Melee: Present and Future goals!

[-Anterior-]

I was disgusted with spin to win.And I think that reinforcement of weapon change speed is necessary.When does this change come?

[Granitore]

Oh i think channeling is good, but i am curious how the new heavy attacks will work, but i have one big fear:

 

vor 15 Stunden schrieb [DE]Rebecca:

Channeling is blocking, blocking is channeling! Normal blocking now performs like channeled blocking currently does. Experiments such as constant energy drain or a separate resource, blocked hits adding to Combo Counter are ongoing.

 

Does that mean blocking now will cost energy every time i block ??? I mean: that would be not good for meele fights, because, what happens when you dont have any energy left (or the seperate resource)....does that mean you can´t block when you dont have any energy / resources, also i dont want to use energy, but a new resource looks like it would make the game more complicated, why not just leave blocking like it is and instead add some mods to modify it ???

[viperveteran]

I too use channelling builds and would also like some clarification on what they meant because, I am guessing here, most of the people who used channelling builds don't even care about channel blocking and most of the people who even choose to channel only do so for lifestrike.

I use channeling builds if I want to do a stealth mission so that there are no bodies to be discovered. I also use channelling builds on my melee brawler frame loadouts like my Ash and Excal, they need lifestrike to survive so if melee attack channelling is being changed it will make their builds less self sufficient.

Please clarify DE

[PlagueOfGripes]

I encourage change in this area. I know it's common for fans to get Stockholm'ed into feature hoarding useless mechanics, so you'll probably get a lot of resistance. It's hard to get rid of things once they're added in, even if the initial design was poor, simply due to foolishness on the part of the player base.

I'm glad to see channeling, blocking and charge attacks getting lumped together or removed. It's good to see combos getting streamlined. Especially with variable attack speeds and the way movement works, forward / backward or timed press combos are too obnoxious to bother with. Anything related to motion inputs or timed inputs should be removed entirely from the system.

Assuming a maximum of four combos per weapon (which I believe is the max now), you can end up with either a two input system or a four input system, depending on how blocking and channeling works. If you're going to have four attacks instead of two, make sure combos exist for a good reason other than a forced visual variety people will stop using after a few weeks.

Heavy attacks. Warframe has this problem of overvaluing damage over utility. Enemies require almost no effort to dispatch. Combos are highly beneficial, as it carries over from target to target. In relation to function, why would a heavy attack exist at all? I don't need more damage. It should be capable of clearing an entire room, or pull in enemies, or stun enemies in a line, or so on. Do NOT go for more damage. That will never be needed in this system. Heavy attacks should be a utility-driven move that reflects the cost of the resource you are spending. To that end, I can't possibly see anyone ever spending all your meter to get one, especially if it's just +damage in a game of hundreds of glass targets. It doesn't matter how fast you generate it. The system will only be appealing if heavy attacks drain a set amount, or at worst, a percentage. If you make it all your meter, it will be a dead mechanic.

As far as channeling goes, the only reason why channeling should exist at all is simply because there are mods for it that exist already. Warframe doesn't need yet more +damage mechanics that don't do anything useful. I also don't think making channeling reduce energy is a good idea, as many other mechanics already aggressively pursue this in a game state in which most people don't use channeling. It will only push people away from the mechanic.

To that end, I would suggest that Channeling simply be a timed mode you enter that locks out your ability to gain combo, but activates all your channeling mods and grants some innate resistance to damage, or gives back 1 energy per kill, or similar. Something other than it simply being -energy, +damage, as I most certainly would never bother using such a system.

Combos. Most existing ones are for visual variety, and do nothing useful. That needs to change. Some do have forced status procs, although this is rare, and unlisted in-game. Either way, move away from it being damage focused, as if one has better test numbers, there's no reason to ever use the others.

I'd also personally love to see Maiming Strike just deleted from the game. To hell with that horrid thing.

But to summarize: Focus on utility. Get away from +damage. People won't use heavy attacks if it reduces combo too aggressively, regardless of its new income rate. Heavy attacks should do something besides deal more damage to enemies that never need it. People also won't use channeling if it reduces energy, regardless of how well balanced you believe it to be. Channeling itself should have a utility driven function rather than a damage obsessed one. Combos should exist for a good reason other than animation preference.

[Oreades]

5 minutes ago, viperveteran said:

I too use channelling builds and would also like some clarification on what they meant because, I am guessing here, most of the people who used channelling builds don't even care about channel blocking and most of the people who even choose to channel only do so for lifestrike.

I use channeling builds if I want to do a stealth mission so that there are no bodies to be discovered. I also use channelling builds on my melee brawler frame loadouts like my Ash and Excal, they need lifestrike to survive so if melee attack channelling is being changed it will make their builds less self sufficient.

Please clarify DE

I got the impression that the channeling exclusive mods would be converted in some way to work with a post channeling melee system. 

[NeON_RaDianT]

How about, implementing light finishers. Staggering should be more common as well as having the ability to open enemies up to light finishers. Such finisher should deal about 1.5x the normal heavy attack damage. Animations should be like, jumping on to an enemy and then stabbing them hard. Something like that...

[BlueFan99]

Best of luck DE! I hope you finally fix melee

[Renzo]

16 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.

Please, make it go away. It would also be much more interesting if the melee range did not exceed 20 meters like it does with some builds as this is completely absurd.

[RayzExile]

I like all that stuff, returning to Old upgraded system.
But, i have only 1 question: Can we change that stupid full-round crosshair to usal one, cuz it's imposible to shoot in dual wielding mode 😕

[-VS-Tora]

how is Bloodrush going to function with the rework?

[Skyrage]

53 minutes ago, Kboy2608 said:

I hate to say it but i think there are many problems might happened when the change come.. 

First of all, i agree that camping and sliding is definitely not fun. But make all the melees cant hit trough walls will not only kill that play style, but every other style that based on long range weapons as well. You can explain that it's unrealistic to hit through object, but let's applying our game concept here. Except POE, more than 90% of our contents (including Onslaught, the newest game mode) are using "normal" designed maps which tons of obstacle, stairs, corridors and walls. If people are forced to run around those things trying to hit mobs, how can long range weapons can even compare to short range ones which can hit harder, faster and has better overall moves sets. And if we being realistic here, long two-hand weapons were never been intended to be used in that case of combat environment, Only extremely short range weapons are suitable, which means anythings beside daggers and machetes weapons have been put in the game were wrong in the first places. Furthermore, if there are too many people abuse using that one kind of mods in a specific type of mission, why go around and making serious impact on others but dont simply straight up nerfing those type of mods or make change in the mission? Like what DE do in kuva survival, it's a damn tier 3 survival with stronger mobs and S#&$ but nobody camp!!

For the combo counter part, i think it is just so wrong. There are tons of people discussing about the mechanic and S#&$ so i dont want to repeat those knowledge again. I just have 1 single thing to say. Like DE needs to add thousands and thousands of base damage to compensate the lost in combo counters, what might be a possible consequence? Newbies will be able to 1 hit everything in the star chart using their not well- modded melees without considering any combo counters and S#&$ while veterans will struggle killing high level MOBs with their normal attack. Dont  you guys think that kind of change may push new players away due to boredom and long-time players away due to rage and confusion?  

P/s: I may complain too soon but i love melees in this game more than anythings and all those changes seem too bad in my opinion. So i rather complain first before somethings (potentially) very bad happen!

I see no reason why you can't add a second melee slot specific for daggers. Daggers (and other short range weapons) could simply be put into a secondary melee category.

Ninjas are supposed to be armed to the teeth and for all kinds of situations anyway so.....

[Lorechill]

8 hours ago, NightmareT12 said:

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on this: I play on controller, I am an avid fan of both fighting games and hack and slashes, but I need to note this now: You're taking a wrong premise in all this. Warframe is a fast paced shooter game at its core. You can't remove the Triangle/Y/F button mapping in any way for two things:

• Tried a similar system to GoW, making my D-pad arrows switch weapons. That stops movement because you take off the thumb from the stick.
  GoW allows you to block while doing it, DMC has you use the triggers to switch weapons (and let's remember this is first and foremost a shooter) and Ninja Gaiden PAUSES while you do switch weapons. We're on a multiplayer game. There's already enough compromises with Reload and Context being bound together and haveing to use a Power Menu.
• We used to have the game working like that, before U13. I assure you with absolute confidence it wasn't good, hence why DE catered to being able to use Melee as a standalone option -- but never forgetting we play a shooter with power avatars. That's exactly the goal here, and that's something to be kept in mind -- no one will sacrifice using a rifle or pistol or make them behave like in a game that's vastly different. Trying to suggest otherwise is giving a flawed argument from the basis. It would also be a complete step back. As someone that's played in the older days, before Bulletjump was a thing and you only had to sprint, I can assure you.

Warframe can never be like that unless you completely sacrifice the shooter aspect of the game. Which it won't.

You totally make sense and I'm quite saddened by this. I played Warframe in hopes that it would become the great hack and slash, space 'ninja' game it would be. I was hoping it would be my "If DMC and Musou had a baby in space" kinda game. I wish we can find a compromise between great shooting mechanics and melee combat. Swords, "magic" and wall running was what lured me into Warframe, you know, like a (hollywood-ized)"ninja". 

[OliverSniper]

As an Ash main why would I use a heavy strike? It will reset my combo counter thus making my Blade Storm  lot weaker . Same goes for Atlas, Excal and other frames who use the combo counter. Imo it's a bad idea for heavys to drain combo counter cos of these powers s well as cos it will mes up Blood rush and Weeping wounds as well thos no one will use hevy strikes and we have the same problem as before where we have charge atacks but we just ignore them. Maybe make it so that they drain x/seconds of "charging" ? Hell I would prefer them draining energy eaven but let them leave my combo counter alone

[XzWasPzX]

Justo ahora, -VS-Tora dijo:

how is Bloodrush going to function with the rework?

I would ask, its gonna even work? 

 

They seem to hate Blodd Rush, but in the end its the only way to scale damage in high level missions. 

[vaarnaaarne]

You could just nuke Maiming Strike from existence if it's such a problem, or simply alter its function to make Spin2Win nonfunctional.

 

In terms of actual changes, what melee needs more than anything is reworking of how combo input works. Simply put, the current system supports two kinds of combos with universal reliability: Mash the button, mash the button with RMB held, mash the button with forward pressed down. Hold and delay based combos are simply fundamentally unsuited for a game (same with how terrain and object blocked melee is also fundamentally unsuitable to Warframe because of the sheer number of collisions possible) where attacks can be as fast as they are in Warframe.

Ideally you would have two or three melee attack buttons, and combos would be based around going from button to another, or finishing the specific button's combo.

Also channeling button could just be relocated to Reload button. Life Strike is absolutely vital to melee, and changing how it works is about as perilous as changing how multi-shot works for firearms.

[rawnerv]

since melee weapons have button combinations, maiming strike could/should be changed to be activated by the second button combination

[drup33]

You know instead of removing melee counter as a whole, you could add something new like "rage" bar, it will filled up as u killing more enemies, and u got to choose wether u want to empty it completely or u want to use it bit by bit, if u empty it conpletely u got slight weapon buff like speed buff, or something else

[KingPetran]

How about making the charged attack have something more special (like gunblades , glaives , blades and whips etc).Kinda hard to do that for every single melee weapon but how about something special in heavy attacks in every melee type .For example heavy attacks for hammers can stay the same , swords heavy attacks will do a multystrike , ninkanas heavy attacks will do a small combo (2-3 strikes) and stuff like that.

[(PSN)Gin_Da_Merciless]

28 minutes ago, NeON_RaDianT said:

How about, implementing light finishers. Staggering should be more common as well as having the ability to open enemies up to light finishers. Such finisher should deal about 1.5x the normal heavy attack damage. Animations should be like, jumping on to an enemy and then stabbing them hard. Something like that...

Definitely want to see much more finishers tgen what we have in game but i feel they need to change how finishers are done so you dont do it in the middle of hordes since it takes priority when an enemy is sleep or blinded.

[(PSN)DAVEGADGETBOY]

Has anyone said what's going to happen to all our melee rivens with channelling damage on them, or those exodias that currently provide a boost to channelling damage?

[-Bv-Psykiik]

17 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

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

that is horrible .. OMG 

you know in any survival mission by time goes the mobs become stronger, tougher and their lvl increases ..by combo system now its ok because the more tough mobs are the more combo counter i already built so i still can manage it  ... but with the new change to combo counter system you want me to spend all combo counter that i have built for a long time in 1 single attack and leave me helpless with base damage against mobs that are tougher than the one i fought when i start the mission ?? 

thats is reallly very bad idea and ..the moment i use heavy attack and spend combo counter i will just extract and leave cos its pointless to try to build combo counter again 

[FelanGrey]

First of all I want to tell that in this game you have to kill crowds to get resources.

 

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

Well, it's looks right, but if between me and enemies would be little crate or stairs (that could shootthrow without punchthrough) and I can't get mob with my melee - it would be bad thing.

Quote

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.

Channeling is blocking, blocking is channeling! Normal blocking now performs like channeled blocking currently does. Experiments such as constant energy drain or a separate resource, blocked hits adding to Combo Counter are ongoing.

We're still working on how/if to include the 'cool factor' of Channeling in combat.

The most UNCOOL factor of this is energy drain. Seriously, channeling always was bad because you have to sacrifice mod slots to put mods that would benefit for using channeling but all of tham increase energy drain, that isn't low.
I really like to play with melee only and not using only spin to win. All I can tell - I don't use blocking, because I'd better use Blast or stances to control enemies and kill them. Dead mob can't deal damage, right?

So, better remove it completely than enforce as to use it, or make greater benefits from using it, like increasing status/crit chance, damage to x3 rather than 1,5 ets. Also would be great, if channeling would much less drain energy.

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Combo Counter minimum hits per tier adjusted significantly so higher tiers can be reached more quickly and easily. Combo Counter damage multiplier may apply to heavy attack only and all points are spent on attack.

If you'll increase all melee damage x3 (because this combo multiplier is the most useful and easy to achieve) - I don't mind. But this would mean that low lvl would die really fast, so you don't need heavy attack.
Also that all points are spent on heavy attack doesn't sound right, if mods like Blood Rush will remain.

For now I don't use heavy attack because it so slow to charge and doesn't benefit enough.

Quote

FX treatment representing the true Range of melee attacks will be implemented. 

Why in the game we still don't have stat "range" for melee weapons?

 

 

 

[Steel_Will]

At 26 pages I doubt this will get read but please do not get rid of the current combo system. The current system works well, there are too many mods and skills dependent on it, and it will neuter the damage from quick melee. All the other changes I'm glad to see but please don't go forward with this combo counter change. Please make the charge for the heavy attack a separate pool from the combo counter. 

Please. 

 

[(PSN)Gin_Da_Merciless]

45 minutes ago, vaarnaaarne said:

You could just nuke Maiming Strike from existence if it's such a problem, or simply alter its function to make Spin2Win nonfunctional.

 

In terms of actual changes, what melee needs more than anything is reworking of how combo input works. Simply put, the current system supports two kinds of combos with universal reliability: Mash the button, mash the button with RMB held, mash the button with forward pressed down. Hold and delay based combos are simply fundamentally unsuited for a game (same with how terrain and object blocked melee is also fundamentally unsuitable to Warframe because of the sheer number of collisions possible) where attacks can be as fast as they are in Warframe.

Ideally you would have two or three melee attack buttons, and combos would be based around going from button to another, or finishing the specific button's combo.

Also channeling button could just be relocated to Reload button. Life Strike is absolutely vital to melee, and changing how it works is about as perilous as changing how multi-shot works for firearms.

What if they made it to where you could change stances mid combo but keep your combo going or restart the combo some way with a light stun when u switch stances. Make it to where the weapon swapping button doesnt swap weapons while ur meleeing so it along with the reload button can be used in combos. This would allow for us to do combos more quickly and also allow for the implementation of hold button combos for more variety or harder hits during combos.  Just as long as there can be no pauses or directional inputs on combos.  Its annoying having to move back to do a combo.  

By defaul channeling can be stance switching , tapping weapon swap can be heavy attack while holding the button will switch to guns and reload can be for stealth kill or attacking a downed enemy (finisher i guess?).  When blocking u should aim where your attacking like if you were using exalted blade for high or low enemies. Also there should be a heavy attack for aiming while meleeing

there should be A LOT more finishers and heavy combos.  Something like atleast starting combos with heavysthen continuing the combo with light or heavy attacks afterword. Same for light attacks.

[HawkBlade94]

17 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

•  

These videos show what we have so far. The first is showing quick attacks and heavy attacks together, with emphasis on direction ground attacks. The second video hows you how combat looks against invincible enemies so you can get a feel! 

The more I look at this the more it reminds me of Warrior series attack patterns. Using "light" (quick?) attack to go into combo and finishing it with "heavy" (charge) attack.

I think that this is good way of doing melee system (yes I am aware of other better systems in other games). One thing I am concerned is this:

17 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Combo Counter minimum hits per tier adjusted significantly so higher tiers can be reached more quickly and easily. Combo Counter damage multiplier may apply to heavy attack only and all points are spent on attack.

If this isn't done properly everything falls (concerning melee). This feels like Musou gauge in Warrior game but it isn't. It is spent every time you use heavy attack and you spend it all. It breaks immersion of using light and heavy attacks and I feel like this is just a patch for stances rather than rework. Like using stances that we have and just adding one more attack at the end of it that will spend all combo meter if we decide to use it.