Should We Have A New Energy System?

[MeteorKing]

It's the same, imo. Things that are regulated by chance and beyond our control. One is a major roadblock and requires grind to compensate. For the sake of lengthen the game, I accept it. Another simply make any rational players save their energy just for ultimate since it's potentially most cost-effective power in all frames' arsenal.

This one simply creates lot of troubles in term of balance and gameplay.

It also creates situations where people just save their powers all the time because what if things go sour?  Making energy too difficult to aquire can have really adverse effects.

 

 

Hey I got a dum idea why not add something that must be in the game like a @(*()$ cool down. Put a 3minute cd on ultimates 2 minute on stupid skills that you spam all the time to protect the pot (snow globe) and remove the energy completely. This way you will have skills that you will spam every 15 seconds for example and skills that you will need to save for when you really need em. This might make the game actually fun

You're right, that was a dumb idea.  3 minutes? Are you serious?  Not even MOBAs have that high CDs.

 

CDs were implimented in early stages of the game and it slowed down gameplay.  People would wait in every room to get their CDs back before continuing.  CDs longer than 10 seconds are not the answer.

[MeteorKing]

How about this, which i posted in another thread discussing energy (and was VERY well received):

 

My take on it (inspired by some other guy, think he was called Securitywyrm)

 

TL;DR: Abilities have individual "cooldowns", when cooldown is done the ability costs 0 energy, but abilities are still spammable, although costs energy (relative to the remaining cooldown) if you don't wait for their "cooldowns" to finish. Energy then becomes more of an emergency-resource.

 

Longer explanation:

* Each ability has a pseudo-cooldown. When it is off cooldown, your next ability costs ZERO energy! When it is running its cooldown though, you can still cast it, but the ability now costs energy relative to the remaining cooldown!

* For example, let's say Ember's Fireball has a 10 second "cooldown" and still costs maximum 25 energy. If you cast it when the cooldown is done, it costs 0 energy. If you then wait 2 seconds and cast it again, it only costs 20 energy (8 / 10 * 25 = 20), and the cooldown now restarts again.

This way, you can use your abilities carefully and free of cost if you are willing to wait for your cooldowns, or you can still spam them at the cost of wasting your energy.

* Each ability has its own seperate "cooldown", meaning it is best to use ALL your abilities as varied as possible. It also means you can make more powerful abilities (such as ultimates) have longer cooldowns and play around more to balance them better

* Even weaker abilities (although, i still think most abilities needs changing) would have more use as they would be free of cost every now and then! Their cooldowns can then also be a lot shorter than others, further increasing their values.

* The hud/UI needs to indicate the abilities' remaining cooldowns (Could be displayed similarly to how they show them in DotA for example)

 

On top of this system i would also overhaul a few other things:

* Energy orbs should either be a lot more rare, and/or give a lot less energy (like 10 energy each) or be scrapped altogether (I don't like scrapping them completely though, just toned down in frequency and/or power)

* All Warframes should have a slight innate energy regen too (like 0,5 energy/sec). This could also vary (very slightly) between each Warframe.

* Auras should not stack anymore (otherwise Energy Siphon would be even MORE overpowered), although most of them should then also be buffed i guess (and they should also have no polarities, so it is easier to switch between them).

* Streamline then needs a revamp: Reducing energy costs and/or ability "cooldowns", whatever is the most balanced.

* We have ammo boxes and healing "potions". Why don't we have energy "potions" too? (Thus, potentially less waiting for "cooldowns" for the impatient people!)

 

All points are important there, so don't skim it through, read it thoroughly please!

 

EDIT: This also makes "no energy" nightmare runs more doable (since you can still cast your abilities, although not nearly as much as normal)

I REALLY like this idea.  The only thing I would disagree with is not having auras stack.  I never ask anyone what aura they're using, and I can't see what they have on.  I use Rifle Amp or Steel Charge for Y, Rejuv for D, and Siphon for -, and never change them.  Otherwise I'm 100% behind everything you said.

 

Edit: please make a thread about this, I think the community would really like it.

Edited September 13, 2013 by MeteorKing

[neKroMancer]

It also creates situations where people just save their powers all the time because what if things go sour?  Making energy too difficult to aquire can have really adverse effects.

 

 

You're right, that was a dumb idea.  3 minutes? Are you serious?  Not even MOBAs have that high CDs.

 

CDs were implimented in early stages of the game and it slowed down gameplay.  People would wait in every room to get their CDs back before continuing.  CDs longer than 10 seconds are not the answer.

 

Frankly, I have been posting this idea around for several times. CD can be as low as a few second but Warframe's power design simply makes it not feasible to make CD as low as that. Moreover, CD simply has problem with spammability of powers, a thing that really make powers so much fun in Warframe compared to other CD-based games.

 

However, energy-based mechanic also has one big flaw in boss fight. You can replenish your energy if the boss doesn't summon more enemies like Vor or upcoming Golem.

 

Why not using Energy vampire mechanic + Cooldown + Stacking?

 

Killing/damaging enemies trim your CD into reasonable level and allow it to stack. You can save like 5 Slashdash, 5 SJ, 5 Radial blind, and 2 Radial javelin. Cast one and the cooldown simply refill your stack to maximum number again.

 

If you manage to deal damage to enemies, CD will be reduced by X% for Y second with cap. The longer you keep damaging the enemies, the longer your CD will remain fast. However, if you stop damaging the enemies then your CD will be abysmally long. If you want to wait, suit yourself and wait for 5 minutes for CD. Or you can go hunting a few enemies and get CD as short as 10 seconds.

 

Good way to incentivize players to move around and kill everything that moves and still fit for boss fight.

[MeteorKing]

Because that's a really big complicated system that would take a long time to develop and probably would wind up being about as useful/useless as any of the other dozen, much easier, fixes suggested in the past.  

 

Azamagon's suggestion is honestly the best suggestion I've seen yet, BY FAR.  If there is going to be a change, it should be that one, hands down.

[neKroMancer]

Because that's a really big complicated system that would take a long time to develop and probably would wind up being about as useful/useless as any of the other dozen, much easier, fixes suggested in the past.  

 

Azamagon's suggestion is honestly the best suggestion I've seen yet, BY FAR.  If there is going to be a change, it should be that one, hands down.

Link, please?

[NakiCoTony]

@neKroMancer: 3rd post above you. #27

Azamagon's idea is great, and DE could implement the automated energy regen system too, but they would have to create a system that checks contribution and that one is hard to balance.

[neKroMancer]

@neKroMancer: 3rd post above you. #27

Azamagon's idea is great, and DE could implement the automated energy regen system too, but they would have to create a system that checks contribution and that one is hard to balance.

Ah, that's pretty old idea. A blast from the past, actually. Mixing both CD and energy together. Nice one, but I think Steve mentioned long ago that he found mixing both systems to be confusing and counterintuitive.

However, separate CD without energy orb will make the game too similar to ME1 system. Moreover, there are orbs. My personal vendetta against them is unending.

[Tsukinoki]

@neKroMancer

The problem with a contribution based way of lowering a CD is what happens when you're in a group with someone that has a damage modded S-Wraith and Despair and none of the enemies are surviving long enough for you to get *any* damage in?

Pretty much a contribution based system means that if your not min-maxed and someone else is you will have to wait the 5+ minutes to get a chance to use your abilities.

This would break pugs even more because now if a higher level joins in with some lower level players they wont even have a chance to use their abilities and at least do something in that match.

And I really dont want to see this game go back to pure CD where all you see is people wait outside a door for all of their CDs to refresh, rush into the next room and wipe it out with the ult + other abilities...and then repeat the waiting outside of the door again.

That was happening in 90% of the games in CBT when they had a pure CD. It slowed down gameplay massively because you were actively hurting yourself by not waiting for all of your CDs to refresh.

Azmagon's idea is the only one where I can see a CD system working in this game. It wont slow down gameplay to an absolute crawl by having 90% of people sitting outside of doors until their CDs refresh, it will keep in the spammability of powers if you spec your warframe for using its abilities constantly, and it will also avoid the energy droughts that occur because you can still use your abilities if you wait long enough and there is no energy. It avoids the general problems from both systems: complete reliance on RNG from the energy orb, and the loss of spammability if you spec your frame that way, and it makes it so that your not actively hurting yourself by rushing into the next room before your CD recharges.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Fearzffs]

It also creates situations where people just save their powers all the time because what if things go sour?  Making energy too difficult to aquire can have really adverse effects.

 

 

You're right, that was a dumb idea.  3 minutes? Are you serious?  Not even MOBAs have that high CDs.

 

CDs were implimented in early stages of the game and it slowed down gameplay.  People would wait in every room to get their CDs back before continuing.  CDs longer than 10 seconds are not the answer.

 

 

Since this is not a moba game this mean that cds can be much higher than a moba game, now in Dota2 we have higher CD than 120 seconds for example Ravage, song of the siren lvl 1 is 180 seconds cd, Black hole is 180 second cd and so on. Also these ultimates do not last 50 seconds. In my opinion our powers are frustrating and stupid. What am I saying my frost is stupidly overpowered so overpowered that I do not want to even touch him. My fix for him would be Snow globe cd of 3 minutes and lasts for 10 seconds. This would be fun what we got here is us the monsters with machene guns killing little kids with slang shots.

[MeteorKing]

Apparently I was wrong about the moba thing. My point was that that was way too long of a CD for Warframe. I would absolutely hate your suggestion. It seems terrible in every regard. I understand and agree that things should be less spamable, but you're taking it to such an extreme opposite that it's unreasonable.

[KARMA2605]

You're right, that was a dumb idea.  3 minutes? Are you serious?  Not even MOBAs have that high CDs.

 

CDs were implimented in early stages of the game and it slowed down gameplay.  People would wait in every room to get their CDs back before continuing.  CDs longer than 10 seconds are not the answer.

 

You're aware of course that a player can make it through entire maps without once ever using powers?  Not that I am in favor of CDs, but this whole "but then people have to wait 2 mins before going in the next room so they can clear it with their ultimate again" argument is crap. IF CD's became a reality I say punish lazy people - you're only strategy/tactic is to spam ultimates?  Have fun with 2 hour maps.

 

Regardless, the Energy System needs some kind of tweak.  I say simply reduce the drop rate on Blue Orbs and reduce it again by half on all Defense type missions.  Maybe then DE can actually reduce the numbers (aka hordes) in Defense missions and make something more you know, tactical?  Less of a spam fest?

 

Not trying to be rude, typing before coffee though.

Edited September 13, 2013 by KARMA2605

[Eisvogel]

<p>Oh this is going to get some flame but.....<br />

<br />

Why not cooldowns instead of energy? Energy cost/Max energy mods could be replaced to be cooldown reduction.<br />

<br />

*runs away*</p>

 

Treading murky waters to say the least :D :3

 

But maybe it's possible without even needing to replace the energy system?

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/105231-how-to-achieve-balance-and-avoid-nerfing/

[Boxyninja]

Energy regen would be a good change, imo.

 

Fast enough so that lower powers can be spammed, yet Ultimates would be spaced out a little.

 

Power spam is fine, ultimate spam is not.

so lets spam slash dash, one of the most cost-damage efficient skill in the game 

[A1CZERO]

If energy orbs dropped less then there'd be no problem with the current system.

[lautalocos]

can´t we have the mass effect 3 system? if you use an ability, everything enters cooldon, but only the skill you used has the longest cooldown (still like only 4 seconds)

i remember it had a lot of possible builds, one of them forgetting the use og guns and just using abilities non-stop

[MeteorKing]

can´t we have the mass effect 3 system? if you use an ability, everything enters cooldon, but only the skill you used has the longest cooldown (still like only 4 seconds)

i remember it had a lot of possible builds, one of them forgetting the use og guns and just using abilities non-stop

Stop making horrible suggestions.  CDs do NOT fit this game.  

 

Edit:  Also, that system only worked because you leveled individual skills to make the ones you liked come off CD faster and had two teammates to support you, both of whom had their own builds that you could synergize with your own (I just gave everyone warp and blew up high-priority targets, but whatevs).

Edited September 13, 2013 by MeteorKing

[neKroMancer]

@neKroMancer

The problem with a contribution based way of lowering a CD is what happens when you're in a group with someone that has a damage modded S-Wraith and Despair and none of the enemies are surviving long enough for you to get *any* damage in?

Pretty much a contribution based system means that if your not min-maxed and someone else is you will have to wait the 5+ minutes to get a chance to use your abilities.

This would break pugs even more because now if a higher level joins in with some lower level players they wont even have a chance to use their abilities and at least do something in that match.

And I really dont want to see this game go back to pure CD where all you see is people wait outside a door for all of their CDs to refresh, rush into the next room and wipe it out with the ult + other abilities...and then repeat the waiting outside of the door again.

That was happening in 90% of the games in CBT when they had a pure CD. It slowed down gameplay massively because you were actively hurting yourself by not waiting for all of your CDs to refresh.

Azmagon's idea is the only one where I can see a CD system working in this game. It wont slow down gameplay to an absolute crawl by having 90% of people sitting outside of doors until their CDs refresh, it will keep in the spammability of powers if you spec your warframe for using its abilities constantly, and it will also avoid the energy droughts that occur because you can still use your abilities if you wait long enough and there is no energy. It avoids the general problems from both systems: complete reliance on RNG from the energy orb, and the loss of spammability if you spec your frame that way, and it makes it so that your not actively hurting yourself by rushing into the next room before your CD recharges.

 

Problem is it relies on not just one, but two systems at the same time. Rather confusing imo.

 

If anything could be done to improve that system, I think we should throw energy and orb into the airlock and spit them into the sun. Warframe's powersource seemed to be used for a single purpose, shield regeneration. Why not add a secondary role for it?

 

Each time a player use power that's in CD, it eats part of your shield. If your shield is out, then your shield will regenerate extremely slow to compensate. 

 

No, I'm not trolling. Still prefectly sane here.

 

The reason behind this is the fact that players need positive and negative feedback loop for their actions. While Azmagon's (or actually, Securitywyrm's) suggestion sounds good, it offers no negative feedback. You run out of energy? Wait for CD. Got enough energy? Spam it. Players aren't discouraged to use powers wisely since it has little to no consequence to the game.

 

Now, if we take out energy and replace it with shield capacity. We have less value to balance the game. We can create tension for players since they have to decide that whether they should spam powers or not. If they do it, will this action kill them afterward? A strong negative feedback.

 

However, as you said, problem is we lack positive feedback loop since weapons, some of them, are OP as hell and killstealing will be a big problem. We need a strong positive feedback to drive player forward the encounter instead of waiting for CD without involving damage.

 

Hellishly problematic, I got to admit. Since the game is purely about killing AI. I think positive feedback  should involve more than just damage. Why not add acrobatic movements and objective-based action into it as well? Every slide, wallrun, horizontal walljump (do them alternatively, doing just one action over and over again and you lose the CD reduction), carrying a datamass, hacking, revive, etc. reduce CD into reasonably short period of time. The more squad-based the action is, the longer the duration is for CD reduction.

[Thaumatos]

Its about time for a skill rebalance and cooldown adds.

 

My suggestion:  Classify the skills 1-4 into a "type" which can then be used as framework for new skills for new frames as well as current frames.

 

1 - Spammable skill

2 - Utility AoE team-oriented skill

3 - Self-preservation (or heal) skill

4 - Ultimate

 

 

1 - Your "1" skill should be a frame-defining spammable skill that likens to xcal's Slash Dash, Ash's Shuriken, Ember's Fireball, etc.  All frames should have the ability to at least use 25 energy in this way at any time.

 

2 - All frames should have at least one skill that is team-oriented.  Firstly, it would stop the complaints about certain frames being buff sticks or having abilities that are 'shared' while others do not.  Other than that, it would just be nice if everyone had something they could bring to strengthen themselves, along with their team, during rough spots.

 

3 - Currently, the name of the game is "don't hit my HP bro".  They're trying to alleviate this with mods that grant HP from Energy pickups.  Bad idea.  Mods don't solve all of your game's issues DE.  The problem is simple, there's no reliable way to get your health back during fights.  Sometimes you can't even get it back in between fights.  There's only so many little barrels and lockers to go around, they don't respawn, and they don't always give HP.

 

All frames should have an ability that allows a regen or heal under certain conditions on a cooldown.  As an example, maybe you've got a straight-up heal for a tanky frame like Rhino, but Saryn's ability relies on targets being poisoned first as a sort of 'life leech'.  Excalibur could get an update to Radial Blind where he regenerates for a short period of time after blinding whereas Frost entombs himself in a block of ice to regenerate HP while gaining the benefit of a short-term shield.

 

If you don't want a heal-ish type skill, that's up to you guys at DE...but I'm telling you, the real issue of gameplay and difficulty is the near-permanency of those red numbers.  We don't need a "healer" frame to complete content.  Giving frames their own method of replenishing that pool would solidify that concept and allow for a greater range of options for increasing difficulty.

 

4 - Enough is said about each of the Ultimates of each frame.  Number '4' has become the de-facto Ultimate skill and is almost already classified as such.  My only qualm is that it needs a cooldown.  Honestly, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pretty tired of logging into games where all I ever see is people breaking their keyboard with their index finger on the '4' key.

 

 

To be frank, the people who are against cooldowns provide no other reason but "No" memes and "It doesn't fit Warframe" ... So Warframe was meant to be nothing more than a max rank, ultimate skill, spamfest with no difficulty or constructive gameplay whatsoever?  Alright.  If that's the case, I think you've already got your endgame: Skill number 5; nuke the map and run to extraction.  In other words, no amount of content will change the situation: Spam 4 and win or spam 4 and lose.

[MeteorKing]

-snip-

I don't see how "here's your energy, every x amount of time you get a free cast" is confusing.  In that suggestion he talks about lowering the amount of available energy strewn throughout a level.  This will eliminate spamming, as well as not have players hoard their energy like Professor Scrooge.  

 

I don't understand why you think we need negative repercussions when we use a skill.  In fact, that's a terrible idea.  I have no idea what's going through your head.  You're so completely opposite of the reasonable spectrum of thought that it's almost difficult to argue with you.  I mean, seriously, losing shield because you use a skill?  Jesus Christ that's terrible design.

 

That next idea is just silly.  I really can't say much more about it.  Why would wallrunning reduce the CD?  That's just inane.

 

-snip-

Your suggestion pigeonholes frames into conforming to a specific format.  This would not allow for frames like Loki, Nyx, Nova, Trinity, etc.

Edited September 13, 2013 by MeteorKing

[Zh40]

Well how about we take some ideas from a much older game, such as Chrono Cross?

The way the system typically worked (this is the short version of a much deeper system)is you build up a melee combo against an enemy or group of enemies. With each succession, you unlock the next tier of magic in your pool. there could be up to 7 tiers of magic.

When you used a lesser tiered ability, it decreased the overall pool by that tier. for example, I build up a combo of 4 hits, i unlock four tiers of magic. I cast a tier 1 fireball, leaving me with 3 tiers left for my next turn.

We could do something similar. Build up energy from killing enemies (maybe 25 energy from 4 enemies or something?) and then use said energy to cast.

It would encourage more combat and tactile usage of energy instead of runnign willy nilly catching all the blue globes you can.

[Tsukinoki]

@Zh40

And that problem that that leads to is what do you do when someone, say nova, gets up their ultimate and casts and then wipes out an entire room robbing everyone of any energy gain from that?

Or if someone with a max damage S-Wraith and Despair/Acrid come through and wipe out everything before you have a chance to kill anything.

This just leads to kill stealing and making PUGs mostly unplayable.

[Zh40]

@Zh40

And that problem that that leads to is what do you do when someone, say nova, gets up their ultimate and casts and then wipes out an entire room robbing everyone of any energy gain from that?

Or if someone with a max damage S-Wraith and Despair/Acrid come through and wipe out everything before you have a chance to kill anything.

This just leads to kill stealing and making PUGs mostly unplayable.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, the blue balls used to be one use per person. This was changed in favor of everyone on the team getting one, because people would steal the balls with little effort. Now the problem with my system is that there are over powered folks, and skills of course. But you won't be getting energy from your magic/abilities. that's outright stupid, just as it is now. My system gives the power to those who engage in combat. if an upper level player is playing with low level players to spam his abilities, well good on him for helping spread the XP around. But they changed the squad system so that youre more likely to be placed in a game with people near your rank, so your point is moot.

[Tsukinoki]

@Zh40

And the S-Wraith has no mastery requirement, and a lot of other *very* damaging weapons have no mastery requirement. Meaning that it doesn't render my point moot at all. Because my point was that your suggestion REMOVES the teanwork incentive from a game.

It goes from a game of teamwork to: who can get/steal the most kills to be able to use their abilities.

That is not a good change for Pugs at all, and would make them far worse than they currently are.

[Ronyn]

We should gain energy from doing stuff.

Doing damage, healing allies, etc...should give us small amounts of energy.

That way instead of looking for blue orbs like now, waiting around for energy to regen or abilities to go off cooldown..

it keeps us FIGHTING and moving forward.

[neKroMancer]

I don't see how "here's your energy, every x amount of time you get a free cast" is confusing.  In that suggestion he talks about lowering the amount of available energy strewn throughout a level.  This will eliminate spamming, as well as not have players hoard their energy like Professor Scrooge.  

 

I don't understand why you think we need negative repercussions when we use a skill.  In fact, that's a terrible idea.  I have no idea what's going through your head.  You're so completely opposite of the reasonable spectrum of thought that it's almost difficult to argue with you.  I mean, seriously, losing shield because you use a skill?  Jesus Christ that's terrible design.

 

That next idea is just silly.  I really can't say much more about it.  Why would wallrunning reduce the CD?  That's just inane.

 

Your suggestion pigeonholes frames into conforming to a specific format.  This would not allow for frames like Loki, Nyx, Nova, Trinity, etc.

 

Negative feedback exist in every game.

 

If you play an RPG, there is negative feedback in staying in one area too long since it won't be able to give you enough EXP to reach new level in a reasonable timeframe. Practically make you progress through the game slower. So crossing to the next area on appropriate level or underlevel is positive feedback. You get level up at the same pace or faster depends on your level.

 

If you play rock-paper-scissor, there is negative feedback. Keep using rock will allow your opponent to beat you with paper. So, players are encouraged to be as unpredictable as they can.

 

If you play poker, there is negative feedback for not learning other players' behavior. It's a game of psychology, afterall.

 

If you play strategy games like Chess or Go, it's advisable to keep your tactic and strategy flexible (especially Go) so there is negative feedback (losing).

 

If you play platformer like Mario, there is a penalty for staying in a level for too long (timeout, you're dead). So you horde gold as much as possible before crossing into a new level. 

 

Applying the same principle to energy system is pretty straight forward, You have to find the thing that the game widely considered as 'lose' condition and tie it to energy system. Basic lose scenario is death of your character. However, finding logical way to address it will leave you with only one element that can be regenerated, shield. (We don't want to lose health, do we?)

 

Doing so will benefit the game in two major ways.

1. Think before spamming. Do I have enough shield to spam this power? Will i be dead if I spam it in front of Grineer dead squad?

2. Less value to balance the game. Pretty huge benefit, imo. Less number to balance means easier to balance. Imagine balancing the game with 5 variable and suddenly it reduce to 4! That's less relationship to work with (how many relationships decrease is depend on what kind of relation but well, decreasing is decreasing).

 

The system allows you to spam at the expense of survivability so encourage player to think (moreover, who doesn't use redirection anyway, right?...wait, that's me). It encourage to engage in mobility, fighting, and squad-based actions. All the basic covered plus less number to balance. Compared to what we have and tell me that, theoretically, which one is better?