Melee Feedback Megathread

[(PSN)IIIDevoidIII]

Moved to a more appropriate subforum.

 

Please keep the "What Is And Isn't General Discussion?" thread in mind before posting to this subforum.

[Jinryusai]

Not Sure If I'm The Only One Who Feels This Way Regarding Melee Combos... (Good read on peoples disdain for current system)

 

​(Well, the timed combos does not have to be removed)

 

Propose a system to make doing combos simplier.

 

Currently, the reload button is useless with melee equipped and it's such a waste. Why not use it?

 

How about using it to switch between combos so you can string together a lengthy combo. You can select which combos to string and how many combos you want to string together.

 

Even hold down reload to switch to your favorite combo or perhaps bring up a combo selection list.

Alternative option would be to allow one to equip 3 blades and switch between them on the fly(especially during combos) using "Space Magic" or nanotechnology.

 

Which this Fury can be restored to it's 60% speed boost like everyone wants.

 

It is also possible to hold down block and perform a combo as well as hold down reload to perform one or switch to one.

 

And you can link each combo to each of these. Think of it as sort of an hotkey thang.

 

PC users can use a million keys to switch with ease if they wish..

 

Another option would be to use X Y B to switch with each button having it's own combo(or weapon). Double tap X to switch. Tap Y and B to switch to their combos respectively. Hold down Y to switch weapon.

 

Truly a Sword Alone Warframe.

 

And each combo can have it's own charge attack

 

An extra option(especially for current system) would be to hold down attack to do a different combo or charge...

 

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

Moved to a more appropriate subforum.

 

Please keep the "What Is And Isn't General Discussion?" thread in mind before posting to this subforum.

My bad I was trying to post this into general feedback but I have like 40 tabs open

[Jinryusai]

Not Sure If I'm The Only One Who Feels This Way Regarding Melee Combos

 

Combo String System(Using The Reload Button) - A Better Combo System

[Draciusen]

Pause combos should only exist for weapons that have good visual cues for when to pause. So far I've only ever seen this on the scythe weapons in Reaping Spiral, where you pause right after you bury the scythe into the ground, then proceed to do fancy kick spins. It makes sense, it feels good to perform, and can be done easily in the heat of battle because of the rhythm of the swings.

 

Sadly, a vast majority of other stances have pauses for the sake of a different combo key, and many of the animations are too similar or too fast so you can't tell when to pause or whether or not you pulled off the combo.

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

This is false. I am able to use any melee weapon at higher levels effectively by using specific builds.

 

I was primarily focusing on active mitigaton. But, admittedly, I worded it incorrectly. I have come across several complaints that melee only isn't as useful  as ranged combat in higher levels and as such downplays it's usage. Usually it pertains to taking excessive amounts of unavoidable damage. have edited to accessible for the time being to be a little more clear.

[TheErebus.]

Pause combos should only exist for weapons that have good visual cues for when to pause. So far I've only ever seen this on the scythe weapons in Reaping Spiral, where you pause right after you bury the scythe into the ground, then proceed to do fancy kick spins. It makes sense, it feels good to perform, and can be done easily in the heat of battle because of the rhythm of the swings.

 

Sadly, a vast majority of other stances have pauses for the sake of a different combo key, and many of the animations are too similar or too fast so you can't tell when to pause or whether or not you pulled off the combo.

Both pause and hold combos simply cannot work when your weapon has a fast speed. This is becase the timing gets thrown out when the weapon is going at the speed of light.

[TheErebus.]

I was primarily focusing on active mitigaton. But, admittedly, I worded it incorrectly. I have come across several complaints that melee only isn't as useful  as ranged combat in higher levels and as such downplays it's usage. Usually it pertains to taking excessive amounts of unavoidable damage. have edited to accessible for the time being to be a little more clear.

I do understand how you're getting at, but I always use melee only during high rank missions and for the most part, it comes down to how fast you can kill them. 

 

But then again, there's also the risk and flaw with the melee aspect that you cannot close the distance between two targets effectively. You can slide attack but not all of them have a move where you can get to them immediately.

[Draciusen]

Both pause and hold combos simply cannot work when your weapon has a fast speed. This is becase the timing gets thrown out when the weapon is going at the speed of light.

 

I'm still able to perform that combo on Reaping Spiral with a speed Volt build and Berserker, purely because it has such a well-done animation cue for pausing. No other stance has this as far as I can tell though, so pause and hold combos should just be scrapped for those.

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

I do understand how you're getting at, but I always use melee only during high rank missions and for the most part, it comes down to how fast you can kill them. 

 

I would actually consider that a flaw in and of itself. As compared to ranged combat where you can continually move to avoid enemy fire melee doesn't have many forms of active damage mitigation. you can block but you are forced to expose yourself to damage in order to go on the offensive. Which leads to situations like yours where the only defense is a good offense. This makes it so that your chances of success are primarily build reliant rather than skill reliant. Which may or may not be an issue depending on the person. But I've seen the sentiment iterated enough times so I decided to add it as an issue.

 

But then again, there's also the risk and flaw with the melee aspect that you cannot close the distance between two targets effectively. You can slide attack but not all of them have a move where you can get to them immediately.

 

Could you elaborate? I would assume slide attack would work for closing the distance. What about certain weapons make them less useful?

[Jinryusai]

Melee Combos Take Too Much Concentration And Aren't Even Worth Doing.

[TheErebus.]

I would actually consider that a flaw in and of itself. As compared to ranged combat where you can continually move to avoid enemy fire melee doesn't have many forms of active damage mitigation. you can block but you are forced to expose yourself to damage in order to go on the offensive. Which leads to situations like yours where the only defense is a good offense. This makes it so that your chances of success are primarily build reliant rather than skill reliant. Which may or may not be an issue depending on the person. But I've seen the sentiment iterated enough times so I decided to add it as an issue.

You do raise up some very well constructed points. 

Perhaps if something can be done to channeling with allows you to negate damage while it is active or a purchasable item that allows you to active a frontal shield of sorts that negates damage for short amount of time.

 

Melee Combos Take Too Much Concentration And Aren't Even Worth Doing.

 

This is false for so many reasons.

Yes the pause and hold options need a look at, but take a hard look at Crimson Dervish, or Rending Crane.

I have killed so many enemies and saved my teammates/defense pods lives by using the Rending crane.

 

The combos are a wonderful addition, they just a small look at to fix them up.

Could you elaborate? I would assume slide attack would work for closing the distance. What about certain weapons make them less useful?

Compare the slide distance that is covered with the Dual Ichor with the galatine. You'll notice that one covers larger distance than the other.

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

Melee Combos Take Too Much Concentration And Aren't Even Worth Doing.

Added the other two to the OP. This one reiterates some of the same ideas so I'll leave it out to avoid redundancy. thanks for the links tho. keep em coming.

 

You do raise up some very well constructed points. 

Perhaps if something can be done to channeling with allows you to negate damage while it is active or a purchasable item that allows you to active a frontal shield of sorts that negates damage for short amount of time.

 

I'm hesitant to link any sort of survivability to channeling since energy isn't designed to be an easily renewable resource. purchasable resources wouldn't be bad though while they would be limited it would reward preparation, which is nice. I'm more inclined to lean towards skill based damage mitigation but that's just my bias speaking.

 

This is false for so many reasons.

Yes the pause and hold options need a look at, but take a hard look at Crimson Dervish, or Rending Crane.

I have killed so many enemies and saved my teammates/defense pods lives by using the Rending crane.

The combos are a wonderful addition, they just a small look at to fix them up.

 

I agree. As an avid action gamer I have played many a game with pause combos and I have never felt they hindered or slowed the combat. I've yet to figure out exactly what it is that makes certain combos more difficult than others but I'd rather DE get to the source of the issue rather than removing pause combos outright.

 

Compare the slide distance that is covered with the Dual Ichor with the galatine. You'll notice that one covers larger distance than the other.

 

If distance is the only difference I would assume that melee weapons covering a shorter distance would be designed that way to give a tradeoff for higher damage or other advantages. Ideally it would give higher risk for higher reward. But as it is now anything high risk usually leads to taking a lot of damage when going melee only. Closing the distance should be what blocking is used for but, if I'm not mistaken, blocking becomes useless at high level due to stamina drain being tied to damage. There are a couple of suggestions as to how this might be fixed the one I've seen the most is in to make it per projectile rather than damage based.

[akira_him]

Channeling needs some adjustments, like innate channeling effects (like the effects provided by mods)

My thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/343133-channeling-20/

[Jinryusai]

Elementals weapons should have an additional channeling effect such as projectiles, big aoe, etc.

 

Channeling should also affect weapons in different and unique/special ways or have mods, even augments, that(There are those corrupt mods that do this but why stop there or why not have that innate affect).

This is false for so many reasons.

Yes the pause and hold options need a look at, but take a hard look at Crimson Dervish, or Rending Crane.

I have killed so many enemies and saved my teammates/defense pods lives by using the Rending crane.

So...Did you know that's a link?

[TheErebus.]

So...Did you know that's a link?

Yes I clicked your link.

 

I read your complaints about and then refuted them.

[Kokurokoki]

Things to add.

 

Melee Channeling should add additional slam attack radius.  So for example...

 

Hate has an 8-meter slam attack radius and x1.5 channeling multiplier.  While channeling is active, the Hate would have a 8 x 1.5 slam attack radius giving it a total range of about 12 meters.  Modding it would further increase that slam radius.

 

Alternatively, you could have it so that any additional slam attack range would instead stagger enemies rather than knock them down via energy pulses emitted from the channeled weapon.

 

Include a pommel strike or stun option for melee weapons, replacing the default Quick Melee key or Reload key.

 

What this would do is allow Warframes to inflict a low damage (10% of base melee weapon damage), fast, but short-ranged melee strike that would cause stagger to a single enemy.  Staggered enemies would prompt the counter-hit, which would allow critical hits to be performed on a wider variety of weapons, especially those whose stances do not have counter attack prompts and have low critical chance.

 

Make Critical Hits entirely skill-based or include a critical option rather than keeping it entirely chance-based. 

 

Something I thought up of on the spot, but have them perhaps bring back charge attacks that deal 100% crit chance when fully charged (1-2 seconds charge time?).  Either that, or have it deal 100% status chance.  As it stands currently, unless the weapon can stunlock an enemy, trying to melee enemies is frankly suicide without something to help (like status chance, stun, or crit damage).  Additionally, perhaps melee weapons need a status or crit buff in general.  They need something to help them manage swarms of enemies especially on the higher levels to keep them up to par with firearms.

 

With higher or guaranteed status chance, melee builds would become more viable in addition to being useful on a team as they could run around and proc status effects to slow down the momentum of attacking squads and give the team more breathing room.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Kokurokoki

[Jinryusai]

Yes I clicked your link.

 

I read your complaints about and then refuted them.

Didn't make any complaints...

[TheErebus.]

Didn't make any complaints...

Taken from your thread:

 

"Its really un-appealing to pull most of them off because

1. they take too much time thinking if you held the button long enough, or if you paused long enough.

2. most of the combos are almost useless in 1v1 because the thing you're trying to kill is already dead after the first 2 hits."

 

These are complaints. Valid complaints, but complaints.

[Jinryusai]

And those threads have my name on them?

Edited November 18, 2014 by Jinryusai

[Kokurokoki]

Taken from your thread:

 

"Its really un-appealing to pull most of them off because

1. they take too much time thinking if you held the button long enough, or if you paused long enough.

2. most of the combos are almost useless in 1v1 because the thing you're trying to kill is already dead after the first 2 hits."

 

These are complaints. Valid complaints, but complaints.

 

I'm going to also refute these complaints...  The combos add bit more skill variety into the game, and I think they are done quite well with the limited button layout that warframe has.

 

Another issue I would like to address is the melee auto-targeting.  It needs to be fixed.  Many times I have run up to an enemy to try to melee them, only to have my Warframe stop short and swing at the air.  Sometimes they even take a step backwards to swing at the air.  This isn't lag, as I've tested it in solo play as well.  Dunno if it's a bug or not, but it should be fixed or looked at.

[Jinryusai]

Another issue I would like to address is the melee auto-targeting.  It needs to be fixed.  Many times I have run up to an enemy to try to melee them, only to have my Warframe stop short and swing at the air.  Sometimes they even take a step backwards to swing at the air.  This isn't lag, as I've tested it in solo play as well.  Dunno if it's a bug or not, but it should be fixed or looked at.

This should definitely be added to the first post since this is a fatal bug.

[TheErebus.]

And those threads have my name on them?

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/311142-melee-combos-take-too-much-concentration-and-arent-even-worth-doing/

It isn't your thread, however these are still complaints that we can refute quite easily. 

 

Another issue I would like to address is the melee auto-targeting.  It needs to be fixed.  Many times I have run up to an enemy to try to melee them, only to have my Warframe stop short and swing at the air.  Sometimes they even take a step backwards to swing at the air.  This isn't lag, as I've tested it in solo play as well.  Dunno if it's a bug or not, but it should be fixed or looked at.

There is an option to turn off auto-targeting for melee.

[Kokurokoki]

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/311142-melee-combos-take-too-much-concentration-and-arent-even-worth-doing/

It isn't your thread, however these are still complaints that we can refute quite easily. 

There is an option to turn off auto-targeting for melee.

 

Yes.  But the choice to turn it off and on shouldn't be for the reason of a buggy and non-functional feature.  I generally turn it off when running Crimson Dervish because it lets me do ninja run attacks through foes while sprinting.  However, Valkyr's combos in Hysteria generally benefit from melee auto-targeting  due to the fact that it is almost impossible to manually aim them yourself once you get a combo going that isn't her basic LC+LC+LC+LC.  However, that becomes a pain to do because you are now fighting a buggy system that is making your warframe swing at the air rather than the enemy that is less than a foot away from you.

[(PSN)KaxMcc]

Channeling needs some adjustments, like innate channeling effects (like the effects provided by mods)

My thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/343133-channeling-20/

Added to the other suggestions section

 

 

I'm going to also refute these complaints...  The combos add bit more skill variety into the game, and I think they are done quite well with the limited button layout that warframe has.

 

Another issue I would like to address is the melee auto-targeting.  It needs to be fixed.  Many times I have run up to an enemy to try to melee them, only to have my Warframe stop short and swing at the air.  Sometimes they even take a step backwards to swing at the air.  This isn't lag, as I've tested it in solo play as well.  Dunno if it's a bug or not, but it should be fixed or looked at.

 

added melee auto targeting issue to OP. I also agree that this should at least be looked at. If the feature doesn't serve its intended purpose then it can't help the people who want to use it.

 

 

Since I'm awake and coherent now I would like to chime in on pause combos. I don't really think pause combos need to be removed. Rather they should be looked at in order to find out why they are do difficult to execute in this game in particular. I've played plenty of other games that use pause combos and none of them had these issues so I'm under the assumption that the implementation is the issue rather than the mechanic. So, from what I've noticed the issue stems from 3 main problems.

 

-The execution window for initiating the latter half of the combo is extremely short and becomes even shorter when weapon speed is increased

-It is difficult to discern what position you are in a combo while button mashing due to samey looking(and feeling) swings

-The player is given no feedback as to the optimal input time for these combos. This is especially important due to the fact that the input time is subject to change when the weapon is modded for speed and as such these actions can not be input through repetition and muscle memory.

 

So, in order to fix these issues, I propose that the following adjustments be made.

 

-following each swing there is a period between the end of a swing and a return to the idle stance. As of now this period is extremely brief. Extend this period so that swings prior to the pause combo will include a half second grace period for input(when unmodded). During this grace period the controller should vibrate(if there is one) and a visual flash on the melee weapon should cue indicating the input window is open. This would mean that the controller shouldn't vibrate for every swing to avoid confusion. I'm not even sure why it does so currently. During this period the player should also be able to block or dodge cancel out of the animation

 

-Since the input window shouldn't open until the end of the swing and the input window is clearly visible to the player, increasing melee speed shouldn't be as much of an issue. But since the input window cancels only into blocks and dodges and not free movement the grace period should shorten as weapon speed increases as to not slow the player down. The input window should be shortened with increased speed but it should have a definitive minimum amount so that players can not mod their weapons to the point that pause combos are impossible to perform.

 

-Input that is read during the swing will result in a continuation of the standard combo. Since the input window wont open during this time this means that the visual cue will not trigger and the player may not know when the pause is necessary. To counter this the animation prior to the pause combo needs to be definitive enough so that the player can easily catch it during combat. Scythes in particular have a very good lead in swing and as such are much easier to combo than other weapons.

 

I feel like this implementation would be a step in the right direction. Tell me what you guys think.

 

Edit: Upon further testing I've noticed that the input being read for a continuous combo is being taken REALLY early. Usually when you need to input a pause combo you are going to be button mashing up until you recognize the lead in swing. Then you will stop button mashing just long enough for the input window to open and then the button mashing will continue. Currently the player would need to stop button mashing before the swing takes place or player will have already queued the next input by the time they recognize the lead in swing. So I would recommend adjusting the input window for the continuous combo to occur slightly later during each swing. Finding the ideal timing will take some tinkering but ideally you should be able to button mash through a combo and stop on each particular swing pretty easily.

Edited November 21, 2014 by (PS4)KaxMcc