Reworking The Mechanics Of The Stamina System

[Forralmatt]

In update 10 the developers made an attempt to make the stamina system more meaningful through a variety of changes. One of them was a controversial change that made stamina deplete fast and regenerate very slowly, definitely serving to draw attention to it. Despite justifying the use of stamina mods in your Warframe in order to mitigate the drawbacks, it had an overall unpleasant effect on the pace and dynamics of the game. The more restrictive changes made in that update were quickly withdrawn, in a subsequent hotfix in response to fan feedback, but in the Live-stream taken place yesterday it was evident that the DE still wanted to make stamina meaningful and have a purpose. There is certainly the option of simply 'killing your baby' and ripping out the stamina system entirely, as many posters have suggested, but I suggest a general re-work of how stamina effects gameplay instead.

 

I always figured stamina could have been used as a resource to determine the potency of your physical activities, such as blocking, attacks and so forth rather than simply being a cost you were required to pay in order to merely do them. For instance: when you swing your weapon or do physically exerting activities your stamina bar would gradually deplete, and when it gets lower it would gradually reduce the efficiency of your moves, as opposed to preventing them. Your attacks become weaker, your blocking less potent and your dodges less effective. Keep your stamina high, on the other hand, and you'll have more effective attacks, blocks and dodges.

 

The same could apply to sprinting, with somewhat faster speeds at high stamina and gradually slower as stamina depletes. This system would however allow you to maintain your abilities, move and act like a Ninja even with low stamina, but at the same time encourage you to play it smart and conserve your stamina, and utilize mods to increase your gauge and its regeneration.

 

After experimenting the actual algorithms for a bit and finding a balance in how large of an impact stamina would have on your abilities I believe the end result could allow players to play as they wanted, rather than being forced into a specific play-style by the system in place. That would go hand in hand with DE's design philosophies in other areas.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Forralmatt

[CY13ERPUNK]

some good ideas there OP

+1

i think the real issue/problem right now is we don't know exactly what the developer's vision for the game is

I was under the impression that if you wanted to run all over the place, the devs wanted you to have to use the stamina mods to achieve that

but they have consistently caved when the community says that they think the stamina mods are useless and should be removed (or even remove the bar completely)

i personally disagree and think the stamina system should be MORE inclusive and restrictive, but it seems like the devs are not going in that direction

i like the idea of being able to slot stamina mods and running non-stop throughout a whole map or not slotted stamina mods and having more points for making my warframe more powerful/tougher/etc (ie a tradeoff)

i think the current capacity to "do everything" really hurts the variety of builds ingame atm

[Forralmatt]

I think there has to be more to stamina than simply "allowing or disallowing sprinting" but that really feels like its core purpose at the moment. Thus, when they changed it, it ultimately came across like a nerf to sprinting. Rushers were not amused, as it simply became impossible to play the game they way they had always done, and wanted to continue playing it, without sacrificing a lot of the power in their builds. It was almost as if DE said "Thou Shalt Not Sprint!" which definitely sounds like a stance against those opt to rush through levels, and as a result alienating a good portion of the player-base.

 

That wasn't the intention, one can conclude from the live-streams, but it was rather an attempt to simply make the stamina system meaningful. I believe it can be done without completely butchering people's preferred play-styles. Instead, with my above suggestions, you could make a build that takes advantage of stamina, running faster, hitting harder, deflecting more damage while dodging, perhaps even losing less health while full of stamina, or you can continue as before, and when you run low or run out of stamina, you become a bit weaker, more vulnerable and don't sprint quite as fast. Simply integrating stamina into more functions and systems, and having it effect their potency would go far further than what we currently have.

 

Here's a few things that could feasibly be effected to some degree, positively and/or negatively by your stamina gauge:

 

Melee Attack Speed

Melee Attack Power

Damage Resistance

Dodge Damage Reduction

Block Damage Reduction

Stagger Resistance

Knockdown Resistance

Movement Speed

 

And probably a few dozen other things that other people might think of. However, I feel a transition from the current Disallow/Allow mechanic to an Weaken/Empower dynamic, and full integration into other subsystems could make stamina far more meaningful and interesting.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Forralmatt

[CY13ERPUNK]

im with ya OP

but again the problem is NOT that DE said "THOU SHALT NOT SPRINT!" funny as it may seem, because EVEN WITH THE "STAMINA NERF" YOU COULD STILL RUSH JUST FINE IF YOU USED THE RIGHT MODS, so DE was just trying to incentivize ppl to actually use the stamina mods

but then the community raged and acted like it was the frakking end of days, then the hotfix reverted the "nerf" (and while yes DE did blindside us with it, so the rage about that is fair, IMHO they should have stuck with it)

the problem is that ppl want to sprint non-stop WITHOUT having to spent and mod points, they want to be the fastest ninja AND have max shields/hps/armor/focus/flow/streamline/stretch/etc

you should consider linking this thread to DE_Scott, he said during the livestream that he's open to suggestions vs the usual rage he gets sent

Edited September 19, 2013 by CY13ERPUNK

[Forralmatt]

I may well do that, because I really believe that one could get around &!$$ing people off by making high stamina do something noticeably positive, rather than only making low stamina hurt. One could basically encourage stamina builds through providing potent benefits as opposed to merely a means of escaping punishing drawbacks.

 

I remember MMO developers, back in day, trying to create a system to help casual players catch up with the hardcore audience. They devised a Fatigue system where you'd progressively earn less and less experience if you played a lot in a day. People did not like that; they did not think it fair that just because they loved the game and played it a lot they should be punished for it. In response the developers spray-painted the system blue and called it Rested Experience giving people an increased experience multiplier relative to the time they were logged off the game, achieving the same thing without punishing anyone. That Rested Experience system is practically in every MMO today, and the despised Fatigue one is almost nowhere to be seen, despite them accomplishing the very same thing.

 

I think the same deal could apply here: Encourage the use of stamina mods and stamina conservation through potent benefits, and the protestors silence.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Forralmatt

[Zachles]

In update 10 the developers made an attempt to make the stamina system more meaningful through a variety of changes. One of them was a controversial change that made stamina deplete fast and regenerate very slowly, definitely serving to draw attention to it. Despite justifying the use of stamina mods in your Warframe in order to mitigate the drawbacks, it had an overall unpleasant effect on the pace and dynamics of the game. The more restrictive changes made in that update were quickly withdrawn, in a subsequent hotfix in response to fan feedback, but in the Live-stream taken place yesterday it was evident that the DE still wanted to make stamina meaningful and have a purpose. There is certainly the option of simply 'killing your baby' and ripping out the stamina system entirely, as many posters have suggested, but I suggest a general re-work of how stamina effects gameplay instead.

 

I always figured stamina could have been used as a resource to determine the potency of your physical activities, such as blocking, attacks and so forth rather than simply being a cost you were required to pay in order to merely do them. For instance: when you swing your weapon or do physically exerting activities your stamina bar would gradually deplete, and when it gets lower it would gradually reduce the efficiency of your moves, as opposed to preventing them. Your attacks become weaker, your blocking less potent and your dodges less effective. Keep your stamina high, on the other hand, and you'll have more effective attacks, blocks and dodges.

 

The same could apply to sprinting, with somewhat faster speeds at high stamina and gradually slower as stamina depletes. This system would however allow you to maintain your abilities, move and act like a Ninja even with low stamina, but at the same time encourage you to play it smart and conserve your stamina, and utilize mods to increase your gauge and its regeneration.

 

After experimenting the actual algorithms for a bit and finding a balance in how large of an impact stamina would have on your abilities I believe the end result could allow players to play as they wanted, rather than being forced into a specific play-style by the system in place. That would go hand in hand with DE's design philosophies in other areas.

+1.

 

This sounds like a much better idea. Definitely the best stamina proposal I've seen.

 

EDIT: I agree with CY13ERPUNK. People don't want to use stamina mods because they'd rather use Steel Fiber, Flow, Focus, Redirection, et cetera. I think a good solution would possibly be to implement an aura mod that increases your stamina efficiency +2.5%, for example, up to 15% at max level. That sounds pretty reasonable, imo.

Edited September 19, 2013 by zachles

[Forralmatt]

+1.

 

This sounds like a much better idea. Definitely the best stamina proposal I've seen.

 

EDIT: I agree with CY13ERPUNK. People don't want to use stamina mods because they'd rather use Steel Fiber, Flow, Focus, Redirection, et cetera. I think a good solution would possibly be to implement an aura mod that increases your stamina efficiency +2.5%, for example, up to 15% at max level. That sounds pretty reasonable, imo.

I'd say quite the opposite. A choice has be made, and it is the player's choice to determine how to specialize their Warframe. The mod system at its core is about making choices, and having to make difficult choices with significant trade-offs is part of that. Otherwise we could simply be levelling up and getting static bonuses, and we'd never even have to have this dialogue to begin with. In order for the mod system to have a purpose, there needs to be a multitude of viable builds throughout the game, that have different strengths and weaknesses and excel in different situations or with different play-styles. I believe it's clear that DE aspire towards that kind of balance, judging by their recent push to make critical builds for weapons viable, and again, the reworks of the stamina system.

 

Anyhow if one makes the Stamina System more meaningful, the associated mods become more meaningful alongside it. That was the whole theory behind the Update 10 changes, but it worked from a different perspective than my suggestions and had more of a negative slant to it.