Regarding "metered" abilities.

[(PSN)BenHeisennberg]

Wanted to share my thoughts here as well.

I think this trend of adding an additional energy type to micromanage is starting to get a little cumbersome.  I think other varieties in Warframe design should be considered, as these seem like unnecessarily requiring players to "unlock" or buff their abilities.

[Miyabi-sama]

I'd name it a "gauss complex".

When in order to get use of your abilities you should first bash your forehead in the nearest wall several times.

[Loza03]

I don't think it should apply to all of them, but I feel like outside of completing reworking ability casts or pretty much every other ability, DE have to do stuff like this.

Infinitely spammable mass-destruction/cc/survival/invisibility generally results in frames having some specific niche-use situation where they are completely untouchable. Which tends to screw up things a lot, because whatever DE tries to do to make 'endgame' or any other kind of replayable content will just end up falling into one of these niches. Replayability is born of creativity, and limitation is the mother of invention.

[TheGrimCorsair]

4 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

I don't think it should apply to all of them, but I feel like outside of completing reworking ability casts or pretty much every other ability, DE have to do stuff like this.

Infinitely spammable mass-destruction/cc/survival/invisibility generally results in frames having some specific niche-use situation where they are completely untouchable. Which tends to screw up things a lot, because whatever DE tries to do to make 'endgame' or any other kind of replayable content will just end up falling into one of these niches. Replayability is born of creativity, and limitation is the mother of invention.

All of this.

Like, the problem with nuke frames is not that they can nuke, but that they can do so with such frequency that enemies often end up in a cycle of spawn-die at such speed there's no chance for anyone to even have much to do to begin with. There's no decision to make when the answer question of "Do I blow up the map now?" is always "Yes, obviously, and again, and again."

[(PSN)BenHeisennberg]

3 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

All of this.

Like, the problem with nuke frames is not that they can nuke, but that they can do so with such frequency that enemies often end up in a cycle of spawn-die at such speed there's no chance for anyone to even have much to do to begin with. There's no decision to make when the answer question of "Do I blow up the map now?" is always "Yes, obviously, and again, and again."

I definitely get that.  I wonder what other ways might help reduce nuking without, as the first comment mentioned, running into a wall to use your abilities.

Nidus is definitely a good example of metering done well, so there's that.

[Maka.Bones]

28 minutes ago, Miyabi-sama said:

I'd name it a "gauss complex".

When in order to get use of your abilities you should first bash your forehead in the nearest wall several times.

Ember's meter was a suggestion years ago.... Long before Gauss was a concept in creation. 

[TheGrimCorsair]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)BenHeisennberg said:

I definitely get that.  I wonder what other ways might help reduce nuking without, as the first comment mentioned, running into a wall to use your abilities.

Nidus is definitely a good example of metering done well, so there's that.

With all due respect, every Warframe in the game already has a meter for controlling your abilities.

That it didn't even jump to mind just lays out how incredibly broken it is.

[(PSN)BenHeisennberg]

21 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

With all due respect, every Warframe in the game already has a meter for controlling your abilities.

That it didn't even jump to mind just lays out how incredibly broken it is.

Correct, every Warframe has energy.  Some just have both energy and something else.

[Hawk1911]

Not a fan honestly

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

2 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

I'd name it a "gauss complex".

When in order to get use of your abilities you should first bash your forehead in the nearest wall several times.

Gauss isn't the first frame to manage some kind of resource. So funny. But no. 

1 hour ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

With all due respect, every Warframe in the game already has a meter for controlling your abilities.

That it didn't even jump to mind just lays out how incredibly broken it is.

Cheeky. But wrong. Energy economy is only broken in the context of player power. And there are several things that dictate the necessity/impact of power growing. So while you "can" blame energy economy its only the way it is because everything else design wise pushes that. 

Messing with the idea of resources to manage outside of energy allows DE to be more creative with warframe capabilities whilst controlling player power to a degree. Players are made to interact with the game more to keep being powerful which has been DE's goal since they started reworks. 

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Messing with the idea of resources to manage outside of energy allows DE to be more creative with warframe capabilities whilst controlling player power to a degree. Players are made to interact with the game more to keep being powerful which has been DE's goal since they started reworks. 

I don't really agree with any of this. Sure, Energy is broken, but the very idea of resource management in a game like Warframe is questionable, and making the player focus on a personal resource, rather than the environment and enemy, tends to detract from interacting with the game, rather than reinforce it. As seen with Gauss, the resource management component also runs the risk of easily devolving into really stupid gameplay, i.e. spamming 1 and running into walls purely to fill up a special resource bar, rather than because the ability had any effect then. Ember's meter was said to increase by casting abilities, but nothing was said about those abilities affecting enemies, which risks giving her the same gameplay problems as Gauss.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

1 minute ago, Teridax68 said:

I don't really agree with any of this. Sure, Energy is broken, but the very idea of resource management in a game like Warframe is questionable, and making the player focus on a personal resource, rather than the environment and enemy, tends to detract from interacting with the game, rather than reinforce it. As seen with Gauss, the resource management component also runs the risk of easily devolving into really stupid gameplay, i.e. spamming 1 and running into walls purely to fill up a special resource bar, rather than because the ability had any effect then. Ember's meter was said to increase by casting abilities, but nothing was said about those abilities affecting enemies, which risks giving her the same gameplay problems as Gauss.

Gauss was fixed. And even if we ignore that Nidus has a resource you manage. So does saryn. Neither detract from gameplay. 

Warframe in itself isn't a very interesting game. Gameplay pretty much entirely comes from the players kit. So resources are one way to make more of that gameplay. 

Also not sure what you're on about with her abilities not interacting with enemies. Your job is literally to dot everything with your abilities and your meter helps you do that by keeping you alive increasing your damage and casting speed. 

[Teridax68]

31 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Gauss was fixed. And even if we ignore that Nidus has a resource you manage. So does saryn. Neither detract from gameplay. 

Gauss wasn't fixed, his resource management was simply made less painful. At the end of the day, he's still banging into walls just to fill up a meter.

Nidus doesn't actually have a real resource management system, which I think is ultimately why he fares better than the rest: he certainly does gain stacks through Virulence, and some of his abilities expend them, but at the end of the day he generates far more Mutation than he expends, to the point where the only time he risks losing any significant amount is if he dies or spends too much time in a Nullifier bubble. He's not really actively working to maintain Mutation at a certain level, he's just stacking happily, and so by actually interacting with enemies somewhat (he can't just cast his 1 on walls or whatever to generate stacks, unlike Gauss).

Saryn I'd argue also doesn't really manage a resource: she's not really trying to get her Spores to decay, for one, and ultimately, just like Nidus, the only way she can increase her Spores damage is by casting the ability on enemies and spreading the stuff around, which is exceedingly simple to do. There's perhaps a punishment for not using her abilities correctly in that her plague can decay in damage if no-one's around, but she doesn't have the ability controls to lower her "resource" at will, unlike Gauss, the new Ember, or even Nidus.

Quote

Warframe in itself isn't a very interesting game. Gameplay pretty much entirely comes from the players kit. So resources are one way to make more of that gameplay. 

If Warframe isn't an interesting game, make the game interesting. Doing the same thing over and over with one's kit only goes so far; for it to provide actual depth, you need to actually interact with the environment and enemies in interesting and repeatable ways. What you are arguing here is that bonus resources are a band-aid to a boring core game, which does not say anything good about resource management or Warframe (not that I agree with you on Warframe being a boring game, either).

Quote

Also not sure what you're on about with her abilities not interacting with enemies. Your job is literally to dot everything with your abilities and your meter helps you do that by keeping you alive increasing your damage and casting speed. 

As I stated clearly in the post you are replying to, I underlined the difference between simply casting abilities, which is what was said for Ember, and casting those abilities on enemies: if the latter, then you have a resource management system that could actually work, because it would entirely depend on doing stuff to your opponents and controlling your spam against them. If the former, then you just have another Gauss on your hands, where Ember will be spamming her 1 into nothing at all just for the sake of managing a meter. 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Teridax68

[Loza03]

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Cheeky. But wrong. Energy economy is only broken in the context of player power. And there are several things that dictate the necessity/impact of power growing. So while you "can" blame energy economy its only the way it is because everything else design wise pushes that. 

Messing with the idea of resources to manage outside of energy allows DE to be more creative with warframe capabilities whilst controlling player power to a degree. Players are made to interact with the game more to keep being powerful which has been DE's goal since they started reworks. 

Agreed. Gauss and Nidus are both good examples. Or any frame that likes using fast, frequent, less powerful abilities.

Energy-as-ammo is a pretty good system for frames like that. It's just that nukes and 0.22 pistols are running on the same ammo economy.

[(PSN)BenHeisennberg]

1 hour ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

So how about you stop being a sour puss and beating the Gauss horse. Cause I'm done responding to you. 

Yikes dog

[Test-995]

When every frames got a unique meter, it looks fancy.

I'm not against it.

[000l000]

Il y a 9 heures, Miyabi-sama a dit :

I'd name it a "gauss complex".

When in order to get use of your abilities you should first bash your forehead in the nearest wall several times.

My concern about Gauss is more related to his red meter synergies being locked by a timer you don't have a control on than a meter fueled by powers.

They definitely buffed him but waiting for 30s to get what you need no matters what's happening ingame is just plain stupid and devs should have fixed that instead of buffing him by absurd amounts.

But i'm quite optimistic and perhaps an augment will make US decide when Gauss gets its fully unlocked synergies (no meter cost for instance) and not the game itself.

Edited October 5, 2019 by 000l000

[Downside38]

Long post incoming.

I am actually eager to see more Warframes with these types of kits similar to Nidus, Gauss and of course the new Ember Rework.

Vets are used to a meta where melting or stun locking entire maps was the only way to efficiently clear mobs or do defense or basically cheese through any mission, I mean Warframe does not have the brightest of enemies and our wonderful community will always find a way to cheese and still min/max builds.

But can you honestly say its fun for a game where diversity outshines every other game in the genre? I get quickly burnt out, content or not, because of these non-engaging play styles, I am a Nekros main and even I gotta admit its pretty lame to mod him specifically for tanking and desecrating (which is sadly the only viable utility in his kit) and I still try to enjoy the super tanky build I have made with him, But I never feel the need to use his Terrify or Soul punch. an example rework that would make him more fun AND effective would be:

• I would rework Nekros to actually have his "Soul-Energy" actually powered by souls he connects from dead enemies (Alot of inspiration comes from Thresh from League of Legends or Swain,
• Soul punch could scale off of the enemies maximum HP (it does punch them with their own freaking soul of course) and at same time incapacitate them until their soul hastily returns to their body
• Terrify is a great CC ability, It can stay but also maybe have additional effects based on the amount of souls you collect.
• Desecrate is still a necessary ability and can also maybe yield more souls in addition to the ones dropped on death
• Shadows of the Dead can use up the collected souls to create shadows based on whatever soul he picked up, so its not super random zombies created by a Master of Necromantic energy

Nidus is super strong as well as fun, His abilities scale based on a play style that requires you to use all your abilities and his HP isn't as high as Inaros' with his 8k hp effectively making him a bullet sponge, Nidus requires you to actively gain stacks and you watch as you become a beast as you reach higher stacks and that warframe actually becomes true to its name and its lore, an Infested rogue-like beast that becomes undying.

It is the main issue with Augment mods, they are great for adding to the concept of unique play styles but they are not designed well enough that each one can be viable in a build.

I have not played Gauss yet but If they keep up this new micro-mechanic in their frames and reworks, It will force the player base to actually play the game and not one trick a overpowered ability or weapon and then blame the devs for boring content when all it is, is the player choosing a boring play style or making it boring.

Thanks for reading and sorry if it could have been in a different Thread

[Tyreaus]

I, personally, don't see a huge problem with Ember having a resource to work with. They're not doing it with all frames (cf. Vauban in the same stream).

I do agree with @Teridax68, though, in the point that it should probably be focusing on effecting enemies and, if it's too difficult to manage at that point, then it needs to be made easier to manage—more increase, less drain, etc. I don't think Ember is in as bad of a place as Gauss regarding wall headbutts, but I also don't think that invalidates the principle that secondary resource management shouldn't be based on just bashing a button as much as you can (for example), and affecting enemies is a good way to reinforce that. (Also, for Ember, not that hard or detrimental to her design to throw in)

Also, I think a big "feel" difference between these sorts of secondary resources and Nidus is in the way these things are capped in their effects? Like Nidus has the practical cap of one-shotting enemies (and all his other bonuses), and it's totally possible to reach that before running into the hard cap of 100 stacks. You definitely reach other milestones much sooner. But with Gauss and Ember, for example, the max is the max. There's no real way to "over-collect", certainly not to the same degree or in the same way, for when you want to drain your second meter. And, while I could be wrong in remembering the stream and how Gauss works, they both do seem to drain it quite fully. That might contribute to the feeling that you build up to play, rather than build up while playing.

I could totally be off base with that, though.

[Teridax68]

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Lol okay dude. I'm not even going there with you.

But you should, because your denial of basic facts here is an impediment to discussion. At the end of the day, Gauss still has a resource management system that pushes him to do a whole bunch of things that don't rely on interacting with enemies, namely launching into walls via Mach Rush: putting aside how that kind of gameplay is itself not interactive, the whole idea of slowly building up a constantly decaying meter has itself largely been recognized as distracting and not particularly fun.

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Just because he doesn't have to micro manage doesn't mean he doesn't have a resource to manage. And you're still not disproving my point. Which is that resources beyond energy can create interesting gameplay.

But that's my point: there is no resource management to speak of, because Nidus isn't making calculated decisions to generate or expend his stacks, he's just casting his abilities and getting stronger. If your point is that giving frames secondary objectives can make them more interesting, I completely agree, and I think Nidus is a great example of this; however, that is different from resource management, and need not be limited to generating and expending a resource.

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Your maintaining your aoe with keeping spores up. That is a management. You don't need to have a way to reduce something in order to have to manage something. That's nitpicking. 

But then that's not me nitpicking, that's you attempting to conflate every single possible element of gameplay requiring the player's attention under "resource management", which confuses the discussion and feels more like you just trying to win the argument. Saryn isn't carefully generating and expending a resource, she's simply using her weapons and 4 after casting 1 to make sure her plague stays on. It's certainly a minigame, but not the same as trying to keep a resource bar at a certain level, which is the aim for Gauss and Ember.

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Lol sure. Let's just reinvent warframe then.

But there's no need to reinvent the entire game: Look at how the Jovian Concord made playing in the Corpus Gas City tileset so much more fun just by adding more open environments and more diverse enemies, for example. The closest I can get to agreeing with your criticism is that enemies in Warframe tend to feel a little samey, because most of them don't really have particularly unique characteristics aside from different weapons and health/shield/armor profiles, and the environments don't always make the most of Warframe's parkour system because many tilesets are tiny and full of small, narrow corridors. Those are specific problems with actionable solutions that DE have already begun to improve, as seen with The Jovian Concord, and with the new Infested units.

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

How about you be practical for a change instead of being argumentative just because someone else posts an opinion you don't share.

Considering how I am the one proposing specific solutions here, and was the first to politely disagree with you, this feels an awful lot like you merely projecting your frustrations onto me, particularly given the generally angry tone of your replies. Meanwhile, what practical solutions are you proposing, exactly? All you have done is condescend every person on this thread who dislikes resource management, and the most you've proposed is to slap on more resource bars onto frames, a suggestion as vague as it is distasteful.

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Except her casting on enemies sets enemies on fire. Which boosts her passive. Casting on said enemies benefits her with more damage and armor strip. And that helps both her and her team. So sure. You could just spam into nothing. But you have a reason to cast against enemies.

Sure, from a completely separate mechanic that arguably just makes the resource bar redundant. The core problem remains that the new Ember could simply charge up her resource by spamming abilities into nothing, and it's that resource management devoid of interaction with the enemy that I think breaks the system.

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

And as much as you dislike gauss running into walls that actually serves a purpose in terms of cc and CO builds. (esp given his update) and he also gains benefits for casting his Mach rush into enemies now. 

But I'm not even talking about running into walls with enemies nearby, I'm talking about the much more basic gameplay of pinballing into terrain at random regardless of whether or not that would affect enemies. Again, the fact that he can generate his resource for "free", i.e. without doing anything to enemies, is a problem, to say nothing of the general fiddliness of his resource management system even beyond that.

8 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

So how about you stop being a sour puss and beating the Gauss horse. Cause I'm done responding to you. 

If you don't like our discussion, you are free to leave anytime. But as it stands, Gauss is still a fresh frame, and his fundamental problems haven't all magically gone just because DE added some quick improvements to his abilities. Moreover, he is especially relevant to this discussion, because he is clearly a frame with resource management built in, and that resource management has not worked out well for him. Because Ember is being outfitted with a similar system, Gauss is therefore an excellent cautionary example of what to avoid, as well as a signal of a potentially worrying trend of over-emphasis on resource management as a way to force players to use all parts of a frame's kit. This isn't me being a "sour puss", this is me calmly giving out an analysis of Gauss, his kit, and the player impressions around them that are easy to view on these forums, Reddit, and the Warframe Discord spaces. Meanwhile, if anyone on this thread is acting sour, it's you.

[(NSW)ToadBlue]

6 hours ago, 000l000 said:

My concern about Gauss is more related to his red meter synergies being locked by a timer you don't have a control on than a meter fueled by powers.

They definitely buffed him but waiting for 30s to get what you need no matters what's happening ingame is just plain stupid and devs should have fixed that instead of buffing him by absurd amounts.

But i'm quite optimistic and perhaps an augment will make US decide when Gauss gets its fully unlocked synergies (no meter cost for instance) and not the game itself.

You don't need 100% Redline. You get what you need from Redline the moment you activate it: boosted fire rate, boosted reload speed, boosted holster speed, boosted attack speed, and buffed abilities. The only thing you needed was a full battery to keep the bonuses at their highest scale, and with the buffs to his battery, that should be easy. A Mach Rush or two, a Cold Sunder or two, and you're good to go.

 

[DoomFruit]

14 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Gauss was fixed. And even if we ignore that Nidus has a resource you manage. So does saryn. Neither detract from gameplay.

I would say "Baruuk as well", but the very fact that everyone here has forgotten him is proof enough of his utter mediocrity. Having to fill up that stupid meter in order to use his crappy exalted #4 was a major part of why I trashed him immediately after 30.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

5 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

I would say "Baruuk as well", but the very fact that everyone here has forgotten him is proof enough of his utter mediocrity. Having to fill up that stupid meter in order to use his crappy exalted #4 was a major part of why I trashed him immediately after 30.

I didn't forget Baruuk. I just ignore him because I don't like him. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

To address the content of the post, rather than the ridiculous amount of argument;

Two warframes out of 40+ is not a trend. It happens to be a useful function on the Ember rework, however, because it does actually make her less restricted (yes it does, hold on, I'll get there).

Besides, having been active here since 2016 I've seen a trend from every. single. release. and. rework. that introduces a new function like this. That function could be Nidus' Stacks, that function could be Saryn's Spore Counter, that function could be Baruuk's Restraint, it doesn't matter. That trend is the dozens of threads that pop up and ask for that function to be included on another Warframe instead of being just a one-off or a unique function of that frame.

DE reworks Excalibur to have Exalted Blade and people realise that Valkyr's Claws are not the only Ability Melee in the game now, and that it can be given to other frames, and behold; the phrase 'exalted weapon' gets thrown around on everything. Give Vauban an Exalted Sentinel or Exalted Grenade Launcher, give Khora an Exalted Whip (yes, this was hinted at for her original version, but removed before we even saw it previewed), give Harrow an Exalted Thurible, give Garuda her own Exalted Claws...

Hell, while I'm on the topic, Garuda gets claw weapons when you don't equip any others, guess what popped up? Dozens of threads asking for warframes to have their own passive weapon equip function, and 99.9% of those were frames that actually have Ability Weapons of their own and the requests were just to be able to use them without the energy cost or the unique effects that actually made them good. Which is kind of pointless and I'm glad that DE hasn't done that to them, it would just be sad to watch those players be disappointed at how bad the base stats would be without the ability functions.

For Gauss, sure, the meter's as much a limitation as it is a benefit. The idea that he can manage the effectiveness of his own abilities by using his gain and loss of Battery is a great concept. Concept. In practice, there's never a time when you don't want to be at full battery, so having the Damage Reduction and Armour Strip portion of his abilities forced to include a thing that drains his Battery is... kind of annoying were it not for the new charging speed of his 4 which simply lets you cast his abilities at their full strength without the Battery even being affected.

Spoiler

Maybe if DE had put in functions that only worked at their best when he was at low Battery? That would give him a reason to go up and down. Maybe as the battery charge went up, Kinetic Plating's energy restore went down, but when you started losing battery, and taking more damage, the energy gain went up. Maybe if at low battery, Gauss' Thermal Sunder gained double range and went back to normal when you were at full Battery with Redline (meaning it was always a little larger than normal at full without Redline), like an Overextended function; less strength, but better range. That would mean that Gauss would have active functions that could be managed with is abilities going up to full or down to empty, there would be actual benefits to losing battery as well as gaining it.

But with Ember, this isn't how it works. The meter on Ember is a way to bypass a Duration or Drain function for Immolate. She casts Immolate, it's on, the only thing that turns it off again is a de-cast or hitting the maximum on her meter, which is more of a pseudo-duration. The only micro-managing you need to do is to be sure that you cast her 3 every now and again to bring that down and extend that pseudo-duration, and while the penalty for letting the meter max out is currently that she loses all her Energy... the benefit of it maxing out is supposedly a really high damage AoE. So have you thought of the combo possibilities?

Because what raises her Meter is casting. Casting and setting things on fire. You're spending Energy. So if you cast repeatedly and let her Immolate instead... what if you're only losing about 10-20 energy (due to lots of casting), but getting an AoE blast as strong as Fire Blast or stronger for that small cost? What if you've been casting near an Energy Leech Eximus and you have 0 energy anyway? And you can get an AoE blast for nothing...

It's a thought.

Edited October 5, 2019 by Birdframe_Prime

[Miyabi-sama]

The problem with ability meters or stacks is the simple fact most (if not every) abilities gonna be depending on that.

You wanna use your 4? Great, expend your stacks! What? No stacks? Then your 4 sucks. Go get stacks to make your abilities suck less.

This greatly limit the build possibilities and plainly restricts the player to one particular playstyle.

This stuff is not very prominent on Saryn: you can build for Molt & Lash CQC Saryn (but who does? It's not meta), as your stacks are only work for 1 ability, the other one scales out of status effects which migh be inflicted with weapons and by other means.

Vol... uh... Gauss is quite the opposite. You DO the thing, or have no cookies. It's like scaling Zephyr's powers by staying in the air to gain "void fart" meter: no farts - no big tornadoes fella!