Time For Warframe Passives?

[Driftwood]

Now that we know about Mesa's passive buff with guns, is it about time to revisit the idea of passive abilities for warframes? It's an idea that was hot a while ago that DE claimed wasn't going to happen, but that policy started eroding when Zephyr got its permanent low-gravity and has completely gone out the window with Mesa being straight up better with guns. It's not like Mesa is lacking in inherent stats or abilities in comparison to other frames(or at least they aren't intended to be), and passives would re-spark interest in many frames that have been neglected or 'finished' for a long time. 

[TheErebus.]

In all honesty, in nearly any game with passive abilities, I've never noticed any change other than health/stamina/magic increase. 

[.Fire_Fly.]

how is mesa better with weapons?

 

been player her all day adn i dont see a a difference with her then i do with ember lol

[Xiusa]

I've made a topic about this idea LONG ago, and I think that passive abilities on all of the frames would be great.

 

how is mesa better with weapons?

 

been player her all day adn i dont see a a difference with her then i do with ember lol

She moves 20% faster while zoomed in, has a 20% faster reload speed with single-handed secondary weapons, 20% faster fire rate with akimbo style secondary weapons, 20% extra ammo for bows, and 1m punch through on snipers

Edited December 3, 2014 by Xiusa

[-Mandachordian-Tenno-]

faster reload on some guns i think

[Kyte]

20% faster reload with pistols, 5% more damage with rifles, 2 more pellets with shotguns, 10% more rof with akimbo pistols, 15% faster projectiles with launchers, 1 extra meter of punchthrough with snipers, 20% more ammo on bows, 18 more health if you're not carrying a melee weapon, 20% faster movement while aiming.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Kyte

[SteelSoldier]

How about more damage with specific elemental damage tied to the warframe in question?

[shut]

In all honesty, in nearly any game with passive abilities, I've never noticed any change other than health/stamina/magic increase. 

 

In Warframe, those would just be base stats. Unique mechanics for specific Frames would be pretty sweet, provided that they aren't too gamebreaking.

 

e.g.

Zephyr - Falling acceleration is decreased.

Excalibur - Melee combos last for 50% longer before fading; combos can now be triggered by Quick Melee.

Loki - Can move 50% faster while aiming and crouching.

Rhino - Enemies will not impede his movement path. (Can push aside enemies when walking.)

Frost - 30% resistance to Ice damage; Cryogenics malfunctions will not reduce shields; immune to Freeze procs.

Ember - 30% resistance to Fire damage; burning patches will deal no damage; immune to Fire procs.

 

 

Not these specific examples, of course (although I'm really fond of the Rhino one), but you get the idea. Little things that are nice to have in gameplay, but don't completely overhaul it.

Edited December 3, 2014 by SortaRandom

[Grilleds]

Just no elemental damage resistance passives. They are impossible to balance considering the lack of variety in enemy damage types, and no matter how high the resistance is, they would be useless in most situations.

 

I also don't think EVERY Warframe needs a passive. This isn't LoL, and some frames like Nova should be meant to stand on the power of their abilities alone. 

[Tsukinoki]

@SortaRandom
Problem with giving elemental resistances:
They are completely unbalanced.

Lets look at how many enemies deal fire damage:
-Napalm
-Scorch
-Fusion moa
-Arson Eximus
-Caustic Ancient

-Second half of Lech Kril fight
-Hyena NG

Also known as some of the hardest hitting enemies in the game.

Lets look at how many enemies deal ice damage:
-First half of Lech Kril fight
-Hyena LN2

Yeah, how exactly is granting both a 30% resistance to their element in any way balanced?

Even if frost was 100% immune to cold damage it would still make his passive completely pointless and he might as well never have one considering that 2 enemies in the entire game deal ice damage and they are both bosses.

Even Volt gets the shaft if you give the elemental frames resistances as he would be resistant to:
-Sniper Crewman
-Prod Crewman
-Arc Traps

I honestly think that they are other ways to provide passives to the elemental frames then doing elemental resistances.

[ZayTM]

Actually, there's another warframe with a passive: Mirage

She rolls, wallruns, and vaults faster. Compare her to Nova, who has the same sprint speed.

 

So yeah, at least three warframes already have passives. I'm all for having some more

[shut]

@SortaRandom

Problem with giving elemental resistances:

They are completely unbalanced.

Lets look at how many enemies deal fire damage:

-Napalm

-Scorch

-Fusion moa

-Arson Eximus

-Caustic Ancient

-Second half of Lech Kril fight

-Hyena NG

Also known as some of the hardest hitting enemies in the game.

Lets look at how many enemies deal ice damage:

-First half of Lech Kril fight

-Hyena LN2

Yeah, how exactly is granting both a 30% resistance to their element in any way balanced?

Even if frost was 100% immune to cold damage it would still make his passive completely pointless and he might as well never have one considering that 2 enemies in the entire game deal ice damage and they are both bosses.

Even Volt gets the shaft if you give the elemental frames resistances as he would be resistant to:

-Sniper Crewman

-Prod Crewman

-Arc Traps

I honestly think that they are other ways to provide passives to the elemental frames then doing elemental resistances.

Yeah, that's true for sure. I wasn't really trying to list precise examples of what I think should go in the game (Rhino aside; I'm really fond of that one), it was just a general-idea sort of thing. For Frost's passive, I was actually trying to think of enemies that dealt Ice damage and couldn't think of any. XD

[Tsukinoki]

@SortaRandom
I get that you were just listing examples without being too set on the ideas, but I posted that to stave off further pushes for elemental frames getting resistance/immunity to their own element.

 

The element distribution among enemies really needs to be worked on honestly.
We need enemies who deal a wide variety of elemental damage and not just the physical damage with some fire thrown in here and there for the most part, but that's a discussion for another thread.

[Rikage]

Excalibur - Melee combos last for 50% longer before fading; combos can now be triggered by Quick Melee.

Ehr... combos are triggered by quick melee, you just can't see the counter (because the ammo count is in the way)

[shut]

Ehr... combos are triggered by quick melee, you just can't see the counter (because the ammo count is in the way)

Is it actually? I haven't paid much attention to it.

I'll have to go test this out later. xD

[Hueminator]

Just give elemental frames get decrease duration of status proc of whatever their element is

 

@SortaRandom
Problem with giving elemental resistances:
They are completely unbalanced.

Lets look at how many enemies deal fire damage:
-Napalm
-Scorch
-Fusion moa
-Arson Eximus
-Caustic Ancient

-Second half of Lech Kril fight
-Hyena NG

Also known as some of the hardest hitting enemies in the game.

Lets look at how many enemies deal ice damage:
-First half of Lech Kril fight
-Hyena LN2

Yeah, how exactly is granting both a 30% resistance to their element in any way balanced?

Even if frost was 100% immune to cold damage it would still make his passive completely pointless and he might as well never have one considering that 2 enemies in the entire game deal ice damage and they are both bosses.

Even Volt gets the shaft if you give the elemental frames resistances as he would be resistant to:
-Sniper Crewman
-Prod Crewman
-Arc Traps

I honestly think that they are other ways to provide passives to the elemental frames then doing elemental resistances.

 

Then again you don't really factor in their armors.

 

Frost normally have like ~30% mitigation I think on health so he naturally take 30% off any damage on health.

Ember have ~ 5% mitigation on health so having fire resistance make her somewhat even ground with High Armored Frames, but only on Fire damage.

 

This also help ember somewhat more tanky against fire damage user (lots of them) and maybe less people wanna "bring back overheat"

 

The same apply for Volts (low armor)

 

If you talking about the passive apply to shield then it is a different story.

 

P/S: DE can also add more elemental units in the futures. Ex:  they can make cryonic or w/e become more common to the corpus that they start putting it in their arsenal ==> more ice unit.  

Edited December 3, 2014 by Hueminator

[Grilleds]

@SortaRandom

I get that you were just listing examples without being too set on the ideas, but I posted that to stave off further pushes for elemental frames getting resistance/immunity to their own element.

 

The element distribution among enemies really needs to be worked on honestly.

We need enemies who deal a wide variety of elemental damage and not just the physical damage with some fire thrown in here and there for the most part, but that's a discussion for another thread.

That wouldn't change anything until the elemental resistance mods are buffed to the point where they aren't completely worthless. As it is now every damage type does 100% damage to a Warframe before armor calculation, so there is literally no difference between them other than the procs with a few rare exceptions (Rhino's Iron Skin for example). 

 

Just give elemental frames get decrease duration of status proc of whatever their element is

 

 

Then again you don't really factor in their armors.

 

Frost normally have like ~30% mitigation I think on health so he naturally take 30% off any damage on health.

Ember have ~ 5% mitigation on health so having fire resistance make her somewhat even ground with High Armored Frames, but only on Fire damage.

 

This also help ember somewhat more tanky against fire damage user (lots of them) and maybe less people wanna "bring back overheat"

 

The same apply for Volts (low armor)

 

If you talking about the passive apply to shield then it is a different story.

 

P/S: DE can also add more elemental units in the futures. Ex:  they can make cryonic or w/e become more common to the corpus that they start putting it in their arsenal ==> more ice unit.  

That's still a hilariously awful method of balance. First off the status duration resistance isn't a good idea considering there are already ways to reduce status durations, or in some cases even resist them:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Rapid_Resilience

 

Second it's just too lopsided. Frost getting passive resistance would be barely noticed. Ember getting passive resistance would give her slight resistance to some rarely spawning enemies, but she's still so squishy that she can't really tank them, and the overwhelming majority of the enemies shooting at her will still rip her apart since they aren't doing fire damage. It's just silly to say "OK, lets give this Warframe 30% resistance to a damage type that will only ever be applied to her less than 2% of the time, and pretend that this balances her".

 

It also will do absolutely nothing for people who want Overheat back. You are seriously overestimating how often fire damage is ever really a factor.

 

It's also essentially adding in a random factor to a Warframe's balance discussion since how effective it is depends entirely on how often the RNG spawns enemies that do fire damage, and adding more random factors for balance is never really a good idea.

 

Passive elemental resistance is just an incredibly dumb idea for Warframe, and I'm actually starting to get annoyed by how often this idea is being seriously suggested. It's not something that could ever be balanced, it's something the majority of players won't even notice and hence doesn't exactly increase the fun factor of the game (something to always consider if a feature is ignoring balance), and while it arguably might make sense lore-wise (I disagree), it makes absolutely no sense from a gameplay perspective. What annoys me is that it gets suggested so often that I'm worried the devs might actually implement it instead of a more reasonable suggestion.

 

Heck, even adding passive elemental damage to all attacks is a better idea, and that's still a very bad idea. But at least that would be a bit more consistent and tangible. I would literally take almost any other passive over something as silly as elemental resistance.

[Spunt1nk]

In Warframe, those would just be base stats. Unique mechanics for specific Frames would be pretty sweet, provided that they aren't too gamebreaking.

 

e.g.

Zephyr - Falling acceleration is decreased.

Excalibur - Melee combos last for 50% longer before fading; combos can now be triggered by Quick Melee.

Loki - Can move 50% faster while aiming and crouching.

Rhino - Enemies will not impede his movement path. (Can push aside enemies when walking.)

Frost - 30% resistance to Ice damage; Cryogenics malfunctions will not reduce shields; immune to Freeze procs.

Ember - 30% resistance to Fire damage; burning patches will deal no damage; immune to Fire procs.

 

 

Not these specific examples, of course (although I'm really fond of the Rhino one), but you get the idea. Little things that are nice to have in gameplay, but don't completely overhaul it.

I have a post basically saying the same thing, this needed to be in warframe a long time ago.

 

Also

 Sayrn -  30% resistance to toxin Damage; Toxin clouds will deal no damage; immune to grineer sludge.

 Volt - 30% resistance to electricity damage; arc traps will deal no damage; immune to shock procs.

 

All the possibilities!

[Kyte]

Grilleds is right, elemental resistances are a terrible idea. Give them advantages that play to their theme and also gameplay styles.

• Frost is a very defensive frame, give him a mild slow aura like the cold eximus.

• Ember should passively reduce/clear out infested tar and bees, maybe even get a slight buff from those fire hazards. Not armor, but damage or power strength or such to boost her offense
• Saryn is also a tanky frame, she could have a toxin equivalent to the Retribution mod, enemies that hit her (and possibly her Molt too?) get toxin'd.
• Volt is a speedy generalist frame, with strong team abilities. Let him slightly speed up animations on himself and his teammates. Oh, btw, does Overload make arc traps explode along with everything else? Because if it doesn't then it should.
• Loki is battlefield positioning and debuffing, give him a aura that buffs the duration of his and his team's stuns and debuffs (knockdown, electrocuted, on fire, mesa's jamming, augmented silence, stagger, blinds, etc).

• Excalibur is the poster melee boy, give him melee buffs across the board. If Mesa gets a buff for each gun type, Exca can get a buff for each melee type. Faster daggers, slightly stronger swords, bigger slam radius on hammers, etc.

That's what I can come up with for now.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Kyte

[Grilleds]

Grilleds is right, elemental resistances are a terrible idea. Give them advantages that play to their theme and also gameplay styles.

• Frost is a very defensive frame, give him a mild slow aura like the cold eximus.

• Ember should passively reduce/clear out infested tar and bees, maybe even get a slight buff from those fire hazards. Not armor, but damage or power strength or such to boost her offense
• Saryn is also a tanky frame, she could have a toxin equivalent to the Retribution mod, enemies that hit her (and possibly her Molt too?) get toxin'd.
• Volt is a speedy generalist frame, with strong team abilities. Let him slightly speed up animations on himself and his teammates. Oh, btw, does Overload make arc traps explode along with everything else? Because if it doesn't then it should.
• Loki is battlefield positioning and debuffing, give him a aura that buffs the duration of his and his team's stuns and debuffs (knockdown, electrocuted, on fire, mesa's jamming, augmented silence, stagger, blinds, etc).

• Excalibur is the poster melee boy, give him melee buffs across the board. If Mesa gets a buff for each gun type, Exca can get a buff for each melee type. Faster daggers, slightly stronger swords, bigger slam radius on hammers, etc.

That's what I can come up with for now.

Actually Valkyr is the melee frame. I actually made a whole thread explaining why this made her the best designed frame in the game:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/344675-valkyr-is-the-best-designed-frame-by-far-this-is-a-problem/

For the record, now that Mesa has been released and I finally see her abilities. I now have mixed feelings regarding if I feel like she followed Valkyr's example, as opposed to my optimistic view when I made that thread. But she is definitely better designed than a lot of the current Warframes from a gameplay perspective, even with the fact that she needs a little tuning.

 

As for Excal? Excal was meant to be a generalist frame. He has no melee themed abilities and isn't really tanky or especially fast, so I don't understand why people think he's a melee frame. Perhaps at one point he was intended to be melee themed, but it looks like that idea got scrapped.

[Kyte]

Valkyr is a melee frame, but Excalibur is the poster boy. He's always the one shown in trailers and posters with the skana, his theme is based on arthurian legend, many of his abilities are said to work through his melee weapon, etc.

(For the record: Slash Dash is obvious, Radial Javelin spawns ghost swords on everybody, Radial Blind is worked through the melee weapon, the only one that doesn't fit here is Super Jump. People have suggested Excalibur's abilities should be augmented by his equipped melee weapon, and I agree, but this thread is about passives, not abilities)

Even if his gameplay is generalist, his theme has a strong melee weapon component. It's true that this is not well-reflected, so the passives would help refocus him there.

 

Valkyr is a melee frame, but in a more animalistic way. Claws and such.

Valkyr oughta get a melee-oriented passive, yes, but focused more on raw aggressiveness and such, and leave Excalibur as the swordmaster.

 

Also I find that Valkyr's specialization is good for her, but would be limiting and frustrating if every frame was as much of a one trick pony as Valk is.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Kyte

[Grilleds]

Valkyr is a melee frame, but Excalibur is the poster boy. He's always the one shown in trailers and posters with the skana, his theme is based on arthurian legend, many of his abilities work through his melee weapon, etc. Valkyr is a melee frame, but in a more animalistic way. Claws and such.

Valkyr oughta get a melee-oriented passive, yes, but focused more on raw aggressiveness and such, and leave Excalibur as the swordmaster.

 

Also I find that Valkyr's specialization is good for her, but would be limiting and frustrating if every frame was as much of a one trick pony as Valk is.

Excalibur is the poster boy of the entire game, not of melee. I always figured he was shown with the skana because the devs wanted to emphasize that this is a "sword" and gun game, rather than just a shooter, and the Skana is the most iconic tenno melee weapon. In fact his Radial Javelin... Shoots Skana's at enemies.

 

I do agree he was probably originally intended to be a melee frame, but it seems that idea has largely been scrapped. His Slash Dash, Radial Javelin, and Radial Blind all just have him use a melee weapon in the animation... But are otherwise completely independent of his melee, in fact they even work if you don't equip a melee weapon. He literally has absolutely nothing melee themed about his kit other than the animations. Even his stats don't really lend themselves well to a melee specialist playstyle as they are pretty average all around. You COULD argue that he has 2 melee engage tools (Slash Dash and Super Jump), and I'd have to agree, but so do a number of frames that aren't considered melee frames (Zephyr, Ash, etc).

 

Even his Warframe profile video describes him as being an adaptive frame, meant to be able to play any playstyle. He's meant to be a jack of all trades frame, and in a way he kind of is:

 

Meanwhile Valkyr's entire kit. Literally everything about her including her stats, lends itself to a melee playstyle. She can even press 4 and get a whole new combo list that no other frame ever has access to.There isn't another frame as entirely dedicated to one thing as Valkyr is to melee.

 

The point of that thread wasn't that every frame should specialize in something. It was more pointing out that Valkyr is the only frame in the game who feels like her entire kit lends itself to a particular playstyle, and that it makes her feel unique. Other frames just kind of feel generic, and that makes them less fun. They don't need specializations, but I would like to see the other frames get reworked slightly so that they feel balanced, skill based, and unique in their playstyle. I don't think this thread's goal would be enough to achieve that (or even be the right way to do so), as tacking on a passive to each frame isn't going to fix the fact that a lot of them have rather generic kits with 1 standout ability that often never gets used. The problem here is largely because the game has devolved to a point where people breeze through most of the content by just pressing 4 to instantly clear a room without really doing anything engaging until they run out of energy. That's simply not good gameplay, nor is it actively engaging the player.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Grilleds

[Kyte]

So what, give Exca something with everything? Jack of all, boost to all.

[Grilleds]

So what, give Exca something with everything? Jack of all, boost to all.

I'd rather just see him made all around better and have his Radial Javelin ability (and nearly all room clearing ults) get reworked. However if he must have a passive, I'd be OK with a melee themed one so long as it doesn't make him "the melee frame". On another thread I suggested him having his abilities boost his combo counter and freeze it for the casting time to reward players for actively using his abilities to engage. Since his abilities could stand on their own merits without the boost, he'd still be a generalist frame, and the boost would be more rewarding players for using his abilities in combos rather than just a flat melee boost.

 

However I'd actually rather he just not be a frame with a passive since I don't really think every frame needs one. Another frame I don't think should have a passive at all is Nova. Even if DE gives passives to older frames, I think some frames should be able to just stand on their abilities alone. I don't think the absence of a passive would indicate a frame being less effective than one with a passive either as Zephyr has a passive and yet most people agree she isn't exactly high tier. This is actually another reason I'm against elemental resistance passives as I just think they are unneeded in general, and having an elemental passive would in most cases be effectively no different than not even having one anyway.

[Azawarau]

Ok

 

Have any of you at all considered that other elements could be added to the game to justify passive elemental resistances?