[Feedback] Melee 2.0 (In General)

[Ddublu]

So this has been out for a good while now. I think I've experienced enough to understand how the mechanics generally work now. I haven't gotten all the melee channeling mods or anything. Or been able to effectively perfect how to mod out for truly effective meleeing and stuff but anyway, here are just my thoughts and feelings on the subject.

 

Stamina:

     So again I haven't experimented toooooo much on this, I just seem to notice that a S#&$ ton of stamina is used up while I'm swinging my melee around. I was told that different stances take different amounts of stamina, so that may just be that that I'll have to get use to. However, even if I did get use to it, I think that melee currently takes too much stamina for what its worth. Again I havent tested everything but this is my initial observation. Even with the stamina mods on my warframe it feels like too much is getting used up for me to effectively continue meleeing enemies or at the very least keep chasing them as I'm swinging and the decide to run.

     Now I have used Second Wind to help alleviate this problem I seem to be having with stamina, or at least maintaining enough stamina to keep running and such. I'd add on Marathon to my Warframe, but I haven't enough slots really. I could switch out Rush with Marathon If I REALLY needed to.

     As I am currently testing while posting this; It has come to my attention that different weapons have different stamina costs, so this may be the real factor to why I noticed such a huge amount of stamina being used for my Reaper Prime, as opposed to Glaive (admittedly only like 5 or so more stamina being used.)

 

Channeling(In General):

    So I've looked on the wiki about the new mods that have been introduced come Melee 2.0 and saw the load of negative efficiency involved on using any of them. The max positive efficiency I believe is 100% with Focus Energy and Reflex Coil. After asking my Alliance about the whole 100% reduction, they said that it can be reduced down to 1 Energy, not free. However, my main point here is that the 'Channeling' mods cost way more than what can be countered, so it seems as though one would only really want to put on one MAYBE two of these new mods on; depending on which mods and what is needed.

     Also, from what I can tell the energy cost is rarely the issue when I use melee, and can still somewhat be thrown at stamina use being the main one. Side note, it seems as though with the new system nearly every weapon should have Pressure Point and Fury since there's no such thing as charge damage, aside from maybe a couple weapons still having some sort of charge attack, which leads me to believe that there may be a lot less focus on elemental combos on most melee weapons now as with so many mods possibly being mandatory, there's not much room to capitalize on elemental combos.

 

Suggestions:

     My first suggestion would have to be either give all warframes a buff to the amount of stamina they have, I did see that Hydroid and Valkyr have more than the rest, but in reality I think all of them should have at least 150 as a default. I've seen the weapons start costing near 15ish stamina per swing; which for most warframes would only give them like... 6 swings before they truly ran out (without the help of mods). When you also account for needing to sprint toward/after enemies, this small buff could really be nice. I figure the way it can be implemented is in the same manner as how shields and hit points are increased with ranks. So at max rank a warframe would have 150 base stamina.

     An alternative to the above suggestion could be another melee mod that will reduce the stamina cost per swing by probably a max of 40% or so, maybe with like negative channeling or something. Using the 15stam/swing example again; it'd mean that it'd only cost maybe 9 stam/swing. While something like my Glaive, which has 7.5 cost I believe, would be reduced down to 4.5 stam/swing.

 

(will add more to this later probably).

[VoidWraith]

IF someone were to do a melee only run (let's say because they just want to slash/gut/impale/strangle enemies), They would have to go with like a reflection/stamina type build. Why? you need to run after enemies. You need to roll away and/or into cover. You need to block, and you need to possibly do all those fancy jump/flips and slide attacks as well.

The fact that you need SO much mods to make Melee viable is amazing (sarcasm).

 

The stamina usage for blocking incoming projectiles and melee attacks (rifle butting,melee only units, and blocking special AoE moves that some units do), drains fast. Enemies will run, and you end up chasing them. This too, drains stamina. Rolling also drains stamina.

 

Here's a weird thing about stamina drainage. I have always found it weird that if you held the shift/run/dash key while you are jumping or falling, your stamina will still drain..... why? I understand stamina drains for wallruns and possibly initial jump (there isn't I think for jumping), but your stamina is being drained from falling and jumping forward while running? I found that weird.... Stamina useage is usually from active movement. Falling and moving upwards from jumps is a passive movement. Swinging your arms and legs is active movement.

 

I don't talk about sliding, because sliding is a passive movement that doesn't drain stamina (good thing).

So... yeah... Melee 2.0 is weird with the stamina drainage.

 

Now another thing I'd like to add. Channeling was a very nice concept. The animations for enemies upon death by channeled strikes were nice and very satisfactory. However. The animations for the swings for channeled strikes/combos are basically just normal swings/combos. You just glow (the glow effect of the energy circulating from Warframe to weapon is a nice effect and visually pleasing) while swing your weapons.

 

DE once said in a livestream that charged attacks, which is now called channeling, would have their own animation sets. At the moment, I do not see it. Channeling is used in certain combos-sets but not the channeling swings themselves.

 

So while the death animations from channeling kills are nice as well as the energy circulation effect you see when channeling is asthetically pleasing, it feels lacklustered in the animations for the swings for the channeled version of the strikes.

[Ddublu]

IF someone were to do a melee only run (let's say because they just want to slash/gut/impale/strangle enemies), They would have to go with like a reflection/stamina type build. Why? you need to run after enemies. You need to roll away and/or into cover. You need to block, and you need to possibly do all those fancy jump/flips and slide attacks as well.

The fact that you need SO much mods to make Melee viable is amazing (sarcasm).

 

The stamina usage for blocking incoming projectiles and melee attacks (rifle butting,melee only units, and blocking special AoE moves that some units do), drains fast. Enemies will run, and you end up chasing them. This too, drains stamina. Rolling also drains stamina.

 

Here's a weird thing about stamina drainage. I have always found it weird that if you held the shift/run/dash key while you are jumping or falling, your stamina will still drain..... why? I understand stamina drains for wallruns and possibly initial jump (there isn't I think for jumping), but your stamina is being drained from falling and jumping forward while running? I found that weird.... Stamina useage is usually from active movement. Falling and moving upwards from jumps is a passive movement. Swinging your arms and legs is active movement.

 

I don't talk about sliding, because sliding is a passive movement that doesn't drain stamina (good thing).

So... yeah... Melee 2.0 is weird with the stamina drainage.

 

Now another thing I'd like to add. Channeling was a very nice concept. The animations for enemies upon death by channeled strikes were nice and very satisfactory. However. The animations for the swings for channeled strikes/combos are basically just normal swings/combos. You just glow (the glow effect of the energy circulating from Warframe to weapon is a nice effect and visually pleasing) while swing your weapons.

 

DE once said in a livestream that charged attacks, which is now called channeling, would have their own animation sets. At the moment, I do not see it. Channeling is used in certain combos-sets but not the channeling swings themselves.

 

So while the death animations from channeling kills are nice as well as the energy circulation effect you see when channeling is asthetically pleasing, it feels lacklustered in the animations for the swings for the channeled version of the strikes.

 

So... Since I mainly use melee on Loki; I need not worry too much about having to find cover or anything since 95% of the time I spend in stealth. I can however understand how other frames would definitely use more stamina to at least easily be able to survive strictly melee; though this type of playstyle is usually left to either Valkyr, who can become immortal if need, and Loki, who generally won't get attacked back anyway.

 

Still I believe the best solution is either have a mod that reduces stamina consumption or give warframes a bit more base stamina, hopefully the latter of these two will be put in >.>.