Melee Suggestion

[Huryiade]

Hi,

 

before anything else, i like the melee 2.0, compared to what it was before it. But when you talked about stances i had a different expectation than what we have now. I'd like to suggest something that might add quite a lot of fun for melee fans.

 

I've been playing fighting games since they existed, and most of them have characters that have a set type of movements, and most of them don't use weapons. Among the few that do, i like the Warriors series (Warriors Orochi, Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warriors...) from the Tecmo/Koei pair. Now i'm not asking Warframe to turn into a Warriors clone, far from it. But as it is now, i feel that melee is incredibly lacking, which is why i use melee attacks only when i need to (Ogris equiped and enemy at melee range for example). From what i've seen, many players do the same, the only exception being when we level up our new melee weapons.

 

Let's take an example : glaive. It's the weapon i like most, even though it's not the most powerful depending who you ask about it. Without a stance, glaive is pretty nice what with us being able to launch it and make it bounce off of walls or enemies to kill enemies hiding. It's already pretty fun, but installing the only stance you released, should add more fun. Well it doesn't, in my opinion. The possible chain movements offered by the stance take way too long to execute to be of any use, especially when facing enemies that prefer staying at a distance shooting at us. Even when facing infested, by the time we finish executing a chain movement, our shields are gone and a part of our health, which is why people stick to weapons with faster attacks and add to it mods that reduce the attack time even more.

 

Now why did i talk about the Warriors series, well because in those games there are always units that shoot from a distance with bows, boulders (catapults) or some other projectile. But even then the game has a way of making melee weapons useful against distance attackers, which is why taking a look at those games might give you some ideas. One example could be an equipable skill that increases resistance to ranged atacks, which in the Warframe universe could be translated as a Warframe or Weapon Mod that reduces ranged damage received but increases melee damage received or decreases player's ranged damage, or something else. Which would allow players to become as deadly with melee weapons as they already are with ranged weapons. As of now, i don't feel that melee weapons are as powerful as ranged weapons. Sure they all allow us to solo high level normal missions, some even allow us to solo nightmare missions, but once we go on void, derelict or dark sectors (which is where the endgame content is), they all become useless rather fast.

 

Another reason why i picked glaive and Warriors series is because of another suggestion i wanted to place here : Dual glaive. As it is, glaive is not powerful, or fast (yes it's fast once launched but launching it is not something always done in the heat of the battle). The only redeeming quality as of now is that it can get hiding enemies when aimed properly, but this is not very useful when Ogris or Angstrum are equiped (i'm talking only about killing enemies from a distance here). I think a new stance for dual glaive and a new set of weapons (Dual Glaive and Dual Glaive Prime) would add more utility to this interesting weapon, rather than the explosive attack it's gained in order to help people that don't care to aim properly.

 

Now what is this all about : this game was sold to me as being about space ninjas. I know that ninjas were not only about melee, but they had considerable skills and proficiency with them from what i've read, and it was their preferred weapons. As it is, only a few Warframes are made for melee combat (Loki, Valkyr) or stealth combat (Banshee, Ash, Loki). All other Warframes are all about using ranged weapons or skills to kill fast. I've stuck with it because the game is still pretty nice, but many parts of the game that can be used to allow us to feel like space ninja are not properly used (and i can't say i feel like a space ninja even when playing with Loki, i feel more like a space redneck wannabe cowboy). Melee being one of them, is the reason why i'm writing this post as i already wrote other posts for other parts (stealth being one of the others). So i sincerely hope you already have plans for adding something that will finally make us feel like those adds you put everywhere are not lying, and if not i hope this post gives you some ideas about it.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Huryiade