Normalize Melee Attack Speed

[Nazrethim]

Hi there.

Attack Speed is, alongside damage, the most important aspect of a melee weapon. Many melee weapons are going unused because they are either too slow (thus unfit to hit anything or dying because of animation lock) or, in some cases, too fast (thus making very difficult to actually use the combos).

The proposal is simple: Normalize Melee Attack Speed per weapon type, basically "All melee weapons of the same type share the same attack speed" and make them different in damage distribution, channeling cost/multiplier, etc etc.

Thought's on this?

[lukinu_u]

No.

[artemisfortune]

Actually, I like this idea. Attack speed is important, but it gets in the way of having fun for me. Zipping through enemies at such a pace that I can't see the animations isn't fun. It's effective but not fun. As I've said in other posts, I'd rather see the melee system get the PlatinumGames treatment.

[Airwolfen]

No. I think its good to have heavy weapons actually feel heavy. I think stance combos are way more important of a change point then attack speed

Use 11th storm on S&A prime and you have a rough, slow, weapon. use Final harbinger however and it actually works in its favor making it more controllable so you don't fly into walls all the time. The stance is just so much faster in hit count, for no apparent reason.

But in general small weapons should be fast and large weapons should be slow.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Airwolfen

[Grimm]

2 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

No. I think its good to have heavy weapons actually feel heavy. I think stance combos are way more important of a change point then attack speed

Use 11th storm on S&A prime and you have a rough, slow, weapon. use Final harbinger however and it actually works in its favor making it more controllable so you don't fly into walls all the time. The stance is just so much faster in hit count, for no apparent reason.

But in general small weapons should be fast and large weapons should be slow.

i agree 100% i was trying to word my message but couldn't get it to sound as good as yours. 

[(PSN)Xx-Ribbium-xX]

30 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Hi there.

Attack Speed is, alongside damage, the most important aspect of a melee weapon. Many melee weapons are going unused because they are either too slow (thus unfit to hit anything or dying because of animation lock) or, in some cases, too fast (thus making very difficult to actually use the combos).

The proposal is simple: Normalize Melee Attack Speed per weapon type, basically "All melee weapons of the same type share the same attack speed" and make them different in damage distribution, channeling cost/multiplier, etc etc.

Thought's on this?

I would kinda have to agree with this but I think it's the combos that hinder most weapons as well as the attack speed. But you need to consider range and obviously damage output and knockdown combos, I would however be all for this as long as melee combos allowed immunity for knockdown while in animations.

[(PSN)WhiteStrike_PT]

12 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

No. I think its good to have heavy weapons actually feel heavy. I think stance combos are way more important of a change point then attack speed

Use 11th storm on S&A prime and you have a rough, slow, weapon. use Final harbinger however and it actually works in its favor making it more controllable so you don't fly into walls all the time. The stance is just so much faster in hit count, for no apparent reason.

But in general small weapons should be fast and large weapons should be slow.

Why doesn't the Conclave section have a different background colour to avoid situations like this?

[Nazrethim]

Just now, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

I would kinda have to agree with this but I think it's the combos that hinder most weapons as well as the attack speed. But you need to consider range and obviously damage output and knockdown combos, I would however be all for this as long as melee combos allowed immunity for knockdown while in animations.

True. Specially noticeable has been with Fist weapons. Quaking Hand is pretty much unusuable on anything that isn't Ankyros Prime (the fastest Fist weapon "available"). I haven't used them seriously since the stance got added, whereas it was one of the best type of weapons to use with old Sismic Palm (which, incidentally, fits really well with Conclave Stances pattern of simple combos and gap closers). Claws too, they have animations slow as Dual Blades, while dealing as much damage as faster weapons. None of the (pretty agile) claw animations from stances are to be seen.

[Airwolfen]

1 minute ago, (PS4)WhiteStrike_PT said:

Why doesn't the Conclave section have a different background colour to avoid situations like this?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No idea. Point still stands though I guess.

[Nazrethim]

6 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No idea. Point still stands though I guess.

Not really

 

21 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

No. I think its good to have heavy weapons actually feel heavy. I think stance combos are way more important of a change point then attack speed

I don't mean all melees would have same attack speed, rather all melees of the same type. ie: All Heavy Blades having the same attack speed.

For ye see, in Conclave, you have fast weapons that deal less damage and slow weapons that deal more damage. Which is good on paper, but then you factor in you are against jumping backflipping gliding ninjas and then you find:
-Fastest weapons hit reliably, but deal so little damage as to be nearly pointless.

-Slowest weapon can deal serious damage if not oneshot, but are so slow that by the time you swing your opponent jumped away already, making them largely pointless.

So, this creates a Best weapon, which are the ones that are in a sweet spot of balanced attack speed and damage. Most glaring example is Scindo, not Scindo Prime, but regular Scindo, which is the best heavy blade by virtue of being in that sweet spot. Since Conclave's gig is balanced matches, having "best" options is a failure. But by normalizing attacks speed per weapon type, suddently all weapons of the same type are more or less equally viable.

[Airwolfen]

4 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

Not really

 

I don't mean all melees would have same attack speed, rather all melees of the same type. ie: All Heavy Blades having the same attack speed.

For ye see, in Conclave, you have fast weapons that deal less damage and slow weapons that deal more damage. Which is good on paper, but then you factor in you are against jumping backflipping gliding ninjas and then you find:
-Fastest weapons hit reliably, but deal so little damage as to be nearly pointless.

-Slowest weapon can deal serious damage if not oneshot, but are so slow that by the time you swing your opponent jumped away already, making them largely pointless.

So, this creates a Best weapon, which are the ones that are in a sweet spot of balanced attack speed and damage. Most glaring example is Scindo, not Scindo Prime, but regular Scindo, which is the best heavy blade by virtue of being in that sweet spot. Since Conclave's gig is balanced matches, having "best" options is a failure. But by normalizing attacks speed per weapon type, suddently all weapons of the same type are more or less equally viable.

Well with the part of My point still stands I purely mean that I do not believe in full normalization of attack speed. attack speed is a way to control the DPS of a weapon, allowing the same group of weapons to have higher or lower damage numbers while sort of normalizing DPS.

[Nazrethim]

6 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

Well with the part of My point still stands I purely mean that I do not believe in full normalization of attack speed. attack speed is a way to control the DPS of a weapon, allowing the same group of weapons to have higher or lower damage numbers while sort of normalizing DPS.

Yes, but that only works on paper and vs static enemies. With Conclave's mobility and pace, slower weapons have a hard time hitting anything at all, while fast weapons can connect more hits but you need more openings to actually get a kill, by that time you are probably dead or your target escaped. Hence why Sweet Spot weapons are the superior unchoice.

[Airwolfen]

Just now, Nazrethim said:

Yes, but that only works on paper and vs static enemies. With Conclave's mobility and pace, slower weapons have a hard time hitting anything at all, while fast weapons can connect more hits but you need more openings to actually get a kill, by that time you are probably dead or your target escaped. Hence why Sweet Spot weapons are the superior unchoice.

Id say that a tighter spread of AS ratings in that case is better then a full normalization.

[Witchydragon]

Agreed. There is really no reason to use the slower versions of a melee class because the number hits to kill per weapon are almost all the same in each class. 

The alternative would be to give the slower weapon variants in each class significantly more damage, but this becomes problematic as the reduced hits to kill on a slow weapon could very easily outweigh a minor attack speed rediction. Also, pause combo timing would remain different on melee weapons, whereas with attack speed standardization, there is no such issue.

10 hours ago, Airwolfen said:

Id say that a tighter spread of AS ratings in that case is better then a full normalization.

What would be the point of this then? If 2 swords have identical DPS but one is 5% faster rather than 20% faster, there's still no reason to use the slower version unless it takes fewer hits to kill or has another useful feature.

 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Witchydragon

[Nazrethim]

2 hours ago, Witchydragon said:

Agreed. There is really no reason to use the slower versions of a melee class because the number hits to kill per weapon are almost all the same in each class. 

The alternative would be to give the slower weapon variants in each class significantly more damage, but this becomes problematic as the reduced hits to kill on a slow weapon could very easily outweigh a minor attack speed rediction. Also, pause combo timing would remain different on melee weapons, whereas with attack speed standardization, there is no such issue.

What would be the point of this then? If 2 swords have identical DPS but one is 5% faster rather than 20% faster, there's still no reason to use the slower version unless it takes fewer hits to kill or has another useful feature.

 

Indeed. Normalized attack speed per type would also make easier for DE to change/readjust Stance animation without running into balance problems since if the stance works on a weapon it will work on all weapons of the same type.