Melee: Present and Future goals!

[TwoWolves]

Some of us prefer the simplicity of the system because it doesn't get in the way of us enjoying the environments...yeah the animation could be reworked, but I'd hardly say that constitutes button mashing. Combos are handled the same way in The Force Unleashed I & II. All combinations on the same button. Warframe is already fast enough, especially with a Nezha. Trying to pull off ridiculous button combos (and you know it will be ridiculous--Press L2, then up, then circle, then up, then select while pledging allegiance to Richard Nixon, then circle again) that never work anyway is a great way to alienate the older gamers who prefer the simplicity because it's more reminiscent of an arcade game.

[GrimmMonsoon.ttv]

Any update on this?

[Sabreracer]

5 hours ago, Redskull94 said:

I've always loved playing melee only in a lot of games, A LOT, but when it comes to Warframe I absolutely hate it.

Basically if I had to say why I'd say that there's not depth into it: it's basically mashing the E button, sometimes channel to life-steal back and then back to E until you deal a ludicrous amount of damage because of the combo counter. I've also always felt that hitting an enemy with a melee weapon never really gave any kind of "satisfaction", this one I don't know how to explain it.

It feels just like when you execute a finisher on an enemy: the animation goes off that 90% of the times something clips out of it or I don't even know what. Like you'd never imagine how many times my Warframe just decided to execute enemies mid-air while the enemy clipped out of the sword and his feet were on this "invisible floor" that creates everytime you do an execution.

It just doesn't feel right at all to use melee in Warframe at all. It feels more like the same sensation of spamming the same button over and over again, just like how Saryn or RJ Excalibur worked some time ago.

If I had to press 4 buttons in some combination to kill one enemy, I would be either insane or suffering from RSI after a long survival playing Valkyr.

[DreadWarlock]

On 2018-06-15 at 11:45 AM, TwoWolves said:

You probably didn't understand my post as you must have been tired from being up all night.

What? I'm not allowed to insert opinion as fact? Everyone else is doing it...

If you think that Nezha is the worst frame out there, then feel free to kindly take a flying leap. I use the Spin attacks to clear my path so that I can open up with my shotgun. Next you're going to tel me that using Excal's powers is somehow cheating, too. 

As for me saying the controller sucks, have you read anything I've said whatsoever? No? Huh. I thought I was pretty clear that for right now, I prefer a controller-mouse combo, with the keyboard relegated to chat. Since the PC is now utilizing controllers, I now have a use for my Logitech. Way to misinterpret what I've said, though. *pats you on the back*

Sorry, but that last paragraph is your opinion. My opinion is the game played well enough on it's own without mucking with everything that is the core about the game. If you can't get your mod combos to work right, then you need new mods and/or mod combos because my weapons are way overpowered, even against high level enemies, which is why I can go toe-to-toe with most tougher enemies, but again, I am quick to spin-attack my way out when I get surrounded. I fail to see that as somehow a spam. If other players are using it excessively, then maybe DE should focus on those players instead of mucking it up for the rest of us. Honestly, all the spin attack does is ensure that I have a high melee kill count during survival missions. 

You play it your way, I'll play it mine, and ask DE to leave it the hell alone and let it be. DE is trying to do too much at once, with the end result that the entire whole will be lesser quality as a result.

Edit: And yes, the mods will be screwed up because not all mods will make it, and some mods will change, and that will screw up all the configurations I have built out. So yes, it will force more than a few players to spend literally hours away from the game, doing boring crap like sorting through the new mods and trying to rebuild their broken weapons and frames.

Like I said, Nezha is the worst warframe. What you're doing with him can be done with pretty much any warframe, It's the spin to win that is strong not Nezha.

You probably don't understand that what youu said is pretty much this, that the controller sucks. PLaying on a keyboeard will immediatly solve all your complaints about having to press multiple buttons at the same time. If you prefer using the gamepad + mouse that's your call, but don't complain about difficult inputs when they are absurdly easy on just the keybeard + Mouse.

As for your last paragraph if it's your opinion then keep it to yourself, you do understand that just like you have an opinion, so do others. THis rework will do so much good to a great amount of weapons, as of now the weapons are completely broken, the bigger the range the better the wepaon is, that because of the freaking combo system and how it works. Range should be one advantage, yes. But It should only be one option. WHat wer have here is weak weapons outdamaging stronger single target weapons because you get higher combo multipliers faster. As for the rest it's all mere assumptions, you only think the mods will be broken, nothing has been confirmed on what will happen to Acolyte mods(which are the only mods that may be negatively affected by the changes), and Channeling Mods will actually become useable according to what they plan to do.

THis goes not only for you, but for many other people who are already counting on a negative result even though there's literally no info on certain changes. All melee weapons will be reworked, depending on the new base crit stats and staus chance, we may not even need acolyte mods anymore, remember they mentioned a massive buff to weapon's base damage, and also that melee mods will be tweaked to offer greater power to compensate for the lack of the combo meter. If they give us values similar to what a 3x multiplier combo meter would do, we won't ever miss spin to win and the acolyte mods, and only IF the acolyte mods stop working, cause they may or may not make those mods scale on quick melee. 

And one final thing, depending on how fast you charge the new combo meter for Heavy attacks, those heavy attacks my end up being as broken as the spin to win or maybe even more broken. I've already made a build for Charge attacks focusing on one hitting enemies up to level 100, this build lacked scalability beyond that, but all enemies but the heaviest mobs(HG, Bombards, Napalms) died on a single Channeled Heavy attack, HG died on a following quick combo, Bombards died on the next charged attack, and Napalms died of dot procs after both charged attacks. You can already imagine how powerful such a build would be on the new system.

[TwoWolves]

40 minutes ago, DreadWarlock said:

Like I said, Nezha is the worst warframe. What you're doing with him can be done with pretty much any warframe, It's the spin to win that is strong not Nezha.

Opinion. Not fact. I do not play "spin-to-win" as you call it except to get out of corners because as stated before, rolling does not work when you are surrounded. *sigh* I really feel like I'm repeating myself here over and over. Nezha is the worst warframe by your standards. Not mine. I like Nezha's combat capabilities, and so do a lot of other people who do not just "spin-to-win."

40 minutes ago, DreadWarlock said:

You probably don't understand that what youu said is pretty much this, that the controller sucks. PLaying on a keyboeard will immediatly solve all your complaints about having to press multiple buttons at the same time. If you prefer using the gamepad + mouse that's your call, but don't complain about difficult inputs when they are absurdly easy on just the keybeard + Mouse.

Nooooo...What I said was that if you try the k&m setup, you may like it. And I've been pretty clear in advocating for a controller/keyboard set up lately. And all of which is irrelevant because you dragged this argument in from another thread, which I'm pretty sure is frowned upon. Besides, pretty sure that you were the first to mischaracterize something... 

On 2018-06-14 at 10:55 PM, DreadWarlock said:

You probably didn't read it all. They fully intend to rework the mods too. So no, mods won't become useless because they'll be different.

There it is. I never once said the mods would become useless. I said that they would be missing or changed so as to be inapplicable to new configurations that DE creates. Just as in Skyforge when they reworked their level progression system. And yes, some mods may disappear altogether. So, I guess that makes my last paragraph fact, not opinion. The mere fact that we players are going to have to spend hours learning all the new mods and the new system all over again, when a large majority of us just want to play the game and not have to bother with learning crazy button combos, is how it is rather prima facie proof that this melee rework is dubious. As stated before, it is a fact that we will have to go over our broken weapons and armor (which will most likely have no mods in them and we will have to re-build from memory, if that is even possible...). I'm also guessing that some weapons that aren't as popular may even vanish, and some of the more popular ones "reworked" into mundanity. That last sentence is conjecture, which is a bit different than pure opinion, by the way.

I'm not going to be worrying about charging up a combo meter because one, I don't give a flying monkey about combos. Don't use them now, don't want to use them in the future. I prefer simplicity. If DE wants to complicate the game for the sake of novelty, they are going to lose a lot of older customers who prefer the simplicity of an arcade game the way it is now to something finicky and complicated whenever this "rework" comes down the line.

Nezha -- 1

The Haterade Parade -- 0

#NezhaOrNothing

[DreadWarlock]

16 hours ago, TwoWolves said:

Opinion. Not fact. I do not play "spin-to-win" as you call it except to get out of corners because as stated before, rolling does not work when you are surrounded. *sigh* I really feel like I'm repeating myself here over and over. Nezha is the worst warframe by your standards. Not mine. I like Nezha's combat capabilities, and so do a lot of other people who do not just "spin-to-win."

Nooooo...What I said was that if you try the k&m setup, you may like it. And I've been pretty clear in advocating for a controller/keyboard set up lately. And all of which is irrelevant because you dragged this argument in from another thread, which I'm pretty sure is frowned upon. Besides, pretty sure that you were the first to mischaracterize something... 

There it is. I never once said the mods would become useless. I said that they would be missing or changed so as to be inapplicable to new configurations that DE creates. Just as in Skyforge when they reworked their level progression system. And yes, some mods may disappear altogether. So, I guess that makes my last paragraph fact, not opinion. The mere fact that we players are going to have to spend hours learning all the new mods and the new system all over again, when a large majority of us just want to play the game and not have to bother with learning crazy button combos, is how it is rather prima facie proof that this melee rework is dubious. As stated before, it is a fact that we will have to go over our broken weapons and armor (which will most likely have no mods in them and we will have to re-build from memory, if that is even possible...). I'm also guessing that some weapons that aren't as popular may even vanish, and some of the more popular ones "reworked" into mundanity. That last sentence is conjecture, which is a bit different than pure opinion, by the way.

I'm not going to be worrying about charging up a combo meter because one, I don't give a flying monkey about combos. Don't use them now, don't want to use them in the future. I prefer simplicity. If DE wants to complicate the game for the sake of novelty, they are going to lose a lot of older customers who prefer the simplicity of an arcade game the way it is now to something finicky and complicated whenever this "rework" comes down the line.

Nezha -- 1

The Haterade Parade -- 0

#NezhaOrNothing

You seem to have 0 awareness of what you speak yourself. By all means read what you spoke about the comands in your 1st comment.

Also, who the hell gives a damn about what you think and need. To hell with you and your simplicity, the devs designed the melee system to depend on combos, parries, channeling and charged attacks and special moves(spin, wall, slam). You don't like having to learn, that's fine, but to complain about it being complex and wanting the melee system to stay broken as it is because you like simplicity is another thing entirely. You should be aware that the Melee sytem was designed to be complex from the get go. There are multiple mentions of this in even load screens, saying that melee builds are for advanced players.

You, and possibly the other players who you say shares your views on this, are the ones who are playing this game as if it were an arcade game. I can never tell you to play the game like I do, but know that you also cannot force the game to cater to your personal playstyle just because you want it so. There are many simple warframes and weapons out there, yes. But there are many warframes, weapons and systems that are complex and need more than just a run and gun strategy. THe reason why I say Nezha is the weakest warframe is mainly due to this, it's not an opinion, it's a fact. Try an endurance run with him and Rhino later on, and you'll see what i'm talking about. Nezha will perform similar to Rhino as far as level 100, but above that he'll underperform because you need more than just skill to survive against enemies. And I say more, there are some warframes out there that may underperform in the star chart but will actually crush many popular warframes in an endless mission. WHich is the main reason why most players delude thenmselves into thinking that Mag is a mediocre frame. Several levels late, your Excalibur won't harm even an insect, while Mag will still decimate level 700s or 1000s. Even Nyx will never cease to be useful while Nezha's armor will simply be a meme, his 2nd skill will leave him vulnerable, his 4th skill will be made useless by Ancient healers and only his 1st skill will see some use, but you will die trying to spread it. Face it, it's you being good with your weapons and skills and not Nezha being a good warframe.

As for the mod changes I'll will not repeat myself that's just you exagerating the problem, regardless of how these mods change. There's nothing about the changes that will make you have to spend more than 10 minutes to adapt. You are just being pessimistic due to facing a similar situation in another game which resulted in a bad thing. Much on the contrary, this changes will actually simplify the system by removing useless mechanics. It's just that you'll have to learn things that were already in the game but got overshadowed by acolyte mods, which made you ignore them.

[bagelsan]

Street Fighter combos coming soon? Or Skullgirls. Ah that's a good fighter game.

[Snake]

On 2018-05-11 at 2:09 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Combo Counter damage multiplier may apply to heavy attack only and all points are spent on attack.

This sounds like Infinity Blade - Single Target Rail Fighting game.

Warframe is a Horde Shooter. Why would you use this Heavy Attack? I would never use it if it consumed my combo counter. - Would rather keep my combo for my blood rush stacked crit damage on normal attacks.

Don't touch my Blood Rush Please - Leave it out - Just forget its even there DE.

 

Sorry for the accidental posts.....

[TwoWolves]

I could care less about combos, as stated before; however, I had a thought. If they would either remove the level cap on frames, or increase it to 100, then maybe it might be interesting. But as you can see, DE, there are people besides myself here who would never use this "heavy attack" in combat. Complicating combat for the sake of multiple combos takes away from immersion in the game itself, and it's a fine line to walk when desigining a melee system, no doubt. But simplicity is the natural order of things, and we, as human beings tend to gravitate towards what is simple and effective over fancy combos and complicated hit variables such as a Heavy Attack. This, of course, is only my experience, so take from it what you will.

[Banelingline]

Some further thoughts on keeping melee from breaking:

1. Heavy Attacks need to be either virtually guaranteed one-hit-kills on anything short of bosses up to level 145, or Memeing Strike level "goodbye every mook adjacent to me" to be worth using. I think both should exist, depending on combo/stance, so that people can choose stances and combos based on needs. If the buffing works for the chaff at normal gameplay, or even up to level 130 for unarmored enemies, then people might well decide to make use of the Heavy Attacks for spot-killing. If the Heavy Attacks are sweeping strikes that reliably kill off clusters of enemies, then they'll see use to replace Memeing Strike.

2. Individual attacks on combos need to be balanced according to likelyhood of hitting a decent number of targets. The various overhead strikes and thrusts need significant damage multipliers to be worth using, as anything that doesn't eliminate mooks in a single blow won't be worth using for single target attacks. As mentioned above, heavy attacks can be pseudo-Executions that reliably eliminate heavy targets in expected gameplay quickly and efficiently. Because there's often a lot of enemies to kill, so you need to just end seven in one blow to make it worth using a Heavy Attack.

3. Useful combo/stance-dependent effects outside of the IPS status procs need to be introduced, possibly with a side of minor mechanical improvement inherent to the Stance, such as a little bit of damage switching (like Conclave mods), adjusting base attack speed or adding a bit of crit or status stats. The combos themselves need useful effects such as armor stripping, health/shield restore, lasting CC, debuffs and such, so as to displace "mandatory" mods to improve build diversity and allow skilled players that can truly squeeze out the performance of 3.0 melee to have stronger weapons.

[ToKeSia]

Any update ? . . . it's too long

[Ranzinzo]

Figured out my comment would be way too big, so I created a new post just for it. It's pretty fu**ing long. Over 10 pages suggesting what the new melee system could be. In case someone is intereted, here is the link:

 

[Kaed0x]

fix how maiming strike interacts with blood rush and the memeing strike meta dies TBH alternatively, make spin attacks not a thing and give us a better way to cancel out of our combos before the forced slams or slow attacks, so the players use melees as intended don't lose that functionality. the roll stuff seems pretty good for that though, and. that's all you really need to do. this new system sounds real bad so far, but maybe i'm a weirdo who actually uses chanelling and likes to not be stuck in a ground slam animation for 5 seconds. also no matter how much you buff the base damage of melee, it won't matter if combo counter doesn't apply to light hits, and if combo still does, who the hell would burn their combo to do a heavy attack. HEAVY ATTACK AND WARFRAME CURRENTLY DO NOT MIX, as no single enemy is threatening unless you're in way further than you can handle or it's a level napalm eximus, if a heavy attack has more cost than 'just' being slower it'll be completely unusable.

EDIT: actually, someone suggested quick-fire in an early post. i think a button to fire your secondary while meleeing would actually be pretty nice, especially if it ended whatevery combo i'm currently in

[Xayth]

I made a post talking about my ideas for what could make melee 3.0 fun and more skill based, adding cool things like "weapon arts" from dark souls. Please take a look at it and upvote & comment if you like it! 
DE PLS

[Azamagon]

On 2018-06-18 at 12:38 PM, Redskull94 said:

I've always loved playing melee only in a lot of games, A LOT, but when it comes to Warframe I absolutely hate it.

Basically if I had to say why I'd say that there's not depth into it: it's basically mashing the E button, sometimes channel to life-steal back and then back to E until you deal a ludicrous amount of damage because of the combo counter. I've also always felt that hitting an enemy with a melee weapon never really gave any kind of "satisfaction", this one I don't know how to explain it.

It feels just like when you execute a finisher on an enemy: the animation goes off that 90% of the times something clips out of it or I don't even know what. Like you'd never imagine how many times my Warframe just decided to execute enemies mid-air while the enemy clipped out of the sword and his feet were on this "invisible floor" that creates everytime you do an execution.

It just doesn't feel right at all to use melee in Warframe at all. It feels more like the same sensation of spamming the same button over and over again, just like how Saryn or RJ Excalibur worked some time ago.

I think melee doesn't feel right in Warframe, because the game isn't designed around having "complex" melee in the first place. Thnk about it; A great majority of our enemies are RANGED enemies, and there are lots of bosses who are completely unmeleeable!

In melee 1.0, you only had very few attack choices with melee. But they were all quick and snappy. Basicly just used to dispatch enemies closeby. It felt like it was more fitting for its hordelike style (and even then, amount of enemies was actually less than now)
Now though, in melee 2.0 and forward, you have tons of options, but they are mostly just fluff. Why parry and finisher an enemy, when there is no enemy designed for using this attack?

Compare this to a game like Killing Floor. You have 2 attacks: Light quick attack, and heavy slow attack. Use light attacks to kill mooks, use heavy to battle bigger foes, with some few additional engagement options related to the attack animations and such. But some important details that makes its melee feel integrated to its core gameplay:
1) Enemies are mostly melee, so engaging them in melee is not a downright stupid choice. And that is despite the fact that their attacks are REALLY dangerous. Combine this with that the player's melee weapons (especially when running with the melee class, Berserker) hit very hard = Risk/reward done right.
2) You can aim your melee strikes. You go for a headshot, and you get rewarded with great damage.
3) There are lots of enemies coming at you, but it doesn't "puke" out all these enemies at once, letting you actually make decisions in regards to who to attack, where to run etc.
4) Players ranged weapons are also very powerful, often even more powerful and safer than the melee choices, generally. But, ammo is something you need to manage carefully. Going melee means no thought is needed in regards to managing ammo, but it instead requires managing your health (as per point 1).
5) There are other interesting facets, like; Attack an enemy in the back for double damage.

Warframe has none of those 5 designs (well, there is the stealth multiplier, but cannot be used midcombat unless you use invisibility abilities), making your meleebased combat look like this instead:
1) Enemies are mostly ranged, so engaging them in melee is rather suicidal, requiring lots of CC or survivability to be used properly. That, or fighting low level enemies (booooring).
2) You can't aim your strikes, so there is no aim involved. Just mash your buttons in the general direction.
3) Warframe tosses an absolutely ridiculous amount of enemies at you at once. This reduces the time to think, to make tactical decisions etc, thus further reinforcing the "just spam your button"-mentality.
4) Ranged weapons have a broad range of power and ammo-efficiency, but since the latest weapon rebalancing most weapons are really powerful AND can remain rather ammo-efficient. Add on to that ammo-mutators, pizzas and other similar ammo-restoration options, then combine it with enemies mostly using ranged weapons (as per point 1), then melee feels kinda... not that smart of an options. Unless you cheese it ofc (i.e. use tanky/stealthy/CC-heavy Warframes etc).
5) The "interesting melee facets" in Warframe are:

• You can get a ridiculously massive damagebonus by using invisibility (thus downright cheese). This point has no effect in non-stealth warfare without such abilities though.
• There are combos, which are mostly just useless, overly lengthy but "shiny" fluff (thus spamming the basic melee combo, preferably used from quick melee, is usually the best attack option). There are a handful of melee combos that ARE generally useful though, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
• You have blocking, which uses nigh useless DR-numbers on quite a lot of weapons. Will luckily become 100% DR in melee 3.0, making it an ACTUALLY POTENTIALLY USEFUL engagement tool considering all the ranged enemies we are facing.
• We have finishers. Only truly useful to use against the toughest of enemies, but most of the tough enemies also have very melee unfriendly designs (Bombard/Napalm/Gunner all have that groundslam, for example), so best bet is to force finishers open via abilities such as Ash's Teleport or Equinox's Rest.

In short; The melee gameplay in Warframe isn't integrated well to the core fighting, it feels "just tacked on".

[TwoWolves]

Bravo. Plus one for the post describing exactly why in its current state, the melee is more of an arcade-feel (in that you have only one or two buttons you need to worry about for attacks, it's very fast-paced, and has infinite enemies).

My only suggestion is to keep the melee simple and uncomplicated. We don't need elaborate combos that only the most-nimble fingered people can pull off. Warframe is too fast-paced for a lot of people to manage an elaborate button input scheme to fire a combo off. Not only that, Warframe's focus isn't on how many combos you can pull off, or if you can score that fatality at the end of killing an enemy ("Finish him!" "Toasty!"), it's about farming resources and building out your frames. It's hard to change the focus mid stream from an arcade-like game to one that you want to crawl through and take your enemies out with a more thoughtful approach. What do I mean by the "arcade-like feel?"

Warframe is fast-paced and features wave-after-wave of enemies that just bum-rush you in clots, and most players will spin attack or use other melee with sliding/jumping to very quickly eliminate enemies. Where is the enemy AI in this? Or do you mean to tell me that the Grineer have been so successful in their expansion due to suicidal battle tactics against the more technologically-advanced tenno who they know are deadly in melee combat? Of course not. But if you want a smarter melee system, you absolutely have to have a smarter enemy AI, otherwise, you get what we have in our current situation: high kill numbers, hordes of idiotic enemies that charge heedlessly into the path of bullet and blade, and a simplistic, arcade-like melee system that is over-powered and seemingly designed to be spammed. (A side note: I sort of like the melee system because it's fun to blast a Grineer in the face with a Hek as he charges around a corner, then slide over to his buddy and take him out with the heat sword, so I'm in the "hands-off" faction, but I think there is still room for improvement.)

Whereas games like Battlefield: Bad Company, even in the PVP areas, there was still skill involved in actually going through an area slowly to check for enemies that wouldn't just charge in to die, but would wait in the shadows to snipe you. That's what makes the difference. Smarter enemy AI forces the players to slow down to adapt to the sudden loss of invincibility that most frames have baked into them when a few well-placed shots will take you out. No more spinning in and slicing and dicing everything in the room. More enemies do not necessarily mean better enemies, DE, are you listening? This would also slow gameplay down and allow players more time to enjoy the visual feast that are the environments we arrive in. Plus, it makes players have to actually pay attention to their surroundings--when they know they will be killed by rushing into the open, players will creep along the periphery and actually have to think about how to take out each enemy, every time. 

Honestly, just making the enemy AI smarter would completely change the game's dynamics and feel. Suddenly, that stupid Grineer Gunner that fires off her Gorgon and just stands in the open will now instead use cover and use the enviornment around her to kill you (meaning, they shoot at explosive barrels, too, for instance). No more knots of enemies just standing around, waiting to be sliced and diced into gorey chunks. Now, they'll split up and work the room, trying to corner you and get angles on you where you have no cover. Suddenly, those Grineer are a lot more dangerous, and it takes fewer of them to get the job done.

If you want to change the melee system, first change the enemy AI because that will make the current melee system more useful and use-able. Smarter enemies are the pathway to a better combat system. I'm sure there's probably some negatives I'm not seeing (my coffee hasn't kicked in yet, don't judge me lol), but this would be a better, more sustainable angle than ripping out a melee system and installing a new one every time you find a flaw.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

On 2018-06-16 at 3:02 PM, TwoWolves said:

I fail to see how that rises to the level of "melee tricks." I use the Spin Attack in my Excal frame, too. So what? That's the very reason why I find Nezha the best frame. The combination of dual heat swords and spin attacks against infested is a potent combo, and here's why: DE designed it that way. I built the Nezha around melee because I enjoy sliding around and firing off my shotgun or my spin attacks more than anything.

So how is using something DE purposely designed to be that way considered "spamming?" I play this game like I play Skyrim: I enjoy taking my time and exploring everything, which tends to attract enemies. If I get cornered, it's nice to know that I have a way to break out instead of using the Roll function, which never (not almost never) functions when you're surrounded because even if it does go off, guess what? You rolled nowhere because you're boxed in. 

That I find to be pure stupidity. This is why I argue that the slide command should be given priority and made to override everything. Problem solved. And again, if there's players abusing the melee of something, maybe DE should focus on punishing those players instead of screwing the rest of us who enjoy the system the way it is by completely replacing the melee system and borking our mods. Nezha is a front-line warframe, period. Nezha is meant to deal massive amounts of damage and be mobile at the same time. Nezha is meant to be a tank, as evinced by the existence of Warding Halo. And sorry to burst your bubble, by my Nezha does way more damage than my Excal by far, and both are maxed. When set up correctly, Nezha is damn near unstoppable, and I say good! I don't care if my Nezha is more powerful than other players--I spent a lot of time tweaking and testing, so you're damn right, I get upset when I hear that all the work I put into my Nezha is going down the toilet because someone at DE thinks a new melee system is just thing they need to make us forget about how crappy the UI rollout was. I earned that Nezha, and all the power that comes with it because I put the time and effort in to making him they way he is. 

I find it very hard to believe that I am the only one who likes the melee system just as it is, with the exception of the slide command not being coded to override everything else.

Nezha is a very fun frame. I use his "1" and cc everything as a dash through environments... I dont spin 2 win persay..  rarely use maiming. 

I dont want to have to hit 20 billion button combos to melee kill... This isnt mortal kombat. 

[(PSN)Lowk721]

9 hours ago, TwoWolves said:

Honestly, just making the enemy AI smarter would completely change the game's dynamics and feel. Suddenly, that stupid Grineer Gunner that fires off her Gorgon and just stands in the open will now instead use cover and use the enviornment around her to kill you (meaning, they shoot at explosive barrels, too, for instance). No more knots of enemies just standing around, waiting to be sliced and diced into gorey chunks. Now, they'll split up and work the room, trying to corner you and get angles on you where you have no cover. Suddenly, those Grineer are a lot more dangerous, and it takes fewer of them to get the job done. 

If you want to change the melee system, first change the enemy AI because that will make the current melee system more useful and use-able. Smarter enemies are the pathway to a better combat system. I'm sure there's probably some negatives I'm not seeing (my coffee hasn't kicked in yet, don't judge me lol), but this would be a better, more sustainable angle than ripping out a melee system and installing a new one every time you find a flaw. 

I'd imagine smarter AI is a little harder or more complicated. Especially with the level design changing from mission to mission. As does the placement of some items. Then they'd also have to deal with a variety of contexual possibilities that could or could not happen.

They seem to found a easy route to the cover problem for grineer with deployable cover. When Corpus and eximus get involved most seem to cluster under the shield domes to protect themselves and cover the shield maker. And Not sure how clustering would benifit either system of melee. Especially now when stuff runs on how high you can get your multiplier.

Melee's problem doesn't seem to be an enemy issue. It is that most of the stuff in it is fairly useless and doesn't feel that dynamic. That said a more dynamic system and enemies that incorperate more actions besides shoot & hide on the otherhand would be nice. They already have a system in-game that could help. Infested will occasionally dodge your aim. Its simple, doesn't mess up the flow as much as having them uncluster, while adding flavor.

 

[TwoWolves]

1 hour ago, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

I dont want to have to hit 20 billion button combos to melee kill... This isnt mortal kombat. 

 

OMG

Finally, someone else says it! Holy crap on a hopped-up crutch, I've been waiting! "This isn't Mortal Kombat," a perfect example of what I don't want it to be, which it almost is already with their ad-hoc combo system. 

32 minutes ago, (PS4)Lowk721 said:

I'd imagine smarter AI is a little harder or more complicated. Especially with the level design changing from mission to mission. As does the placement of some items. Then they'd also have to deal with a variety of contexual possibilities that could or could not happen.

They seem to found a easy route to the cover problem for grineer with deployable cover. When Corpus and eximus get involved most seem to cluster under the shield domes to protect themselves and cover the shield maker. And Not sure how clustering would benifit either system of melee. Especially now when stuff runs on how high you can get your multiplier.

Melee's problem doesn't seem to be an enemy issue. It is that most of the stuff in it is fairly useless and doesn't feel that dynamic. That said a more dynamic system and enemies that incorperate more actions besides shoot & hide on the otherhand would be nice. They already have a system in-game that could help. Infested will occasionally dodge your aim. Its simple, doesn't mess up the flow as much as having them uncluster, while adding flavor.

 

I would imagine a smarter AI would be more difficult to pull off, but it would be a lot more organic and less disruptive. They could even start small by testing it with a specific enemy type to see how it performs. Clustering around cover would still be achievable by placing cluster points near correctly collisioned cover points. They could also just place snipers (without that stupid whine-up sound and without the laser--let the players find them with no AI help!) in strategic areas to cover intersections and cover other troopers. 

A smarter AI would force the players to adapt, and that's really the crux of it. If players were a little more nervous about just running out in the open on an enemy ship, they might be forced to slow down and use strategies they normally wouldn't have with the melee system the way it is right now. Otherwise, DE is going to turn it into...drumroll, please...

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Infinite Warfare: In space: Warframe: It's Freaking Awesome and You Know You Want It: Part III. lol

I think I like the looser feel of the melee system over one that's more controlled like an FPS would be. It adds more of an arcade, fun-but-not-serious feel to it that keeps it light and keeps grinding from being boring: "Ah, I'm sick of killing all these grineer! I know, I'm going to jump off that wall, somersault in mid-air, bounce off that Grineer there, smash his buddy over there, and then roll into a sliding aim while I blast those three over there!"

I think we're walking a line between fun and video game-y and fun and brutally realistic like Call of Duty would be. Stray too much to one side or the other, and you risk upsetting fans. 

[LupoDWolf]

so, i didn't read all of what is here, but i think that would help the melee is that stances should have an impact better than multiplier the damage in some cases. Let's take CW, if the combo counter let us spin more, or, dunno, a "momentum" bar for melee that we fill for it. Or weapons that have 3 stances, like nikanas, could have a stance focused on crit bonus, other on pure damage and other in status.

[(XBOX)GrandSageDragon]

I honestly hope that this rework really does compensate greatly for the lose of the 4x damage multiplier and 1.5-1.8 channeling damage to greatly increase the damage by atleast 6-7x the weapons base damage but honestly with how de buffed the new primes it will be more of a nerf then a buff since they haven't buffed primes nearly as well as they did with the previous since they really nerfed the akbolto primes base damage from the akbolto's 60 damage down to 32

[(XBOX)GrandSageDragon]

I wouldn't get my hopes up about seeing the what should be 6-7.5x the damage buff for almost all weapons excluding the venka prime which has a 6x multiplier with the channeling its about 9x the damage

[(PSN)Lowk721]

8 hours ago, TwoWolves said:

I would imagine a smarter AI would be more difficult to pull off, but it would be a lot more organic and less disruptive. They could even start small by testing it with a specific enemy type to see how it performs. Clustering around cover would still be achievable by placing cluster points near correctly collisioned cover points. They could also just place snipers (without that stupid whine-up sound and without the laser--let the players find them with no AI help!) in strategic areas to cover intersections and cover other troopers. 

1

Just played a little bit to refresh my memory. They do take cover. In Orokin defense some take-up positions behind the pillars under the bridge and the seats/plants surrounding objective to the point no one else can fit. I tried to clear a room with Mesa but a few of them managed to get behind a corner. You then either flip your ass over to them or nuke the place.

The Plains, a place with more behind cover like everyone else or shoot. Regarding the Laser and whine, I could understand lessening the time you see the laser but there needs to be a tell. Otherwise, you are just getting shot and not knowing where the shot came from under all the noise. That not good game design. 

Like Metal Gear, there is a sniper battle. You don't get the laser pointer that's in most games. However, the sniper breathes and snores while trying to locate you. You are given a tool to help locate via a game of hot and cold using the tool given. As cool as this mechanic is, it takes place in a calm environment where you are able to take the time to process what you doing and are learning. That kind of stuff doesn't work in a action slasher shooter with lights and chaos going on everywhere. The laser is a quick an easy reminder of there being a sniper and that you should be moving. 

8 hours ago, TwoWolves said:

A smarter AI would force the players to adapt, and that's really the crux of it. If players were a little more nervous about just running out in the open on an enemy ship, they might be forced to slow down and use strategies they normally wouldn't have with the melee system the way it is right now. Otherwise, DE is going to turn it into...drumroll, please...

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Infinite Warfare: In space: Warframe: It's Freaking Awesome and You Know You Want It: Part III. lol

I think I like the looser feel of the melee system over one that's more controlled like an FPS would be. It adds more of an arcade, fun-but-not-serious feel to it that keeps it light and keeps grinding from being boring: "Ah, I'm sick of killing all these grineer! I know, I'm going to jump off that wall, somersault in mid-air, bounce off that Grineer there, smash his buddy over there, and then roll into a sliding aim while I blast those three over there!"

They've always tried to incorporate agility and mobility even when it was a bug. First is was coptering and wall running. Then the directional melee. Now Bullet jumping and wall skipping. Going by the video it looks like they are adding a new directed ground slam to the mix that works in tandem with that. The movement never looks like something you would see in an FPS. It more a mix of Hack n slash stuff. Make me think of Darksiders 2 or Shinobi(among other things). Especially adding the canceling with the dodges.

A simpler way to help melee is stick with what they've already done so far and work from there. Instead of AI getting smart regarding the environment, focus on against the player itself. Like I said, some infested dodge. So do some of the jetpack grineer. Maybe make the melee oriented enemies a bit agiler(Have you seen how high they leap) and have more than two enemy types capable of blocking but make the weaker ones less likely to or take more damage when blocking. That way heavy melee could have more use then just extra damage. You could use it to knock away shields and blocking enemies. 

[ChromaUmbra]

If blocking costs energy, does that mean that aim gliding with melee will cost energy, since they use the same button?  I really hope not.  I'd rather not be forced to switch to my gun every time I want to glide just to avoid losing energy.

[TwoWolves]

I already knew they seek cover behind boxes and whatnot (especially the Void missions), but yeah, I get what you're saying, too, about it not fitting. That is exactly my concern. Yes, it's a fast-paced shooter/slasher game like Warframe. However, they could replace the lasers of snipers, or any other enemy type for that matter, with a directional red arrow in the UI that flashes and tells you the direction it came from, a la Battlefield and COD. 

This is the exact concern I have, which you have so eloquently, and unintendedly, provided. Messing with the melee system now feels like they're trying to turn that arcade game-feel into Mortal Kombat with button combos and a heavy attack bar. I wouldn't mind it leaning in the other direction, towards realism, but it would be nice to have missions besides assassination or extermination where the goal is to take your time and pick your way through enemies using your head instead of running in and killing everything you can while trying to minimize the damage you take--if you would be able to fly through the room quickly, why wouldn't you? Me, I will kill everything and go back and look at, of all things, just the background environments because I enjoy the visual feast of Grineer and Corpus ships.

Whereas, if DE finds the right variables to tweak, it will be more immersive and realistic without it being oppressive. Smarter AI that will work a room might help. So would increasing the damage from weapons so your shields have less of a buffer effect, and suddenly, gunfire becomes far more lethal. Of course, that would mean the spawn rates would have to be tweaked so you're not overrun and--eh...

No one said the solution would be easy...

My big thing has always been that rolling as a defense is absolute garbage. Rolling sucks. Period. Why you would force us to use it more when it doesn't work when you're surrounded the way Spin Attack does? Seriously, rolling does NOT remove you from the area when you're surrounded by Toxic Ancients mollywhopping your ass. "Oh, I'm going to roll away--right into this other Toxic Ancient standing next to the one I want to get away from! Gee, I'm so glad DE forced me to use roll now that Spin Attack is gone and I can no longer spin my way out of a corner! Thanks, DE!"

*kwai face*

Smh...Rolling + being cornered/surrounded = recipe for frustrated players who are suddenly dying a lot faster because they can no longer fight their way out of the corner with the higher-damage Spin Attack that has the added benefit of removing you from the area.