Warframe Concept: Numeris - The Clone Commander Frame

[TheThreadWeaver]

This is Numeris. Heartless and cunning.

 

Changelog:

12/10/2013

 

- Adjusted stats in response to the input from Siubijeni. Numeris is now a less tanky frame overall, and leans more towards a Caster build.
- I was worried about how this decrease in a Health max would hurt the viability of his clones in later levels though, so I added a clause that Clones will be treated as "Invisible" until they attack an enemy. They also now operate under shade rules, only attacking if an enemy attacks you or if you order them to with Mastermind.
- I gave Numeris a higher sprint speed so that it would be easier for him to find an advantageous position from which to command his clones.
- Because of the change to clone behavior, I also reduced the cost of Mastermind to 10 energy.

12/11/2013

- I was informed that I was erroneously calling queues "stacks". This has been rectified.
- Clarified how certain mods affect the abilities.
- Decided that the clones will have armor equal to what is possessed by Numeris, thus creating a reason to actually give him Steel Fiber. Also because they would get absolutely shredded in higher level content, what with the lack of a shield.
- Clarified that the clone's Braton damage is even across the board. In light of the revelation that Damage 2.0 exists and, thus, the clones will never be dealing "Full" damage to any given enemy, I also decided to up their accuracy to 80%.
- Also, I am now formally panhandling to anyone who views this thread in the hopes some charitable - and likely very bored - soul will help visualize this warframe. Hurrah!

12/16/2013

- Added a suggestion from RocketRider regarding additional clone behavior. Under this suggestion, clones would have the ability to jump-kick enemies, giving them additional CC potential. It's still in the testing phase of planning, so expect to see more revisions of it as I try and figure out a good way to balance it out.

- Also updated the thread title to better reflect Numeris's abilities.

 

Stats (At rank 30)

Health: 300
Shields: 225
Armor: 65
Stamina: 8
Energy: 225
Sprint Speed: 1.2
Shield Recharge Speed: 20
Polarities: 4 Power, 1 Defensive, 1 Tactic. (4=, 1D, 1-)
Aura Polarity: Defensive

 

Your Art Here!

Design Notes: I'd envision something balanced between sophistication and brutality. Should tie in the ideas of butcher, surgeon and scientist. Four small gestation pods are situated on a device on the small of his back. The device should be noticeable but sleek, having a very small technical footprint. A tube filled with fluids runs from the base of his helm down to the cloning apparatus. I would provide a sketch, but my ability to commit visuals to paper is laughable. Personality-wise, he's the kind of guy who'd love to talk to you about the exact intricacies of infested anatomy while he's vivisecting a Grineer Sawman with his own blade.

 

Abilities:

1. Duplicate

Equip Cost: 2/3/4/5
Energy Cost: 25, affected by Efficiency mods.
Range: Lobbing distance, similar to Vauban's grenades
Cast time: 1.5 seconds

- A clone is created with 20/30/40/50% of Numeris's max Health (Counting the effect of mods like Vitality) and 100% of his armor value (Counting the effects of mods like Steel Fiber). These values are not affected by mods.

- The clone does not draw aggro upon creation, and is treated as invisible until it deals damage. The clone should not be recognized as a unit until after its spawn animation is complete. The clones will operate by Shade rules, not attacking enemies until they attack Numeris first, or until they are ordered to do so with the Mastermind ability.

- The clone could follow Numeris using an algorithm similar to that used by hostages in Rescue missions, but polished up to remove any hiccups.

- The clone is armed with an MK-1 Braton that deals 20/25/30/35 damage per hit, as well as a Lato and Skana. The MK-1 Braton has the same firerate and crit rate of the actual gun, but the damage is distributed evenly among all of the physical types. The weapons are hitscan, with ~80% accuracy.

- The player does not have to wait for a clone to finish spawning before dispensing another clone.

- The clone has no shields, and when its HP depletes it vanishes.

- Only four clones may exist at one time. They could be stored in a data queue. If a fifth clone is created, then the top clone in the queue is deleted, the three existing clones are moved up in the queue, and the new clone becomes the new "fourth" in the queue.

- Suggestion from RocketRider: Clones should have the ability to jump-kick enemies, giving them a CC capability. In the process of ironing this one out.

Notes:

Mainly related to the damage dealt by the clone's Braton. Testing would be required to find a value that is not immediately overwhelming at low levels, while also still respectable at higher levels. Ideally, the low health and defense of the clones would serve to mitigate this as they could very likely die before they can pose too great a problem to game balance.

There are also concerns related to consistency and refinement of AI behavior, but it would only really be a matter of polishing similar behaviors that already exist in the system. The Mastermind ability, which will be expanded on later in this post, would also help in this matter.

I had briefly pondered giving clones the ability to pick up items. Resources, orbs, mods, ammo, credits. Except then I realized that it would be more or less negating the role of the Carrier sentinel, so I scrapped it.

Animation Ideas:

Numeris pulls one of the gestation pods from the spawning pack on its back and lobs it underhand onto the field in an arc similar to Vauban's grenades. The pod "hatches" into a clone. The place that the pod occupied on Numeris' back will remain empty until the clone associated with it dies, at which point the pod will regrow. The absence / regrowth of the pod is an easy visual way to check the status of the clone, without having to visually scan the area.

 

2. Organ Donor

Equip Cost: 4/5/6/7
Energy Cost: 40, affected by Efficiency Mods
Range: 50 meters, affected by Range Mods
Cast Time: ~.5 seconds

There are currently two versions of this ability that I am tossing around. One offers greater survivability, while the other offers greater utility.

Version 1: Numeris consumes a targeted clone, and adds the all of the clone's current Health to his own, healing himself. This is not affected by Ability Power Mods.

Version 2: Numeris switches consciousness with one of its clones, taking the clone's position but also adopting the health the clone had at the time of casting. To elaborate, if the clone had lower health than Numeris, then his health will decrease to the clone's level. If the clone had greater health than Numeris, then his health will increase to the clone's level. The clone also receives all of the aggro previously directed at Numeris. This is not affected by Ability Power Mods.

Notes:

The presence of a healing capability and/or switch teleport style ability feels like it treads into the territories of Trinity and Loki, respectively. However the consumptive and sacrificial nature of the abilities also fits Numeris's theme of self-sacrifice.

Another worry tied to the first version of the ability is that it seems easily abused. With two max-rank clones and two casts of Organ Donor, one could regain all of their health over the course of about 3 seconds. This was mitigated by placing the casting cost of Organ Donor at 40, which means this strategy would require 130 energy, more than half of Numeris's energy pool. It then becomes a choice of what is more precious: Time and Energy, or Health.

Both of these abilities are in a more tentative stage than the others, and as such are more subject to change depending on which is used.

Animation:

Variable, depending on the effects decided for the ability.

Version 1: The clone disintegrates, leaving behind a red orb that floats into Numeris.

Version 2: A tether is created between Numeris and the clone, creating a visual analog for the transfer of consciousness from one body to the other.

 

3. Mastermind

Equip Cost: 6/7/8/9
Energy Cost: 10, affected by Efficiency Mods
Range: Point in sight.
Cast Time: Instant

Numeris orders his clones to perform a task.

- Clones are capable of focusing their fire on a single enemy, hacking terminals, reviving knocked-down allies, or reporting to a marked location.

- When focus firing, the clones will continue to attack until the enemy is dead, they are killed, or until they are given new orders.

- When healing or hacking, only the first clone in the stack will perform the duty, and will not participate in other orders until they have finished their task. For all other tasks every clone will respond.

- Clones hacking a terminal will require 10/9/8/7 seconds to complete their task.

- Clones revive an ally at 75% of the standard rate. If another frame begins to heal as well, this rate is reduced to 50%, 25%, and finally 0%. This is so that the clones do not devalue the efforts of the Tenno themselves.

Notes:

I decided on this ability over a few others due to the control it gives the player over the normally AI clones. It is a very high utility ability, allowing the player to act as a commander for a squad of troops. With the ability to revive, hack, and focus fire, this skill allows the Numeris to supplement his team in a variety of ways.

I had initially been worried about implementation of this ability. Namely, how to get just one button to differentiate between all the possible targets one could have. And then I realized that this functionality already exists within the game, in the form of the waypoint system. It is largely just a matter of repurposing pre-existing code.

Animation:

A marker is placed on the target of the order, similar to the HUD display provided by the Waypoint marker. However, this marker would only be visible to Numeris, so as not to confuse other players.

 

4. Self-Destruct

Equip Cost: 10/11/12/13
Energy Cost: 25 per clone, up to 100, affected by Efficiency Mods
Range: 8/9/10/12 meters, affected by Range Mods
Cast Time: ~ 1 second

- Self Destruct causes the explosion of all existing clones. The cost of the ability is tied to the number of clones used by the ability. 25 energy if there is only one clone, 50 if there are two, and so on.

- All clones channel their remaining Health into a blast that deals Explosive Damage. Enemies caught in multiple blast radiuses will receive damage from each source. Clones are invulnerable during the cast animation. Until they explode, of course.

- Enemies within the blast radius will be affected by the Splatter Debuff for 4/6/8/10 seconds. The length of this Debuff is affected by Duration Mods. Grineer and Corpus enemies with the Splatter Debuff will find their firearms dealing 50% damage, due to organic matter clogging their weapons. Infested enemies affected by the Splatter Debuff will be targeted by all other Infested, as the clone bits covering them trick the Infested into thinking they are Tenno.

Notes:

Oh boy. Where do I start here?

There were a lot of thoughts that went into this ability. I am fully aware that the current play-style is to save up on energy until the player has enough to trigger their ultimate skill. Then they rinse and repeat. I wanted to stray away from this with the creation of Self Destruct, while at the same time balancing damage and utility.

I decided early on that I wanted the max health value to be a running theme for Numeris. So the first decision I made regarding Self-Destruct was that it would channel the max Health of the existing clones into damage. The variable damage, tied to Numeris's max HP, would see the power of the ability grow with the capabilities of the frame. As the frame leveled naturally and through the use of mods, the ability would grow as well.

I spent some time trying to figure out maximum damage. Taking into consideration maxed Vitality, Vigor and Physique mods, one could easily bring Numeris's Health up in excess of 1200. Using that as an average, I decided that the average clone's health, at max rank, would be ~600. Four of them going off at once, under optimal conditions, would result in enemies taking upwards of 2400 damage.

The number scared me, honestly. Having this sort of ability at your disposal could severely derail early gamplay. I began to rebalance his ability.

The first change I made was in the source of damage. No longer would the clones deal their max Health as damage. Now they would deal only the health they had remaining at the time of the cast. While not too much of a drastic change, I presumed that in higher level gameplay you would rarely be running around with an undamaged clone.

The next step was in regard to Numeris's maximum Energy. I decided it should cap at 200, meaning that an unmodded frame would require all of its energy to pull off the maximum damage provided by Self-Destruct. I further empowered this change by adding cast times to Duplicate and Self-Destruct. Used efficiently, it would take ~3 seconds to spawn all four clones and destroy them. During this time they would be very likely to receive damage, thus reducing the damage potential even further.

The final step was in ability range. I decided to bring it down to levels similar to Saryn's Miasma, which I felt was a respectable range. Especially when one considers that the damage could be spread over a wider area depending on the placement of the clones. This would also reduce the damage potential of the ability. Satisfied that it was balanced, I put it aside.

The very next day I looked at the ability again. Specifically, the energy cost. It did not seem fair to hardlock the energy cost at 100. Why should it cost 100 to detonate one clone, and yet also cost 100 to detonate four clones? At this point I retooled the ability so that it would have a variable cost of 25 energy per detonated clone.

I came to a realization shortly after that this would open up an entirely new strategy for the frame, one where the player throws out a clone and detonates it shortly afterwards for a splash of AoE damage. Initially the ability to toss out what could amount to a ~600 damage grenade worried me, but then I looked at it again. The cost of this strategy would be 50 energy unmodded, which is perfectly acceptable when one realizes that frames like Excalibur and Mag can do about as much damage or more for less energy. Factoring in the cast time and the prerequisite of mods and a rank 30 frame, I decided to keep it.

I continued to refine Numeris, and realized that he was not much of a team player; very self-serving, very much the commander and not the teammate. Buffs did not seem to fit his themes of almost cold, uncaring sacrifice, but I realized that his usefulness in a group would fall off at higher levels. I decided that one of his skills needed to deal a debuff.

I went back to Self-Destruct again, and thought about what it did in the game world. It was not like Numeris was causing an energy based explosion. He was literally creating and detonating organic matter. A little bit more thinking down that line brought me to the Splatter Debuff, a way to reduce incoming damage from Grineer and Corpus, while also diverting the attentions of the Infested. It seemed to fit a niche that no other frame was really occupying, so I slotted the debuff in. I also decided that Self-Destruct should deal Explosive elemental damage, as it fit the theme and the damage falloff over distance helped to ease some of my lingering concerns about damage potential.

Which brings us to the current "finished" form of Self-Destruct, a skill that is lethal at low levels but maintains its usefulness into endgame as a debuff.

Animation:

The clones salute Numeris, and explode. The explosion should feel similar to the Infested Runner's explosion, but dialed up to 11.

Numeris will sacrifice whatever he has to for the sake of the mission. Even himself.

 

 

Well, this is basically my pet project that I've spent a couple weeks ironing out. Please offer feedback, as it's always appreciated.

Edited December 17, 2013 by TheThreadWeaver

[asiveni]

That 4 ability sound beast. Id imagine it would be something simmilar to nekros 4 ult summoning clones all around him before like you said exploding.

[Silraed]

I don't think we need another minion 'Frame, we have Nekros and Nyx, add too many and you start risking making the others obsolete.

[Freelancer27]

Looks down right interesting for a support frame, especially when it comes to directing orders to do an action for you.

[Guest XrekkeGtavun]

Looks quite interesting, though I do worry that the clones will die when you're telling them to do things in high level areas. Or that they'll take one hit from a Level 30 Grineer Napalm and die, thus making all of this frame's powers obsolete.

[PumaConcolor-EGT-]

Sounds nice, but the health is really too high.

The stack you described is a queque ;)

Cloning is a nice theme for a frame - but as Silread has said, we have got Nekros and Nyx, so why not focus his abilities on cloning himself.

Cloning should be his Ulti, so he creates a perfect Copy of himself - same Weapons, but no abilities and only one at a time. If the player dies he can instead "switch" to the living Clone. Maybe the Clone has only a small amount of Ammo, but can run to the died one to get his Ammo.

Another alternative of his ablities as "heartless" Frame could be the switching control of a target.

[Siubijeni]

I love the concept of this frame, especially the Mastermind ability. It's a very nice touch, and a good synergy. However, his health, shield, and probably energy values are far too high. 400 health is second only to Ash and Saryn, who are both (arguably) tanks and need that passive resistance. 200 shields isn't as out of balance, but it is still probably too high for a non-tank support character with an emphasis on abilities--at least, with the health value you have. Furthermore, every frame thus far maxes out with either 150 or 225 energy for a reason--the final energy total is half again the initial base total, making round numbers somewhat important. Your value puts his initial energy at 133.33...

 

His armor is sub-average, but its still above that born by caster frames like Nyx, Volt, and their ilk. It's not enough of a hit to justify the above-average stats across the board. You seem a bit conflicted on whether to give him some tanking ability, or make him a caster with an ability focus. Honestly, I can see him working either way, with a smaller energy pool and an overall better lifespan for himself and his clones, or being more fragile but more able to control events on and off the battlefield.

 

If you go the tanking route, you seem to be prioritizing his health over shields (as a surgeon frame, I approve of this), so I recommend you go the route of being a sort of inverse-mag: 450 health, 225 shields, 150 energy, 1.0 sprint, and 65 armor. You could, however, keep your sub-par armor value (15 is normal for low-armor frames), and give him a bit of a boost to sprint speed in its place (1.1 would be about right).

 

If you go the more supportive route, his physical stats must necessarily be more limited to make up for his abilities as a caster. In this case, I think the typical caster statistics need only minor adjustments: 300 health, 225 shields, 225 energy, 1.15 sprint, and 65 armor. You could, again, adjust that armor value to a sub-par 15 in exchange for a more significant sprint value--and in that case, I think 1.20 might not be inappropriate (its hard to justify rivaling Loki at 1.25, so I'd hesitate to suggest that).

 

Regardless, great job!

[TheThreadWeaver]

Sounds nice, but the health is really too high.

The stack you described is a queque ;)

Cloning is a nice theme for a frame - but as Silread has said, we have got Nekros and Nyx, so why not focus his abilities on cloning himself.

Cloning should be his Ulti, so he creates a perfect Copy of himself - same Weapons, but no abilities and only one at a time. If the player dies he can instead "switch" to the living Clone. Maybe the Clone has only a small amount of Ammo, but can run to the died one to get his Ammo.

Another alternative of his ablities as "heartless" Frame could be the switching control of a target.

 

I am going to have to disagree with the idea that Nekros and Nyx are "Minion Frames". While it is definitely true that they each have abilities that can create "allies", these are hardly Minions. Nekros's ability leans more towards death in general, what with terror, desecrate and soul punch his ability set is far from being conducive to a minion playstyle, as his thralls are basically mindless AI clones that cannot truly be controlled, and are indeed only one facet of his abilities.

 

The same goes for Nyx, who really only has the ability to create one "Minion" by mind controlling an enemy for a limited period of time. And more often than not, that minion gets killed by your teammates before it has a chance to really do anything (Because videogames have trained people to shoot at glowing enemies). MC is in fact much better for pacifying a difficult enemy until it can be killed by your team, rather than creating an ally that will serve you against your foes. Her Chaos ability is hardly a minion skill, as the minions it creates would just as gladly kill you as anything else.

 

While I appreciate your input, I'm going to have to disagree and keep his ability set as it is. Sorry.

 

I love the concept of this frame, especially the Mastermind ability. It's a very nice touch, and a good synergy. However, his health, shield, and probably energy values are far too high. 400 health is second only to Ash and Saryn, who are both (arguably) tanks and need that passive resistance. 200 shields isn't as out of balance, but it is still probably too high for a non-tank support character with an emphasis on abilities--at least, with the health value you have. Furthermore, every frame thus far maxes out with either 150 or 225 energy for a reason--the final energy total is half again the initial base total, making round numbers somewhat important. Your value puts his initial energy at 133.33...

 

His armor is sub-average, but its still above that born by caster frames like Nyx, Volt, and their ilk. It's not enough of a hit to justify the above-average stats across the board. You seem a bit conflicted on whether to give him some tanking ability, or make him a caster with an ability focus. Honestly, I can see him working either way, with a smaller energy pool and an overall better lifespan for himself and his clones, or being more fragile but more able to control events on and off the battlefield.

 

If you go the tanking route, you seem to be prioritizing his health over shields (as a surgeon frame, I approve of this), so I recommend you go the route of being a sort of inverse-mag: 450 health, 225 shields, 150 energy, 1.0 sprint, and 65 armor. You could, however, keep your sub-par armor value (15 is normal for low-armor frames), and give him a bit of a boost to sprint speed in its place (1.1 would be about right).

 

If you go the more supportive route, his physical stats must necessarily be more limited to make up for his abilities as a caster. In this case, I think the typical caster statistics need only minor adjustments: 300 health, 225 shields, 225 energy, 1.15 sprint, and 65 armor. You could, again, adjust that armor value to a sub-par 15 in exchange for a more significant sprint value--and in that case, I think 1.20 might not be inappropriate (its hard to justify rivaling Loki at 1.25, so I'd hesitate to suggest that).

 

Regardless, great job!

 

You have found my Achilles' heel. I am absolutely crummy when it comes to thinking up stats. It's not easy for me to see how the numbers will actually work without implementing them in some kind of game setting, which I can't do because I am a S#&$ coder. You offered good suggestions, and after some thought I decided to implement the suggested caster-ish slant to his abilities. I do think staying away from tanky is a good idea, as it promotes the use of clones over jumping into the fray yourself.

[Siubijeni]

You have found my Achilles' heel. I am absolutely crummy when it comes to thinking up stats. It's not easy for me to see how the numbers will actually work without implementing them in some kind of game setting, which I can't do because I am a S#&$ coder. You offered good suggestions, and after some thought I decided to implement the suggested caster-ish slant to his abilities. I do think staying away from tanky is a good idea, as it promotes the use of clones over jumping into the fray yourself.

I'm actually co-lead of a small indie studio, so I have experience with this sort of thing--theory is quite honestly my strong point, although I'm a decent modeller and coder, too. Of course, theory is never perfect, since its impossible to know exactly how something will work out without really testing it. Doesn't mean I don't strive to be as accurate as possible without doing so, though :) I've thought about doing a guide for fanframe statistics and the like, because a lot of people don't entirely seem to understand how they work... I still may or may not do so.

 

Regardless, I must extend my compliments to you. Many people try to adjust energy costs without any justification, and even when they do have reason, its often a little clumsy. Your mastermind ability is a perfect counterexample to that tendency--its exactly the kind of ability that warrants a lowered energy cost. I wholly approve of the 10-energy cost, and there's even precedent for it in Excal's super-jump. I don't think your stats are quite as much of an Achilles' heel as you might think :P

[Ventura_Highway]

Some notes:

1) I would rather much like to understand mod interactions with some abilities.

Ex: Does Focus increase a clone's HP, Damage or Both?

 

2) How does armor affect the clones? If we take DE's precedent with the last HP-reliant frame,

Valkyr, Numeris will probably need a lot more armor to do its job.

 

3) Another function I thought of that was possible for the Clones would be the ability to dropkick enemies,

as in Run-Jump-Crouch. It's a small amount of CC and it is confusing on how it would be implemented, but

still, an interesting function. Arguably, Volt's shock, I have felt, serves a similar function in higher level areas,

and the small CC is nice. Just a whim.

 

4) How much damage does the Braton do? Actually, what kind of Braton is it even?
The way I understand it, there's a very wide gap in power between the Braton you just bought off

the Market from Darvo, and the Braton you've potatoed that has Multishot, Serration, Etc, probably

even an exponential difference in power. These clone's Bratons, as I understand them, simply won't hold up later on.

I'd almost like to suggest they retain a much less potent copy of the Original's gun. In a sort of sense, applying damage 2.0 here,

this allows for more flexibility for Numeris, in that he has a large range of statuses he can now apply as he feels like.

If that happens though, either some more complex AI will be needed, it seems, or Numeris will be a heavily micromanagement intensive frame.

 

5) I like this frame's design. I personally despise hearing things along the lines of "Scrap X ability for Y mod," and this frame's abilities

synergize well enough that doing so is a remarkably bad idea.

 

6) Assuming this gets in the game, I can't wait to hear a clonesplosion go off, and the next thing a grineer says be "Tenno scum"

 

 

With regards to Nyx and Nekros, Numeris' (TRIPLE N) minions seem to have the dynamic going on that:

 

Nyx's minions tend to be handpicked by the lady herself, and so generally have something purpose, such as a brainjacked Napalm going Benedict Arnold on his teammates.

 

Nekros' summons a LOT of people. If he was smart about his playing, and with friends, generally the more deadly members of the mob are among

the Shadow of the Dead, however, with how damage seems to scale later on, these minions die fast. I guess, so do Nyx's, but who plays nyx for Mind Control?

 

With that said, to the best of my understanding, Numeris, among the minion warframes, seems to have the niche of enjoying these clones that aren't

particularly great in number, but are much more applicable to situations.

 

 

My mod build for Numeris would probably go, assuming scaling with Focus

4 abilities

Blind Rage

Redirection

Rush

Focus

Steamline

Rage

 

So that I could keep up 4 clones, and have them explode when I need to.

 

Like I said before, I really like this frame, but I should say he seems to be on the opposite end of MPrime Nova,

in that playing him would require a LOT of awareness.

[TheThreadWeaver]

-snip-

 

A lot of points here. It'll take me a bit to work through this.

 

In Response to Your Notes, by Number.

 

1. I am of two minds regarding the interaction of mods like focus tying to the abilities. The general idea of this frame was to tie everything to his HP, and not to the current metagame of ability stats. The intent was to provide a playstyle that would shake up people's conceived notions of how frames should be built, and pave the way for new styles of frame design and mod building. Of course I would see mods like Streamline and Stretch having their usual effects, But I think that Focus would not affect the health of the clones, or affect ability aspects that rely on health. Basically, this frame is structured to turn Vitality into your Focus. So there really wasn't any need for Focus, to me. Regardless, I will still edit the ability descriptions to reflect how Mods would work with them.

 

2. I hadn't really thought about giving any to the clones. The thing is that while I want them to have longevity, I don't want them to be "better" than their source. Their life and death are supposed to be something you have to pay attention to, as their commander. Although that doesn't mean they are squishy. If you are dexterous enough, you could feasibly throw out a clone and then detonate it without any negative effects, since the clones are invincible during the cast animations.

 

Although I suppose that I should give them as much armor as Numeris has, thus giving a reason to slot in Steel Fiber, which would create interesting choice paradigms when it comes to making a build. Alright. Clones will have the same armor as Numeris.

 

3. It's an interesting Idea, and I will add it as a suggestion. The dilemma here is how the clones will know to trigger that behavior, how often they would execute it, and whether it would take precedent over any other actions. A lot of thought would have to go into that, so it will stay on the sideline for now.

 

4. Okay. I knew this one would come up eventually. I have arguments prepared.

 

First, the stats of the gun used by the Clones, as proposed above:

 

MK-1 Braton. It will have a firerate identical to the actual MK-1 Braton, and deal 20/25/30/35 damage per hit. That may not seam like much, but if you have all four clones going at once it amounts to ~140 per shot. With each MK-1 Braton dealing about 5.8 shots per second, and if all the shots hit, that's a potential for about 700 damage per second. The damage would of course be spread evenly across the physical damage types, and the clones do have a ~75% accuracy rating, so maybe it would get toned down to 400 or 500 damage per second, or something. Either way, that's a lot. For the sake of comparison, Excalibur's Slash Dash does 500 slash damage in one second.

 

Now back to the matter at hand. I spent a huge chunk of time trying to figure out whether or not the clones should have just a standard gun with no regard for what the frame used, or if they should have copies of the frame's weapons.

 

I tried to think about coding issues first. It seems like just giving them a standard weapon that they would access at all times would be easier to manage. It would be easier to code, easier to make estimates and playtest for, and easier to balance if anything felt wrong.

 

On the other hand, let's look at how it would work for them cloning weapons. They would then have to do a percentage of your damage, which seemed to me like a whole can of worms. You would have to fine an exact percentage that worked not just for every damage set, but every other gun stat, every mod build, etc. Not to mention the cosmetic issues. Imagine, if you will, clones running around with Ignis, and all four of them firing it with impunity, completely blinding the field of view. Or perhaps they would be using the Ogris, and the little AI-controlled knuckleheads end up nuking themselves because they launched the rockets at close range. While it seems cool on the surface, there are a lot of issues with giving them each weapons based on what you are using. And while it could be something to keep in mind depending on how the game changes, for right now it's something better left on the cutting room floor.

 

5. Thank you very much. That was what I was aiming for.

 

6. If this got in the game. I'd probably die a happy man.

 

Regarding the bit at the end: Yes, this frame would require a lot of awareness. Part of that is reflected in the design and animation notes of the Duplicate ability, in which I talk about how the health of the clones could be visually represented by the presence / absence of the pods on his back. It is definitely meant to coax the growth of a different mindset, and a different play-style.

 

On another note, I have made my intentions more clear in the OP that I am openly begging for someone to help me with artwork. Because my hand shakes worse than an epileptic at a rave during an earthquake.

[TheThreadWeaver]

Updated the OP with the suggestion from RocketRider. Will be ironing out the specifics of that over the course of the next few days.

 

EDIT: Also updated the thread title to better reflect Numeris's abilities.

Edited December 17, 2013 by TheThreadWeaver