Varagonax

I have been thinking long and hard about Warframe. I have been thinking about the four primary types of players (Explorers, Achievers, Killers and Socializers), about the divide between the players who feel fulfilment from maximizing efficiency and those who feel fulfilment about maximizing enjoyment. and about how the long standing community at large feels largely dissatisfied with the content thats coming out. Its no big secret that for a long time now that Veterans have been largely dissatisfied about how challenging Warframe is, how they struggle to find content to throw themselves into, and how they feel that the game is leaving them behind. I think this is largely true but as I wondered how DE could possibly fix it, I think I came upon the issue. It's us. We are the problem, or at least the cause of the symptoms thats causing end game fatigue for hard core players and casuals alike. DE is in a predicament where we ask them to make the game harder, but demand that they never touch the power fantasy. We hate on them when they release weapons, frames, and content that dont sit neatly on the shelf next to billion damage Valkyr and immortal Revenant builds. We complain that armor scaling sucks, that steelpath is too spongey, that the AI isnt adequate all the while clinging jealously to our favorite meta setups that all but necessitated these changes to happen. I mean, AI doesnt matter when the dead instant a Grineer soldier pops his head out from around his cover only to get mag dumped by a pistol toting lunatic shooting energy bombs with the sheer fury of a dying star who can also generate so much EHP that in order to take them down the only meaningful way that it can happen will guaranteed to feel unfair. We encouraged these changes with our wallets and playing habits. DE wouldnt have needed to add ridiculous armor scaling if we didnt lambast them every time they nerf something, and refuse to stop finding ways to make that armor meaningless. People still complain about the AOE meta being nerfed, and it literally made playing with randoms a coin toss as to whether or not you got to feel like you could meaningfully contribute. I don't think DE can effect any meaningful changes, either. Its too late for Warframe, for us. In order for warframe to feel meaningful, in order for us to still feel powerful, to still have the ability to min max our builds.... It would take a total overhaul of the entire system. It would require dialing back our power to 1, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. It would require so much change that Warframe would look nothing like it does now. And we would have to let them. We collectively have to decide that we are willing to let go, that we don't need the next new frame to be at least mid tier for us to play them. We would need to accept that our million damage builds will go away, and that they have to in order for challenge to MEAN anything. We cannot both have a system that lets us accrue this much power, and a system that can meaningfully challange that power. Not without making the game so complex that playing it casually is impossible, and certainly not without making the game a lot less fun. Because if WE dont change how we approach the game, it loses its meaning. Every new frame that comes out, every new mechanic, every new mod is pushing warframe further and further away from a challenging squad based horde shooter and more towards a solo genocide simulator. I think this is evident when players have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as support, tank, or dps warframes. That the number one most played warframe (Wukong) is so popular that he is played 1000 times more frequently than the number one least played frame (Atlas... Im ignoring Excalbur Prime because 99.9% of players dont have him). That in order to be a good frame it needs to do damage, have some solid crowd control, AND be survivable. AND, these behaviours are exacerbated by a system that by necessity REWARDS them. We do not know what we are asking for. We think we know, but we dont and by getting what we asked for we have made the bed we must now sleep on.

Health as a resource is problematic in most use case scenarios. One, it actually doesnt solve your inherent problem with building Inaros for health; Percent health doesnt solve the massive health problem like you think it does, because now health builds are even more vital. 50% of 10000 is still 5000, over 50% of 7500 being 3750. You would still max out health in your builds simply because it is more forgiving and gives you more rounds of your casting rotations. Another issue is that you have equated synergy with direct ability interaction: this is simply not the case. Trinity's energy vampire and her blessing are synergistic because more energy is more healing is more damage reduction, not because casting blessing when an enemy is stunned with EV doubles the DR and health gained. Too many ability interactions make the mechanical workings of a frame complex, and complexity can easily equate to tedium in play. Less is more, as they say. Simple is not always a bad thing. Imagine if Lavo's wasn't built around cool downs and had energy costs to manage on top of needing to mix his potions; he would suddenly be too complex to manage and would arguably be far worse off, and he is already a complex frame where each ability intersects in some way. Keeping names on brand with the theme of the ability. Dune: a whirlpool of quicksand that houses a scarab that is basically an antlion. Also, try not to make two abilities nearly identical in visual appeal: the next ability is a sand tornado (read: a whirlpool that got up). In actuality, I would argue that force of nature makes a better 2 than his three does: Dune is way better in basically every way. I feel like maybe your leaning into too many possible tropes and in the end, it might come across as disjointed as Yarelli. To explain: Yarelli is a squishy caster type frame whose kit locks you into one weapon type (secondary's), arguably nerfs her overall mobility to negate her initial squish, encourages her to be up and in her enemies faces despite being a squishy caster, requires multiple presses to maximize the use of her unusually expensive cc, and requires two presses to deal damage with her 4. Yes, she is much better after her retooling, but her kit is just as messy as before. She's a surfboarding, pistol toting mage who wants to get aggressive despite having the athleticism of a half dead squirrel. In this instance, you incorporate sand, sandstorms, quicksand, scarabs, mummies, undeath ect ect and its kinda feeling like its a compilation of every mummy movie ever made... and yes, that also includes Tom Cruises The Mom... I mean Mummy. Its a good attempt, and I am sure that if this is implemented Inaros would be STRONGER, but I don't think he would be BETTER.