Melee: Present and Future goals!

[csaszar]

Stopping spin to win is Ok. Its a neccesity and i am truly happy it happens.

Killing the channeling system should not happen. Its a well balanced way to get a ton of buffs and allows a huge variety of melee builds. Please consider not to replace it with some inferior stuff.

Generaly melee must be sustainable. I mean for the player. You can jump and make huge attack, chain combos and do light and heavy attacks in a fighting game like mortal combat where a session lasts a few mins. Cant do that hours long in a game like Warframe. Its simply not sustainable.

Make combos more achievable but not absolutely required and for the love of god dont remove channeling.

Remove spin to win instead an then ppl will learn to use melee properly.

[csaszar]

And please dont trade spin to win to jump to win.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

Please don't remove combos completely and make melee playable by an earthworm

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

Make life strike heal a much smaller percentage, but make apply to all melee hits.

[BeardyKyle]

4 hours ago, (PS4)TheRallykiller said:

I don't disagree, but my feeling is they have insight (data) into exactly how melee is used and actual player use of combos...hence the changes.

The Melee 3.0 rework is, IMHO, a response to actual player in-game behavior and not developer reaction to forum complaints.

A lot of past changes and updates that I recall, as noted by Steve/Sheldon/Rebb/Etc. in devstreams, are alterations to in-game mechanics informed by metrics pulled and aggregated from how Warframe players do [INSERT MECHANIC HERE].

Combos just may be something that the playerbase doesn't use despite fellow Tenno saying they do (sometimes people have a tendency to say one thing and do another).

2

I think the issue, at least IMO, is that "combos" in warframe aren't exactly "combos" - from a fighting game perspective anyway. I think combining directional inputs and more than one attack option (heavy + light) in combos is definitely the way to go and will remove the need to memorise every stance's button press and instead allow players to experiment with inputs and memorise the results. A lot more fun imo. 

 

3 hours ago, (XB1)Architect Prime said:

Please don't remove combos completely and make melee playable by an earthworm

Melee combos right now are so thoughtless and easy that it doesn't present an incentive to use variations in combos. It's simply memorising the best combo string in a stance, then repeat. Having to craft your own combos by directional input, plus knowing when to use heavy attacks, launchers, dash attacks etc. is much more interesting. Even more so if there's a large variation in different stances. Also, visually it really shows off the individual animations which is something you don't really get to enjoy enough I think.

4 hours ago, Csaszar said:

Stopping spin to win is Ok. Its a neccesity and i am truly happy it happens.

Killing the channeling system should not happen. Its a well balanced way to get a ton of buffs and allows a huge variety of melee builds. Please consider not to replace it with some inferior stuff.

Generaly melee must be sustainable. I mean for the player. You can jump and make huge attack, chain combos and do light and heavy attacks in a fighting game like mortal combat where a session lasts a few mins. Cant do that hours long in a game like Warframe. Its simply not sustainable.

Make combos more achievable but not absolutely required and for the love of god dont remove channeling.

Remove spin to win instead an then ppl will learn to use melee properly.

The difference being that in a game like mortal you have tons of different input options. The way I see combos with WF is just a directional input + light attack (which you are typically going to use more) and then heavy attack. Which is really pretty simple. Channeling is pretty much only used for lifestrike right now and it would be great if they could revamp that and make it extremely useful, add additional mods to increase range/damage/speed while channeling.

[BeardyKyle]

last input, I think @mogamu(is this the right mogamu?) mentioned in one of his videos that finding a use for the reload button while in full melee mode would be really neat. I'd love to see it be used as a grab input, that could possibly allow you to stun a single target and open it to finishers for example, with variations between stances and whatever wild stuff they can come up with. Would make stealth gameplay pretty interesting too.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

How about make combos an endgame thing like arcanes. No sets of combos. You get a combo and put it in the imagined combo slot. Stances stay as stances with excoriated animations, but combos become selective and costom.

[csaszar]

10 hours ago, BeardyKyle said:

Channeling is pretty much only used for lifestrike right now and it would be great if they could revamp that and make it extremely useful, add additional mods to increase range/damage/speed while channeling.

Its pretty obvious you dont use it much. No proble thats your choice.

Channeling is the bread and butter of the non spin to win melee. It opens up a ton of build possibilities and allow you to break barriers to make builds viable.

WF is - should be - about variety and when thats taken away it suffers.

You want strong buffs instead of channeling? Even if you got them they will come with a price - they wont be sustainable or else they wil break melee just like maiming strike.

Channeling is balanced. You sacrafice something but gains a lot for it. I personally love to play outside the meta. A lot of ppl love to play that way. Removing channeling will further strengthen comformity.

Before screwing the game the devs should test a bit to just remove spin to win alone. Melee would start to flourish. Different playstyles even combos would be used. After that with great consideration further changes could be implemented but now based on reality.

With channeling we have options with melee mods. Without it everyone will mod exactly the same - ok right now the majority mod the same meta, the must have mods. Remove spin to win and they will have the opportunity to learn melee. Remove channeling and we will have a flashy but hollow unsustainable melee.

[BeardyKyle]

3 hours ago, Csaszar said:

Its pretty obvious you dont use it much. No proble thats your choice.

Channeling is the bread and butter of the non spin to win melee. It opens up a ton of build possibilities and allow you to break barriers to make builds viable.

WF is - should be - about variety and when thats taken away it suffers.

You want strong buffs instead of channeling? Even if you got them they will come with a price - they wont be sustainable or else they wil break melee just like maiming strike.

Channeling is balanced. You sacrafice something but gains a lot for it. I personally love to play outside the meta. A lot of ppl love to play that way. Removing channeling will further strengthen comformity.

Before screwing the game the devs should test a bit to just remove spin to win alone. Melee would start to flourish. Different playstyles even combos would be used. After that with great consideration further changes could be implemented but now based on reality.

With channeling we have options with melee mods. Without it everyone will mod exactly the same - ok right now the majority mod the same meta, the must have mods. Remove spin to win and they will have the opportunity to learn melee. Remove channeling and we will have a flashy but hollow unsustainable melee.

i don't build for channeling, beyond the lifestrike mod, that's true. I do however like using it. I'm not a fan of spin to win either, based on the weapons I like not being very good at it, although i personally prefer to build focused on status, condition overload and blood rush. Getting the damage increase from those instead of the trade off from channeling mods, and still being able to use channeling unmodded to buff that.

 that said I'm not for channeling being removed, I prefer it to be revamped in order to be a more worthwhile use of mod space. 

i think an interesting way to do it is have a channeling mode, like the "devil trigger" animations shown on the devstream. Have that mode require a cost, whether its duration based, energy drain or even utilizing the focus bar instead of energy. Then have appropriate channeling mods for it. The mode would essentially work as a "secondary fire" for melee, altering stats like status, crit and even damage types based on the weapon and mods equipped. The result would be weapons with varied channeling benefits allowing for diverse builds. 

[Kainosh]

20 часов назад, (PS4)TheRallykiller сказал:

have insight (data) into exactly how melee is used and actual player use of combos

 If They are driven by data.... Then we r fukd.  What else can i say.     Because most people just spam E...and since their stance has some direction triggered combos, it happens automatically. Without intention.    Even i trigger such combos quite often. Because they are very easy to trigger by accident.

And there is only one stance that has "sideways movement" triggered combo.  Carving mantis.  And its foken uncomfortable.    

Because slight position correction during melee attacks and you already get your combo changed.       Surely, that is simple to use.....for mindless spammers.   But hell, when you dont just mash all the buttons and seek to use specific combos while positioning yourself to hit as much enemies as possible....it becomes fucd.  

I cant call that a good thing....   

 

[(PSN)TheRallykiller]

I think DE knows they are saddled with the burden of proving their concept beyond delivering Melee 3.0.

Love it or hate it, Melee 3.0 needs to be received really well by the majority of players across the spectrum of experience and total time played.

I also think that there are a lot of great points and comments in this thread that I hope DE has already taken into consideration for everyone's sake.

I personally use primary and secondary weapons as back ups or just for sorties, so as a melee-heavy player, I want to know that my investment of time and $$$ are returned with a meaningful system.

[LuckyCharm]

As someone said earlier i was really hoping for a combo system based around the two mouse buttons.  Vindictus sort of style maybe.  Or even just simply horizontal and vertical (or light and heavy)  attacks until you do a specific combination. That way you have both combos and the ability to chain attacks in any combination you want to kill enemies efficiently.  Other than dashes and rolls i wouldnt really want directional input simply because it would mess with your combat ability to have to move a different way rather than avoid a hit simply to finish a combo

[RavingRoman]

First of all, my breath was taken away at the prototype preview of Melee. There is so much potential to what they have just created. And I want to give some ideas, that the prototype has just opened the door to, and that is the "Sword Alone".

 

Clash

To give a visual idea, I'm going to reference the melee combat system from the Playstation 2 series; Bujingai.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmSWnwjySMk

Short explanation; this is where two entities would get into a flow in melee exchanges. One is attacking, and the other is parrying. If the player is the one defending, they can change the flow into their favor by counter-attacking.

 

Adaptation into Warframe

The way that the clash can start is the moment that two entities in FULL MELEE strike at one another at the exact same time. The opposing melee combo counters can perhaps be what determines who is attacking, and who is defending. (Or you can leave that to RNG.)

 

 In the case of the attacker, all they have to do is mash away until the target is dead. If you are the defender, you’ll have a moment before having to hold your guarding stance and either wait for an opportunity to strike and turn the flow to your favor, or disengage by rolling away.

 

Guard charges

This is a new mechanic that needs to be added into melee. While this can easily recharge quickly on its own, it serves as system to make sure players don’t just turtle up during a clash. The guarding stance will have charges that get depleted with each melee strike. Once it is depleted completely, the next strike will break the player/npc’s stance and stagger them for follow up strikes.

 

Field of Combat

Once engaged in a clash, both participants will basically be in an orb that wards off gunfire and damage anything and anyone who come into its range, the damage could be based on who is the attacker during the exchange. This was a mechanic that vonmark12 and I thought about.

 

 

Specific things to note:

Ø  Regular melee mobs and enemies will always have a low guard charges as well as combo counter for easy domination for clashes

Ø  Guard charges can vary between weapons, and be moddable since melee will go through a substantial buff

Ø  Bosses and opposing tenno will most likely have the higher end of guard charges.

Ø  The potential super mode [Void Trigger, maybe?] DE was talking about can work in such a way that damage is not only increased, but it breaks more guard charges faster in fewer strikes to make it even more key in melee combat.

Ø  Rolling away from a clash can also serve the purpose of setting up for the player to close the gap to either get a lucky strike, or start another clash in their favor after building up the combo counter from defending.

Ø  A marker for an opening in a clash (especially against a player character) is that the warframe or weapon flashes a specific color to queue when to attack. (It could also be the player’s warframe/weapon that flashes along with a sound effect that can queue when to attack)

 

These are my thoughts on what the remaining rework for melee should be. If implemented, this can not only make boss battles more exciting and requiring more technique than potshots, but this could potentially serve the improve the PvP experience between players.

[csaszar]

Wf is about choose how to play and how to accomplish your goals. If you choose melee then you should be able to play that style. Most of the above suggestions and the stuff DE showed us leads in a way where melee degrades into aomething unsustainable. Something you cant do as your main because its fun to jump in the air float there rhen dive or push your enemies in the air. Its will be fun one two or even hundred times. But whats after that? You can sustain efficient killing that way. Really soon it will lag behind guns. Then what will happen. Guns will be nerfed to balance the thing. Do you really want to go in that direction?

This game isnt about fancing. You wont be able to compete. The fanciful animations will turn boring quickly... 

[Guest]

With the rework, I certainly hope for quick attacks becoming just that; quick attacks.

I have been using my Galatine and Glaive a bit more lately.
And each time, I get to see this long 3-swipe combo on a simple quick melee (tempo royale).
Or juggling with a glaive (even too much showing off with nunchuks without actually hitting something).

This puts the player too open for enemy gunfire.
Which is, needles to say, lethal at high levels.

Also the finishers;
While very pleasing to the eye,
It takes too long for a single target to get assassinated.
In comparison to a big sweep that annihilates a horde, stealth/finishers appear quite bleak in comparisson.
Which hurts stealth play a lot as well.

So
- single swift attacks for a quick melee
- and faster executions of finisher/stealth kills

Would be a great improvement for melee.

Also, while I'm adding my input, I'd like to vouch for another melee stance;

I love the gunblades, and [bullet dance] is my favourite (due to it's higher attack speed)
But it moves your warframe backwards, left and right, on it's own volition.

Can the stance be reworked, so our directional button inputs affect the movement.
It is quite... unpleasant to fall into a gap with a backward attack.
Resulting in precious time, used for recovering back on solid ground, which leaves you open for attacks as well.

[kingdomeTHEMADcthulhu]

On 2018-08-04 at 4:54 AM, Arrcee said:

Not so. The same combo will work on all melee weapons with no complicated button gymnastics to learn for every different weapon. 

that's not my point i learned and mastered my combos.  now there getting dumb ed down because the majority are ether to lazy or unskilled to learn how to use them  there is only one thing this could fix and i bet it wont fix it  (that being high speed screwing with ppl using combos looking at you volt ppl) anyway 99 % is over the first part

[Aeron216]

On 2018-08-08 at 1:26 PM, Csaszar said:

Wf is about choose how to play and how to accomplish your goals. If you choose melee then you should be able to play that style. Most of the above suggestions and the stuff DE showed us leads in a way where melee degrades into aomething unsustainable. Something you cant do as your main because its fun to jump in the air float there rhen dive or push your enemies in the air. Its will be fun one two or even hundred times. But whats after that? You can sustain efficient killing that way. Really soon it will lag behind guns. Then what will happen. Guns will be nerfed to balance the thing. Do you really want to go in that direction?

This game isnt about fancing. You wont be able to compete. The fanciful animations will turn boring quickly... 

Completely agreed 

Outside of slide spamming (like apparently what most people ever bothered to try) melee only builds are already in a decent spot and yes they could be better so I can agree with having to change things. They do have enough sustainability to compete at high levels right now but so far we have been told nothing about its actual reliability with these new changes. Details so far have been incredibly superficial so I'm actually concerned that these changes might actually slow down its current way of playing it, watch my link below for an example. 

So I'm expecting alot more details because so far this indeed seems to be a dumbed down version of melee in almost every single sense (slide spamming can go forever though, I think we can all agree with that). The aerial combos do look cool but... thats it. 

For a Horde based game you want to cover as much area and as fast as possible
So yes, range is one of the most important aspects
Then speed coupled with fluidity

Right now it's incredibly fluent so when I heard things in the last stream like "Perfoming certain combos if you do not move from your spot" I actually started to get worried, it made it clear to me that melee 3.0 is highly prioritizing having fancy moves over efficiency. 

 

Also and at the very least your Warframe's base speed still helps with boosting the amount of distance you cover while performing melee combos, maybe even strengthen that relationship. Because that's the only use I've ever found to equipping Rush and Armored Agility.

 

Yes I'm a huge fan of Tempo Royale, I really think it's one of the best balanced stances in the game because of:

• Range
• Speed
• Fluidity
• Utility/CC

(Damage is always the least of the issues in my opinion. )

That's if they dont actually kill it, like changing August Mesto's combo to only work if you are not moving. 

So I really think that this is what most melee stances should aspire to be (Many of them are just terribly clunky and short). I've been playing melee focused builds since I first started playing because this game has indeed a very unique and fast paced system. Otherwise I'd probably be even playing Destiny or no games at all. 

 

The above video showcases a Heavy Blade Zaw using Primed Reach and that in my opinion is in a very good spot range wise. Other weapon types are the ones in the need of range buffs so hopefully you do address that as mentioned before.

I really think that you should not even touch Primed Reach, please do not make it worthless. It's only ever useful with long range weapons since it scales. 

 

Sword alone
Please don't forget about that

[csaszar]

18 hours ago, BeardyKyle said:

I prefer it to be revamped in order to be a more worthwhile use of mod space. 

Its debatable what is "more worthwhile".

In my experience such changes mean an overall much more flashy but less useful content. In some situations it could be definitely better but in overall we will lose the balanced and totally uniqe build options that are available right now.

I am against change iam against bad directions. Wf wont benefit from arcade gameplay.

[Lorechill]

I just wish, from the bottom of my heart, that we could do stealth finishers from almost all directions in this melee 3.0 revision. I wish we'll be able to stealth kill from both sides of the enemy and even from a bullet jump from below not having the need to perfectly align yourself at the back and waiting for that press "E" prompt. At this point we should have quick, chain stealth finisher's like in Farcry 3 or even better-- chain finishers like in Onimusha 4's parry to chain finish and Ninja Gaiden's charged heavy attack. I also wish for a universally applied instant weapon cycle button between last ranged weapon used and melee. I'll have faith in DE to pleasantly surprise me. All of the wonderful feedback before me must have counted for something. As of now, fingers are anxiously crossed.

[Xaxma]

I'm anxiously awaiting the next developer workshop post the devs promised in the last stream that would include some information about which mods are being affected and how. I'm assuming the channeling mods will be converted into heavy attack related mods, channeling multipliers will be replaced with heavy attack multipliers, and weapons will vary between said multipliers. 

I can only hope that they'll eventually look into giving primary/secondary weapons an "exilus" slot so that every mod can finally have a purpose.

[BeardyKyle]

9 hours ago, Csaszar said:

Its debatable what is "more worthwhile".

In my experience such changes mean an overall much more flashy but less useful content. In some situations it could be definitely better but in overall we will lose the balanced and totally uniqe build options that are available right now.

I am against change iam against bad directions. Wf wont benefit from arcade gameplay.

we don't really have a lot of unique build options right now. It's either crit or status builds with slight variations. You can build differently but it isn't optimal. I would compare it guns, in that we have a lot more viable options since they were revisited but the best mods will remain the best mods probably until dmg 3.0. 

I also wouldn't call it arcade gameplay. I think it will be fairly similar to god of war combat, albeit more simplistic. Think of it as a foundation, with melee 3.0 there's a lot of room for more flashy combos in stances, more variation in inputs, more fluidity. 

in the current system you have 3 combo string options in a stance typically. Those are set and there's no breakage in the combo or the input. However, with the new system i think it would be possible to have essentially the same strings with breaks in between animations, allowing for more combo options with more inputs while allowing you to transition without having to wait for a string to end. Functions more like a fighting style than a choreography imo.

 

 

[BeardyKyle]

2 hours ago, Xaxma said:

I'm anxiously awaiting the next developer workshop post the devs promised in the last stream that would include some information about which mods are being affected and how. I'm assuming the channeling mods will be converted into heavy attack related mods, channeling multipliers will be replaced with heavy attack multipliers, and weapons will vary between said multipliers. 

I can only hope that they'll eventually look into giving primary/secondary weapons an "exilus" slot so that every mod can finally have a purpose.

why it's everyone saying channeling is going away?  iirc they said  it's gonna be rolled into the new "devil trigger" mode and still gonna be called channeling

[Hyohakusha]

I hope they rethink using hold forward as a universal input. Getting stuck doing the same clunky combo on scythe and staff stances already sucks, applying it to all weapons isn't a good idea. The only other game I've played with 3rd person directional inputs was Seven Samurai 20XX, and that was just god-awful. DE, rip off the old Warriors games and translate square, square, square, triangle into keyboard inputs. Getting punched in the face left and right like Rebecca did because she got stuck spamming the same combo string didn't look fun. And I can guarantee you that people are going to macro air slam attacks. Spin2Win is going to become Bunnyhop2Win. 

[(PSN)TheRallykiller]

21 hours ago, kingdomeTHEMADcthulhu said:

that's not my point i learned and mastered my combos.  now there getting dumb ed down because the majority are ether to lazy or unskilled to learn how to use them  there is only one thing this could fix and i bet it wont fix it  (that being high speed screwing with ppl using combos looking at you volt ppl) anyway 99 % is over the first part

I empathize with your frustration, but I do think there's way more data and analysis behind Melee 3.0 than just "dumbing-it-down", making it for n00bs, whatever...

I get the feeling that there's a huge portion of the semi-active community at all ranks of mastery that just aren't using combos.

I remember farming for the Dakra Prime and Crimson Dervish just for the huge damage combo...but it never applied as well I hoped it would, despite tons of practice and perfect execution, to the mission types as well max range Orthos spam, and eventually spin-to-win (which I've never done because I don't have the mod).

In response to some of the channeling comments above...

It IS great and CAN be powerful, but the demand is greater than the payoff versus other methods of dispatching enemies.  It's not that IT ISN'T effective, it just lacks some of the stronger weapon/frame synergies that deliver similar results per unit time/effort.

Again, I wonder just how far they are into 3.0—was the what we saw a vertical slice, or a far-more developed system (from a foundational point of view)?

[Xaxma]

3 hours ago, BeardyKyle said:

why it's everyone saying channeling is going away?  iirc they said  it's gonna be rolled into the new "devil trigger" mode and still gonna be called channeling

Channeling as we know it will be gone. There's no footage or real evidence for "devil trigger" besides a quick mention. It's probably going to be a state you activate as opposed to what we have now which is a toggle.