Melee combat

[Phyrak]

Hey there,

I remember back in the day of the firefall forums discussing weapons for upcoming combat frames - one thing that was a nigh constant was that of melee weapons and their possible implementation

Melee weapons give a change in playstyle from that of ranged combat in the high risk/ high reward playstyle

Now, as for the factor of balance - melee would be seperated by that of the weight range of the the omniframe

Heavier frames take heavier weapons etc

The other alternative is that an omniframe could take a size above or below its range but at a hit to move speed or access to abilities to gain the additional weapon damage

As for the melee weapons themselves, both reaper operator and the omni themselves must be able to defend themselves in close quarters

What sort of melee weapons could be added?

Since too, the aim is give horizontal progression - what sort of skins would apply to what?
Eg. Great axe weapon to grim reaper scythe

If you had the chance to play with melee or melee specific, would you play melee?

 

[NightStroke]

The constraint on melee is that animations cost money. Guns are preferred since you simply hold them and leave the rest to vfx. Melee requires animation that looks smooth and usually involves motion capture. If you had guns that somehow preformed melee attacks with energy blades or something, you might be getting somewhere >.>.

 

[Phyrak]

The constraint on melee is that animations cost money. Guns are preferred since you simply hold them and leave the rest to vfx. Melee requires animation that looks smooth and usually involves motion capture. If you had guns that somehow preformed melee attacks with energy blades or something, you might be getting somewhere >.>.

Indeed a constraint

When in doubt, start out slow and small

What about an energy bow or are more traditional martial weapon in ranged combat as a step between?

 

[Ronyn]

The plan is for Ember to have a relevant melee component. Exactly how and in what form are yet to be decided.
It is intended to be more than firefall's was to say the least.

Personally I am a fan of melee combat in high flying shooter games in the rare cases where it is done well.

 

[Phyrak]

The plan is for Ember to have a relevant melee component. Exactly how and in what form are yet to be decided.
It is intended to be more than firefall's was to say the least.

Personally I am a fan of melee combat in high flying shooter games in the rare cases where it is done well.

May I just say... w000000000t

So, considering the omni-frame and the potential factors in the weight classes

Weapons based on weight class?

Or

Most weapons to most omni's with a tweak coming to greater differences

Ie. Heavy omni using dagger or short sword wouldn't lose much but a light omni using a great sword would need to make a sacrifice somewhere in order to use it?

 

[Tragedy]

Take inspiration from Armored Core -- melee weapons should be very powerful, but risky to use due to low time-to-kill on battleframes. This is a skill based game, and I don't want to see the immortal frames we had in Firefall, nor do I want to see players sitting in one spot hammering away at a boss.

Here is what I'm thinking for Melee:

An unskilled player would likely be unable to aim these close ranged weapons effectively while remaining mobile, but a skilled player could dash around enemies and hammer them with the high damage Power Swords, Fists, Mauls whatever we have in game.

Remember, we're trying to be different - just because it's melee doesn't mean we need to play like melee in other games.

 

[eRuss]

I think it would be cool to see dragon nest combat...

Lol very unlikely....but one can only dream

 

[Phyrak]

Take inspiration from Armored Core -- melee weapons should be very powerful, but risky to use due to low time-to-kill on battleframes. This is a skill based game, and I don't want to see the immortal frames we had in Firefall, nor do I want to see players sitting in one spot hammering away at a boss.

Here is what I'm thinking for Melee:

An unskilled player would likely be unable to aim these close ranged weapons effectively while remaining mobile, but a skilled player could dash around enemies and hammer them with the high damage Power Swords, Fists, Mauls whatever we have in game.

Remember, we're trying to be different - just because it's melee doesn't mean we need to play like melee in other games.

I dig this

Gives rise to skillful glass cannon play if playing light weight omni

 

[Vladplaya]

I would love to see a nice variety of melee weapons, but yeah, animations for those would be pretty costly. And you can't cheap out on that stuff either, it wouldn't make sense to spend money to make crappy and cheap animations and then go back and spend time and money redoing those.
It's either you make good variety of nice animations right away, or you just wait till you able to do so.

 

[MattHunX]

Mmm...I'm actually thinking of making a fan-art, using the omni-frame promo art, and adding a weapon to one of the arms that is a gun and a sword in one. Gun-swords.

Or transforming weapons that can go between one and the other. RWBY-fan, here.

Already have a concept in mind.

But, if we're strictly talking about separate melee and range weapons, then swords, halberds, glaives, pollaxes...etc. (yes, hammers, too, but I don't like hammers, personally, so ) and/or energy-variant of those, with the edges being hard-light projections or something.

And in case some are wondering why I always go on about halberds (specifically for a female character):

Spoiler

Could easily imagine something even bigger, in a mech's hands.

 

[Phyrak]

Mmm...I'm actually thinking of making a fan-art, using the omni-frame promo art, and adding a weapon to one of the arms that is a gun and a sword in one. Gun-swords.

Or transforming weapons that can go between one and the other. RWBY-fan, here.

Already have a concept in mind.

But, if we're strictly talking about separate melee and range weapons, then swords, halberds, glaives, pollaxes...etc. (yes, hammers, too, but I don't like hammers, personally, so ) and/or energy-variant of those, with the edges being hard-light projections or something.

And in case some are wondering why I always go on about halberds (specifically for a female character):

Spoiler

Could easily imagine something even bigger, in a mech's hands.

Same here actually

Taking a warframe esque style to art with gun in one hand and melee weapon in the other

Transformational weapons on the other hand are an interesting case

Powerful but limited weapon as you can only tweak it so much in relation to balance

 

[Torgue_Joey]

Mass Effect omni blade anyone?

AND CAN I USE A GRENADE AS AN MELEE ROCK?

 

[Phyrak]

Mass Effect omni blade anyone?

AND CAN I USE A GRENADE AS AN MELEE ROCK?

Omni blade for omni frame?
Why not!

 

[Daynen]

I do look forward to the inclusion of melee combat; however I'd like to point out my critique with Firefall's melee, since it's the nearest analog to Ember right now.

The FF melee was clunky, slow, and illogical. The animation had the player sweep their gun from right to left in an enormous arc, dealing damage in what felt like a very delayed fashion, and then there was a sizable number of frames where the swing was complete yet you couldn't swing again. The damned thing was literally on a short cooldown. This is the worst possible way to implement melee.

A melee attack needs to be snappy. You don't damage something by playing show and tell with it; you damage something by putting some acceleration into that swing! Also, the arbitrary cooldown at the end was, and is, moronic. Even if you had the psi-blade perk, the speed, animation time and cooldown were exactly the same.

DO NOT IMPLEMENT MELEE LIKE THIS IN EMBER.

There are countless shooter games where melee is correctly implemented; it blew my mind to see Firefall treat melee the way it did. We could smack things with the butt of the gun, put bayonets on the barrel to stab people (and then blast them off the blade, hehe) we could just freaking PUNCH things (and have giant piston fists to do it, a la hulkbuster--"gotosleepgotosleepgotosleep!") or we of course have the laser blade option. The point is that melee needs to be quick, decisive, and above all, tailored to the weapon at hand. If I see giant two handed hammers swinging as fast as weightless energy swords, I will be very upset.

 

[Beemann]

Just do it old school if you're going to include it. Extra weapon you have to switch to. None of this melee button nonsense. Could always pull a Quake 3 and make it a saw blade/chainsaw style weapon. Just hold it out and have some FX and/or a basic animation on the blade. Don't get too fancy

As long as we don't have an intense melee *focus* we should be able to avoid the balancing pitfalls.

 

[Vladplaya]

@Daynen I agree that melee needs to feel good and responsive, depending on the weapon of course. But I think they can start with simple blade swipe just like in FireFall. The animation is pretty simply, and it is a start, it would give us some last resort action for when enemies get too close. Also I like your punching idea, that would work pretty well for the lower budget, till we get some money to make actual melee weapons.
Furthermore I think they can easily add a shield, that can perhaps be used with a pistol type of weapon. They would just need animations for shield bash move and moving shield to the front for cover.
All this would have to be properly balanced of course.

 

[EvilKitten]

Just for the playable mockup perhaps the omni-frame could simply utilize a knuckle sandwich.

 

[Ghost Kozak]

Melee combat was in Firefall and would seem fitting that a form of such in Ember would make getting Close Quarters a need for some way to attack if the weapons run out of ammo. We don't know exactly if Ember will have the same consistency of how Firefall's system was, with ammo being dropped by enemies in abundance. Anyway, Firefall did have some interesting melee weapons in the works, like the SIN Blade and the Shock Hammer for AUX weapons. Would surprise me if they had a set that allowed a player to play like a knight with a shield. Have to remember that Ember might be like Firefall in player gameplay style, allowing players to play their style with the right tools. The fact that every FPS I've played with melee, only 10% or less use it at any given time, I hope in Ember, meleeing a enemy will be more damaging than just going full auto in CQ combat, making it more necessary for players to perform.

 

[Omnires]

I like to play as stealth assassin characters. So I'll give up having lots of armor and health as a trade off for having powerful melee attacks (killing in 1 or 2 hits) and high mobility. Even if I don't have the ability to do things like turn invisible it still counts as stealth as long as I can move fast enough to always stay behind my target and/or stay out of line of sight.

Also I made I post awhile back. Keeping the science in sci-fi
Force is mass times acceleration. So it would nice if you could use things like the thrusters and pile drivers on our mecha to aid us in melee fighting. For example, if you are flying toward that enemy just before landing a punch you'll do more damage than if you were standing still doing the same punch. Although even if you were standing still if you had a pile driver on or in your arms you could active it at the right moment to add a lot of extra force to the punch.

This would also work in lessening or to avoid taking damage too. As there are a number of ways to absorb, defuses, and redirect oncoming a force. Using a punch as an example, one way to minimize damage from a punch is to move with the punch in the same direction at close to the same speed. Lessing the force you take from the hit as there less energy transferred into your body. In effect to take less damage do things like bending and falling over with the hit rather than taking it head on. But that is just one example.

This can also be used in weapons. For example, adding thrusters the head of a hammer to give you greater speed when you swing it.
edited for typos.

 

[Phyrak]

I like to play as stealth assassin characters. So I'll give up having lots of armor and health as a trade off for having powerful melee attacks (killing in 1 or 2 hits) and high mobility. Even if I don't have the ability to do things like turn invisible it still counts as stealth as long as I can move fast enough to always stay behind my target and/or stay out of line of sight.

Also I made I post awhile back. Keeping the science in sci-fi
Force is mass times acceleration. So it would nice if you could use things like the thrusters and pile drivers on our mecha to aid us in melee fighting. For example, if you are flying toward that enemy just before landing a punch you'll do more damage than if you were standing still doing the same punch. Although even if you were standing still if you had a pile driver on or in your arms you could active it at the right moment to add a lot of extra force to the punch.

This would also work in lessening or to avoid taking damage too. As there are a number of ways to absorb, defuses, and redirect oncoming a force. Using a punch as an example, one way to minimize damage from a punch is to move with the punch in the same direction at close to the same speed. Lessing the force you take from the hit as there less energy transferred into your body. In effect to take less damage do things like bending and falling over with the hit rather than taking it head on. But that is just one example.

This can also be used in weapons. For example, adding thrusters the head of a hammer to give you greater speed when you swing it.
edited for typos.

Reminds me of the jat kittag of warframe

Point very well made
The addition of rockets or chains and the like would definitely give a feeling of weight to each swing