Feedback regarding weapons and energy

[Belier13]

Hello there,

I'm a MR 25 Dark sectors veteran so please take me seriously ! (or don't)

As the title says I'd like to share my point of view regarding weapons and energy.

 

Weapons

3 problems I see :

At this point it feels like optimizing any non primed primary/secondary weapon often require up to 6 to 7 formas, which in my opinion is really discouraging due to how long and obnoxious it is to get formas (24h build delay) and to repeatly relevel the same weapon. I understand you have to grind and put effort to finally get the reward, I also understand the platinum sink concept, fact is forma packs are one of the rare thing I do buy with plats. But like I said, it's really discouraging and doesn't really endorse weapons diversity. This was made even worse with the apparition of primed mods and rivens. This problem isn't that noticeable with melee weapons due to their increased capacity thanks to stance mods.

A few possible solutions in my opinion :

- getting "aura/Stance" mods for primary/secondary weapons. What kind of mods that would be a good question, I guess imagination is your limit.

- Making forma more accessible (why 24 hours delay?) / Formaing something no longer cause it to drop back to level 1.

 

Second problem : modding diversity. Too many mods became mandatory and that pretty much kills the diversity when you have 0 room left after the generic meta build. (Serration+split chamber+Heavy Caliber+at least 2 elemental mods, and if you have a crit based weapon you know how to fill the rest) this is even worse with melee weapons as imo there are so many cool mods to use.

I believe this was previously addressed by the devs as they had planned to boost base damage of every weapon and remove serration/hornet strike etc.. but I guess that idea was scraped? I assume it has something to do with the primed version for shotguns and melee; what would happen to them?

Solutions :

- Well, get back to that idea where base damage are boosted so we can remove serration etc.., that's at least one room freed up.

- Combined with the idea above, regarding aura/stance mods for weapons, we could have aura which turns/adds innate elemental damage to weapon, thus making base elemental mods less mandatory.

 

Third problem : Base weapon/primed/prisma/Wraith/Umbra?/Have I missed anything? (that also applies to frames)

Simply the fact that base weapon/frames are plain useless since their primed/prisma/... counterparts are plain upgrade. This makes base weapons/frames nothing but mastery points tools and also makes you reluctant to optimizing them (forma/potato).

- Solutions : Base weapons/Armors are now needed in the crafting component for their upgraded variants. And also, the potato/formas used now move on to the new weapon/armor. Sounds easy enough? (fact: when I finished optimizing mirage they released mirage prime the following week)

 

Energy

Energy economy/sustainability is pretty much everything or nothing. You either have a trinity on your team/have Zenurik's dash to self sustain yourself or you don't. You can spam mindlessly or you don't. That's simple.

This makes Zenurik focus once again mandatory albeit the focus rework.

Solutions :

- Innate energy regen. That's it. 0.5 to 1 / second similar to energy siphon. Fair enough to put you out of a tight spot when no energy is available without allowing you to spam everything non stop.

Also some may call me crazy but I always thought that abilities should be cooldown based. As soon as you have a heavy CC frame on your team you can just go afk as the game becomes trivial. But hey that's a whole another topic.

 

I think that's it. Thanks for reading and please debate me.

[super_dan_2003]

I wholeheartedly agree with all of this. My brother seems to think DE should just scrap energy entirely and replace it with Diablo-esque ability resources and/or cooldowns. Personally I think the best way to go about it would be to add innate energy regen for all frames like you said, but also have cooldowns on some/most abilities. Top it off with unique ways for each frame to get energy revolving around their abilities, and rework zenurik to work well with this system. Oh, and do something with energy orbs maybe? Energy and health orbs are weird, maybe just burn them? Maybe not, I dunno.

Regardless, thanks for starting this thread. Let’s hope DE notice.

[Belier13]

Thanks for your feedback Super_Dan, and yes a diablo-esque ressource system would be just great.

I'm thinking of a quick exemple : Ash, make 1 (shurikens) free to cast, the rest of the kit cost a ressource that is gathered when enemies are suffering from slash effect? So many possibilities.

[super_dan_2003]

18 minutes ago, Belier13 said:

Thanks for your feedback Super_Dan, and yes a diablo-esque ressource system would be just great.

I'm thinking of a quick exemple : Ash, make 1 (shurikens) free to cast, the rest of the kit cost a ressource that is gathered when enemies are suffering from slash effect? So many possibilities.

There are indeed a lot of possibilities. I like the idea for Ash, as that would synergize with his passive. One concern I have is how Warframes that restore energy such as Trinity and Harrow would be affected by this change. What would energy vampire and thurible do for allies? Should they no longer benefit allies? Should they be scaled and tweaked until they are the same necessity, but simply more balanced? I would say the former, but I’m sure it would work itself out eventually.

[Atsia]

I doubt they would  flat out scrap energy at this point in development, and they already said no to ability cooldowns. But yes, the ease of gaining energy is one of the issues propagating AoE ability spam and needs to be looked at.

[Me.KayOh]

1 hour ago, Belier13 said:

 

I'm a MR 25 Dark sectors veteran so please take me seriously ! (or don't)

 

Never ever start a post like this.

Crafting (Forma) is a time-sink. Like many other things, it's basically the developers telling you to play the game their way and spend your time in their game. Since the game is fun, I have no problems with this.

Weapons were already buffed earlier this year. This will not happen for a while. Removing the commonplace mods such as serration, split chamber and the like and adding what you call aura mods is simply a lateral shift for what the meta will be. So the root cause of the problem is not the "mandatory" mods themselves. For true build diversity you need mobs that are conducive to that. Right now, we don't have that.

Most if not all weapon variants are more powerful than their standard counterparts. A long time ago, weapon variants were handled properly as true trophies for events. Some still remain as invasion rewards etc. But more interesting ways could be implemented to obtain these stronger weapons. It should be done in a manner that actually makes them feel unique because right now, buying the mara detron from baro, or farming invasions for snipetron vandal or strun wraith feels mundane and tedious. Something like farming the lato and braton vandals from ESO felt much better in terms of making the weapon feel like a true reward.

I am wholeheartedly against anything that will result in being able to use Warframe abilities less often. So cooldowns are a No for me. Some abilities already cannot be recast until their duration is complete and that is fine. But I do not feel like your ideas for energy take into account things like leech eximus units and the like. Based on how far-reaching energy is, it can't go away completely either.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

21 hours ago, super_dan_2003 said:

I wholeheartedly agree with all of this. My brother seems to think DE should just scrap energy entirely and replace it with Diablo-esque ability resources and/or cooldowns. Personally I think the best way to go about it would be to add innate energy regen for all frames like you said, but also have cooldowns on some/most abilities. Top it off with unique ways for each frame to get energy revolving around their abilities, and rework zenurik to work well with this system. Oh, and do something with energy orbs maybe? Energy and health orbs are weird, maybe just burn them? Maybe not, I dunno.

Regardless, thanks for starting this thread. Let’s hope DE notice.

Ew, just ew. The main reason I hate games like Diablo or LoL is the time limits after casting a power. All it ever feels like is a hinderence.