Being Useful With Skills > Having Useful Skills

[Hayden11121]

What does this mean? It means that as of now we have VERY potently strong frames, capable of destruction. Every frame can make Grineer shudder, rollers roll away, Exploders suicide, Leapers springing off of cliffs, MOAs Malfunctioning, and Tech having brain farts. But really, what do we do to make that happen?

 

The way it stands now is we have useful skills, such as Snowglobe, Invisibility, Molecular Prime, Rhino Roar, and Bastille.

HOWEVER, we cannot use them any more "Skillfully" then pressing the damn button and letting it go to work.

 

While this may be easier, it's not initiating and leaves a very repetitive feel to frames very quickly.

 

 

What is the solution? Having useful skills that can only be great when used skillfully, or timed right.

 

Some Good Examples Of Skills Currently Doing This:

 

Drop is a great example of a well done skill. You plop out this orb that takes all the damage you put into it like a dry sponge, and spits it back out. You can waist a lot of ammo and time on this if you are using it for 3-4 targets, but 20 or so targets and you'll do amazing results.

 

Energy Vampire is also a great one. You cannot attach Energy Vampire to any random target without it being instagibbed by the brutality of guns with multishot and frames with nukes in their hands. You need to find a target close to your allies that is tanky enough to fully benefit from Energy Vampire. It can't be spammed on any grunt effectively.

 

Decoy is another good example. If you place a decoy in the wide open you are definitely waisting energy if you are on level 25+. But if you use Radial Disarm and place it in a corner, you make enemies waist their time, you ball them up, and now you have something to swing at while keeping them back.

 

Venom before it bugged out was a great one, if not the best. You can deal decent damage with 25 energy, and leave it at that. Big whoop, but if you had the ability to aim with a puncture mod you could deal INSANE damage. But still, if you placed it on a simple weaker unit it would die before anything happened. So you had to choose a heavy target that wasn't being focused on that was around other weaker units. But once you set it up, goodbye damage. Drop can't even compare to well used Venom pre fix.

 

 

 

But Hayden, what does this accomplish?

 

Using skills that are useful only when skillfully used gives a "Skill Factor" that really shows when you played that class a long time. It makes fighting not so repetitive *Such as spamming 3 on a pod in Defense for 50 waves*, can lead to faster fights that get done more efficiently due to well timed/ placed skills, and can lead to a real difficulty curve without relying on the AoE of the supernukers.

 

 

Let's look at Necro, For Example:

 

Soul Punch: Another Projectile. Just press it and be done with it. Aim in general direction. That's fun.

Terror Totem: The replacement for Bastille. Place it and be done with it. Very Skillful.

Search The Dead: Find loot from "Dead" bodies. Use it when things die and be done. *Could use SOME timing*

 

Some Reanimation Skill: Things you kill reanimate. This can be very useful when timed right, such as finding a big group fo enemies or something of that nature. But if you use it and a Rhino just stomps the map, guess what happens? Nothing.

 

Based on how the abilities of Necro sound, how much fun do you think he will be past the initial reaction of "OMG NEW FRAME MUST HAVE"? None, or very little, due to the fact he doesn't need much to be done to be effective. There is no skill wall behind a newbie or a skilled player using most frames. If you play Nova for 200 hours, will your 4 button be any more effective then a first timer's 4 button? 

 

 

 

TL;DR: The first 4 lines will probably fill you in for the entire thread's info, the rest are examples to help prove a point or create a clearer image.
 

[Lukedu_]

+1

[SPRBridgett]

The whole idea is that anyone can pick up a frame they like and be good with it. Spamming 4 is just as good a tactic as spamming A in Street Fighter. Annoying to those who have played the game, but a great way to feel pro for a new player. It takes a truely skilled player to take these apparent "boring press 4 to win" skills and use them in tandem with other frames, or at the perfect moment, in order to absolutely decimate the enemy. Basically, as boring as it may seem on the outside, it'll take skill to use them properly.

[Hayden11121]

The whole idea is that anyone can pick up a frame they like and be good with it. Spamming 4 is just as good a tactic as spamming A in Street Fighter. Annoying to those who have played the game, but a great way to feel pro for a new player. It takes a truely skilled player to take these apparent "boring press 4 to win" skills and use them in tandem with other frames, or at the perfect moment, in order to absolutely decimate the enemy. Basically, as boring as it may seem on the outside, it'll take skill to use them properly.

However, there is more then just pressing A in Street Fighter. You have combos available at your disposal.

 

This goes right back to Venom. "Press X to be useful. Press X on this particular target at a specific time and continue to aim and be godly."

 

I cannot tell a skillful Nova from a Nova with Streamline and Stretch on. Isn't that a problem? You can tell a "skillful" Street Fighter player compared to a new player who spams the Low kicks.

[PsychedelicSnake]

The whole idea is that anyone can pick up a frame they like and be good with it. Spamming 4 is just as good a tactic as spamming A in Street Fighter. Annoying to those who have played the game, but a great way to feel pro for a new player. It takes a truely skilled player to take these apparent "boring press 4 to win" skills and use them in tandem with other frames, or at the perfect moment, in order to absolutely decimate the enemy. Basically, as boring as it may seem on the outside, it'll take skill to use them properly.

To add on to this, it takes a truly disciplined player to resist the urge to spam a nuking ability and save it for when it is really needed.

 

Anyway, more interactive skills would be interesting.

[neKroMancer]

I agree with power design in this direction. Power should allows player to turn the table if used right, not decimate a whole platoon with mindless press of 4.

I doubt that the game will grow into something with actual depth at this rate.

[SPRBridgett]

However, there is more then just pressing A in Street Fighter. You have combos available at your disposal.

 

This goes right back to Venom. "Press X to be useful. Press X on this particular target at a specific time and continue to aim and be godly."

 

I cannot tell a skillful Nova from a Nova with Streamline and Stretch on. Isn't that a problem? You can tell a "skillful" Street Fighter player compared to a new player who spams the Low kicks.

If we take the example of Nova again, how about this; When using Antimatter Drop, you yourself could just pump a bit of damage into it and sending flying away willy nilly. However, if you had some organised team who all focused fire on it, the damage numbers you could shell are insane. Of course, this is only one ability. I'm not trying to say you're completely wrong, but most abilities shine when used correctly.

[Hayden11121]

If we take the example of Nova again, how about this; When using Antimatter Drop, you yourself could just pump a bit of damage into it and sending flying away willy nilly. However, if you had some organised team who all focused fire on it, the damage numbers you could shell are insane. Of course, this is only one ability. I'm not trying to say you're completely wrong, but most abilities shine when used correctly.

Which is why I used Drop in my examples in the OP. It could be a great waist of energy, ammo, and time, or it could be the thing that clears a whole crowd out.

 

But what about Null Star and Molecular Prime? I cannot see a skillful way to use either of them. Other then holding off and waiting for a better use of energy like Snake said, there is nothing skillful or useful more then pressing the button whenever you feel a large crowd ahead.

 

And I know most abilities shine, but most don't. It seems you're agreeing with me more then you disagree.

 

[eStecko]

Yup, i agree. Players shoud play togather, not alongside each other.

 

Simple example of how to remake a "bad" skill into "better/skillfull" one... Bladestorm

Now: Press a button and see how 14 enemies take 2.6k damage over ~28 seconds.

Remake: QTE's are terrible in gameplay, but could actualy work here. Every enemy you pop above/behind would give you a one of those* buttons to press in 1sec-1.5sec, if you fail to press correct button or you're too slow, the takedown of enemy will fail and you will miss the attack, moving the next one. +skill +fun -cinema

 

*w/s/a/d/e/lmb/rmb/space - by default

Edited September 8, 2013 by eStecko

[SPRBridgett]

Which is why I used Drop in my examples in the OP. It could be a great waist of energy, ammo, and time, or it could be the thing that clears a whole crowd out.

 

But what about Null Star and Molecular Prime? I cannot see a skillful way to use either of them. Other then holding off and waiting for a better use of energy like Snake said, there is nothing skillful or useful more then pressing the button whenever you feel a large crowd ahead.

 

And I know most abilities shine, but most don't. It seems you're agreeing with me more then you disagree.

 

Yeah I do agree with you for the most part. I just wanted to dispel the idea that all powers are unskilled. I TL;DR'ed too, sorry.

[FunkDoctaSpock]

The whole idea is that anyone can pick up a frame they like and be good with it. Spamming 4 is just as good a tactic as spamming A in Street Fighter. Annoying to those who have played the game, but a great way to feel pro for a new player. It takes a truely skilled player to take these apparent "boring press 4 to win" skills and use them in tandem with other frames, or at the perfect moment, in order to absolutely decimate the enemy. Basically, as boring as it may seem on the outside, it'll take skill to use them properly.

C'mon, that level of skill is way too low for a game that pretends to be "ninja". I understand your point, and it's a good one, but sadly it's just not enough in my humble opinion. Fact is you don't need synergy for those skills to be viable. Sure, teamwork can vastly improve them, but it's not a necessity. If it actually was necessary to use that synergy, those skills would force players into finding the best methods to get the most efficiency out of it, thus making them grow their skill level. It is simply not the case.

              I'm starting to worry DE is adapting this game more for console playability rather then PC. What they did to Mag's Pull ability is very worrying, it's slowly becoming a "kill hundreds by the press of a single button" game, and I doubt this is what got most of us into the game. Whenever i play a PUG, the number of melee kills is amazingly low for a Ninja game. People have been given such easy to use abilities that they can just by-pass all the other game mechanics like parkour, shooting, melee etc, to accomplish the mission. Maybe because it would take controller users too much time to clear missions without nukes and such ? Whatever the reason are, OP makes a valid point when he states: "Using skills that are useful only when skillfully used gives a "Skill Factor" that really shows when you played that class a long time. It makes fighting not so repetitive *Such as spamming 3 on a pod in Defense for 50 waves*, can lead to faster fights that get done more efficiently due to well timed/ placed skills, and can lead to a real difficulty curve without relying on the AoE of the supernukers."

 

I see people using AoE all the time, i wouldn't mind the game to actually "force" some teamwork in COOP mode rather then rush and press 4 to victory ...

[Slurmageddon]

Whilst I agree that powers should be geared more towards skilled use rather than 4-spamming, youshould try to put yourself in the shoes you filled when you first started. To take the fangs out of the ultimate power (which on every frame should always feel "ultimate") then you effectively turn the way they work into something only advanced players will be able to make full use of.

It's much better to have the 4-spamming until you go past wave 30 on xini, or past 40 minutes in survival and then you are forced to come up with combinations like Energy vamp (pre-nerf) + Miasma's stun lock. Or Roar+Sonar's hot-spotting.

The problem for me isnt that powers require more skill it's that there aren't enough of those power combinations to take us beyond the point where the 4-spam is no longer enough. Because that means that no matter how advanced we are we are still going to more or less always be in a situation where some noob in a nova will be able to clear the room in one sweep and all our extra time and energy and understanding of the games mechanics mean nothing.

[Egg_Chen]

Sad thing is one of the skills that fit this hope/idea of yours was Pull, before they made it an attack move.

It took quick thinking, creativity, and timing.

 

Pull a group away from the pod, Pull a group away from your downed mate, Pull then go to town with melee, use AoE weapons / puncture.

Pull then use Bullet Attractor, Pull then watch a Rhino stomp them all into oblivion.

Pull off cliffs, Pull a heavy as it is about to ground slam, etc, etc.

 

Now, it's Pull and watch them die.

 

Sometimes I think DE is just dumbing this game down for the PS4, or am I being harsh?

 

Anyway, +1.

[neKroMancer]

I think DE should lessen the effect of ultimates in term of damage down and scale them around level 30-40. The game itself should hints new players that "from this point onward, stop pressing four and use something else more effective". DE should release more interactive powers for frames to give players actual choices about which powers to use to create builds and disincentivize "press4" mentality.

Label second set of power as "for advanced users" will make lots of players blindly use them without knowing what it means.

[RoboDoge]

There is need for player skill behind every Frame power. Hence there is so much bad x frame players, and that bring to a "x frame sucks" because "i cant use it right".

 

Even M Prime must be used with little tactics ( that might sound crazy ), if you can position yourself in the right spot, you can kill with more efficiency. If DE doesnt dumb this game, there isnt money for them ( dumber game=easier gameplay=more players=more shiny money ).

 

I agree with Hayden on this, people should learn to use those powers. Or WF will become "press 4 to win" game. Not all Warframe players are dumb, some of us do want a challenge.

 

+we need rework on some skills, the are plain weird ( if not stupid ) in their mechanics.

[Yurinaga]

 

Energy Vampire is also a great one. You cannot attach Energy Vampire to any random target without it being instagibbed by the brutality of guns with multishot and frames with nukes in their hands. You need to find a target close to your allies that is tanky enough to fully benefit from Energy Vampire. It can't be spammed on any grunt effectively.

 

+1

 

Better still, use it with the newly-buffed Well of Life, as it gives the target 10x health, making it easier to not accidentally kill it prematurely.

 

While I agree with your "skilful use>useful skill" philosophy, one problem I see is that the skill in question has to actually be useful to begin with and I don't mean the mindless spammy definition. Answer me this for example: How can one skilfully use Freeze in it's current state, especially now that Well of Life performs the same function i.e. spot removal but better since it is hit-scan and cannot be cancelled by a single stray shot?

 

As for the spammy-useful likes of Snow Globe, Roar, Bastille etc, they do have their place. The real problem I think, is choice; each Warframe should have at least one additional "crafty" power that advanced players can use in place of the "spammer", so that that way, they are rewarded for skilful use while the novices - or at least those just getting to know a new frame - aren't penalised.

[Hayden11121]

+1

 

Better still, use it with the newly-buffed Well of Life, as it gives the target 10x health, making it easier to not accidentally kill it prematurely.

 

While I agree with your "skilful use>useful skill" philosophy, one problem I see is that the skill in question has to actually be useful to begin with and I don't mean the mindless spammy definition. Answer me this for example: How can one skilfully use Freeze in it's current state, especially now that Well of Life performs the same function i.e. spot removal but better since it is hit-scan and cannot be cancelled by a single stray shot?

 

As for the spammy-useful likes of Snow Globe, Roar, Bastille etc, they do have their place. The real problem I think, is choice; each Warframe should have at least one additional "crafty" power that advanced players can use in place of the "spammer", so that that way, they are rewarded for skilful use while the novices - or at least those just getting to know a new frame - aren't penalised.

Well what if using Freeze and then using Ice Wave did increase damage and made the target perma slow due to leg damage?

 

Combos should be included with skills, such as the Decoy + Radial Disarm combo I mentioned.

[Yurinaga]

Well what if using Freeze and then using Ice Wave did increase damage and made the target perma slow due to leg damage?

 

Makes sense: make the target brittle first. Still, that's only hypothetical. You see what I mean about Freeze as it currently stands? Completely useless.

 

Combos should be included with skills, such as the Decoy + Radial Disarm combo I mentioned.

 

Yeah, sometimes I wish I'd picked Loki instead of Volt as my starter for that very reason. Plus I suppose that would make adding additional powers all the more problematic; not only having to make sure A B C D work together cohesively but also A B E D.

[Hayden11121]

Yeah, sometimes I wish I'd picked Loki instead of Volt as my starter for that very reason. Plus I suppose that would make adding additional powers all the more problematic; not only having to make sure A B C D work together cohesively but also A B E D.

That is true, but think about it.

 

We are paying close to 15-20$ for one frame that has 4 abilities, shouldn't the abilities be fleshed out and not one trick ponies?

[Yurinaga]

That is true, but think about it.

 

We are paying close to 15-20$ for one frame that has 4 abilities, shouldn't the abilities be fleshed out and not one trick ponies?

 

Yes indeed. Believe me, as an avid Frost user until Update 9, I know all about one-trick ponies.

[Cestus]

I'd like say the past Pull was (the one where Mag would pull enemies in a cone). You could get creative by going far from your team and pulling the enemies toward  you so they won't get gibbed, but pull is pretty much "press this, do that" type of ability. Or like hiding in the Bullet attractor to regen shields or revive a teammate.

 

We need more flexible skills.

[Thelonious]

You just underlined one of the major drawbacks of the game. Skill caps.

 

We're talking about a very low skill floor, a very low skill ceiling, the dominance of FOO strategies and the quasi-abscence of any depth in general.

 

I'm just gonna repost those extra-credits videos we all know (or should know about), they explain it way better than I could.

 

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/easy-games

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill

 

And here are some others on the subject, at the opposite extreme

 

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/depth-vs.-complexity

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/when-difficult-is-fun

 

 

Oh man, rewatching this vids made me realize how lackluster this game still is.