Comprehensive Warframe Feedback

[Kilsety]

Short and to the point: A general post about what I feel is necessary for fair and fun Warframes that don't detract from multiplayer or solo play.

Either for entertainment or for balance directly, I think a lot of abilities or stats should be different than they are right now, like small tweaks. This post will be related to metatactics and imbalance (positive or negative) versus what I personally feel people would enjoy with useful changes to existing abilities. I will update this to include all Warframes eventually, if I think of enough tweaks that aren't excessive. Might even leave it around and update it whenever there are changes to the game. All feedback given will be based around the highest Warframe version (Prime/etc) with all existing mods and generally any mod setup attempted, as well as augments, if I can help it. All suggestions and feedback are intended to be independent of one-another. Thanks for reading!

 

General thoughts of Warframes and the missions we play regularly:

• Damage from enemies (disregarding reductions). Damage taken is excessive, period. I like the new layer Adaptation has added, since it's made a lot of attacks or damage sources more obvious in how they work, but it proves nothing is enough to thwart the onslaught of damage taken; there is no top-end, it is a default amount of damage and some sources can't be reduced. I don't want revive-less missions as much as I want the "4x Corrosive Projection aura vs. Lv 130 Mot, Void enemies" effect in all missions without anything instantly killing me or me instantly killing everything.
• Healing or Support vs. Debuffing or Buffing. Paired with above, healer frames are excessive or too little. Self-heal is weird, but Shield type healing in general would fix a lot. I'd enjoy the removal of Orbs from the game for something else that fits the game more individually, while retaining the healing equity via buffing from Warframes that do so much as lift a finger for me or others. Support can exist, and it's more entertaining in Warframe to support-play than any other game on Earth. I'd enjoy a 3:1 or 50/50 divide without it being a Necessity.
• Metatactics vs. Preference/Ease. Meta won't exist without Warframes being used Exclusively. Currently, Nova is the best Warframe for spies with or without the Escape Velocity augment, so long as you build for it. Disregarding changes to hacking, spies, and existing Warframes that are tailored for this, I think it's something worth noting that Dynamicism should exist, and you as the developers intend for it to exist. I don't exactly feel we need game mode-specific Warframes more than changes to individual game modes that enable better Warframes in specific ways, all-inclusively. I want it to feel like I'm getting something out of Iron Skin abilities, Overshields and more on Hijack, Invisibility / suppression on excavations or survival, objective defense with area casters, or rescues with support-like Warframes, to name just a few instances. I'll put a separate thread link here for that.

 

Loki, The Jack of No Trades

Base Stats: I actually think he's fine as-is in this way. Without utility as a Warframe outside of single player mechanics, his stats will seldom matter since he can be abused or get old very quickly.

Decoy:

• Reducing cast time on Decoy would improve Natural Talent and non-cast speed builds.
• Casting Decoy drawing ALERTED enemy aggression (not aware/awake, alerted only) in __ fixed range would be entirely useful
• Unlimited Decoy clones by allowing more decoys via flat duration on each clone. I.E. When duration is higher on Decoy than base duration - 65s duration listed on hotbar (260% Duration modded plus 25s base) = 2 clones plus 3rd (first casted) for 15s total clones.

Invisibility:

• Invisibility with +300% (moddable) weapon damage on unalerted enemies would apply dimishing returns damage (Primed Pressure Point/Serration/Hornet Strike) while encouraging more utility mods on specific Loki builds. I think a lot of players value "stealth" kills on Loki w/Invisibility but do not obtain them due to how stealth works currently. Has synergy with Decoy suggestions.
• Invisibility should be balanced to have fixed duration so Duration builds do not nuke mod slots or other ability stats, remove the Invisibility crutches people rely on for Loki/Warframes in general, and to make room for more interesting balances to the ability itself.

Switch Teleport

• Situational mechanic that doesn't really apply to any existing game mode very well without the augment, or the augment mod being altered.
• The augment Safeguard Switch should be applied to Switch Teleport by default, for Friendly targets or Loki if not applicable to friendly units.
• A different augment that still has the offensive trade-off for this glasscannon Warframe with more general utility would be nice. E.g. "Translocating Decoy: Creates a second Decoy at the unit's last location instead of teleporting Loki."

Radial Disarm

• Extremely underrated ability that can technically do damage but does not due to how damage resistance, health and armor scale up or reduce non-weakness source types. This ability is too strong with disarming by itself in some situations and yet it isn't usable in many cases, or it's impossible to abuse in an uncoordinated match while simultaneously being too OP to buff.
• Irradiating Disarm should just add +100% of Radial Disarm's damage inflicted as Radiation, with a base status chance of 30%. This aligns with many Warframe abilities already and there is zero reason why everything needs to be Rad-effect status when it only requires 1 enemy to pull that much aggression. Such a weird augment unless I'm missing some kind of debuff.

 

Banshee, The Mistress of silent yet deadly gameplay

Base Stats: Armor is pretty low, as the game is currently. Incredibly fun and strong Warframe despite that, and I don't think it needs tweaking.

Sonic Boom:

• Weak damage or too much of a knockdown (really, it's the incapacitation that's a problem with most things like this so it's not her in particular; you can't abuse it often enough), insanely good outside of that - at least with the Sonic Fracture augment and how armor currently works.

Sonar:

• Probably overpowered. Damage multiplier applies in some way that might have changed recently, but it's like armor removal without it interfering or interacting with armor removal.
• Should probably have reduced marked areas on units, and re-enable stacking/overlapping of marked areas if you've disabled that.

Silence:

• Kind of wish this was unaffected by Range, unless the Range stat was used for an additional change where stunned enemies cannot/won't alert nearby enemies within ___ meters while Silence is active.

Sound Quake:

• I have not found a suitable build for this in its current state, for any level content.
• I'd enjoy seeing Sound Quake deal 300% extra damage per target within __ meters (flat/unmoddable range) of any enemy affected by Sound Quake, up to 3 enemies. Over a longer, predetermined period of time, enemies would push further from eachother (add a more accurate knockback to the ability) and the damage would fall off without re-channeling (ability mod balance).

 

That's it for now, I expect to edit it with more thoughts later.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Kilsety