair? still allowing you a bit more versatility, requiring less overall stances, giving each stance a proper role and only moderately reducing the creative freedom the players have?

I'd love to hear some constructive criticism or alternate ideas =)

 

[Xarteros]

toying with the idea of a gun-and-blade stance, for single-handed weapons only (single swords or daggers). Doubt they'd make it, but I thought it would be cool to post anyway

wield your pistol in your off-hand (if you have dual pistols, same rule applies as when you carry a data module; uses one gun with the clip of the dual gun), with shots integrated in executions and ground finishers. If they could make a basic lock-on feature, you could incorporate pistol shots into regular combos. They'd have to tweak it a bit for stream-fire guns like Embolist, so i reckon it would be an X second burst, shooting a single bullet from semi-auto's or a few shots from automatic or stream-fire pistols. It might even make automatic or stream-fire pistols fire in a rough sweep, to affect an arc of enemies while you hack and slash with melee.

I like the idea of killing something with a sword, and the next attack is a gunshot to a nearby enemy, followed by a distance-closing attack that brings them into melee range.

I guess guns with small magazines would be more limited in regular combos (but somewhat balanced by larger magazine auto/stream guns using more shots per combo), so they would need to cancel out the gun shots if you were out of ammo/reloading. I suppose you could reload one-handed, or you could have to wait until you finish the combo to reload, but it depends how much you would integrate the shots into regular combos. 

I think it would create an awesome diversity of weapon combos, you could focus on high-damage semi-auto pistols for single-target damage (Marelok, Lex Prime) or auto/stream-fire weapons for better area damage (Embolist, Cestra, Viper etc).

Again, I don't think it would be easy to do, and would probably be imbalanced, i just thought it was a cool idea so i'd post it

 

[LGear]

Many of the Stances already do different things to the weapons, and already change their styles enough to be recognizable from each other. For instance, on Sword stances Crimson Dervish is a very slow stance that hits hard and wide, but slows you down, whereas with Iron Phoenix you basically lunge quickly from place to place quickly and then do AoE knockbacks after several highly mobile strikes. Or Rending Crane that features AoE knockdowns and overhead slashes, vs Cleaving Whirlwind with its repeating spinning blade of doom. Or Coiling Viper that features high mobility jump dashes vs Burning Wasp with its AoE and long-range reaches. Or Pointed Wind that's features more easily controllable sweeping slashes, vs the frenzied lunges and mobile spins of Homing Fang.

 

And of course, there's the fact that some stances actually do modify the properties of a particular strike. For instance, using the Iron Phoenix stance with different swords with innate elemental damage gives its final combo attack different elemental properties, like proccing AoE electricity for the Plasma Sword, or AoE radiation with the Ether Sword. Or Swirling Tiger  unleashing a heat blast when using its combo with the Dual Heat Swords.

 

I do agree that some stances do seem samey and lackluster compared to each other, for instance Bleeding Willow and Shimmering Blight. But they just need to give the stances more combos each, with different moves that have more modifers to make each stance more unique from each other.

[Fulmir]

While this is an interesting idea this would basically amount to "Melee 3.0" in terms of workload. The stances are the way they are because of how these mods are tied to animations. These animations have to flow well and by saying you can use every Stance in every weapon-type you're severely limiting what can be done with stances, compared to having single stances attached to a single combo set for a single weapon.

This makes new stances painful to develop and is almost guaronteed to lead to stances that work well on some weapons and horribly on others but are listed as working for all. So new players come in, get a Stance, apply it a weapon, and then don't understand why it sucks on some weapons but not others.

I like the idea of Stances altering melee stats but the whole "global Stances" bit is just impractical from a development standpoint.

[Xarteros]

Many of the Stances already do different things to the weapons, and already change their styles enough to be recognizable from each other. For instance, on Sword stances Crimson Dervish is a very slow stance that hits hard and wide, but slows you down, whereas with Iron Phoenix you basically lunge quickly from place to place quickly and then do AoE knockbacks after several highly mobile strikes. Or Rending Crane that features AoE knockdowns and overhead slashes, vs Cleaving Whirlwind with its repeating spinning blade of doom. Or Coiling Viper that features high mobility jump dashes vs Burning Wasp with its AoE and long-range reaches. Or Pointed Wind that's features more easily controllable sweeping slashes, vs the frenzied lunges and mobile spins of Homing Fang.

 

And of course, there's the fact that some stances actually do modify the properties of a particular strike. For instance, using the Iron Phoenix stance with different swords with innate elemental damage gives its final combo attack different elemental properties, like proccing AoE electricity for the Plasma Sword, or AoE radiation with the Ether Sword. Or Swirling Tiger  unleashing a heat blast when using its combo with the Dual Heat Swords.

 

I do agree that some stances do seem samey and lackluster compared to each other, for instance Bleeding Willow and Shimmering Blight. But they just need to give the stances more combos each, with different moves that have more modifers to make each stance more unique from each other.

I know that some of the stances are fairly different. My problem is that currently we have 15 weapon groups and 28 stance mods. There are only 2 choices for weapon groups so far, when that gets to 3 choices, we'll have 45 mods to farm for. more choices? more mods. then they add in a new weapon group, like the upcoming sword and shield. Do you really want to farm for 50 stance mods? Does DE really want to make 50 stance mods, with animations for each? As i've said numerous times, I'm happy for a compromise. If they reduce the number of stance 'groups' by combining weapon groups, it'd be so much more managable. Think of it like this, if you prefer:

Fist + Hand & Foot = Sparring 

Sword + Dagger = One-handed

Dual Sword/Axe + Dual Dagger = Dual weapon

Heavy Hammer + Heavy Sword/Axe = Heavy Weapon

Staff + Spear = Polearms

Thrown + Whips = Ranged melee

That turns 15 groups (soon to be 16 with the Sword and Shield community weapon) into 6, meaning having 3 mods per group is only 18 mods to farm for, instead of the current 28. Isn't that easier? Hell, you could keep the animations the same for half of those, if they share a similar enough theme (there are quite a few weapons with a wide-sweeping attacks mod, make them all into one stance mod)

 

 

While this is an interesting idea this would basically amount to "Melee 3.0" in terms of workload. The stances are the way they are because of how these mods are tied to animations. These animations have to flow well and by saying you can use every Stance in every weapon-type you're severely limiting what can be done with stances, compared to having single stances attached to a single combo set for a single weapon.

This makes new stances painful to develop and is almost guaronteed to lead to stances that work well on some weapons and horribly on others but are listed as working for all. So new players come in, get a Stance, apply it a weapon, and then don't understand why it sucks on some weapons but not others.

I like the idea of Stances altering melee stats but the whole "global Stances" bit is just impractical from a development standpoint.

 

It either gets to a point where we don't have any real choice in stance selection (between two or three), and if we don't like those; tough luck. Or, it gets to the point where there are so many mods that none of them can be told apart because there's simply too many to learn and to farm for, and it's all a huge confusing mess that takes ages to actually acquire and master, for no real enjoyment or tactical use other than extra mod capacity.

Few of the current stances have a 'role' or purpose, it's mostly just a random bunch of combos with an incredibly loose theme, with little significant benefit. I don't care if they only start with 2-3 stance mods, it'd be better than what they made.

I know they'll need to redo some animations, but most of it I think they could recycle, and add in new animations as they go. If they start small for now, they could use many of the animations in existing combos for the new ones. They'll have a bit of work to do in order to add more of the generalised stances, but actually less work than creating more and more and more stance mods for each weapon group, and having to edit them all separately.

If there was any time to make a change, it is now, before they keep going and make their own job harder. Lots of their work has been overhauled visually, I just think they need to stop making new stances, and work on the system when they can, releasing it gradually. As it stands, I strongly believe that continuing their current course will impact the entire melee 2.0 system, so why make them continue working on a bad system when there are better ways?

A lot of the issue is their own fault. There just so happens to be this magical design council that never gets prompted for feedback on ideas like this. I don't see any posts regarding the Melee system in either of the DC tabs, and i've been checking for a while. If they'd asked for feedback before they did the work, things might have turned out better, and they wouldn't have dug themselves into a hole of workload. 

Again, i'm going to stress the point that the role-based stances would be less about having completely unique combos, and more about the stats they confer.

If you have a counter-based stance, you might have generic attack combos, but blocking would trigger the execution attack, standard for each weapon. No new animations required. Lots of stances could use existing attack patterns, but add in the ability to use certain special attacks themed with the stance, and boosted with the stat bonus it comes with. Reducing the overwhelming amount of mods DE will end up creating, and the farming we'll have to do, is my idea not the easier, and overall cooler way?

 

[Fulmir]

 

I know they'll need to redo some animations, but most of it I think they could recycle, and add in new animations as they go. If they start small for now, they could use many of the animations in existing combos for the new ones. They'll have a bit of work to do in order to add more of the generalised stances, but actually less work than creating more and more and more stance mods for each weapon group, and having to edit them all separately.

 

It's actually going to be more work in the long run, because to create *any* new Stance mod they need animations for every weapon group, and there are quite a few of those. This means that the release of any new stance mod is now a bigger project that has to balance and take into account more factors and these things don't scale linearly. Releasing one new mod under your system becomes a bigger project than releasing one new mod for every current grouping under the current system because none of those have to fit a common theme and balance a single set of bonuses.

 

Plus the current animation system has animations flowing into and out of one another. You can't just take the third hit out of a six hit combo and paste it into another combo with zero work. Unless you're taking the current combos, in their entirety, then you're going to have to wire them back in to the new combo and it ends up being only slightly less work than just making new animations from scratch because of the added difficulty of taking pre-existing content and shoe-horning it into something else.

 

 

If there was any time to make a change, it is now, before they keep going and make their own job harder. Lots of their work has been overhauled visually, I just think they need to stop making new stances, and work on the system when they can, releasing it gradually. As it stands, I strongly believe that continuing their current course will impact the entire melee 2.0 system, so why make them continue working on a bad system when there are better ways?
 

 

Because better is subjective in this instance (and most instances of game design) and personally I prefer DE's system to the one you're proposing almost entirely. The one bit I like is the stat tweaks from Stance mods but really that's already covered by the mods we install into the weapons themselves beyond the stances. If you want more Parry bonuses then do that. Right now you can just pick a stance based on which combos you prefer and what feels good to you, which I much prefer to having to pick a combo set I don't like for a stat bonus I want.
 

 

A lot of the issue is their own fault. There just so happens to be this magical design council that never gets prompted for feedback on ideas like this. I don't see any posts regarding the Melee system in either of the DC tabs, and i've been checking for a while. If they'd asked for feedback before they did the work, things might have turned out better, and they wouldn't have dug themselves into a hole of workload. 

Again, i'm going to stress the point that the role-based stances would be less about having completely unique combos, and more about the stats they confer.

If you have a counter-based stance, you might have generic attack combos, but blocking would trigger the execution attack, standard for each weapon. No new animations required. Lots of stances could use existing attack patterns, but add in the ability to use certain special attacks themed with the stance, and boosted with the stat bonus it comes with. Reducing the overwhelming amount of mods DE will end up creating, and the farming we'll have to do, is my idea not the easier, and overall cooler way?

 

The example you use here is a single example that works well for your system. You're still limiting Stances to generic rules that have to work well across all melee weapons. You can't have things like a ranged stance for Glave-group weapons because that doesn't work for swords.

As for the design council, yeah DE should probably use it more but using the design council doesn't guarantee that feedback like this would actually impact development. The Design Council is more for "here's our idea, what do you think" and less for "design the game for us".

As for the stats, that's what mods are for. I'm much more in favor of Stances modifying combos than being forced into a combo I don't like for stats I want.

[Xarteros]

I think the animations are far overdone, and overly full of near-pointless tumbles, flips and random chaotic swings. What I'm saying is reduce that, so it's more simple (and therefor easier to make), using less 'Combos' and more moves that are triggered by special points, like knockdowns, disarms, executions, staggers, crits etc. You don't need to be flipping off every wall to land a hit, you don't need attacks that forcibly leap you out of combat or right past enemies, unless that was a specific stance. From what I saw, there's a small period before each combo stage where you almost return to neutral stance before you press the next attack (if you actually wait to press it that is), where you enter the combo attack without just flowing on from it. I was under the impression that the animations could be more easily broken up like that, by having a neutral stance point that it flows to before flowing to another. It's the same way something with 2-3 combos can choose which one to enter at the same point in the attack. If i'm wrong, then i'm wrong, I just thought it would be feasible

Basically all the combos currently are is a different attack pattern, that's boring, and basically pointless. It's almost purely aesthetic, and I don't want to have to use the most aesthetic one if it doesn't match the polarity. It's the same issue as using a stat-stance that you don't like the aesthetic of. You just don't use it, and forego the bonuses, or use it anyway. Just like the entire game. I think Nova is hideous, but I still use her on occasion. 

I'm going to re-stress the point that I'm happy for some middle ground, with less weapon groups to have to farm for. I don't want there to be stances that don't make sense for certain weapons. You mentioned that stuff like ranged stances won't work for swords. I gather you didn't read my post. It's not about the weapon, it's how you use it; You have a crit stance, where you stagger the enemy with a quick hit and then hit them again for a powerful crit. Works on thrown, works on swords, works on everything. You have a knockdown stance, hit your enemy with a slow, powerful hit and knock them down. Works on swords, works on thrown, works on everything. If something really doesn't make sense; prevent that stance from being used on that weapon. That is what I suggest.

If you actually want to farm for 50+ Stance mods in the future, that's fine. I don't want to, because it's not only tedious, but largely pointless because the current stances are little more than aesthetic. Having to farm for each stance mod just to find out if its better that my other ones is incredibly tedious and usually disappointing, whether or not I prefer it to the ones I have. It detracts from the game, and creates extra content for very limited reason.

The design council is useless, mostly because DE don't put them to a use. Yes, the design council is supposed to be more like "Here's our idea, what do you think" but they never ask that on anything serious, and anything serious they ask (warframes) they give us almost complete creative control and don't do anything to really moderate that (hence why Nova makes no sense). You can't get feedback on something that nobody knows exists, and it's pointless to argue that they 'might not have gotten valuable feedback', because they made sure they definitely didn't by not telling the design council, just like most of their content. It's about having extra eyes and ears to point out issues, before they get made.

As much as I love discussion, I want it to be constructive. If you aren't suggesting alternatives, there isn't any point at all in posting here. I know there are heaps of people who won't like my idea, it's definitely not the best idea, but it's an idea, and I know lots of others who liked the idea of something different and/or better to the current stance system.

 

[Fulmir]

I don't think you think aesthetic means what you think it means... changing the attack patterns isn't an aesthetic change, it makes the weapon better against groups, against single targets, at keeping you mobile, or at standing your ground. Those aren't aesthetic changes as they noticeably affect the performance of the weapon.

Also there's nothing stopping you from using Forma to change the polarity of that slot or adding polarities to the weapon until it doesn't matter what polarity the slot is, you don't need the extra capacity.
 

As for stances based around stagger, stun, ect that runs into issues with status resistance or immune enemies. What about using melee on, say, Corpus drones or walkers? Bosses? Specters? Other Tenno? If the enemy is immune to the status you're inflicting then the combo just kind of fizzles. Plus stuff based on knock-down and the like requires a humanoid opponent if you want the attack to interact with the enemy in a specific way, or you have to modify the animation for every type of skeleton in the game, which is more work.

 

If you don't like stances then no one's forcing you to use them. Personally I'm a fan of the changes and I like the different stances. This is personal preference, nothing more and nothing less. No change is going to make everyone happy. If they went with your changes there would be someone on here the next day arguing that now every weapon feels too generic or they have a better idea that they like more.

As for the Design Council, while I sympathize with your point I also sympathize with DE's. You're basically saying that they need to include the entire Design Council on all of their internal design discussions or that they need to reitterate the results of those discussions. Neither one is a particularly good use of time 99% of the time. Player feedback is useful sometimes, other times it's not, and it's up to DE when they feel player feedback is useful to them. Extra eyes and brains may find mistakes, but too many cooks may also spoil the meal.

 

Lastly, I've been trying to keep this discussion informative, respectful, and constructive, but I don't have to propose an alternative or support your ideas to do that. I'm a fan of what we have right now and I don't feel it need significant tweaks.

[_Fracture8]

I'm pretty sure DE wouldn't touch the main melee structure with a 10 meter long barge pole after all the hassle of last time. Good ideas, but highly unlikely that this would be considered within DE which is quite a shame : / 

 

Melee 11.4.1 will have to remain just that