Frame difference's and in-depth ability balancing. DE please read!

[Malachia]

Hello there fellow Warframe fans :D

In this thread i will discuss 2 points which I think are very important for improving the games combat system (yeah its kinda long, if your looking for a TL;DR then your not useful to improving the game :P)

1) Frame ability diffrences:

I recently made a post in a thread about how warframes should be changed to suit their "purpose" in-game (like Excalibur being melee, Volt being a caster and so on and so forth) and i realised what this games problem is.

It has ME1 syndrome...

Now, dont be alarmed, this is very bad but its non-lethal if the right decisions are made and we take the right medicine regularly.

What is ME1 syndrome you might ask? ME1 as in Mass Effect 1, or the first Mass Effect game, which was bad in my opinion (gameplay-wise, the story was still better than seeing a good movie) and... Well,I'm just gonna copy-paste what I said in that thread I was talking about:

I feel that Warframe has the same issues that the first Mass Effect game had.

I dunno how comparisons to Mass Effect are treated on these forums, but basicly Warframe is VERY similar to Mass Effect 3's multiplayer... which is actually a good thing. ME3 multiplayer is awsome. although I dont like the progression system there.

I do like the progression system in Warframe (though it could get better, like being able to get to everything wihout paying) but as i said, Warframe has the same issues that the first ME had.

ME1 was a bad game. the gameplay was horrbile... why? because all the classes were the same except for the few abilities that each class got... but the abilities were on ~1 minute (yes guys, that is one minute) cooldowns.... seriously? I mean I pick a telekinetic gravity abusing badass class and I get to use the ability like once a fight? Come on!

This game has the same issue. If I'm playing Mag which is supposed to fight using magnetic forces, I wanna feel like freakin Magneto! I dont wanna use my powers only 2-5 times a mission depending on how many energy orbs I got, while the rest of the time I'm just like any other warframe out there =P

ME2 and ME3 btw, had superb combat mechanics, the cooldowns on the main abilities for most classes were reduced to lower values, the telekinetic main ability could go down (with upgrades) as low as 2 secs.

This is what I feel is the main problem with the combat in this game (also, maybe the melee combat needs to flow better)...

Well there you have it folks...

Warframes need abilities that make them differ from one another, or different stats (or, lets go crazy, BOTH! :D)

If the only difference between me, and Excalibur user, or my fellow Volt user, is that a few times a mission we use a different ability that basicly does the same (kills a bunch of people) then something is wrong.

Of course, you cant make Slash Dash spamable... And so we come to my second point:

2) In-Depth ability balancing

In order to make Slash Dash a signature move for Excalibur (or fireball for ember, or charge for rhino, whatever), you need to make him use it alot more, but that would be OP as hell, so what can we do? we make it weaker.

This would not be a nerf to Excalibur, it would actually be a buff, since you can use the ability alot more, and it becomes more fun.

So how do we make him use it more?

- We remove the energy cost and add a managable cooldown (managable being something like 8 seconds I think, this is where balancing the ability comes in though, and thats DE's job)

Or

- We add energy regeneration, either to a certain threshhold (like, if energy is below 50, you regenerate 5 enery a second, something like that) or give passive energy regen all the time but lower the max energy or raise ability energy costs so that you cant accumulate lots of energy and then use your ability 6 times in a row.

Ok, now we got tons of people spamming tons of abilities all over the place, how do we make the ability weaker?

- We reduce the damage, The AoE (so its harder to hit multiple targets), or the range, or any combination of those.

- We can add a skill-defining part or the ability (like, make Slash Dash cost lots of energy, lets say 50, while theres a 50 energy threshhold like i proposed before, but refund 10 energy for every enemy hit) skill meaning skill of the player, if you didnt get that.

- We reduce the abilities potential even more, but add more ways to improve it, like giving abilities the ability (hehe) to gain affinity and level up, with their skill tree being maxed out at 5 or 10 points (NO PRO! O_O) and their abilities have stuff like reduced cooldowns or reduced energy cost, more damage, more range, wider\bigger AoE, and so on.

Umm.. Ok I think I'm done ranting for today, anyone else got an opinion on what I said? =3

[Roujou]

Slash Dash is fine where it's at - I spam the crap out of it during missions because I specced into max energy. It gets me out of tough situations, lets me line mobs up in hallways and mow them all down at once, and gives me the ability to dash through beam doors at will. It also gives me the ability to dash from ledge to ledge on certain maps, but I don't think that was intended, so I wouldn't be too sad if they made that more difficult.

The only thing that I can say that I 100% agree on is the idea of energy regen to a threshold. It really sucks when you're being bombarded by a lot of mobs and you can't do anything because you got unlucky with energy drops.

The idea of skills levelling up would make certain current aspects of the game redundant (i.e. Skill Power, Efficiency, and Range Mods), and if DE would want to implement such a thing, they'd have to be willing to go the extra mile and cut out the fat when they do so.

I think that the easier route to this issue would be just adjusting the skills and costs of certain warframes to put them in line with others. For example, Excalibur's Slash Dash is currently worlds better than his ultimate skill, Radial Javelin, because Radial Javelin costs far too much to use considering the range, delay, and target limit on it.

I could go on, but I'd be better off doing so on my own thread.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Roujou

[Malachia]

Slash Dash is fine where it's at - I spam the crap out of it during missions because I specced into max energy. It gets me out of tough situations, lets me line mobs up in hallways and mow them all down at once, and gives me the ability to dash through beam doors at will. It also gives me the ability to dash from ledge to ledge on certain maps, but I don't think that was intended, so I wouldn't be too sad if they made that more difficult.

The only thing that I can say that I 100% agree on is the idea of energy regen to a threshold. It really sucks when you're being bombarded by a lot of mobs and you can't do anything because you got unlucky with energy drops.

The idea of skills levelling up would make certain current aspects of the game redundant (i.e. Skill Power, Efficiency, and Range Mods), and if DE would want to implement such a thing, they'd have to be willing to go the extra mile and cut out the fat when they do so.

I think that the easier route to this issue would be just adjusting the skills and costs of certain warframes to put them in line with others. For example, Excalibur's Slash Dash is currently worlds better than his ultimate skill, Radial Javelin, because Radial Javelin costs far too much to use considering the range, delay, and target limit on it.

I could go on, but I'd be better off doing so on my own thread.

No offense but, did you even read what i wrote? Or did you just scim it and see i wrote "nerf slash dash" someplace?

I only take slash dash as an example. The fact that you can spam it because you happen to find more energy orbs (not because you spec into max energy as you say, that does not give you more energy, it only adds to the amount of orbs you can find before you have to start using the ability to not waste the energy) has nothing to do with this subject.

I'm talking about the difference between warframes.

Let me ask you something... would you define most of the combat you do in this game as with slash dash? 50% of it even? of course not, know why? that would be insanely op and not fun. you would just run around pressing 1 and everything would die around you. instead, you use slash dash about once a big fight, or use it a few times when theres a boss until you run out of energy.

This is not game defining... Your warframes abilities should define how your gameplay looks lke shouldn't it? Instead, most of the time you play exactly like any other warframe.

[Sealgaire]

Seems to me like he addressed quite a few of your points.

I'm relatively happy with the system the way it is. I don't rely on powers to do most of my damage, but use them in bad situations that my weapons aren't enough to get me out of. Makes them feel more special that way I think than if I was just spamming them to kill mobs. As far as energy goes, I think all they need to do is make energy orbs shareable so teammates don't have to fight over them and maybe tweak the rate at which enemies drop them.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Spiffmeister]

The caster-frames (ember and volt) need more focus on abilities than gun play.

[Malachia]

Seems to me like he addressed quite a few of your points.

I'm relatively happy with the system the way it is. I don't rely on powers to do most of my damage, but use them in bad situations that my weapons aren't enough to get me out of. Makes them feel more special that way I think than if I was just spamming them to kill mobs. As far as energy goes, I think all they need to do is make energy orbs shareable so teammates don't have to fight over them and maybe tweak the rate at which enemies drop them.

How can he address any of my points if hes talking about a whole different subject =P I'm talking about warframe differentiation and hes talking about Excalibur's abilities and their balance.

Anyways, about waht you say, your right, the abilities feel very good because of how you cant use them whenever you want and you save them for sticky situations. But that's not warframe difference.

What you describe can still be achieved through the 4th ability even if the other 3 become spamable and less impactfull. Take for instance Excalibur. right now his 1 ability is by far ALOT better than his 4 ability... why would anyone use an ability for 100 energy that kills everything around you, when you can use an ability that uses 25 and kills everything in front of you?

If all the normal abilities (1 to 3) will be used regularly to differentiate the warframes from one another while the ultimate ability (number 4) will still be a awesome kick-&#! clutch ability you can use in sticky situations. this one will obviously have a long cooldown or something so it wont be gamebreaking (the way slash dash is right now).

The caster-frames (ember and volt) need more focus on abilities than gun play.

Congratulations! You the first guy in this thread to post something relevant to the topic :D You win a cookie!

EDIT: typo's

Edited January 7, 2013 by Malachia

[Sealgaire]

It seems like you want the caster type warframes to function more like casters in a traditional mmo. I'm not sure if this is what DE was going for, but yea, you could accomplish this by reducing the cost and damage of their powers.

I do think you have a point about frame differentiation by the way. For example Excalibur and Ash have a very similar set of powers, a forward focused attack, a power to blind enemies or go invisible, a power that's just used for movement, and an AOE attack. The only thing that seperates them is the effectiveness of the abilities within each tier relative to the the other frames. Excalibur's first power is great while Ash's is next to useless. His second is slightly worse than Ash's. His third can be useful now that it only costs 10 energy, while again Ash's is almost pointless and costs 75. I prefer Ash's ultimate because it can damage through walls (and looks completely awesome), but I guess they're pretty similar. I just built Rhino, but his set of powers seems similar with the third and forth switched. Loki appears to have a pretty unique set, but I can't say how effective they are compare to others as I haven't tried him.

I haven't played a caster type frame yet either, so I can't comment on how they compare to each other.

[Malachia]

It seems like you want the caster type warframes to function more like casters in a traditional mmo. I'm not sure if this is what DE was going for, but yea, you could accomplish this by reducing the cost and damage of their powers.

I do think you have a point about frame differentiation by the way. For example Excalibur and Ash have a very similar set of powers, a forward focused attack, a power to blind enemies or go invisible, a power that's just used for movement, and an AOE attack. The only thing that seperates them is the effectiveness of the abilities within each tier relative to the the other frames. Excalibur's first power is great while Ash's is next to useless. His second is slightly worse than Ash's. His third can be useful now that it only costs 10 energy, while again Ash's is almost pointless and costs 75. I prefer Ash's ultimate because it can damage through walls (and looks completely awesome), but I guess they're pretty similar. I just built Rhino, but his set of powers seems similar with the third and forth switched. Loki appears to have a pretty unique set, but I can't say how effective they are compare to others as I haven't tried him.

I haven't played a caster type frame yet either, so I can't comment on how they compare to each other.

Again you miss the point... when i say all frames are similar i dont mean their skill sets are similar, I'm not even sure what all the different frames abilities are.

What i can tell though, is that with the ability system as it is, it doesnt matter how unique your ability set will be because 90% of your combat isn't based on your abilities, its all based on guns and melee weapons that ALL warframes, regardless of type, have access to.

Even simple passive differences such as Rhino having more health\armor\shield thus making him tankier, or caster frames having more energy would make some kind of frame differentiation. But there is no such difference.

--->There is no difference between the "different" warframes.<---

That is the point.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Malachia

[Sealgaire]

Ok, I think we're on the same page now. In the OP you you spoke almost entirely about ways to allow frames to use their skills more and balancing and diversifying skills between frames (reread it if you don't believe me), which is what most responses in this thread have dealt with as well.

Warframes are not classes like in an MMORPG. You're supposed to be able to customize each frame's stats through mods to suit your playstyle. Want a Volt that can tank but fries everone in sight when his back is against the wall? Slap on some shield and health mods and go to town. Want a Volt that stays behind the group and wreaks electrical havock on enemies? Put in a bunch of +power damage and energy efficiency and max energy mods. I just played with a guy who could whip out Volts ultimate almost every time we encountered more than a few enemies and spent the time between zapping plenty of others.

Like I said above, energy does need to be slightly easier to come by through energy orb sharing and maybe drop rate tweaks. But I think you can find what you're looking for if you just specialise you frame to suit your playstyle. It does seem like power and energy affecting mods are rare at the moment, but that may be because I play Exclibur and Ash (and soon Rhino) exclusively, so they may just not drop as often or me.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Malachia]

I dont think that mods drop differently depending on which frame you're using.

Aside from that point, I agree with you about mods being the way to tune your play style. Of course if you wanna build shields and health on Volt you should be able to do so, i agree on that, mods are great and they shouldnt change.

However, I want to feel like when im playing Excalibur im bringing something unique to the mission, and that if I have a Volt or a Rhino with me he will be able to bring different things.

The way i see it, all I can bring is bullets, a melee attack, and a press-this-and-everything-dies button on 1.

On the other hand, the Volt bro thats with me brings bullets, a melee attack, and a press-this-and-everything-dies button on 4.

Theres nothing interesting =P

Furthermore, this means there is absolutley 0 replayability. if I reach max level with my Excalibur, and I make a new frame and start leveling it. it will be exactly the same experience.

I'm not talking about classes in the MMO sense, this is a third person shooter after all. I'm talking about the fact that playing Volt and playing Excalibur should feel different. This is currently not the case, all warframes feel the same, except that maybe you need to aim differently when you press your press-this-and-everything-dies button.

[Sealgaire]

On that point I somewhat agree with you. I don't think it's fair to say that only the most damaging power ever gets used, but balancing and variety between powers could use some work.

Some warframes powers do provide unique opportunities, though. Mags ability to make any enemies bullets fly back at it or damage shields while restoring someone else's, Trinity's team buffing abilities etc. The problem is that either encounters with enemies aren't difficult enough to make these powers really make a difference or that the abilites themselves are too weak or costly to have an impact on a fight. I think when things are balanced more and enemy encounters require more varied strategies, people will rely on abilities in situations that they would just shoot, melee or use their most damaging power on at the moment. That's when the differences between warframes hopefuly will become more apparent.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Malachia]

I'm actualy trying to get Mag, her abilities seem really cool and im hoping it wont be the win button case it is with Excalibur.

I think your right about the difficulty, if the game was more challenging people would find more uses to abilities and we would see more differentiation between warframes.

But when abilities start being relied upon more freaquently, I think that energy scarcity would become really anoying. not everyone has energy efficiency and regeneration mods =P

Plus, I think that with energy regeneration mod and efficiency mods the game is just too easy, all the abilities are just too damn strong right now. which is ok considering at the begining (without mods) you can use them only once in a while.

That only has to apply to the ultimate ability in my opinion, the 1-3 abilities need to be able to be spammed to differentiate each war frame, doesnt matter if their strong or weak (preferably weak, if their spammed XD)

[Spiffmeister]

It seems like you want the caster type warframes to function more like casters in a traditional mmo. I'm not sure if this is what DE was going for, but yea, you could accomplish this by reducing the cost and damage of their powers.

The tooltip for the volt says something like "good for players who want an alternative to gun play".

[Pruney]

woaohaowoahw

woah

Mass Effect 1 is bad, are you serious. It's the best Mass Effect out of the 3 of them. If you're basing your argument on Mass Effect 1, you don't have one. The classes were awesome and aren't as similar as you are saying, most of the classes had the same abilities but depending on whether you chose a class that supported it, meant you had more effects or the ability was stronger.

With Warframe, the different abilities make you play differently, none of them are the same.

[Malachia]

woaohaowoahw

woah

Mass Effect 1 is bad, are you serious. It's the best Mass Effect out of the 3 of them. If you're basing your argument on Mass Effect 1, you don't have one. The classes were awesome and aren't as similar as you are saying, most of the classes had the same abilities but depending on whether you chose a class that supported it, meant you had more effects or the ability was stronger.

With Warframe, the different abilities make you play differently, none of them are the same.

Well, first of all, i can tell you I personally enjoyed the first ME the most, but that is becaue im a story junky.

The gameplay was still bad though. All the combat was simple 3rd person shooter point and click, no tactics involved, no abilities to make combat more deep, no nothing. The only abilities that were in the game were ones that, as I said, you use once a fight, maybe once every 2 fights, because they have 40-60 second cooldowns =P

and the abilities were not strong to compensate...

There were other differences such as soldier being the only class thats able to use all weapons, but i wouldnt call that differences, i would call it limitations on all the other classes.

And second, the different abilities DO NOT make you play differently... its still either shoot 'em or slash 'em 90% of the time, the other 10% being when you use abilities.

Now, shooting and slashing stuff is fun and all, but i would hardly say this is warframe difference...

The tooltip for the volt says something like "good for players who want an alternative to gun play".

This ^

Its obviously (currently) a lie =P

this is why I think DE did intend for there to be difference between warframes.

Volt doesnt give players an alternative to gun play... It does if you can get energy orbs off of every enemy, or you get energy regen from that artifact thingy (which i got, but have no idea how to activate x_x )

Right now there is no alternative to gun play.

[Mudoon]

There's an artifact in game that allows you regen energy for the whole party (a constant passive), when my friend used it on our group we were able to freely use our abilities throughout the mission (though I feel it's sort of incredibly overpowered at the moment)

[Malachia]

There's an artifact in game that allows you regen energy for the whole party (a constant passive), when my friend used it on our group we were able to freely use our abilities throughout the mission (though I feel it's sort of incredibly overpowered at the moment)

Yes I have it too. In my opinion the game is alot more interesting when you can use your abilities freely, it should be like that all the time, not only with a specific artifact. And the reason I wrote about balance is this, its rediculously overpowered =P

[Spiffmeister]

Right now there is no alternative to gun play.

Obviously the only way to do that would be to remove/limit weapons to the caster-frames, create more active abilities and move them to the weapon slots.

[KikasG]

Like many said, game should allow bigger rate of ability usage, its more fun when you can use your abilities more frequently. Wanted to talk about volt atm it seems he only has one good ability: his so called 'ultimate' people usually only save for it since other abilities are meh in comparison. You guys should change them a bit, like keep the first ability as it is just make it more like chain lightning, then his speed boost should increase att speed atm its only good to run and we all prefer some destruction power, the shield needs to be bigger or make it some kind of bubble around you, and if you do all this or something similar tone down the ultimate ability since it is bit too much.

[JazzGB]

I play a Volt and I would be happy to lose the rifle in exchange for more powers/power regen. I tend to stick with Sword and pistol...but that may have more to do with damage rates then anything else. Given that Volt is electrical it would make sense that he could recharge....rather than just be a battery

[DiBBz]

your comparing ME1 to a F2P game that will soon be a AAA+ game

no no no no

One does not simply compare warframe with Mass effect 1

[neKroMancer]

Ahh, How on earth did I miss this topic.

Frame differentiation, in my opinion, has two aspects.

1. Same frame differentiation (build)

2. Different frame differentiation (playstyle)

Build.

Right now, once your frame hit lv30 - you unlock all powers, all mod slots which effectively left only mod an only way to customized your frame to be more unique. It's fine but I think it's redundant. Players do not have to make any choice about how to build their frames, no difference between my volt and your volt apart from mods.

Many players will bash my idea but I think we should have a limit cap on 25 and force players to decide how to build their frames. Do I need this skill? Should I allocate these points to that branch instead? This is the way I prefer it, close to ME3MP 'kit' concept which force players to innovate and be different from other players.

Playstyle.

Now, Volt's description has something about 'an alternate to melee and gunplay'. Really? Ember is a nightmare to light armor enemy? They don't have energy to cast whatever powers they have then players will rely on brute force from your weapon to tear their way through the game. Which leads to 2 troubles.

a. not enough energy orbs.

b. not enough ammo.

Each frame should feel more unique and has the way they should be played. Play Volt, then you're going to fry everyone like a thundergod. At least able to use power more frequent than Ash or Rhino which are more 'combat' oriented would be a good start. Play a rhino and everyone will expect you to be a bullet sponge with rhino skin.

As the OP stated, this game feel like ME1 with limited ammo. Powers can't be casted frequently and your ammo just not enough especially when 2-3 players carry weapon of the same class. To remedy this (well, it's a bit biased since I'm no longer considered young thus I rely on powers more than my guns) we need to take a look at each frame 'Role' and give it different base stat/regeneration.

Example 1 : Volt - now this frame is obviously a castor. He begins with 100 shield/health and 100 base energy. Now to make him a castor - reduce his health to 50 and increase his base energy to 125 points. Some sort of energy replenishment, either through passive regen or action-based like Trinity's energy vampire should be implemented to supply him with energy but not too much or too fast - to keep him from being to spammy. We all need to shoot our guns after all.

Example 2 : Rhino - an obvious, traditional tank. Taking damage and dish it back agressively is the role of Rhino. He's also start with 100 shield/health and 100 energy. Increase his shield/health to 200/150 and lower his energy to 50-75. Just enough for him to cast Rhino skin and perform his role in the beginning. Also, give him some ways to replenish shield/health instead of energy. Probably give him a small weapon/melee passive skill and higher sheld/health passive than other frames.

(Excalibur is a bit strange, he has EXTREMELY strong AOE attack as a first skill. He should have radial javelin as a first skill and slashdash as ultimate.)

Now through mods, you'll be able to either further make your frames more specialzed or make them more all-round - It's entirely up to you.

My 2 cent, fellow Tenno. Thanks for the attention.

[Phurl]

Personally, I prefer the current ratio of weapon-to-power combat. Warframes and the powers they bequeath are only 1 part of the equation- weapon choice, mod choice, and fighting style make up the rest of it. 2 players can use the same warframe and still bring different things to the table.

And, aesthetically speaking, having an Ember or Volt do nothing but spam fire balls and lightning bolts makes them look more like space magicians than space ninja. It doesn't fit the theme, I'd think.

That said, I do agree they need to revamp the Energy system so caster types can cast a slight bit more. But they also need to revamp much of the combat system as there's too much redundacy between weapons and swords as well.

[Malachia]

your comparing ME1 to a F2P game that will soon be a AAA+ game

no no no no

One does not simply compare warframe with Mass effect 1

Indeed one does not.

I'm not comparing WF and ME, of course, that would be insane, I'm just saying that WF has ME syndrome, meaning the classes, or in this case, frames, are supposed to feel different, but they don't.

There are other games that share this problem, Borderlands and Dead Island are two examples even though their gameplay is totally different.

Borderlands though is in much better shape, since even though you have only one ability and a few traits that are different in the skill tree (most are basicly the same) that one ability drasticly changes how you play.

Personally, I prefer the current ratio of weapon-to-power combat. Warframes and the powers they bequeath are only 1 part of the equation- weapon choice, mod choice, and fighting style make up the rest of it. 2 players can use the same warframe and still bring different things to the table.

And, aesthetically speaking, having an Ember or Volt do nothing but spam fire balls and lightning bolts makes them look more like space magicians than space ninja. It doesn't fit the theme, I'd think.

That said, I do agree they need to revamp the Energy system so caster types can cast a slight bit more. But they also need to revamp much of the combat system as there's too much redundacy between weapons and swords as well.

First of all, even if you bring a different rifle and melee weapon, your still bringing basicly bullets and a melee attack, so I dont understand what you say about how even though you bring the same warframe you bring something different if you have other weapons, its all basicly the same =x

Second, I dont think Ember and Volt should just be slinging spells all over and not using weapons at all, that indeed would be very un-ninja like.

But, there can be a balance, they can have a fire\lightning charged melee attack. They can have some kind of ranged ability with a cooldown and they use a pistol in between.

And anyways, the only true ninja frame is Ash, all the others have a little different styles and balances... look at Rhino :P

Plus, if you ever saw the anime Naruto, you would know that ninja's come in all shapes and sizes XD

Edited January 8, 2013 by Malachia

[Spiffmeister]

I play a Volt and I would be happy to lose the rifle in exchange for more powers/power regen. I tend to stick with Sword and pistol...but that may have more to do with damage rates then anything else. Given that Volt is electrical it would make sense that he could recharge....rather than just be a battery

Charge up by sucking power from the terminals? The easy way is to lower the damage of the caster-frames powers and also decrease their power cost.

your comparing ME1 to a F2P game that will soon be a AAA+ game

no no no no

One does not simply compare warframe with Mass effect 1

Stop drooling over Mass Effect is wasn't that good.