The Most Pressing Issues: Mechanics That Are So Broken They're Holding Back The Game

[Jamescell]

1.) The energy system mocks any true attempt to balance abilities. How can you prevent abilities from being broken/abused when you have to account for players that spam the ability with a decked out-mod-loadout and players that use the ability only a few times with little to no mods? The truth is you don't. If this game is ever going to become well reviewed, abilities must be within reason. Without some way to better regulate how often we can use the devastating abilities we have, the state of abilities will remain messy, abuseable and unrefined. The more reliable and predictable the energy system becomes the more control Devs will have over the intent and power of abilities- which will allow for better ability design.

Solution: Replace all the whimsical and segmented methods of regaining energy with an innate energy regeneration stat- simple as that. The following things would be removed/changed: Energy efficiency mods, energy orbs, energy siphon, energy capacity mods, energy restores, and all other mods that allow players to manipulate the rate at which they regain energy. Of course, energy cost, energy capacity and the strength of many abilities would be adjusted based on the changes.

2.) The broken modding system that forces players (who want to be effective at all) to equip certain necesarry mods like pure damage and multishot (and arguably how elemental mods add damage instead of converting it like conclave does). This directly limits loadout customization. Why have mods that you will put on every weapon regardless? Isn't that what base stats are for? Viable customization is a proven method of progression in of itself- as many successful games have proven.

Solution: Make all mods utility mods. elemental damage mods would convert damage instead of adding it, there would be no pure damage mods, crit. chance and crit damage would be removed (otherwise they would become the new pure damage for crit weapons). All mods would be corrupt. Regardless of how utility focused something is, it will purely improve a weapon if it isn't a corrupt mod. Trade-off mechanics are good in games.

3.) RNG in every aspect of the game that simply frustrates "unlucky" players, and allows "lucky" players to acquire rare content immediately. Such a system inhibits a balanced player experience of content. Assured rewards for completing difficult tasks (perhaps repeatedly) is much more satisfying. Think about it. What's the point of RNG in most cases? It makes one guy run three times as many missions as someone else for the same stuff. Why not make them both run (somewhere between the two) times instead? Things can still be as hard to get as you want them to without RNG and Devs have better control of acquisition difficulty without it.

Solution: For the void, I think a great solution would be to expand the void trader's functionality (make the void trader a faction). He now sells all prime parts for ducats. Ducats are the faction's rep and are acquired by running void missions. Certain mission types would reward more ducats than others. Each mission type would reward an unchanging amount of ducats. The price of the item depends on how "rare" developers want it to be, each would have mastery rank requirements. The same system could be used for normal Warframe parts, and parts could be rewarded by the Lotus to players for defeating a certain boss a certain amount of times. For example, each time a player kills Sargas Ruk they receive a "Ruk Assassination Token". The Lotus would then offer Ember's parts for certain amounts of "Ruk Assassination Tokens". It doesn't make sense for Ruk to directly drop parts anyways. Another possibility for normal frames is to just make quests for each one. 

4.) Poor enemy design allows strategies like spray and pray to prevail. For the sake of rewarding players for skill/adding depth to gameplay, enemies should have higher damage resistance in general, but higher damage multipliers in weak areas. Furthermore, enemies with AOE aura abiltiies are dumb (looking at you eximi). They subject players to irritating circumstances that cannot be avoided besides with distance. AOE auras dont encourage tactics besides for who to shoot first and to run away. Enemies should have powerful abilities (the more elite ones), but they should be avoidable with skill, responsiveness and strategy.

5.) Poor ability design that limits user experiences and dulls gameplay. Yes, most ability sets do indeed suck. Yes, no-one in this community seems to be design-minded enough to realize it. For example, abilities who's main function is to deal damage (especially in AOE's) are horrible in terms of allowing for deep/engaging gameplay, and absolutely trivialize lower-end content. Invincibility and massive AOE stuns are pretty cheap too.

Solution: Slowly but surely, go through each Warframe kit and replace/rework abilities that focus primarily on damage (Shuriken Toss etc.), replace/rework abilities that require no player interaction or directives (WoF etc.), and replace/rework abilities that are cheap AOE stuns or disables (Vortex, Radial Blind etc.) Abilities should be somewhat simple, but interactive and they should reward players for using them well/knowledgeably.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Jamescell

[unknow99]

6.) Stealth

[Cosmedian]

What about wall colision?

Edited August 30, 2015 by Xilrus

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

Stealth? Lol you mean bum rushing everything while being invisible as Loki isn't stealthy? My world just ended.

[Hatzeputt]

Multishot for none shotgun types needs to go, period, Magically creating 2 arrows, beams, bullets etc is pure BS.

 

Armour scaling and the folly of 4x corrosive projection not being stacking penalized, this is so wrong of a concept it is not even funny. Difficulty should scale with enemies gaining more abilities and being more "intelligent" in their behavior instead of plainly scaling up armour, shields, health and damage and no aura should be able to take away the main scaling feature.

 

4x CP is infinite more powerful than all other auras combined as far as the current meta is concerned.

Edited August 30, 2015 by Hatzeputt

[Shreiko]

1.) The broken modding system that forces players (who want to be effective at all) to equip certain necesarry mods like pure damage and multishot (and arguably how elemental mods add damage instead of converting it like conclave does). This directly limits loadout customization. Why have mods that you will put on every weapon regardless? Isn't that what base stats are for?

 

2.) RNG in every aspect of the game that simply frustrates "unlucky" players, and allows "lucky" players to acquire rare content immediately. Such a system inhibits a balanced player experience of content. Assured rewards for completing difficult tasks (perhaps repeatedly) is much more satisfying. Think about it. What's the point of RNG in most cases? It makes one guy run three runs to farm a frame and makes another run twenty runs for the same frame. Why not make them both run (somewhere between the two) times instead?

 

3.) Poor ability design that limits user experiences and dulls gameplay. Yes, most ability sets do indeed suck. Yes, no-one in this community seems to be design-minded enough to realize it. For example, abilities who's main function is to deal damage (especially in AOE's) are horrible in terms of allowing for deep/engaging gameplay, and absolutely trivialize lower-end content. Invinciblity and massive AOE stuns are pretty cheap too.

 

4.) Poor enemy design allows strategies like spray and pray to prevail. For the sake of rewarding players for skill/adding depth to gameplay, enemies should have higher damage resistance in general, but higher damage multipliers in weak areas. Furthermore, enemies with AOE aura abiltiies are dumb (looking at you eximi). They make things tedius and often make conditions unreasonable.

 

5.) The energy system mocks any true attempt to balance abilities. How can you prevent abilities from being broken/abused when you have to account for players that spam the ability with a decked out-mod-loadout and players that use the ability only a few times with little to no mods? The truth is you don't. If this game is ever going to become well reviewed, abilities must be within reason. Without something like cooldowns (oh no! I said a curse word!) the state of abilities will remain messy, abuseable and unrefined.

Funny how all issues are intertwined are more or less byproducts of each other, a never ending vicious cycle. One bad decision leads to another and DE and the player base kep playing a game of tag while running circles.

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

Multishot for none shotgun types needs to go, period, Magically creating 2 arrows, beams, bullets etc is pure BS.

 

Armour scaling and the folly of 4x corrosive projection not being stacking penalized, this is so wrong of a concept it is not even funny. Difficulty should scale with enemies gaining more abilities and being more "intelligent" in their behavior instead of plainly scaling up armour, shields, health and damage.

in a perfect world something like that would be cool, but its not really feasible and warframe is not the only game that scales difficulty this way almost all games do. Either he enemies get tankier or more numerous or both. Some occasions new enemies with different attack patterns and or abilities spawn but eventually you can't add any new original enemies and developers have to fall back on the more tank more mobs method.

[unknow99]

Stealth? Lol you mean bum rushing everything while being invisible as Loki isn't stealthy? My world just ended.

If you can't do stealth with invisibility, you're not a true space ninja.

_{You'd just be a trauma paladin...}

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

If you can't do stealth with invisibility, you're not a true space ninja.

_{You'd just be a trauma paladin...}

Ouch. Perhaps my sarcasm did not translate well. And besides ID rather do stealth with my Mesa and just peacemaker them from across the map before th can see me with my hand of God aimbot.

[unknow99]

Ouch. Perhaps my sarcasm did not translate well. And besides ID rather do stealth with my Mesa and just peacemaker them from across the map before th can see me with my hand of God aimbot.

Nono, I got your joke man, don't worry... :p

 

(adding a silencer to peacemaker?Hmmm, sounds good...)

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

Well I mean they might as well just go the Excalibur route and make your pistol mods effect it and hell why not add pistol amp into the game too.

[LordPreda]

this sounds really whiny imo. I dont agree with any of these

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

this sounds really whiny imo. I dont agree with any of these

I feel like the most credible problem he mentioned was the first the rest seem a little bit more nit picky but regardless just calling his ideas whiny isn't very constructive or helpful in progressing any really conversation on he broken elements of the game.

[ChloeSakuna]

I am surprised Hosting hasn't been addressed. That should be #1 in my eyes. DEDICATED SERVERS PLEASE INSTEAD OF BEING HOSTED ON SOMEONES POTATO!

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

I am surprised Hosting hasn't been addressed. That should be #1 in my eyes. DEDICATED SERVERS PLEASE INSTEAD OF BEING HOSTED ON SOMEONES POTATO!

I will have you know I grew that myself. Don't be a hater.

[vashyoung]

7.) Players

Edited August 30, 2015 by vashyoung

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

7.) Players

as in make there be less $&*^s in the community through better moderation or as in increase the cap on the number of players in a squad or something else?

[Zirion_Bk]

I am surprised Hosting hasn't been addressed. That should be #1 in my eyes. DEDICATED SERVERS PLEASE INSTEAD OF BEING HOSTED ON SOMEONES POTATO!

Dedicated servers cost money. And Warframe is Free to Play. Just saying.

[Liminal]

I agree with everything, especially 1 and 2.

[VoidNomade]

1) There will be always one dominant meta. If it not would be damage mods you would qq about other mods being the meta.

 

2) DE needs money and RNG, the market (breaking RNG wall with platin) and player trading (breaking RNG wall with platin) is the motor for that

 

3) Trivialize low-end content...? That´s exactly what should be happening if you raise your power level... / We´re also fighting vs loads and loads of enemies so AOE abilities are a must. Your argument of deep/engaging gameplay missing examples to be taken serious.

 

4) I agree a bit here though i don´t share your opinion. The enemy AI in this game is just a mess. You also didn´t wrote why enemy Auras are bad with no argument.

 

5) No examples which abilities you mean? Ok.

[(XBOX)Trauma Paladin]

1) There will be always one dominant meta. If it not would be damage mods you would qq about other mods being the meta.

 

2) DE needs money and RNG, the market (breaking RNG wall with platin) and player trading (breaking RNG wall with platin) is the motor for that

 

3) Trivialize low-end content...? That´s exactly what should be happening if you raise your power level... / We´re also fighting vs loads and loads of enemies so AOE abilities are a must. Your argument of deep/engaging gameplay missing examples to be taken serious.

 

4) I agree a bit here though i don´t share your opinion. The enemy AI in this game is just a mess. You also didn´t wrote why enemy Auras are bad with no argument.

 

5) No examples which abilities you mean? Ok.

They could still have a grind wall without having RNG. Something along the lines of what they have with invasions atm where you complete mission blah blah blah X amount of times and hen receive the reward you are after. grind wall still exists and therefore incentivizes the purchase and use of plat, but it also safeguards from the horror stories we here of someone running something 40 plus times and not getting what they need. RNG is frustrating due to two things 1. It rewards luck not skill or often as is *@##$ed about even tenacity, 2. It frustrates people who are trying repeatedly when someone else getsthat item in question on the second or third try.

[VoidNomade]

They could still have a grind wall without having RNG. Something along the lines of what they have with invasions atm where you complete mission blah blah blah X amount of times and hen receive the reward you are after. grind wall still exists and therefore incentivizes the purchase and use of plat, but it also safeguards from the horror stories we here of someone running something 40 plus times and not getting what they need. RNG is frustrating due to two things 1. It rewards luck not skill or often as is *@##$ed about even tenacity, 2. It frustrates people who are trying repeatedly when someone else getsthat item in question on the second or third try.

Let´s wait and see what will happening with StarChart 2.0. hue

[Shiichibukai]

Your points are okay but holding back the game...? They are not that broken that they hold back the game - not at all lol

[KillingDyl]

Your points are okay but holding back the game...? They are not that broken that they hold back the game - not at all lol

I would say it is steering the game in the wrong direction. The game is still progressing in development.

[Shiichibukai]

I would say it is steering the game in the wrong direction. The game is still progressing in development.

For some ppl it may be the wrong direction. I dont have a problem with those points so yea.