What about weapons that are not supposed to kill anything?

[DreisterDino]

Because of the recent Alerts i had a thought about weapons in Warframe.

I couldnt bother to get the Glaxion-Skin because its arguably one of the worst Beam-Weapons in the game and i know i will never use it.

And nobody can deny that some weapons are even to weak to be used on an average level.

 

I dont want to make every weapon a complete beast, and of course every game has weapons that perform better than others, thats totally fine.

Since there are so many weapons in every weapon-category available in Warframe, usually when a new weapon comes out basically 2 things can happen:

1. stats are better compared to the existing weapons -> many people will like and use the weapon
2. stats are worse -> weapon will get ignored by most of the people after getting the MR and only very few fans of the weapon will use it

 

So my idea was to create weapons which sole purpose is utility.

Instead of buffing the stats of a bad weapon so it is on par with the better weapons, create a mechanic that makes the weapon useful even if it cant kill a lvl1 grineer 😀

We have weapons in the game already that could be classified as "utility weapons", but mostly the ones that are being used are still used for their killing potential.

Let's use the Glaxion as an example because i mentioned it at the start:

 

• the weapon doesnt do any damage anymore (maybe just enough to kill enemies up to level 5 ....... so... everything stays the same 😅)
• instead of shooting at enemies, you will use the Glaxion to cover the ground with Ice
• this layer of Ice stays on the ground for a certain amount of time (Status-Duration-Mod gets useful for the 1st time in Warframes history!!!!HYPE!!!)
• the Ice heavily slows down enemies
• it might also give buffs to you and allies like Cunning Drift does (+Slide and -Friction)
• it might even synergize with other weapons - if you use a weapon with Fire, you can force blast-procs when shooting at the ice (or create gas-clouds when using Poison etc)

 

What do you think? And do you have any ideas of weapons you might want to use even if they dont kill anything?

 

I think there are tons of possibilities for weapons that might be useful and fun to use or simply interesting for solo-players.

They could allow us to build traps, buff allies, debuff or cc enemies, set up possible synergies (i didnt play Anthem, but from what i have heard, one thing people liked was setting up combos and "prime" enemies, and this weapons could fulfill this purpose) or simply change the environment like the Glaxion would in my example.

 

[SordidDreams]

30 minutes ago, DreisterDino said:

my idea was to create weapons which sole purpose is utility

That's what my Prisma Grakata has become ever since I got my hands on a Catchmoon. Now I only carry it so that I can have the +25% sprint speed from Amalgam Serration. I wish I could specify that I want to start with my secondary drawn, because having to switch at the start of each mission is a bit annoying.

30 minutes ago, DreisterDino said:

What do you think?

Cool idea, but for it to really be viable we'd have to have instant weapon switching between primary and secondary (preferably by way of a 'quick secondary' button that immediately shoots rather than the old "switch-then-shoot" two-step process). It would also require enemies to not be arbitrarily immune to these utility effects, especially those enemies you'd most want to use them against, and given how DE has approached this exact issue with regard to CC frame powers, I don't see much hope in this respect.

Edited May 13, 2019 by SordidDreams

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

I like the idea, provided it's well implemented. I mean, I always say not every weapon can be great (even in real life just because you come up with an idea it doesn't mean it's a good idea, which can be applied to mostly everything). But this, while not making every weapon potent, it does have the potential to make all weapons useful and fun in their own ways. I'd even say it's much easier to flesh them out like this, rather than have all weapons compete in a single field: capacity to erase maps.

[NinjaZeku]

Dunno, as far as pure CC / debuffing goes, that's kinda what abilities are for.
Between ~40 Frames to choose from and (Spoiler), that's quite a bit of ground covered.

That said, I wouldn't be against some more Augments like Tether Grenades or (a more universal version of) Neutralizing Justice,
though I'd much rather have a not-damage-focused Secondary Fire on a weapon that's also doing more than fine for damage on Primary
(e.g. Corinth kinda fits into this, you can have Crit kerpows and Status kerbooms in one build, a shame Melee 2.9 made it annoying to use).

Edited May 13, 2019 by NinjaZeku
wow that was some formatting nonsense

[taiiat]

so, Weapons that fulfill different roles? that would be nice.
for example Glaxion as you brought up is even a perfect, purpose built Utility Weapon already. except it's missing the actual Utility part. and by that i mean Glaxion should really have an innate Slowing effect based on how long the Enemy has been hit by Glaxion. separate from Status Effects. so that it always applies Slow. and if you kept Ice Damage on it then it would stack Ice Status on top of that for a very strong Slow. instantly, Glaxion is a useful Support Weapon, and also instantly gains an optimization choice via whether to leave open Ice on it for extra Slow or to bring some other Status Effects to the situation and/or Damage.

 

but since 80-90% of Guns in the last Stat passover basically all got turned into the same gun (Critting Status Hybrid), i guess Digital Extremes doesn't agree and would prefer all Weapons to be the same Weapon. which still won't be a flat field ofcourse. and would only achieve making Weapons bland and uninterersting while the same ones that were flat superior before, probably still end up as such after.

[SirTobe]

I wouldn't mind it. This is pretty much how I often use primarey weapons nowadays anyway. Kitguns and melee are so OP that I just carry primaries for specific needs like CC, nullifiers, long range sniping, or silenced, which are all rarely needed anyway.

It would be cool with weapons that have functions similar to cetain frame abilities, which could complement a different frame. For example, throw a spear to the ground which then creates a circle with similar effects as Oberons Hallowed Ground until picked up or a power/charge runs out. Or maybe some weapon that imitates Titanias "Lantern" ability on an enemy to have them float up into the air and attract others. 

It doesn't have to be something overpowered or damage dealing, but rather small buffs or cc. Warframes abilities should of course always be the superior alternative though.

[Mr.SpookSpook]

I'd absolutely love an infested launcher that does the same effect as Nidus' larva ability

[Atheeas]

Good idea, especially considering there are riven mod-related missions where you have to not kill anyone.
Not everyone has Loki/Ivara/Ash/Octavia/Shade for that kind of missions to run around unnoticed, and being constantly attacked while playing any WF without invisibility might be annoying. In a situation like this it would be great to hold enemies at bay without actually killing them.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Atheeas

[(PSN)robotwars7]

it's not a bad idea IMO, but right now the direction that Warframe is going in with modes like ESO and Arbitrations, is focused on mass killing, which totally goes against the idea of utility focused weapons. in it's current state these utility weapons wouldn't really get used at what many consider "endgame" (or at least as close as we can currently get), so they wouldn't be used that often except by the minority that enjoy the utility weapons for what they are. this is another reason why we need a mode  like what the old Trials were which has more focus on a CC meta rather than an outright killing Meta. in such a circumstance, utility weapons would be far more useful.

[BahamutKaiser]

Why fix something instead of just adding something new? Somebody might like Glaxion.

It would be nice if more weapons had curious effects, some frames deal damage, and would rather have utility weapons. And since Rhino can freeze bosses, maybe Glaxion can slowly freeze bosses in place. They're still going to deploy their Iframes.

Personally, I'd rather see fundamental improvements that impact more content than one forgotten weapon though, like the melee changes.

[Test-995]

How about implementing those without removing damages?

[George_PPS]

This spreading ice in the floor idea is very interesting. There should be a whole new category of utility weapons like this. 

[Lutesque]

I'd like Warframe as a whole to be more Utility Focused.... theres way too much killing in this game... whats really stupid is... .uuuuuhhhh..... forgot what I wanted to say while I was typing.... oof !!!!

[Tsukinoki]

2 hours ago, DreisterDino said:

What do you think?

While a somewhat interesting idea, I just don't think that it fits into warframe at all.
The main reason: Please tell me how useful that idea for the Glaxion would be when I could pull out a catchmoon and erase the entire rooms worth of enemies in 2 or 3 shots?  You just wasted ammo and time trying to set up something...and it never came into play.

Sure setting up traps seems nice...but you have to think about when it would actually be used, when would it come into play?
The simple fact is that the game is too fast paced, and our ability to just delete enemies is too high for this to be useful.

Further there are other issues with this that would need to be addressed:
-Weapon swapping is just too slow to use its effects if you're playing solo
-There would need to be something that encourages its use, as it stands you would be encouraged to just skip it
-The enemies that you might want to use this against (for example Wolf, and other assassins/bosses that can't just be deleted in under half a second) are immune to these types of effects, or have the effect lowed so much that you couldn't take advantage of it.

[ryanrhino]

Or you can simulate Warframe abilities....so, you can make an ice bubble to mimic Frost’s, but do it with a weapon, like Mr. Freeze in Batman.  Making a wall of fire with the Ignis or Atomos?

Then, we can fight higher level enemies in defense missions where it would be more possible to fail the mission and these utility weapons would be useful.

[YazMatazO]

As a side note, my 100 % Status and Punch Through Sobek is exactly that. It has 300% multishot so it can do it's share of killing early in the arbitration, but approaching the one hour mark it turns completely into cc tool with blast and corrosive procs. I use a Condition Overload Zaw, so they complement each other well. 

I think we have so much variety at the moment, and nothing really to use it all against, that such a weapon would kind of be pointless. Another good idea without a niche to make it great doesn't sounds like a good addition, at least to me. 

[Softballbryan]

3 hours ago, DreisterDino said:

Because of the recent Alerts i had a thought about weapons in Warframe.

I couldnt bother to get the Glaxion-Skin because its arguably one of the worst Beam-Weapons in the game and i know i will never use it.

And nobody can deny that some weapons are even to weak to be used on an average level.

 

I dont want to make every weapon a complete beast, and of course every game has weapons that perform better than others, thats totally fine.

Since there are so many weapons in every weapon-category available in Warframe, usually when a new weapon comes out basically 2 things can happen:

1. stats are better compared to the existing weapons -> many people will like and use the weapon
2. stats are worse -> weapon will get ignored by most of the people after getting the MR and only very few fans of the weapon will use it

 

So my idea was to create weapons which sole purpose is utility.

Instead of buffing the stats of a bad weapon so it is on par with the better weapons, create a mechanic that makes the weapon useful even if it cant kill a lvl1 grineer 😀

We have weapons in the game already that could be classified as "utility weapons", but mostly the ones that are being used are still used for their killing potential.

Let's use the Glaxion as an example because i mentioned it at the start:

 

• the weapon doesnt do any damage anymore (maybe just enough to kill enemies up to level 5 ....... so... everything stays the same 😅)
• instead of shooting at enemies, you will use the Glaxion to cover the ground with Ice
• this layer of Ice stays on the ground for a certain amount of time (Status-Duration-Mod gets useful for the 1st time in Warframes history!!!!HYPE!!!)
• the Ice heavily slows down enemies
• it might also give buffs to you and allies like Cunning Drift does (+Slide and -Friction)
• it might even synergize with other weapons - if you use a weapon with Fire, you can force blast-procs when shooting at the ice (or create gas-clouds when using Poison etc)

 

What do you think? And do you have any ideas of weapons you might want to use even if they dont kill anything?

 

I think there are tons of possibilities for weapons that might be useful and fun to use or simply interesting for solo-players.

They could allow us to build traps, buff allies, debuff or cc enemies, set up possible synergies (i didnt play Anthem, but from what i have heard, one thing people liked was setting up combos and "prime" enemies, and this weapons could fulfill this purpose) or simply change the environment like the Glaxion would in my example.

 

I like your idea of making turd weapons more useful or fun by giving them a different role... I’d have fun with that!

[Jarriaga]

The secondary weapons I've been using the most are utility since the melee seamless update. These weapons are the Mara Detron (Croud control) and the Synoid Gammacor (Anti-nullifier and armor stripping).

[DreisterDino]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Tsukinoki:

While a somewhat interesting idea, I just don't think that it fits into warframe at all.
Please tell me how useful that idea for the Glaxion would be when I could pull out a catchmoon and erase the entire rooms worth of enemies in 2 or 3 shots? 

I got a few points that might justify it:

• fun and variety (sounds stupid maybe, but this is important - i mean all the last frames that have been released and lots of weapons are not better than the current AoE-Meta, still they are good for the game since they offer new ways to play the game - not everyone wants to play the Meta all the time)
• although i agree with @(PS4)robotwars7 that we need more content that doesnt focus on killing alone so much, we still have content where utility is useful (excavations, interception, certain Sortie missions with modifiers which can make many players struggle to kill enemies, certain Bounty-Missions)
• at a certain higher level, your catchmoon wont evaporate everything in one shot, so you might want some utility
• @Atheeas mentioned Riven-tasks in this topic, it might be really useful for that
• who knows what tasks we might get in future Nightwave-Series? maybe they get a little more creative and/or take suggestions from the community so we wont just have "repeat that mission 10 times" - "do this for a certain amount of time" or the ressource-sink tasks. I have seen great suggestions in the topic about the next Season, and i really hope we get some fun tasks, and that is another place where utility weapons might shine
• i mentioned Anthem and the Combos - depending on what kind of utility we get it might be even more effective to use against certain enemies, for example Nullifiers - ofc my glaxion example doesnt help against Nullifiers, but other utility weapons might help a lot (btw: I dont! want to copy Anthem at all, but Synergy is a thing Warframe tries to achieve aswell and @[DE]Pablo gets a lot of compliments for his Warframe Reworks because of this (Nezha is still not better than a Mesa at roomclearing, but fun!)
• it creates lots of possibilities for Loadouts (especially for Solo-Players) - for example: most people say that you basically have to use Tank-Frames in Arbitrations (even after Revives have been introduced) - certain utility-weapons might soften the Meta and allow players to make choices they normally wouldnt do
• if you are still in the Early-Game of Warframe, these weapons might be really useful (and "cheaper" to use since they might not rely on Mods so much to be useful) - just because we can steamroll most of the content in the game and might have no use for utility doesnt mean other players can't actually make great use of that (it takes a lot of time to get all the mods, farm all the endo for them and get to a point where you can kill everything with ease, and it takes even more to build Kitguns!).

 

You can always ask "why add something if its not better at killing than what i have right now" - but ironically thats exactly what i try to approach with my suggestion 😛

Either the Devs release a weapon which does more damage than existing weapons or its considered useless - in your case everything thats worse than the Catchmoon will fail to get your attention, but i am sure there is always something a player would like to have at his disposal besides raw damage and killing potential.

Edited May 13, 2019 by DreisterDino

[SneakyRogueOwl]

There used to be the combination of Glaive Prime or Zaw Dagger & Zakti though. You can use Zakti to stun enemies, making them vulnerable to finisher but people don't use it anymore since they got naramon. (I'm bad at english but i hope you guys can understand what I wrote)

Edited May 13, 2019 by SneakyRogueOwl
wrong word

[Orabell]

Healing Speargun and the thrown spear becomes a healing well. No damage just utility and you can still kill enemies with abilities, secondaries and melee.

[TheOnlyWarBear]

Don't touch my Glaxion 🤨

[Unimatrix0]

Funny, just the other day I was doing a riven challenge with Ivara. While cloaked, a Nox happened to waddle past me and I had a thought. I had a good look at what the Nox was wielding and compared it to the Stug. They're completely different! I know that people make fun of Stug a lot, but I for one find it quite a pain in the asteroids to be on the receiving end of whatever the Nox has. Why can't we just have that? What about it makes it good, and yet the Stug is not?

Edited May 13, 2019 by Unimatrix0

[OneEyedMedic]

This sounds interesting.

I like the idea of a pitfall hammer or bleed kunai (it only spams slash procs). Having traps will jump into Vauban's territory though, so we have to be a bit careful with melee. 

A weapon like a Korok Leaf would be fun. Just push enemies away. It'll stay true to the damage of either one point or zero, and it won't be effected by mods like Serration or Multishot.

[As a side note, I really would like a throwing melee weapon like the Javlok, Ferrox, and Scourge primary. I want to be a true Shieldmaiden with Hildr, and that includes a spear that I can throw. Hehe.]

[Blitzkriegor]

Part of the issue is the sheer masses of enemies make utility less useful. If I can wipe an enemy permanently with any degree of speed, there's no drawback except in corner cases. I'd like to see the new faction use better tactics with smaller groups that are tougher and more status-capable and dangerous enough (they can impede you and hurt rather than outright one-shot you) that sauntering around with a hand cannon won't work well. So you want cover and multiple angles of fire, etc.

So status of all kinds that can disrupt those units becomes more viable/not moot even at lower levels. There, I really like the Glaxion icer idea. I could also imagine less than lethal weapons, like a vitrification cannon that leaves them as armored obstacles. Or a suppressed tranq/taser gun that has to get through armor but can leave enemies prone and revivable by their allies. As is, these are probably underpowered most of the time but could be very good against enhanced enemy units and tactics. While they're at it, Seeker groups that actively track and hunt you down and try to surprise you after alarms would be cool. Just need more threatening enemies that aren't threatening because of raw damage and HP.