Melee 3.0 suggestion

[Nazrethim]

Tittle.

I will go piece by piece, I will try to make it an easy read, but still expect a lot of text.

 

Inputs:

E: Normal Attacks, Combos, Aerial Attacks.

R: Charge attacks, Finishers, Aerial Slam, Combos.

RMB: Block, combos.

LMB: Channeling.

 

Combo Counter 2.0:

Only works when the melee weapon is equiped.

Hitting an enemy with a melee weapon awards 1 hit for the counter just like it currently does. After 6s of not hitting anything it will start to "degrade" at a rate of 3 hits per second instead of instantly losing it all.

Channeling:

No longer uses Energy, instead it uses it's own resource. Warframes would have 100 maximum Channeling in general, with melee oriented frames like Ash, Excalibur, Wukong or Inaros having 150 or some other arbitrary higher cap. A player begins the mission with 50 (this is also the amount a player revives/respawn [in conclave] with).

Channeling uses it's resource at a rate of 3 per hit per enemy hit. Channeling is recharged by attacking with the melee weapon equiped unchanneled at a rate of 1 per hit per enemy hit.

Channeling Efficiency removed, Channeling mods with negative Channeling efficiency now only give their bonus without drawback. Focus Energy would increase Channeling obtained from non-channeled hits by 1 and Reflex Coil be removed or reworked into something else.

Block:

Adopting the blocking stance will give "Parry" buff for 1s, nullifying damage blocked and causing melee attackers to be staggered, can't be triggered more than once every 3s.

Mods:

Mods would grant half the effects when the melee weapon is not equiped. Examples:

Pressure Point: +60% damage (+120% when melee is equiped)

Fury: +15% attack speed (+30% when melee is equiped)

Reach: +30% range (+60% when melee is equiped)

Gimmick mods would only give their effects when the melee weapon is equiped.

Stances:

No longer existing in the form of mods. Instead it would be a system similar to Focus: % of affinity gained with the melee weapon equiped would be converted into points you can spend to unlock or upgrade combos.

Each weapon Type would have it's own tree. (using a Skana would unlock combos for all other longswords, using a Gram would unlock combos for all other heavy blades , etc)

You start at an "core" node which is the basic unstanced melee combo. This one cannot be upgraded, it's just there to start. From there the following branches open up:

'Pause' combos: better damage (x2) combos that open enemies to Finishers

'RMB' combos: normal damage with dash attacks to close gaps.

'R' combos: higher damage (x3) combos with radial arsekickery.

Basic: alternative basic combos (1.5x damage compared to default one)

Misc: upgrades for aerial attacks, aerial slams, finishers, slide attacks.

Each of combo of the existing stances will go into these categories as a node, a player can mix and match different combos with the limitation of only one of each category.

Upgrading them grants:

Combos (pause, R, RMB and Basic):

Rank 0: unlocks the combo.

Rank 1: increase combo counter timer by 2s (which means the combo counter takes 3s to start degrading instead of 1)

Rank 2: increase combo counter by 1 (which means each hit counts as two)

Rank 3: increase Channeling charge by 2 (which means each non-channeled hit will fill the channeling bar by 3 instead of 1)

Each combo needs to be upgraded separatedly.

Misc:

-Aerial attack:

Rank 0: increase aerial attack momentum by 100%

Rank 1: Increase aerial attack combo counter by 2 and combo counter timer by 1s

Rank 2: Increase aerial attack Channeling charge by 4.

Rank 3: You can now perform 2 aerial attacks in quick sucession

-Aerial Slam:

Rank 0: increase crashing speed by 100%

Rank 1: reduce recovery and wind-up time by 50%

Rank 2: Increase combo counter by 1

Rank 3: Slam attack will proc a status effect of the dominant damage.

-Finishers:

Rank 0: Increase Combo counter by 2 and combo counter timer by 1s

Rank 1: Increase Channeling charge by 9

Rank 2: Stealth and Counter finishers are always lethal

Rank 3: You can now do a Counter finisher on unalerted enemies when you are in front of them.

-Slide Attacks

Rank 0: increase combo counter timer by 0.5s

Rank 1: increase combo counter by 1

Rank 2: increase Channeling charge by 1

Rank 3: you can now chain up to 3 slide attacks.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Nazrethim

[TaylorsContraction]

You've lost me at removing stances.

I agree a better melee system is possible but it can be done within the confines of what we already have.

[Nazrethim]

25 minutes ago, TaylorsContraction said:

You've lost me at removing stances.

I agree a better melee system is possible but it can be done within the confines of what we already have.

That's why I mentioned focus. It would pretty much be "focus for melee" but with fixed unlock/upgrade reasonanle values and without Convergence gimmick.

This would also allow for more customization by allowing you to select the combos you want.

[(PSN)wildcats1369my]

putting stances as a focus will.make every weapon type the same with different attack values.

also stance slot gives additional modpoints

[Nazrethim]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)wildcats1369my said:

putting stances as a focus will.make every weapon type the same with different attack values.

Well, thats not very far from where we are atm. The feel of each weapon-type comes from unique animations, this system just replaces rng (stance drop) for work (unlocking and upgrading) something that DE has already mentioned in a previoys stream (though they meant a stance drop chance increasing as you use it)

14 minutes ago, (PS4)wildcats1369my said:

also stance slot gives additional modpoints

Nothing a forma or two cant solve, and melee weps are arguably easier to lvl up.

[Voltage]

57 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Nothing a forma or two cant solve, and melee weps are arguably easier to lvl up.

Might as well remove auras and put those into a focus right? Stances don't need to be touched except updating old ones.

I also do not agree with degrade of combo counter every second by 3 hits. This system would make Body count must run still. I proposed a long time ago making the Combo (2.5x --> 2x) happen every 6 seconds or so, with body count raising it by 50% (9 seconds). This allows for more build diversity

[Nazrethim]

8 hours ago, --Q--Voltage said:

Might as well remove auras and put those into a focus right? Stances don't need to be touched except updating old ones.

Or make quickmelee smack enemies with your gun equiped and add gunstances that work on pause and hold. That way all 3 weapon classes are on equal terms.

So far DE has show zero interest in fixing old stances, just on releasing new ones. With this system they would just release new combos.

8 hours ago, --Q--Voltage said:

I also do not agree with degrade of combo counter every second by 3 hits. This system would make Body count must run still. I proposed a long time ago making the Combo (2.5x --> 2x) happen every 6 seconds or so, with body count raising it by 50% (9 seconds). This allows for more build diversity

That's pretty reasonable.