Melee 3.0 Ideas Weapon skills, Timed attacks & Sweet spots

[Xayth]

This post is feedback to this DevWorkshop: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/956243-melee-present-and-future-goals/

The changes for melee 3.0 that DE has shown us don't look too fun or interesting (sorry DE <3). So I spent some time thinking up some ideas. This system won't nerf Tenno who currently likes to spam E (be it quick attack or with the melee out) or Tenno who like to use memeing strike.... Okay I'm bad with introductions, all the information is below!

Light and heavy attacks

Heavy attacks should be removed from holding the Light attack button and moved to another key (see last section). Heavy attacks would build up your combo counter faster (2 or 3 instead of 1 per hit) but obviously be slower and deal more damage. The introduction of heavy attacks on a separate key can allow for more complex combos

Timed Attacks & Situational Buffs

Attack timing and "Situational Buffs" should promote more of a skillful playstyle to melee. Timed attacks would have you press the attack button closer the when the attack ends rather than spam clicking to continue the attack, doing this should give a buff to one stat or another depending on the weapon. "Situational Buffs" would be buffs to weapons when in certain positions or other special conditions. Things that apply the buffs could be as is below:
 Axes, hammers, scythes, and polearms with SLASHING attacks: the weapons blades/head
daggers/dual daggers: stabbing the enemy in the back
Nunchucks: continuous attacks
Rapiers and Polearms with POKING attacks: Poking with the tip... Just the tip (I suggest % armour ignore of some kind)

Weapon Skills
Weapon skills would be "Abilities" for your melee weapon that would replace channeling. These skills will be added to your melee weapon using Mod cards, allowing you to swap skills in and out to your preference. These weapon skills would be activated by holding your channeling button and clicking either light or heavy with each button doing different abilities and draining a set amount of your combo counter depending on your mod card. (Note: I said set amount of combo counter... not ALL) 

 

"WHAT ABOUT LIFE STRIKE?" Weapon skills can be affected by channeling mods, so your weapon skill can be sped up with "Quickening" but made to cost more combo counter, or be given healing using "Life Strike". This would allow builds to be customized more to your liking. 

Weapon skills could be unlocked in many ways, obtaining a warframe, dropping from mobs, crafting a weapon with an exclusive Weapon Skill, and whatever wonderful ways DE can think of.

As an example of a Weapon Skill, I created one called "Stomping Grounds" using photoshop magic.

Stomping Grounds will be placed in your inventory after obtaining Rhino or Rhino Prime but can be used with any Warframe. The weapon skill would be similar to Rhinos "Stomp" and "Charge" and only being equipable on heavy weapons, such as Heavy Blades and Hammers 

The light attack of Stomping Grounds will slam the weapon down into the ground sending a shockwave in front of the warframe dealing damage and suspending enemies in the air for 1 second.

Stomping Grounds Heavy attack will move the Warframe into a charge forward with each step sending the shockwaves to the side doing damage and suspending enemies. Upon stopping the Warframe will slam the weapon into the ground dealing massive damage and suspending enemies in a radius around them

And finally....

Controls & Controlling

"Momentum attacks" should no longer be a thing (or shouldn't at least move you forward) to allow for the "Sweet spots" talked about up in "situational buffs" to be easier to pull off. And we should AT THE VERY LEAST get an option in the menus to allow us to use the context button (default X) to trigger finisher attacks. And to remove any concern, heavy attacks replacing the alt fire button, which is unused in melee, will not hurt consoles or controller users at all, DE may have to add more customisability for controllers though...

Also, this is my own melee set up, default would work just fine. (Considering I also have the E key for sliding and the Q key for interacting, if I moved them to default I would have way more space)



Thanks for reading! Please upvote if you liked it and comment your thoughts...  DE PLS

[GarinBadger]

I feel like this would take away from the balance that gunplay and melee has. It would make the game more of a beat-em-up instead of a TPS. 

[peterc3]

13 minutes ago, Xayth said:

This post is feedback to this DevWorkshop

Then why make a separate post?

[Xayth]

Just now, peterc3 said:

Then why make a separate post?

Because it works better than having a long arse comment.

[.durandle.]

32 minutes ago, GarinBadger said:

I feel like this would take away from the balance that gunplay and melee has. It would make the game more of a beat-em-up instead of a TPS. 

there is a balance at the moment???

[GarinBadger]

4 minutes ago, .durandle. said:

there is a balance at the moment???

I'd say so, with the right mods.

[SixDimensions]

While I'm intrigued by this post I find there are some concerns.  First, the keybindings that you've displayed.  Not everyone has a gaming mouse and those that don't should not be forced into buying one or having clunky keybindings if they can't/wont't.  (I have a gaming mouse but I know plenty who don't.)  Second, while the weapon skills sound interesting in practice, and I love that it would give channeling a new meaning, they seem to encroach on the territory of warframe powers.  Third, binding these skills to a separate mod could be problematic for builds.

Beyond that I like the idea of separate attack buttons and for light/heavy attacks to generate differing combo counter values and using the counter as a battery for separate skills.

I think with a bit of altering, your idea has some potential

[Xayth]

14 minutes ago, SixDimensions said:

While I'm intrigued by this post I find there are some concerns.  First, the keybindings that you've displayed.  Not everyone has a gaming mouse and those that don't should not be forced into buying one or having clunky keybindings if they can't/wont't.  (I have a gaming mouse but I know plenty who don't.)  Second, while the weapon skills sound interesting in practice, and I love that it would give channeling a new meaning, they seem to encroach on the territory of warframe powers.  Third, binding these skills to a separate mod could be problematic for builds.

Beyond that I like the idea of separate attack buttons and for light/heavy attacks to generate differing combo counter values and using the counter as a battery for separate skills.

I think with a bit of altering, your idea has some potential

2

The idea was to be abilities you could take on any warframe. The weapon skills wouldn't be able to be modded in ways besides damage, so the rhino style one would be a very short duration stun. And thirdly! the weapon skills would only take capacity (something melee hardly uses right now, most melee weapons require like 1 forma)
Also DE could opt for making the heavy attacks sit on reload (Another unused key in melee) since its right next to the normal melee attack
 

Edited June 22, 2018 by Xayth

[Kaed0x]

i suggest a light+heavy attack for stomping grounds that gives you a massive slam that does bonus damage to enemies suspended by stomping grounds. so a third, 'finisher' attack that capitalises on the use of your other skills.
and obviously i do understand that this is just a random sample mod he made, but that sort of concept is good.
one concern is that a CC oriented skillset could be weak at healing you with life strike
oh, and life strike should totally not gain lifesteal but instead have -35%/-30%/-25%/-20% efficiency, to give players an actual reason to level it up