Allow Frames Limited Cosmetic Ability Use Out of Missions

[Jamescell]

Since the introduction of out-of-mission areas in Warframe, I always assumed that at some point players would be able to use some form of their abilities out of mission in Cetus/Fortuna, the relays, and the player ship. That point has yet to come. While uncontrolled ability use might lead to bored players spamming abilities that tend to cause lag, a regulated approach would allow for more freedom out of mission and perhaps more entertainment. 

I suggest only allowing players to use abilities that play a significant cosmetic role for a Warframe. These abilities would be allowed- perhaps with a cooldown- anywhere besides for in-mission (where the abilities would obviously function as normal).  

For example, Chroma's Pelt, Octavia's Roller, and Khora's Kavat could be toggled, Nidus' passive visuals could progress every time the player presses their first ability button, Nova's back and helmet flaps could activate when the player presses one of the ability keys, and Equinox could switch between its combined form, its day form and its night form by pressing the first ability button. Perhaps even Excalibur's Blade, Valkyr's Claws, and Baruuk's Fists channeling visuals/energy weapons could be added without any functionality.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Oh good lord, can you imagine the loading times? It's hard enough to load in all the players and their customisations as it stands, and Warframe has already had to introduce a system where approaching within a certain distance of a vendor (syndicate, Baro and so on) actually turns off visibility of other players.

With all those damn sparkles and effects going off on top of that?

While I can appreciate wanting to show off a little more, no... no that just sounds horrible.

[Jamescell]

Effects? The only extra effects are Excal's blade, Valkyr, and Baruuk which I was on the fence about to begin with. The rest are just model details which I'd assume don't really affect performance. Even if they did, if performance is really the concern, these cosmetic abilities could be visible only to the person using them. Warframe is a sparkly game, but most of these cosmetic-abilities wouldn't add more "sparkles" or effects to render.

Can I imagine the loading times with Nidus looking slightly different and Equinox being able to choose its form? Yes. I'd imagine it would be comparable to the loading times now. 

Unless you can further explain, I don't see how the situation would be as horrible as you claim. 

Edited January 2, 2019 by Jamescell

[Birdframe_Prime]

8 hours ago, Jamescell said:

Effects? The only extra effects are Excal's blade, Valkyr, and Baruuk which I was on the fence about to begin with. The rest are just model details which I'd assume don't really affect performance.

Incredibly, extra model details in a live space where there are constant inputs from up to 30-some players really does have an affect on performance.

This is why games like TF2, which is built to have 30-odd players in a single match, have such simple game models. And why things like VR chat are so limited.

So...

8 hours ago, Jamescell said:

I'd imagine it would be comparable to the loading times now.

You would be wrong. Toggling details on an already detailed model could add some serious load time.

As I mentioned the Relays are already incredibly limited by what they can achieve and have already got difficulty loading and tracking the different people in them, without the extras. And it's not the singular experience. During events like the big Red Text meetings that are held on major update days, which are conspicuously the ones where DE has spent the previous month stress-testing and updating their servers in preparation, there are Relays where people in the chat aren't visible to any of the other players.

There is also, as I said, the fact that in order to make interacting with the NPCs in a Relay even possible on heavy-loaded servers the game physically toggles off the visibility of other players when you talk to the vendors, should be a hint as to how limited the social servers actually are.

8 hours ago, Jamescell said:

Unless you can further explain, I don't see how the situation would be as horrible as you claim.

You mentioned effects like Chroma's Pelt, like Venari, and like Equinox.

Warframe's game engine handles these abilities by physically loading new models when they are used. You don't 'shed' Chroma's Pelt, you load in the stationary model of Chroma's Effigy, and load in pelt-less Chroma. Now imagine a player just toggling in and out of that, loading and reloading their model. The same with Equinox, which is why the Augment for her 1 is Duality, because the game simply doesn't de-spawn the other model and assigns it Spectre AI. And it's even the same with summoning and un-summoning Venari, you aren't just toggling the visibility, you are spawning and loading the model.

Every time, the customisations, the models, the accessories and any visible weapons are all loaded again.

And it's not any different with Excal, Valkyr and Baruuk either, because they despawn their other visible customisations (like weapons) and spawn in new objects, in Valkyr's case new Idles, and yes new effects.

When I said 'new sparkles' I really did mean it. Warframe as a default (as in you have to change a setting to make it not) generates effects on everything, including idles. The extra effects when spawning and despawning ability weapons, transformation abilities and so on are an additional load to add.

There are some ones that could work, for example Nidus' is already rigged to open his model in the way it does, he spawns in capable of that, the same with Nova Prime's details. But the others?

And beyond that, players are more than prone already to putting a giant, floating pink Rhino into play, or blinding everyone with an all-white Prisma Excal and its bloom effects. If you put that kind of mentality in control of being able to change Equinox forms, or spawn in Exalted Blade... they would 100% abuse that to make everyone's eyes bleed.

tl;dr

The reason that the social spaces are so limited is because Warframe is an incredibly high-detail game in terms of models, textures and effects, it already struggles with just loading in the base Warframes of more than four players into the same space because of how the engine does this.