Suggestion: Melee Weapons

[dEEkAy2k9]

Hey there guys,

well i have been playing warframe for some time now and i really enjoy it, althouth there is one thing that does not feel that cool.

You got your primary and your secondary weapon and a melee weapon, that's fine.

What about making it possible to equip the melee weapon as your primary weapon?

Let me give you an example:

You got a Rifle and a Pistol equipped and a gram (that two-handed sword).

Right now you just press E or hold E to do melee attacks/charge attacks.

I think it would be much better if we could press F to scroll to our weapon and then have that melee weapon ready. Using the melee weapon would work like shooting does, left click = hit, holding left click = charge and holding right click for the block.

Pressing E would make you hit your enemy with your currently equipped weapon, for melee weapons it could do a short stun, the pistol and the rifle would be used to hit the enemy with its hilt to maybe slow them or interrupt them.

This way, you could play a ranged char or either a melee char and still be able to do melee hits while having a ranged weapon equipped.

Edited April 14, 2013 by dEEkAy2k9

[DeepbloodEclipse]

The Lotus should have failed you in your test, but it seems like they let anyone pass these days. We do not switch to it, a Tenno's blade is always ready! Another thing, this ain't effing Call of Duty!!!!!!

Edited April 14, 2013 by DeepbloodEclipse

[dEEkAy2k9]

I and a lot of my friend who are playing warframe just think its very annoying to spam E all the time.

Note, pressing E makes it almost impossible to press D at the same time, thus you cannot attack and walk to the right at the same time.

I'd really like some kind of way to "equip" my melee weapon like i do it with my rifle/sidearm and kill stuff with left mouseclick. (Sure, i could just set lmb to melee and e to shoot but that still does not feel natural)

[DeepbloodEclipse]

I and a lot of my friend who are playing warframe just think its very annoying to spam E all the time. Note, pressing E makes it almost impossible to press D at the same time, thus you cannot attack and walk to the right at the same time. I'd really like some kind of way to "equip" my melee weapon like i do it with my rifle/sidearm and kill stuff with left mouseclick. (Sure, i could just set lmb to melee and e to shoot but that still does not feel natural)

That's why we have changeable keybindings! Everyone knows that the initial keybindings weren't very thought through, so we use our own. I use X to switch cross hair side, Q to change weapons, E for action, F for Zooming in, left mouse click for shooting, right for melee, middle for ability and side mouse button for Block with C as the alternative, Ctrl for item menu, shift for sprinting, alt for hold crouching and space for jumping. Very simple and traditional. Those that play mass effect and firefall will familiarize themselves with these settings quickly.

Edited April 14, 2013 by DeepbloodEclipse

[CY13ERPUNK]

The Lotus should have failed you in your test, but it seems like they let anyone pass these days. We do not switch to it, a Tenno's blade is always ready! Another thing, this ain't effing Call of Duty!!!!!!

 

+1

[ValhaHazred]

I switched aiming to Ctrl and melee to mouse 2. Works like a dream :)

[Feldgrep]

i actually agree with having your melee as an option. it would make it much easier to use.

[Aizeol]

This idea only works if the melee system gets deeper.  Sadly it isn't at the moment so it really just changes which button you spam.  I sadly have to agree with the statement of switching you keybindings.

 

Until they develop a deeper melee combat system being able to equip a melee weapon doesn't really help.

[ValhaHazred]

That raises the question, what would you do to deepen the system? I had the idea of tempo based combos and air slicing, with the current drop attack being a charge attack. I would like a way to incorporate Stinger attacks and Launchers.

[Vaskadar]

I've got 5 mouse buttons. Two of which are programmable. I have melee set to V (on my thumb button) so I don't have to take any fingers off of the vital movement keys. The other one (which is a tad harder to reach is B, which is switch weapon). Block is Q, switch shoulders is X, crouch is C. All of the most important buttons are all right there, where my fingers can handle them. Granted, this control scheme probably won't work for everyone, but I like having my keys as a mostly intuitive system so that it's easier to handle transitioning from game to game. Melee is always ready for panic mode.

 

So... as for the topic? No. I don't agree with holding your weapon out because the transitioning from weapon to weapon would be terribly clunky.

Edited April 14, 2013 by Vaskadar

[GiantB]

The melee is an instant move and makes no difference if it is out or not however...

There are discussions about being able to only take 1 weapon with you not having to take all of them. Just for animation purposes this could be discussed.

[dEEkAy2k9]

What would i do about melee combat.

Let's say my idea somehow got into the game and you can switch to your melee weapon with f (default) and have it slash with left mouse button (lmb) and block with right mouse button (rmb).

Melee Attacking System:

Attacking enemies with LMB would generate different combos, either random based or depending the direction you are pressing.

Example: Pressing D and LMB would make a horizontal swing with your melee weapon to the right, A to the left and W and S would do vertical swings. Give a vertical upward swing a chance to knock people into the air while vertical downward swings would have a chance to stun/knock down opponents.

Combine this with the charge system where pressing W + LMB (charged) would do a dash-attack forward while S + LMB (charged) would do something else like a hit to the enemies legs, slowing and maybe evading yourself backwards.

As you can see, just for the attacks, there are a lot of possible things you could do to improve the melee based battle system.

Blocking System:

Blocking with RMB should drain a bit stamina while blocking and for each hit blocked even more stamina would be used to compensate the hit, depending on it's damage. So blocking minor hits will drain less stamina then blocking bigger, charged hits from bosses for example. Blocking bullets should, depending on your equipped melee weapon, deflect a few bullets or maybe just decrease the amount of damage they do.

Blocking at the right time should parry melee attacks.

You see that grineer do a melee attack, press block at the very same time (short window for it to work) and instead of taking a hit you parry his attack and give him some damage.

I did not even start talking about melee based mods yet, you could get melee mods that decrease the stamina used on blocks, or on attacks. higher parry damage or mods for special charged attacks that alter the way those W + Charged LMB hits (instead of a upward slash it could do a slight forward jump combined with impaling your enemy).

These changes would improve the way melee combat is in this game and make melee based builds viable and more skill based instead of spam based.

PS: Something's pretty odd with linebreaks here, sometimes the work and sometimes they don't.

Edited April 15, 2013 by dEEkAy2k9

[CarlZalph]

That raises the question, what would you do to deepen the system? I had the idea of tempo based combos and air slicing, with the current drop attack being a charge attack. I would like a way to incorporate Stinger attacks and Launchers.

Having the melee a switchable weapon as an option, so someone could still mash +melee all they want.

Then when in a melee oriented mode having the mouse movement influence the move created with the swing motion with character movement.

 

It would take a bit of work on the Developer's part, but I feel that having a more involved system than button mashing for combos/charge melee would do it more justice as an option.