Melee: Present and Future goals!

[seprent]

4 minutes ago, XzWasPzX said:

Me too, i have Maiming Strike but i dont use it, i find it deeply boring, i dont like to play melee that way, and if i get a riven with maiming strike potential i re roll it cause i dont like it.

 

But thats one point, nerf the entire melee system another one, very different. 

so what are you concerned about bloodrush and weeping or something else entirely? ive reread the thread and complaining points seem to be all over the place 

[Vecasra]

I know I'm going to be the minority here, but I don't want to see the nerf to spin attacks. But, well...:/

Also, there are various Warframe abilities are affected by combo multiplier; if the combo multiplier is going to change, are those abilities going to adjust as well?

-

BTW, I have a strong feeling that the "melee won't pass though wall" may end up with "melee can't hit an enemy because there is a small bump between player and the enemy."  But we'll see...

[(XBOX)Spartan117qz]

I can see some extremely troubling ideas here. First, you should not have Heavy Attacks consume all the combo counter, instead have it charge and drain the counter as you do so, scaling the damage up to a cap and forcing the attack to go through if you don't roll out of the charge. consuming somewhere between 10 and 25 points of the combo counter at a time would be much better than accidentially losing the 3k combo stack you have if you hold LT with your melee out instead of your gun.

Next, you should add in a "secondary fire" to melee and keep channeling separate from blocking. There aren't many frames that have infinite energy to be able to block all the time. I love the current Blind Justice block combo, but if using that always drained my energy, I'd just stop using what was fun. 

You need to remember that what we want is consistency, don't overcomplicate things for the sake of nerfing spin2win.

In the event you decide to not go through with the full overhaul of melee, you should keep a few things. First, make melee attacks go through soft walls like guns with punchthrough do. A Grineer panel, and Corpus crate, a corner of a pile of crap in insert venus open world name here.

Second, make the Naramon melee counter passive the default and make the passive on Naramon make the melee counter not decay at all at max. (decay rate by percent, negating decay at 100% max rank). Just to make Body Count and/or Drifting Contact an optional mod, instead of one you need in order to use anything other than a Condition Overload setup.

Third, keep the directional slam. 

Fourth, and final, don't completely nerf it, but do reduce the stupid ranges you can get on melee weapons. A good Guandao Riven can get your swinging your blade on a stick at over 14 meters away.  Having that rest at somewhere like, I dunno... 9? With a riven and primed reach. that sounds fair enough.

Now to reiterate, for the love of all the gods in the abyss, do not make heavy attacks eat all your combo, make melee scale with something other than just crit going up from Blood Rush (for example, a style system that rates your use of combos and increases your damage as you use variety rather than "Oh, this opens for finishers, time to only ever use this") and please, please let me still open boxes through chest high walls with my sword instead of jumping though to window, or wasting ammo.

It's up to you guys to make this good, please don't stick a $&*^ in melee's metaphorical eye and make it worse than pre-shadow debt.

And finally, Obligatory "Warframe's melee combat is gonna be like Dark Souls" joke.

[XzWasPzX]

Justo ahora, seprent dijo:

so what are you concerned about bloodrush and weeping or something else entirely? ive reread the thread and complaining points seem to be all over the place 

The problem is that slam and heavy attacks destroy the potential of speed. At the same time it eliminates the effectiveness of Blood Rush that is the heart of many melee builds. Personally, and as a melee player, I need the combo multiplier and speed, without which I am absolutely nothing. This rework leaves me in the absolute nothingness with changes that completely restructure melee weapons. I do not use hacks, I do not use Maiming Strike, I do not attack through the walls ... and yet this destroys me. Makes sense? Not for me.

[DatDarkOne]

1 hour ago, Xydeth said:

i use it on some builds with rivens specifically for channel to create artificial crits basically for 1 energy with around 2.2 multiplier...artificial crit is a stretch maybe since its 100% on every attack but still. the combination of crit viability, condition overload and channeling mixed into one drink is actually insta dead drunk state damage wise. its a shame most ppl copy paste the opinion of others since channeling just needs some improvements on mods. the -efficiency is just too silly to make it worth the positive of most mods so in my opinion the energy economy of channeling just needs improvement. maybe also improving the actual math behind +channeling damage would help too since it doesnt really do what one would expect from the numbers. 

my scindo prime on such a build ended up doing 14k dmg per crit attack without combo counter and stealth. condition overload not added into that, neither stance multipliers. i rly wish ppl wouldve tested other things out more. it surely doesnt scale infinitely as combo does but it can still go vs rly high lv enemies without combo counter. i think if more ppl played around with that it would be more obvious statistics wise that channeling just needs improvement, surely not removal from the game or 100% focus into blocking. maybe i misunderstand what they exactly mean by that but it sounds to me like i will have to endo these rivens so very sadly. i do hope it wont come to that but....

Channeling sucks up A LOT of energy when you have LifeStrike equipped due to the negative to channeling efficiency.  Once I got away from LS, I noticed instantly how much more I could channeled attacks without draining my energy.  

This lead to things like experimenting more with Dispatch Overdrive, using the channeled throw of the Orvius more, etc.  As long as you don't have a negative channeling efficiency mod on, channeling is actually pretty good and useful.  

[MirageKnight]

These proposed changes sound great on paper...but I really want Heavy attacks to have some meaning to them, other than doing added damage at the cost of increased times between attacks and at the cost of combo stacks.

For instance, Heavy attacks should be able to break / overpower any enemy blocks. For example, the first heavy attack 1 breaks the block, leaving the enemy completely open to a follow up attack or possibly a Finisher.

Adding to this, I'd like to see blocking to mean more to us than just repelling incoming ranged fire. As it stands, I don't feel the need to really block unless there's a ton of incoming fire that I can't dodge or tank well enough. I want to see more enemies wield melee attacks that will make me think "I need to block this because this will probably hurt A LOT."
 

[ShogunGunshow]

What I feel from most of these changes is that DE wishes its melee system performed like a character action game, like Bayonetta or Nier Automata.

Thing is, those games have like 3-4 enemies on screen, slow telegraphed attacks, and take multiple seconds to dispose of even the weakest, involving juggling, launchers, stingers, etc.

Warframe is a game where you are encouraged to mow enemies down as fast as possible. Enemies need to die in the blink of an eye before they can kill you, or before someone else cleans them up for you. No amount of cool-factor is going to make a Lenz-wielder popping by and wiping out the entire enemy group you're fighting in one shot any less frustrating.

The systems you want to put in and the game you're designing it for are at odds. They don't mix. 

[Sasuda]

4 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Combo Counter minimum hits per tier adjusted significantly so higher tiers can be reached more quickly and easily.

Good

Quote

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

Combo only on heavy attack? What counts as heavy attack? Points spent? Points?

4 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Revisiting Melee will focus on slam and heavy attacks to make them more useful and fun to use.

Nice, although slam attacks aren't too shabby hoping they will be a little less clunky here

Spoiler

4 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

While channeled blocking is useful on paper (hello 100% damage block + enemy hits reflected back), channeled damage has never really been celebrated beyond 'cool factor'. Getting rid of a separate channeling button frees up an input allowing us an additional attack button to use in combos making them easier to perform.

Heck yes

4 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Stances will be revisited to normalize combo inputs AND all combos will be reorganized to be more useful and fun to use!

So all inputs will be combos on all weapons??

Overall it sounds fantastic, no weapons through walls is good but they can still go through bodies right? What if it hits a wall and enemies? does it still hit? Those little things and obviously re-balancing are a little concerning as to how they'll turn out exactly but looks nice.

BIG EDIT: Can we get some info on what may happen to channeling mods will they be shifted to combo specific mods? So Life strike is a button combo? Or movement speed after ^^vvABAB?

ALSO: Dealing with dead bodies? how? Will heavy attacks evaporate them?

[H1ndenburg]

On the topic of melee going forward, something else that was mentioned many moons ago on another devstream was the idea of changing how melee stances were acquired. Any news on that front? Is there a possibility of seeing that rolled into this plan as well?

 

38 minutes ago, seprent said:

 

Spoiler

 

here some people might want this the doomsayers are coming and i want to watch S#&$ burn and enjoy the sound of prices drop as all the spin to win people come out and see people be salty 

my acual thoughts blood rush and weeping should still behave as they normally would and to people saying oh your trying to hit one person in a horde shooter your one swing can hit as many people as the weapon will allow and range is still a thing just being toned down 

so simmer down or not either way S#&$s fun to read

 

 

Oh sweet! Popcorn!

[seprent]

4 minutes ago, XzWasPzX said:

The problem is that slam and heavy attacks destroy the potential of speed. At the same time it eliminates the effectiveness of Blood Rush that is the heart of many melee builds. Personally, and as a melee player, I need the combo multiplier and speed, without which I am absolutely nothing. This rework leaves me in the absolute nothingness with changes that completely restructure melee weapons. I do not use hacks, I do not use Maiming Strike, I do not attack through the walls ... and yet this destroys me. Makes sense? Not for me.

well if the combo counter is faster to get up and is a the key component in both blood rush and weeping wounds opting for the odd heavy attack here and there you should be fine to build it back up as for the speed thing well if its attack speed nothing really seems all the different from what we have now if its efficiently in killing a group from what i could tell ya is get a longer reach weapon like the galatine or just raise your attack speed to counter the number of enemies hit thing or thinking of like a status weapon and getting procs like viral and corrostion and such

since blood rush ups your crit chance maybe stack more heavily on your critical multiplier so you can more bang out if it besides the counter not jsut being fuel for a choice of a heavy attack not much in my sense of melee has changed from what we know so far i might not be as bad as it sounds on paper who knows

do i wish we could test it? yes. do i wish i could ask rebecca questions to help calm my girlfriend down who is a melee valkyr nut-job? yes. Do i think it will be bad? hmm in my mind no as of right now.  Do i think some people (not all) are blowing this WAY out of proportion? yes when do they not 

[Buttaface]

Since the advent of exodia arcanes, channeling is in a great place and extremely powerful. The most powerful melee weapons in the higher level game now are not maiming strike weapons, but exodia modified zaws that use sped up regular stance combos in proc forcing stances with hybrid CO/BR builds. Just like it took many months for players to figure out that lesion was good, or the gas damage bug, it is taking them months to figure out the power of channeling now. Want to kill high level things fast while perma channeling yet maintaining full or near full energy? Zenurik + fast zaws + exodia. If they did scrap channeling, they would have to rework exodia valor, triumph and brave. To be clear, channeling was bad in the past, but is very good now, just takes the right gear, focus, arcanes, stances and weapons to know it for what it is. Of course maim whips and polearms are still king below 100, and below 120 or so with team buffs/debuffs. Past that, and stances offer so much more CC and other perqs (exodia hunt for example) than maiming with similar dmg output.

Instead of scrapping the system, they should just buff the base damage add of channeling a wee bit to ~75-80% from 50%. Problem solved.

[Urlan]

4 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

We all use it - even us here. The dizzying yet super-effective slaughter-tornado that can make all other Arsenal options obsolete. But spin to win and melee going through walls - should it stay the way it is? At present time, we don't think so.

I think my stats show I am mostly shooting things and I think only one weapon even uses acolyte conditionals. I like my weapons as heavy hitting as I can in as few swings which doesn't  make me well-suited to melee quick attack spam. That said, while the message of focusing on heavy strikes and melee slams endears me, I have noticed for a while that slams don't use the normal weapon damage stat - is this something that will be changed as well? - if so, will we be going back to our melee before stances, when slams and charge attacks were our only recourse outside finishers for slower melee? I like the visual flash of super jumps directing into distanced slams but wonder how that will work in regard to current movement and control schemes; will this be similar in application but confer the movement or make forward 'wall attack' strikes obsolete? Will these slams still benefit from combo's or other melee boosts or will they be using altered stats and boosts?

While channel block might sound good on paper, its application was lacking as realistically you could not easily maintain the energy required, it was only one direction, and enemies have much more life than their still high damage. While I did use this at times, it didn't last long in this state as the stamina and energy costs were too high to make a practical use of it in a fight. In the sample videos themselves, I am seeing what appear to be quick attacks and basic three button press type combos; is this with or without combos from Stances or is this element of the last melee rework being altered as well? "Useful and fun" are quite subjective and I think we would need more feedback on what is allowed to be considered fun and useful in the context of the game; as while I didn't much care for the E spam, I have several allies and acquaintances that did. What will this melee attack stance normalization entail? Something akin to Conclave's stripped down combos or more akin to how charge attacks and quick attacks work for weapons stances currently? What changes to mods that rely on Channeling currently can we expect?

 

[seprent]

1 minute ago, H1ndenburg said:

On the topic of melee going forward, something else that was mentioned many moons ago on another devstream was the idea of changing how melee stances were acquired. Any news on that front? Is there a possibility of seeing that rolled into this plan as well?

 

Oh sweet! Popcorn!

your welcome i dont want to say im a old tenno but i feel old when i see this kinda stuff happen since it doesnt phase me at all it does how ever alittle bit annoy me that people who havent tested it only seen what we been show that we know is WIP and start doomsaying all over the place BUT that doesnt not mean i cant enjoy the fires it causes and occasionally speak the fire like some crazy cultist i colored my harrow to look like

[(PSN)Robby_Bevard]

Light and heavy attacks? Where you use the light attack to build up to the strong ones? Musou style? YES!  That's absolutely a step in the right direction!

For combos, could you switch it up so that instead of getting OOOupOOOO or OOpauseOOOOOO, things that can be really inconsistent or hard to time, (especially when attack speed can change dramatically) let the combos work with the new strong attack, so that the combo can instead be OOAA or OAO or AOOO and the like.  That's how the musou games do it and it gives you so much more variety and control to the combos.  (God of War or Dark Souls style combat is cool too but the gunplay and the hoards make it a little unfeasible.)  It's not quite as button mashey and it lets you trigger the combo you want more consistently.

(I understand you want the strong attacks to be built up to, and that's fine, but combo input could be way more intuitive like that.) 

[Lorechill]

Might I suggest that spending the combo counter points be on a "Final Move" sort of like how the 'tension'/energy gauge works for arcade versus games. It could be executed via the last, longest most complicated combo string of a stance or charging the heavy attack to level 5 which could take time and make you quite 'vulnerable'.  We could add a second layer to it, for ex.: 100 combo points to execute the Final move, offering up another 50 combo points could chain it into a "Secret Attack" that is much more powerful and glorious than the "Final attack" and could only be executed at the end of the "Final attack" with the right timing. That way there's an added depth and meaning as to why we would want to increase and maintain our combo counter. Might I add that the "Final and Secret" attack should be per stance and not per weapon type. This would reflect the stance's name and add true meaning and personality to it. 

[seprent]

Just now, Lorechill said:

Might I suggest that spending the combo counter points be on a "Final Move" sort of like how the 'tension'/energy gauge works for arcade versus games. It could be executed via the last, longest most complicated combo string of a stance or charging the heavy attack to level 5 which could take time and make you quite 'vulnerable'.  We could add a second layer to it, for ex.: 100 combo points to execute the Final move, offering up another 50 combo points could chain it into a "Secret Attack" that is much more powerful and glorious than the "Final attack" and could only be executed at the end of the "Final attack" with the right timing. That way there's an added depth and meaning as to why we would want to increase and maintain our combo counter. Might I add that the "Final and Secret" attack should be per stance and not per weapon type. This would reflect the stance's name and add true meaning and personality to it. 

so tempo royal is alot of spinning and slamming im game for that 

[dudefaceguy]

3 hours ago, LazerSkink said:

I'm just fearing what will happen to Life Strike, being the only reason I care about Channeling at all.

Very easy to change it. For example, it could activate only on charge attacks, and convert energy into health. Not much of an issue, I think.

[(PSN)Fefo-M]

Whenever I intend to do a corpus mission I find myself evading the same frames over and over for 1 main reason: nullifiers bubble are still too hard to pop as a melee based frame/melee only user, the weak spot rework only solved the issue for ranged weapons. So, is it possible to add a defensive mechanism against nullifier's bubbles for melee?

Maybe channeling could have increased damage against bubbles making it easier to pop them (for example: 2/3 channeled hits vs 5/6 regular hits).

 

[Eldnacpeek]

3 hours ago, dudefaceguy said:

Very easy to change it. For example, it could activate only on charge attacks, and convert energy into health. Not much of an issue, I think.

 

I was more referring to straight up removal of the mod instead of translation into the new system because of my pessimism, but I do hope you're right.

[CronkoBosh]

We will see what the changes bring, with further in game testing.  I am all for the changes to melee to break up current metas.

[Mach25]

34 minutes ago, MirageKnight said:

These proposed changes sound great on paper...but I really want Heavy attacks to have some meaning to them, other than doing added damage at the cost of increased times between attacks and at the cost of combo stacks.

For instance, Heavy attacks should be able to break / overpower any enemy blocks. For example, the first heavy attack 1 breaks the block, leaving the enemy completely open to a follow up attack or possibly a Finisher.

Adding to this, I'd like to see blocking to mean more to us than just repelling incoming ranged fire. As it stands, I don't feel the need to really block unless there's a ton of incoming fire that I can't dodge or tank well enough. I want to see more enemies wield melee attacks that will make me think "I need to block this because this will probably hurt A LOT."
 

This man... magnifique!

[fantaisie]

DE if u really want to make the melee weapon combat/combo system fun, please consult Devil May Cry franchise/Dynasty warriors/Soul Calibur. Yea, it'll require more work on your part to put in that amount of depth. But O will it be worth it. Trust me.

[(PSN)Frozenfenrir]

i think they should explain in detail what would happen to blood rush, weeping wounds, so we can have a better idea, also how will life strike work, at least thats my main concern those mods have become the heart of many many builds, for many a weapon that can achive 100% crit is more useful that a heavy single attack, in terms of dps. so give a more indepth explantion might settle doubts and give players a better idea and get a better opinions.

[Vanillu]

5 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

 

Scenes like this are all too common, our data shows this method in particular is often abused by automation, and our minds show it just simply isn't fun.

The melee review is taking the longest. It has the most complexity - you can equip Melee, use combos, channel, stealth kill, hit multiple targets, and so on. Removing the clear 'spin to win through walls' is our first step in this plan of making all things melee engagement better.

The first change melee will see before it's broader review is a change to how melee attacks work. The coming change:
 

• Melee attacks (including spin attacks) will no longer sweep through walls or objects.

 

Lemme give some constructive criticism.

The reason why those scenes are extremely common is because when frames have low survivability, sometimes (at least the reason for me) is to make use of a corner so you do not get one shot by high level enemies. Sure, I could not care if I was Inaros or Rhino, but when I wanna use a frame that has low survivability (in example, volt, mag, excal, ember, even in situations where I am using QT as Loki and have low energy) all of these frames are prime examples of per se, if a person wanted to use them in high level gameplay (maybe perhaps they're not the most efficient but that is entirely up to the person whether they want to play them in high gameplay) just kinda makes survivability for them in general overall worse. You will be caught out more by having to rely not on corners with melees. I do not honestly care about the whole max range wall spam slide attack gimmic, but relying on melees to hit through walls adds a level of survivability to less tanky frames in all honesty.

[Lorechill]

14 minutes ago, seprent said:

so tempo royal is alot of spinning and slamming im game for that 

Ikr! Imagine Tempo Royale's final move moving from one enemy after the other beating and pounding them into submission like an arrogant monarch with such grace and speed in a rhythmic manner and last hit turns the enemy into pile of protein paste... oh the glorious super combo finish!