Suggestions For Gameplay Mechanics

[Theidore]

My friend and I were recently having a discussion about Warframe's logic, as is the typical pastime of two teenage nerds. Anyway, we started bringing up some topics that I thought were relevant enough to share with the rest of the Warframe community. We're cooperating to create a topic that hopefully will inspire some beneficial changes to the already great game we all know as Warframe. Feel free to critique our ideas, and add your own!

 

 

Enemy Finishers:

 

The Tenno are a merciless band of fighters, cutting down anyone who gets in their way- and some people who don't. Seriously, anyone who's performed a ground finisher before can attest to this. There's an enemy, lying on the ground, helpless, defenseless, stumbling to his feet. What do you do? You stab him into the ground. You smash him into a bloody pulp with your hammer. You stand over him and punch his freaking face in. 

 

And what happens when a Tenno soldier goes down? The enemies walk straight past him. Sure, if the downed Tenno shoots at them enough, they'll start to care a little, but otherwise, they walk past him and start attacking his comrades, allowing for someone to come and pick him up to brutalize those who showed mercy to him.

 

So, we came up with the idea that the enemy who downed the player, and him alone, should be dedicated to finishing the job. The enemy will fight their way through the other Tenno to get to the downed target, and then it will start attacking, reducing the Tenno’s bleedout timer until death. We were imagining a Left 4 Dead-style attack, with the enemy brutalizing the downed Tenno, and a cinematic kill (like stealth kills, downed target kills) to end this brutalization, if one of the Tenno come to help their ally with a melee attack. This saving attack would not do much damage, but it would stun the attacker enough to drop the downed Tenno, who would regain a bit of time on the timer so it could still be possible to revive him. Of course, this feature is optional; just having something targeting and attacking a downed Tenno would be great in itself.

 

 

Damage specific downed animations:

 

In the occasion that a Tenno agent falls, they always fall the exact same way: on their backs, sidearm out, ready to fight for their life. Regardless of what caused their downed state, this animation never changes. If a Tenno were to be downed due to explosives, should they have the exact animation as if they were brought down with bullets? Here's our idea.

 

Depending on the type of attack that downed a Tenno, there could be different animations. For explosives and concussive damage, like an ancient's tentacle stab/slap/punch/whatever they do to attack (I have no idea), they could be sent flying much like how corpses behave when killed with Physics Impact damage, but with much less velocity. Players could be thrown against the terrain before slumping to the ground. If downed by poison, the Tenno could have animations of coughing or choking before collapsing.

 

Bullets/Lasers? Melee knockdown? Well, the standard animation works for those, but does it make sense that someone shot from behind collapses backwards? Players could also be able to fall on their sides or front, offering different ways to protect yourself, such as movement (crawl) speed increases, different weapon availability, accuracy, etc.

 

For each different death, there could be a few dramatic animations to immerse the player in the game. Immersion is important to me, and Warframe does a decent job already. (I've been jumpscared by Ancients before; it wasn't pleasant, but it was immersive...) Any game can benefit from more immersion, and I think these are some possible steps to more immersive gameplay.

 

 

Temporary Stabilization:

 

You look up from the battle as a notice flashes on your screen: X is down! You glance at your minimap and take off to save your comrade. You find him still with a decent amount of life left in him... the issue? He's surrounded. You know you aren't going to be able to sit there and absorb the damage of everything aiming at you, but you know you can't clear them fast enough. All you need is a bit of time to clear out those baddies, but you don't have that time. This is where our idea for Temporary Stabilization comes in.

 

Yes, there are those frames that have various tools that can aid them, such as Trinity's Blessing, Vauban's Bastille, Rhino's Iron Skin, etc. However, this opens up options for the frames that don't have any abilities that can do that. When reviving, you usually sit there for a good amount of time spraying some medical fluid at them. However, if this is canceled or interrupted, the process starts over entirely. Temporarily stabilization can be performed by say, filling the revival gauge to half. Instead of going straight back to the red bar, they'll have a different color to signify they're alright for the time being. This bar steadily drains before the bleedout bar returns. This opens up new options for players. If they need more time, but can't stay still for too long near the downed ally, this comes into play. A player can run in and patch up their ally, keeping them alive long enough so they can return to the fight to clear the area before fully reviving them. Or, he could use...

 

 

Downed Ally Transportation:

 

Certain Warframes are capable of moving downed allies through the use of abilities, such as Loki's Switch Teleport and Mag's Pull. However... why can't players shift downed allies normally? Say, an ally can grab a downed one by the back of their armor, allowing the downed player to be dragged to a piece of cover where they can be revived safely, slightly faster than the downed player could crawl. When an ally grabs another, they're reduced to a sidearm as one arm is being used to drag. However, there could be another option that can be used in conjunction with this. Instead, allies can pick up downed players and carry them around, with a fireman carry or something of the sort. This permits the carrier to move much faster, but deprives the player of weapon usage. This, combined with stabilization can make the task of reviving allies far safer and easier.

 

 

Damage Delays Reviving:

 

Now, the way Warframe is right now, reviving players in the middle of a crowd is pretty easy, if you have enough shields to keep yourself alive. This makes the two above mechanics nearly useless. If taking damage while reviving someone slowed the revive, it would make those mechanics almost necessary. You could stab someone with a stabilization needle, then clear out the area to give yourself time to revive them. Or, you could grab them and fall back to safety, so you can revive your ally so he can help with clearing them out. Both options make more sense than standing and taking everyone's fire and not caring while you revive someone so they can be in the middle of the fire too.

 

 

So, these are our ideas. We've fleshed them out as much as we can, but whether they do or don't end up getting implemented, we'll be happy with whatever Digital Extremes ends up putting out. Again, any critiquing is welcome, and please post your own ideas, too.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Theidore

[Hayden11121]

+1 To Finishers, but really, why do I want to move my downed ally when I could be reviving him?

 

And doesn't that "Temporary Stabilization" kind of remove the purpose Shade/ Loki/ Ash has over other frames when it comes to reviving?

 

Take away that and Ash has no team support anymore.

[Theidore]

Two good points, I agree with both. Now that you've mentioned it, things would probably move faster than you while you're dragging an ally. Striking those out now, we obviously haven't completely thought this through. Thanks for helping dissect our ideas though, more posts like this!

[Hayden11121]

Do not let my idea prove yours "Faulty", just tweak it a bit.

 

It should be a difficult process at best, such as

Dragon Kick -> Knockdown Crowd -> Jump Attack -> Extend Knockdown -> "Push" enemy away Via Kick -> Now Revive.

 

This allows skilled players to effectively revive while also keeping the usefulness *due to the lack of difficulty* for Loki, Ash, and Shade Users to revive.

 

And maybe instead of taking allies on our backs we can use enemies like meatshields, while we running around with them on our backs *somehow*

 

Don't remove, just tweak friend!

[Theidore]

Hmm... Actually, the fact that you'd rather be healing someone than moving them to safety brings up an interesting point. Reviving in the middle of a crowd is pretty easy, if you have enough shield power. If being attacked while reviving slowed the revive, that might make the downed-ally movement somewhat viable. It would give people a reason to move downed players to safety before reviving, which seems more realistic to me than reviving them in the middle of a battlefield. Of course, Loki, Ash, and Shade would still be able to revive them easily, increasing their utility for reviving. Then, to balance that with other Warframes/Sentinels, temporary stabilization could be used if there's no way to get the downed player to safety. 

[r3dzer0]

I see your ideas, can't say i like agree with all of them.

 

1st one is a yes. 

the one about having them fall differently i would like, but as far as implementing it requires a bunch of different actions/coding to apply. 

 

Moving your allies is rather pointless considering all frames have a way to stop enemies or perform revives with no problems. Nova= M. Prime boom, Ash and loki= invis, trinity link/blessing, ember WoF or Fireblast, Saryn molt/miasma, frost snow globe, vauby bastille, mag crush or bullet attractor, volt electric shield or overload, rhino stomp or iron skin, excalibur radial blind, banshee sound quake or sonic boom, and finally nyx has chaos.  not all are as effective as others, but they are all moves that give you either a few seconds to deal witha  downed ally, stagger enemies, or straight out kill them.

 

I'm not sure if its medicine that's being infused or the warframes unique energy thats being reinserted.  my guess is the latter and that would be fine to add slow if you're being damaged.  but once again you just end up doing one of the aforementioned and you'll be healing like a pro.

 

if you can tweak to include these counters to your ideas then that should make them viable options

 

Hayden i'm taking you as a meat shield xD lets hope you don't die :P