Melee 2.5- Improving The Base We've Made

[Buzkyl]

Melee 2.0 despite not making Swords completely equal to gun it generally buff melee to the point where going Sword Alone wasn't suicide (atleast until high levels). But there's alot that needs to be done. So here i'll go over some possible ideas i had to improve warframe melee experience. Including listing the issues, providing feedback and possible solutions.
 

1.Combo Counter

Issue- Visually it's hard to see how long combo counter last.

Feedback- The melee counter keeps track of how large our combo counter but gives us no telling of time, so often player will be frantically running from group to group only to see their 100+ hit combo stop at the last moment.

Solution-Visually display our combo counter fading away corresponding to the time we have left. Each new hit will keep the counter "lit" until it begins to fade away. Here's an illustration





After some time

 

2.Combo Timer

Issue- Combo timers are too short.

Feedback-Self explanatory, 3 seconds is too short of a delay to keep any decent  combo going unless you are swarmed by enemies and even after you kill them all it will immediately leave unless you can find an enemy in next 3 second, which starts after you stop meleeing IIRC.

Solution- Have a small delay before timer counts down and have timer scale of Combo multiplier. Pretty straight forward, if you stop meleeing there is a rest period of 2-3 seconds before timer counts down. You current combo multiplier will also increase the the amount of time you now have until your combo fades away.


1.5x3 seconds=4.5 seconds (6-7.5 seconds including grace period)

2.0x3 seconds=6 seconds (8-9 seconds including grace period)

and so on and so forth.

3.Blocking

Issue-Blocking is only useful for early-mid level content.

Feedback-Blocking is a great feature for melee here, but the stamina drained of blocking directly ties to the damage blocked which destroys any sense of scalability blocking can have as we have a finite stamina pool but enemies damage will continue to increase  as their level rise.

Solution- Give a set stamina drain for blocking all attacks, build the reflection mod into blocking as a standard. Pretty simple suggestion that will go a long way. Our current Reflection mod can add even more damage to the damage reflected.

4.Channeling

Issue- Channeling  is plain and most times  a waste of energy.

Feedback- Channeling in theory is okay, using your warframe energy to power up your strikes, but in practice it's a very inefficient method of using your energy. Channeling is based per strike meaning that my 5 energy cost will be 10 energy to hit 2 enemies in 1 swing. While the 50% damage increase seems tempting you will be running out of energy very quickly if you attempt to channeling against a group of enemies.

Solution- There are so many possible ways i can buff channeling i can make my own thread on it, but i'll keep it short for this thread:

Channeling is now treated as it's own stat. Instead of being per enemy struck channeling is now a toggle ability, slowly draining your warframe energy as you use it.

Now stemming off this idea we can open up a can of worms to buff making channeling much better.

1. Channeling while blocking while make the tenno immobile (or move at a reduced rate) but will allow the tenno to perform omnidirection deflection. Draining both stamina and energy (amount can vary).

 

You become this

2.Weapons families can now be set apart using innate channeling effects.

 

Example: Sycthes have a small innate life steal, polearms/staves longer reach,  heavy melee weapons do even  more damage (at a increase cost of channeling), whips might have % to disarm enemies/stun enemies but the sword and shield can create a protective barrier around you allowing maintain your mobility while channeling and blocking

 

Your melee now plays an important part aside from how big of numbers you can destroy your enemy with.

 

I can go on but there's other things i should discuss.

 

4.Stances

 

Issue-Spamming E is generally more effective than performing combos.

 

Feedback-Melee combos look wonderful, but generally they are not worth performing (i'm looking at you, EEpauseEEE), partially because their timing is affected by weapon speed so after you learn the right timing to execute it, you are thrown off because beserker kicked in or your Volt had to go somewhere in a hurry. This along with the fact that stances cause even more stamina per strike to be drain makes them only mainly useful for mod slots.

 

Solution-Reward performing successful combos. Not just with damage multipliers but with other utilitarian effects. Such regenerating X% of stamina after it is performed, regenerate X amount of energy if an enemy is killed during the Combo or have combo multipliers partially scale off the melee combo counter

 

Ending Notes

 

In closing these are just a few suggestion that i feel would generally improve our melee exprience and make melee off a greater amount of survivability at high levels that it is now. I chose not to touch on the mobilty aspect (such as gap closers) as we have Movement 2.0 in the works

 

Thank you for reading and i look forward to your feedback

[DarknightK]

Two more tidbits:

 

1) Make more branched combos, such as after slide attacks, air attacks, slam attacks, etc.

In conjunction with the upcoming Heavy/charged combo branches, we need more variety in the amount of combos we do. Many combos offer unique alternate names to the slide/air/wall/slam attack combos, but that's the only thing it changes. All other melee attacks look visually the same.

 

2) Parrying

This needs to be build into Melee by default. Blocking JUST AS an enemy melee attacks you should automatically stagger/stun the enemy and open them up for a finisher (or knock them down for a likewise ground finisher). The Parry mod should widen the parry frame window, which would make it much more desirable for those who can't seem to get the timing down right or for newbies at Meleeplay.

[Tenno-nymous]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL6SxxY-VvM

 

The problems have been adressed before, and some are even talked about during their livestream.

Edited April 13, 2015 by tonx2

[7grims]

You have a good review of all melee 2.0 problems.

I have the same insight and the only thing I want is not use melee mode at all.

 

Make a suggestion for combos animations, cause being shoot in the back wile dancing like a monkey has never been a good system.

[CY13ERPUNK]

+1 OP

 

IMHO the combo counter bonus dmg needs to ramp-up MUCH faster to be worthwhile

 

ie +50% dmg for every 5 hits upto 50 hits, then +10% dmg for every 10 hits from then on

 

instead of the exponential growth curve of the hits required to get a higher bonus as the system is currently (bad, since it makes it even more difficult for melee to deal worthwhile dmg at higher lvls, this system actively works AGAINST making melee viable =[ sadly...)

Edited April 13, 2015 by CY13ERPUNK

[Acos]

Two more tidbits:

 

1) Make more branched combos, such as after slide attacks, air attacks, slam attacks, etc.

In conjunction with the upcoming Heavy/charged combo branches, we need more variety in the amount of combos we do. Many combos offer unique alternate names to the slide/air/wall/slam attack combos, but that's the only thing it changes. All other melee attacks look visually the same.

 

2) Parrying

This needs to be build into Melee by default. Blocking JUST AS an enemy melee attacks you should automatically stagger/stun the enemy and open them up for a finisher (or knock them down for a likewise ground finisher). The Parry mod should widen the parry frame window, which would make it much more desirable for those who can't seem to get the timing down right or for newbies at Meleeplay.

 

You can parry/riposte in the game already; Hold down the block key and then hit the channel key just before the enemy connects with you and they will play a stagger animation. Attack them during this stagger animation and you should preform a combat finisher. 

[Buzkyl]

Two more tidbits:

 

1) Make more branched combos, such as after slide attacks, air attacks, slam attacks, etc.

In conjunction with the upcoming Heavy/charged combo branches, we need more variety in the amount of combos we do. Many combos offer unique alternate names to the slide/air/wall/slam attack combos, but that's the only thing it changes. All other melee attacks look visually the same.

 

2) Parrying

This needs to be build into Melee by default. Blocking JUST AS an enemy melee attacks you should automatically stagger/stun the enemy and open them up for a finisher (or knock them down for a likewise ground finisher). The Parry mod should widen the parry frame window, which would make it much more desirable for those who can't seem to get the timing down right or for newbies at Meleeplay.

I do agree, i would love to be able to do chain air combos the fluidly land into a ground combo. But that itself might need a reowrk of our combo system where instead of predefined choices it's a series of branches.

 

Performing finishers on parried foes should do immense damage to them to kill them in most cases, even at high levels, the sheer risk to let a level 45 charger slap you deliberately deserves adequate compensation.

You have a good review of all melee 2.0 problems.

I have the same insight and the only thing I want is not use melee mode at all.

 

Make a suggestion for combos animations, cause being shoot in the back wile dancing like a monkey has never been a good system.

 

I was considering it but the animation locks on certain combos is a wider issue than just melee. But a possible solution is that performing a combo gives you an appropriate Damage resistance from ranged sources( nothing major perhaps 10%-20% )for X seconds after performing it. This can even make certain high risk combos such as Tempo Royal Blinding Reproach ( The massive hangtime) be worth perforim as it rewards a higher DR than normal.

 

But this is yet affected by animation where the faster you perform the stance the least time of DR you have.

[Ronyn]

Good thread. Good stuff in the OP.

 

In my view Stamina should be the resource for movement and pakour type actions ONLY.

For gameplay balance the stamina resource shouldn't even be related to melee at all just as it isn't related to using guns.

We don't have to slot a bunch of particular warframe mods to get the most potential out of our guns so we shouldn't have to for melee weapons. 

If one type of weapons use does not affect stamina then neither should the other. 

 

Melee requires more movement to close the distance on enemies yet swinging a melee weapon burns stamina.

No stamina doesn't stop us from swinging the weapon it just lowers our mobility...in the very situations where we need mobility!

 

Blocking should have it's own resource that can be affected by mods we would put in our melee weapon not mods on our warframe.

Just as guns have ammo copacities and ammo related mods so should melee weapons have block capacity and block capacity related mods.

This change would probably need some tweaks to base weapon damage to keep weapon damage output where it is now...

 

---

I imagine someone is thinking that swinging a melee weapon should take stamina because it's "realistic" and "logical".

Thing is, lugging around and shooting heavy firearms tires peoples arms out pretty fast in real life too. Should shooting drain stamina as well?

Seriously, for gameplay reasons alone we should normalize this issue. Neither shooting a gun nor swinging a weapon should affect stamina.

Neither weapon type should create any additional handicaps to our frames or movement.  

[Grom-84]

I want charged attacks back!

[Buzkyl]

Good thread. Good stuff in the OP.

 

In my view Stamina should be the resource for movement and pakour type actions ONLY.

For gameplay balance the stamina resource shouldn't even be related to melee at all just as it isn't related to using guns.

We don't have to slot a bunch of particular warframe mods to get the most potential out of our guns so we shouldn't have to for melee weapons. 

If one type of weapons use does not affect stamina then neither should the other. 

 

Melee requires more movement to close the distance on enemies yet swinging a melee weapon burns stamina.

No stamina doesn't stop us from swinging the weapon it just lowers our mobility...in the very situations where we need mobility!

 

Blocking should have it's own resource that can be affected by mods we would put in our melee weapon not mods on our warframe.

Just as guns have ammo copacities and ammo related mods so should melee weapons have block capacity and block capacity related mods.

This change would probably need some tweaks to base weapon damage to keep weapon damage output where it is now...

 

---

I imagine someone is thinking that swinging a melee weapon should take stamina because it's "realistic" and "logical".

Thing is, lugging around and shooting heavy firearms tires peoples arms out pretty fast in real life too. Should shooting drain stamina as well?

Seriously, for gameplay reasons alone we should normalize this issue. Neither shooting a gun nor swinging a weapon should affect stamina.

Neither weapon type should create any additional handicaps to our frames or movement.  

 

Not too keen on a separate resource just for blocking. While the stamina system we have no is horrible  it's much easier to work with than introduce another thing to balance weaponry around. While a

 

Stamina for parkour and related movement would be abit of a waste as Coptering covers greater horizontal distance, Air melee of vertical and both allow you to regenerate stamina. Unless you're gonna be wall climbing for the next 50M you're not going to be using much stamina. It's much easier to streamline the process such as having quick melee not drain your stamina or when melee only have some form of increase stamina regeneration. Even have sprinting have a slower drain on stamina than it does now.

 

I have no issues with stamina being a limiting factor for melee, as long as it is done right.  But i'm not too eager to discuss stamina related issues currently, as i'm waiting for more information on Movement 2.0

 

I want charged attacks back!

 

Charge Attacks are returning.

[Centias]

You can parry/riposte in the game already; Hold down the block key and then hit the channel key just before the enemy connects with you and they will play a stagger animation. Attack them during this stagger animation and you should preform a combat finisher. 

 

While you are correct, I must point out that this is not guaranteed, and not based on timing. It is very much a chance to stagger them. You can stand around blocking and channeling, waiting for them to swing, not get a stagger for the first 3 swings, and then on the 4th it suddenly staggers them, without you ever letting go of the buttons. Hitting the channel or block button just before the hit connects makes no difference. You can play solo so you have no lag and time it just before the hit connects time after time and not get any staggers, or you can just stand there holding both and go on a hot streak getting stagger after stagger. It's really something like a 50-75% chance to cause the stagger.

 

Honestly, it's there but it's poorly done, especially considering it costs 5 energy (or uses the channeling cost, I never tested that part) for a chance to stagger. It should definitely be 100% if it's going to cost energy, but really it would be best if it also costed no energy. You might argue for parrying with correct timing being the only way to get 100% stagger, but this isn't really the kind of game where you can stand around trying to get parries against just one enemy with perfect timing for a stagger. All of his friends will waste your stamina away with gunfire while you try.

 

 

In response to OP:

 

Combo counter should either last longer at higher levels, or only drop one level at a time instead of the entire multiplier. I think the timer also counts down starting after your last hit that connected with a living enemy, can't say for certain.

 

I agree with a set stamina drain per attack blocked, but only if it also takes into account how fast/slow a weapon fires. A single Grakata would drain stamina a lot faster if it drained the same amount per hit as a Vulkar. They should drain stamina at roughly the same rate (slooooooowly).

 

Channeling could go the way of your ideas, or it could simply be made better for some weapons. Change the numbers on some weapons to make them have stronger/more efficient channeling. So it's worth building around it. Imagine something like the Ether Sword suddenly becoming something like 3.0x channeling multiplier and 3 channeling cost. Also, change many of the mods with huge negatives to channeling efficiency to not be flat-out not worth using.

 

Stance mods should not cause increased stamina consumption unless they also make the weapon hit significantly harder or hit a larger area to make it make sense. And the pause and hold combos should completely go away, there are better ways to get into these combos that don't depend on timing which involves short windows made even shorter by attack speed increases.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Centias

[Ronyn]

Not too keen on a separate resource just for blocking. While the stamina system we have no is horrible  it's much easier to work with than introduce another thing to balance weaponry around.

Actually less variables means easier to tune. It's easier to balance a resource for just blocking than it is to work with a resource tied to both blocking and movement. In the same way that giving blocking it's own resource allows DE to do what it needs without worrying about it might affect movement.

 

 

Stamina for parkour and related movement would be abit of a waste as Coptering covers greater horizontal distance, Air melee of vertical and both allow you to regenerate stamina. Unless you're gonna be wall climbing for the next 50M you're not going to be using much stamina. It's much easier to streamline the process such as having quick melee not drain your stamina or when melee only have some form of increase stamina regeneration. Even have sprinting have a slower drain on stamina than it does now.

 

I have no issues with stamina being a limiting factor for melee, as long as it is done right.  But i'm not too eager to discuss stamina related issues currently, as i'm waiting for more information on Movement 2.0

 

That's just it. According to DE-Movement 2.0 is coming and any thing related to how it uses stamina is up for changes.

I don't the effectiveness of any weapon should be dependent on the nature of the movement system.

Is there some reason why it should be?

 

 

Charge Attacks are returning.

Which could have any number of effects on stamina drain.....

unless they stop this unfair penalty to the frame for using melee that guns don't have.

[Davoodoo]

2 words, gap closer.

 

Archwing done it right, so i trust that devs can make it again for ground combat.

[LtSprinkulz]

Melee just does too much damage to make combos feel fun. Enemies feel like they're acting when I hit them, not REACTING. Air throws aren't a thing unless you count the useless slams that occasionally pop up. The current Gore doesn't compliment melee that much, MORE BLOOD PLZ.

[(PSN)MoRockaPDX]

I have a few pure melee builds. Channelling, blocking, reflecting, and stamina mods help a lot. It's still not perfect and requires many mods to round out a beneficial build.

[Gelkor]

2 words, gap closer.

 

Archwing done it right, so i trust that devs can make it again for ground combat.

 

They are, but only for Excalibur.  That's what the new slash dash is going to be.

[7grims]

2 words, gap closer.

 

Archwing done it right, so i trust that devs can make it again for ground combat.

 

When they announced melee 2.0 was going to be like DMC I totally expected gap closers.

yet I have no idea what kind of DMC they played to think this system is anything similar.

[(PSN)MoRockaPDX]

They talked about DMC, and said it was getting to close, internally, and moved away to what we ace now. DE acknowledges that melee 2.0 needs more work. Movement 2.0 is an important step. Charge mechanics are coming back, as well. What would help is a way to mitigate stamina costs per swing and combo counter counts and timers.

[RonanFrost]

Thought out, and well articulated.

I would suggest adding channelling/not to the actions from which the combos are comprised.

eg strike, forward strike, channelled strike, pause, sidestep strike, channelled strike.   something like that as a combo.

 

as for the 3 seconds for a combo ... if you're going full melee, you really shouldn't expect to do the entire run as a single combo. 3 seconds is plenty of time to dash to another enemy ('copter all the things).
I agree that a per-contact energy cost is a bit much, but perhaps that's a mod-adjustment thing?

The idea of draining energy+stam for an omni-deflection is really solid, but I feel that we should expect that something that strong should be relatively costly as well.
 

[Buzkyl]

Actually less variables means easier to tune. It's easier to balance a resource for just blocking than it is to work with a resource tied to both blocking and movement. In the same way that giving blocking it's own resource allows DE to do what it needs without worrying about it might affect movement.

 

You seem to have it backward there. Stamina is already tied to blocking, it would be easier to tweak it's cost across the board than to manually add in a new blocking element for melee and balance it.

 

That's just it. According to DE-Movement 2.0 is coming and any thing related to how it uses stamina is up for changes.

I don't the effectiveness of any weapon should be dependent on the nature of the movement system.

Is there some reason why it should be?

 

Stamina doesn't affect melee that much, it barely limits it if anything. Ofcourse there can be tweaks but melee (Stamina cost of basic strikes/combos) isn't too bothered by stamina, it's when you combine it with blocking/movement is when you see the limitations and that's rarely with striking and more with Blocking/movement.

 

Which could have any number of effects on stamina drain.....

unless they stop this unfair penalty to the frame for using melee that guns don't have.

 

Charge attack would likely have increase stamina cost but be additionally powerful. But it's likely with all the parkour adjustment stamina cost across the board are going to be changed and likely buffed.

 

Replies in bold.

 

Thought out, and well articulated.

I would suggest adding channelling/not to the actions from which the combos are comprised.

eg strike, forward strike, channelled strike, pause, sidestep strike, channelled strike.   something like that as a combo.

 

as for the 3 seconds for a combo ... if you're going full melee, you really shouldn't expect to do the entire run as a single combo. 3 seconds is plenty of time to dash to another enemy ('copter all the things).

I agree that a per-contact energy cost is a bit much, but perhaps that's a mod-adjustment thing?

The idea of draining energy+stam for an omni-deflection is really solid, but I feel that we should expect that something that strong should be relatively costly as well.

 

 

The thing is 3 seconds begins as soon as you stop hitting an enemy which means as soon as they die you have actually less than 3 seconds to find something else to whack.

 

Omni directional blocking should be costly for the benefit it provides as it shouldn't be the goto method of blocking as compared non channeling blocking. Ofcourse things like that can be adjusted with mod to give it further benefits.

[Ronyn]

You seem to have it backward there. Stamina is already tied to blocking, it would be easier to tweak it's cost across the board than to manually add in a new blocking element for melee and balance it

 

Stamina doesn't affect melee that much, it barely limits it if anything. Ofcourse there can be tweaks but melee (Stamina cost of basic strikes/combos) isn't too bothered by stamina, it's when you combine it with blocking/movement is when you see the limitations and that's rarely with striking and more with Blocking/movement.

 

Charge attack would likely have increase stamina cost but be additionally powerful. But it's likely with all the parkour adjustment stamina cost across the board are going to be changed and likely buffed.

And there is some ideal calculation and cost for this stuff that will make it so the combination of things does not suffer? Unlikely.

 

In the sense that it's already implemented a certain way it is easier to just tweak it..sure.

But to actually get to a place of balance while it's tied into other systems is harder. 

 

The limitations that show up when combining striking with movement and blocking is exactly what I initially said was a problem.

It's a problem because it's ALL tied to the same resource .

 

And the real issue remains-

How are they supposed to balance an inherently unfair system?

its straight forward-Guns don't cost stamina to use, melee does.

Why does one type of weapon tie into a resource that affects movement while the other does not?

There is no good reason to tie one kind of weapon to stamina and not the other.

Particularly when the one that requires the most movement to use is the one that is the most stamina hungry.

There is no good reason for one kind of weapon to ask for mod space on the warframe while the other does not.

Particularly when the one that requires the most movement to use is the one that is the most stamina hungry.

 

For guns all we need is ammo which is all over the floor and doesn't effect the resource responsible for movement.

If there isn't enough we have ammo mutation mods on the weapon, not space taken up in our warframe.

If that isn't enough we have ammo packs.

 

It is hard enough t try to balance melee with gunplay without also giving melee additional limiting factors.

 

Trying to find balance from a point of inherent imbalance is backward, time consuming and unlikely to actually succeed.

re-set the playing field so it is even. Start from there and it will much more reasonable to reach a balanced end.

[Buzkyl]

And there is some ideal calculation and cost for this stuff that will make it so the combination of things does not suffer? Unlikely.

 

In the sense that it's already implemented a certain way it is easier to just tweak it..sure.

But to actually get to a place of balance while it's tied into other systems is harder. 

 

The limitations that show up when combining striking with movement and blocking is exactly what I initially said was a problem.

It's a problem because it's ALL tied to the same resource .

 

And the real issue remains-

How are they supposed to balance an inherently unfair system?

its straight forward-Guns don't cost stamina to use, melee does.

Why does one type of weapon tie into a resource that affects movement while the other does not?

There is no good reason to tie one kind of weapon to stamina and not the other.

Particularly when the one that requires the most movement to use is the one that is the most stamina hungry.

There is no good reason for one kind of weapon to ask for mod space on the warframe while the other does not.

Particularly when the one that requires the most movement to use is the one that is the most stamina hungry.

 

For guns all we need is ammo which is all over the floor and doesn't effect the resource responsible for movement.

If there isn't enough we have ammo mutation mods on the weapon, not space taken up in our warframe.

If that isn't enough we have ammo packs.

 

It is hard enough t try to balance melee with gunplay without also giving melee additional limiting factors.

 

Trying to find balance from a point of inherent imbalance is backward, time consuming and unlikely to actually succeed.

re-set the playing field so it is even. Start from there and it will much more reasonable to reach a balanced end.

 

Creating a new system just for blocking is going to create even more headache than tying it to to Stamina because you're now going to have to balance for 2 factor instead of 1, doubling the effort needed to achieve the same result.

 

And i already suggested ways we can improve the stamina cost of melee previous

 

1.Quick melee doesn't drain stamina

2.Stances should be allowing you to conserve your stamina instead of spending more of it, if a stance has to increase stamina cost it has to provide increase benefits such as faster default attack speed (Example Tempo Royal) or allow the weapon to hit a general area.

 

If basic sprinting didn't drain stamina, combine with these 2 you would see stamina would be in a much better place. Idea wise it is not hard to achieve it's through numerical work which provides difficulty.

 

I even provided ways in my stances discussion that would further improve the usage of stamina in melee

 

And let's not sit here and pretend that melee being limited to stamina vs guns who don't is the most evil thing in the world. Guns don't need stamina to be limited as they have fair share of limitations

 

1. Guns don't drain stamina because guns have their own limitations, such as reach for beam weapons, ammo hungry weapons and other factors such as RoF.

2. Having 2 weapons of similar ammo pool will half the reserve ammo for both weapons.

3. Melee have more limitations than guns because melee provides more utility than guns which is straight DPS (discounting syndicate effects). Such as mobility, health regeneration and damage mitigation (blocking).  Despite each of those 3 having varying effectiveness their benefits and usage is still there

4.Melee can also theoretically go on forever vs guns which have to reload and are limited by Magazine clips.

5.Melee also provides and energy free way to CC enemies through slam attacks where as the only CC effect guns can produce are procs (which are also shared by melee.

 

Melee can be balanced just as well as gunplay but from a different angle.

[Ronyn]

 

 

Melee can be balanced just as well as gunplay but from a different angle.

I absolutely agree. The question is only in what approach is best to achieve that goal.

 

 

Creating a new system just for blocking is going to create even more headache than tying it to to Stamina because you're now going to have to balance for 2 factor instead of 1, doubling the effort needed  to achieve the same result.

What are you talking about when you say "2 factor"?

It's like this.

DE makes a new meter that drains based on some systems meant for a single purpose-a reasonable amount of blocking.

Will it takes some UI coding and UI art to make that work? Yep.

But then the designers are free to change the blocking system as it needs to be for it's own purposes.

If it's too good they tune it down too low they tune it up...if it has a flawed set up they alter it...

all of that they can do without worrying how it would affect movements primary resource.

Consider how this kind of thing works in a team environment with multiple smaller groups working on different things.

Do the people working on melee combat need to worry about every change they make to the resource cost effect the people working on the movement system? and vice versa? 

 

And i already suggested ways we can improve the stamina cost of melee previous

 

1.Quick melee doesn't drain stamina

2.Stances should be allowing you to conserve your stamina instead of spending more of it, if a stance has to increase stamina cost it has to provide increase benefits such as faster default attack speed (Example Tempo Royal) or allow the weapon to hit a general area.

 

If basic sprinting didn't drain stamina, combine with these 2 you would see stamina would be in a much better place. Idea wise it is not hard to achieve it's through numerical work which provides difficulty.

 

I even provided ways in my stances discussion that would further improve the usage of stamina in melee

Certainly there ware ways to improve the current set up as it is. And those are solid ideas.

Let me just say that if basic sprinting didn't cost stamina, which Id be very happy if it didn't, then you have largely disconnected melee/blocking and movement from each other already. Which is heart of what I am after. The separation of the systems so they are easier to balance on their own.

 

However, as long as the more acrobatic movements burn stamina, you'd still be dealing with the combat style that requires more movement (melee) still burning more stamina than the combat style that doesn't (gunplay) so we are dealing with the same issue to some degree. 

 

Now let me respond to your specicic points-

1: Quick melee gets to be used along side shooting. That means you still retain longer range capability.

It's not the part where closing the distance is so important. It is in full on melee mode where it is.

 

2: Stances allowing a person to conserve stamina is good but it only adds a modifier in hopes to limit the extra stamina drain a player deals with from having to block, close the distance and attack. It still wont be as efficient on stamina as guns are.....

UNLESS by conservation you mean they actually LESSEN stamina cost from movement and/or INCREASE stamina regeneration to properly COMPENSATE for the extra stamina cost required for a melee combat style. Which could potentially work but that isn't necessarily easier to find calculations for that than it would be to simply have some new UI made and work with a system that flattens out that core difference in the first place.

 

As you said, idea wise it's not hard but it's the numerical work that brings difficulty. Sometimes it's better to add a little more manual labor (UI elements) that is guaranteed achievable than to depend on calculations with too many variables.

 

And let's not sit here and pretend that melee being limited to stamina vs guns who don't is the most evil thing in the world. Guns don't need stamina to be limited as they have fair share of limitations

 

1. Guns don't drain stamina because guns have their own limitations, such as reach for beam weapons, ammo hungry weapons and other factors such as RoF.

2. Having 2 weapons of similar ammo pool will half the reserve ammo for both weapons.

3. Melee have more limitations than guns because melee provides more utility than guns which is straight DPS (discounting syndicate effects). Such as mobility, health regeneration and damage mitigation (blocking).  Despite each of those 3 having varying effectiveness their benefits and usage is still there

4.Melee can also theoretically go on forever vs guns which have to reload and are limited by Magazine clips.

5.Melee also provides and energy free way to CC enemies through slam attacks where as the only CC effect guns can produce are procs (which are also shared by melee.

Gunplay does have it's own limitations outside of stamina. 

But Gunplay's existing limitations of ammo needs are not more than melees inherent limitation of requiring close range.

At most that evens them out. There is no reason why melee should have an additional limitation of draining the movement resource.

And the player can use the mobility of air melee and coptering as well as use a ground slam while their gun is out. 

Which, again, using quick melee and it's actions are able to be used in unison with the long range attacks from the gun.

It is in melee mode where closing the distance is truly required. 

 

(and good gunplay doesn't require the slotting of stamina mods. One way or another that requirement on melee has to die.)

 

If we are going to talk about melee's potential health regeneration from lifestrike that is not some advantage without it's own extra cost.

We are now delving into how melee takes from an additional resource that is responsible for power usage. 

 

Blocking is melee's big advantage potentially.

Many games have tried to balance melee and gunplay in the same combat model and most times one is clearly superior.

Often developers will resort to things like one hit melee kills to offset melee's range disadvantage. That is cheap and doesn't allow for much counterplay. DE did something smart by implementing projectile blocking so a melee combatant at longer range has some way to negate incoming fire while moving in. That, in itself, is a tough thing to tune right. I'm saying that to actually get that tuned would be easier if it wasn't tied into the movement systems resource. 

 

TLDR: Movement, melee and blocking are all interwoven as they pull from the same resource.

If we don't separate some of these systems from each other the calculations for actual balance are going to be extremely hard to get right.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Ronyn

[(PSN)MoRockaPDX]

We should keep in mind that the Dev's have stated, and I agree, that melee should not be on par will firearms. If that is your goal, this is a wast of time.

I think that melee is close to where it needs to be, but just a little boost in the right places will make it better for its place in the game.

A 1/3 reduction in melee combo counter, increased time between melee attacks before combo counter is reset. Rebalanced stamina cost per weapon.

Better risk vs reward. Reward perfectly timed and completed combos with a stamina boost or damage bonus, or 100% status effect. Or, a special finisher damage attack.

More fringe ideas: cower\intimidate enemies with each successive combo. Essentially stuns enemies or a lesser version of Valkyr's Warcry.

Edited April 14, 2015 by (PS4)MoRockaPDX