New melee stances that focuses on moves instead of combo

[Rekkou]

First of all, i'm not an avid fighting games fan so my terminology may be off. When i say combo, it basically means the e,e,e,e attacks while moves is basically a unique attack that is performed after certain command input like the slide attack, slam attack, charged attack or Sigma Octantis's shield throw.

Melee in warframes focuses too much on combo, but pay almost no attention to moves. We have like 52 stances and each stance has at least 2 different combos. More than hundred of consecutive strike animations yet only 2 different moves for slide attack, A spinning attack for pretty much every melee and a leaping kick for fist and sparring. And practically identical slam attacks. From the development perspective, combo requires too much effort on the animation team and it eventually becomes rather redundant because most players will just choose a stance and combo that either has the most damage or the easiest to pull. While moves are simpler to animate and different moves on different stances can give those stances more unique gameplay

For example, instead of 

New stances for sword, hammer or polearm with 3 new different combos but identical moves to the previous stances

we got

A sword stance with only 1 combo but with slide attack that is a quick slash dash instead of spinning attack, a slam attack that is a heavy vertical cut that does massive damage to single enemy but no AoE damage or knockdown.

A hammer stance with only 1 combo but with slam attack that does long conical shockwave instead of radial, a slide attack that does upward sing that can send enemies flying.

A polearm stance with only 1 combo but with slide attack that does DMC style stinger thrust that strikes enemies within a line, a charged attack that can throw the polearm like speargun.

[TheGrimCorsair]

3 hours ago, Rekkou said:

First of all, i'm not an avid fighting games fan so my terminology may be off. When i say combo, it basically means the e,e,e,e attacks while moves is basically a unique attack that is performed after certain command input like the slide attack, slam attack, charged attack or Sigma Octantis's shield throw.

Melee in warframes focuses too much on combo, but pay almost no attention to moves. We have like 52 stances and each stance has at least 2 different combos. More than hundred of consecutive strike animations yet only 2 different moves for slide attack, A spinning attack for pretty much every melee and a leaping kick for fist and sparring. And practically identical slam attacks. From the development perspective, combo requires too much effort on the animation team and it eventually becomes rather redundant because most players will just choose a stance and combo that either has the most damage or the easiest to pull. While moves are simpler to animate and different moves on different stances can give those stances more unique gameplay

For example, instead of 

New stances for sword, hammer or polearm with 3 new different combos but identical moves to the previous stances

we got

A sword stance with only 1 combo but with slide attack that is a quick slash dash instead of spinning attack, a slam attack that is a heavy vertical cut that does massive damage to single enemy but no AoE damage or knockdown.

A hammer stance with only 1 combo but with slam attack that does long conical shockwave instead of radial, a slide attack that does upward sing that can send enemies flying.

A polearm stance with only 1 combo but with slide attack that does DMC style stinger thrust that strikes enemies within a line, a charged attack that can throw the polearm like speargun.

This wouldn't really be suitable to new stances as it really needs to be reflected in an overhaul of Warframe's melee combat system. Moving to a utility oriented system where combos arise organically (IE: similar to your proposal where you use the move that is appropriate to the situation) would be quite the boon to melee in general. The current system, which relies on canned combos, regardless of how ridiculous the damage it can output may be, simply does not fit the framework of Warframe's gameplay. Warframe has not, for a very long time, been a game where the expectation is you'll engage single with enemies that can eat a full combo from your melee weapon and survive, or need the total damage to die.

The whole system is, plainly, groaning under the weight of mods and additions to keep/make it relevant in a game where you engage enemies in 3-dimensonal space with plenty of weapons that don't require you to close ranks and offer little-to-no risk of use as what drawbacks they do have can generally be offset via Warframe abilities.

[Terrornaut]

I've hoped for something like this for a while now.  OP may need to be reorganized/reworded so more people can catch on easier but its a better direction to head in.  I love plenty of the cool animations in the combos, but the individual attacks of the combo don't often do anything other than look cool, provide damage, possibly a proc, and alter movement slightly.

I wish for (lol)a mix of fundamental melee system changes, and the addition of combo/attack mods.  
Melee system:
-weapon stats+traits of weapon categories boosted or specialized (ie dual daggers have a chance to do finisher damage or something, hammers gain bow/akbolto/doomfist style smashes/shattering impact chance, bladed chain gets chance for knockdown/trip/pull, scythe gains chance for ragdoll+temp armor reduction etc)
-chanelling made fun and meaningful, even necessary for advanced content
-general melee system changes, Ie, now combo counter scales up crit and status chance, combo timer decays less earlier on before higher multipliers
Combo mod system: 
-have utility melee mods removed if relevant to the changes to melee system overall (ie weeping wounds removed since its now baked into system)
-'combo' mods added as a second page on mod screen.  These are new slots for high cost mods (with appropriate focus school styles as always) that basically add attack animations that have unique properties.  Weapon types have polarizations for these combo mod slots the same way stances do currently.  Of course they can be repolarized, but the polarizations are there to kind of define schools/typical moves you'd expect to use with this weapon or weapon type.  These attack/combo/move mods are for the various attacks you can do: slide attack, wall attack, jump attack, w+lmb, s+qatk, w+qatk+rmb, s+qatk+rmb, w+qatk+qatk and w+qatk+qatk+atk, a/d qatk etc.
Examples: You can add a naramon triple/tatsumaki combo mod onto your jump attack that gives you a movement leap and medium damage, a madurai slam attack that adds fixed distance for an aoe knockdown, an unairu impact/ragdoll proc onto your w+rmb attack, a zenurik w+qatk+qatk+qatk (third attack in a chain) short aoe swirl that steals life, a vazarin slide attack that buffs block to add (weapon damage) as reflected damage for 1.5seconds etc.

Or, look at the relatively new game, Absolver.  Its combo customization system, while different from this proposal is very warframey (which I'd expect to be more extensive than what WF would come up with given the entire game is built around that system).

Edited March 29, 2018 by Terrornaut

[Grimmstyler]

Id imagine melee combo counter (not just Crit multiplier) would to be relative to combos that dont require a button sequence and would auto combo between grouped enemies.. 

But DE already made combos a button sequence, and that could take the skill out of pulling off a combo, which could cause some players to rage quit Warframe..

[Rekkou]

11 hours ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

This wouldn't really be suitable to new stances as it really needs to be reflected in an overhaul of Warframe's melee combat system. Moving to a utility oriented system where combos arise organically (IE: similar to your proposal where you use the move that is appropriate to the situation) would be quite the boon to melee in general. The current system, which relies on canned combos, regardless of how ridiculous the damage it can output may be, simply does not fit the framework of Warframe's gameplay. Warframe has not, for a very long time, been a game where the expectation is you'll engage single with enemies that can eat a full combo from your melee weapon and survive, or need the total damage to die.

The whole system is, plainly, groaning under the weight of mods and additions to keep/make it relevant in a game where you engage enemies in 3-dimensonal space with plenty of weapons that don't require you to close ranks and offer little-to-no risk of use as what drawbacks they do have can generally be offset via Warframe abilities.

I don't see why not. It's meant to be an addition not change to the whole melee system. Unless they're planning to completely remove slide, slam, and charge attacks. it will always be there anyway. And having most of them to be the same exact moves regardless of weapons or stances you use only make the melee design seems lazy.