Opinions From A New Player

[aMannus]

Hello everybody!

First post on this forum, and I figured to make a good first impression by posting an extensive post about my thoughts about the game after playing it for a day or two. Let's break it up a bit shall we?

First impressions

So, starting off with the gameplay itself. The game played fairly smoothly for me. Having played more TPS's before helped, I'm guessing. The movement sometimes kind of bothers me in a way that rolling and the like feel unnatural at times, but overall, it's good. Liking the fact that there's no cover system as well, gives this game just that different way of playing it than other TPS's like Mass Effect and Gears of War. I also learned they are trying to focus a bit more on movement in the form of wallrunning and stuff. Even though wallrunning is really situational right now, I think this is a good decision as movement was the big plus in this game for me so far.

Now, I started playing this with a friend of mine that played the game for a while already and the missions were fairly diverse in both environments and enemies. The point is, that variety kind of stopped after the first 10-15 missions or so. I understand this is a closed beta so I know I can expect possible changes regarding this, so I won't blame the game for this... yet.

I tried getting into crafting a bit and noticed that making a warframe or those Orokin overcharge thingies basically require you to go through high level areas. Me wanting a Frost warframe instead of my old regular excalibur frame, I was kind of bummed out to know I had to level my starting warframe to a high level, only to start over once I finally had my frost warframe. Bit of a bummer, but I can understand that some warframes are hard to get for a reason and it gives people a reason to keep playing for a while.

Biggest issue

After about 8 hours of playing and still no where near having my Frost warframe, I decided to go for the cheapest founder package, which made me end up with PRECISELY enough platinum for a frost warframe. Now, here's where my biggest issue with the game as of yet comes in. No, it's not about buying warframes or something similar. It's about how similar both my warframes played. My excalibur is level 12 or 13 while my frost warframe is currently level 19. While both had distinctive powers which definiately made me use them in different scenarios, they didn't feel different at all.

The problem is that the power required for any of these wasn't really coming in in great quantities, which made me only use them twice per match or so. As a sidenote, yes, I do open containers as much as possible for the energy recharges. It does not change the fact that it's not possible to rely on your powers, seeing as it's somewhat random when you can fill up your power bar. Which atleast for me, dropped the usefullness of the powers to a mere 'get out of jail for free' card that I can simply use once in a while.

So, how to counter that?

So how could they possibly change powers around that their usefullness raises? Keep in mind that what I'm going to suggest is MY view on how it could be improved. Remove the power bar. Completely. And replace it with a cooldown on each of your skills. Why would this fix it? For one, power usage would be more calculated. With a cooldown you KNOW how long it will take until you can use a certain skill again, and you can assess situations based on those cooldowns.

Second advantage is the ability to use ALL of your skills, opposed to "I'm saving my power for this skill because the power usage is more efficient than using my other skills". This fleshes out characters more and makes way for all skills to be useful, without them having to be equally as useful. Or even the usefullness can be adjusted by cooldown time.

Third of all, and I would think this one is the biggest advantage: You would be able to use your skills more. A player that's able to use their skills more would mean they can rely on them more as well, which would directly mean that warframes are much more diverse as well, which would in turn mean that grind for that new warframe would be rewarded so much more.

Of course, if all abilities could be used more while being equally strong it would ruin balance, so either skills would have to be downtuned a bit or simply have a long cooldown. There's a lot of ways to make this more balanced anyway. Now, don't think: "But this isn't Mass Effect 3! Go away!" immediately. This game can still be different from all of those games through several other things. For one the movement thing that I mentioned in my first impressions still makes this game so much different. Not to mention the mission structure on it's own. I honestly think a system like this would improve the game and enhance the gameplay experience.

End this post already, you clown!

Yup, this post has gotten pretty long, hasn't it? I surely hope the post didn't come over too negatively. I'm having a blast playing the game so far and there's plenty of both gameplay and visual aspects I like a lot. There's probably still a lot I forgot to mention throughout this post that came to mind while playing the game, but that'll have to wait. For now, anyone that has any thoughts on my thoughts? inception

Edited February 18, 2013 by aMannus

[wheatnoodles]

Are you a writer? I like your writing. Very well constructed paragraphs and whatnot.

I don't know what to say to be honest haha, I can only say what you've already said, that it's a Closed Beta...

[aMannus]

Are you a writer? I like your writing. Very well constructed paragraphs and whatnot.

I don't know what to say to be honest haha, I can only say what you've already said, that it's a Closed Beta...

Nope. Following a study that involves a lot of writing though, if that counts. :)

[G3rman]

Already have had a cooldown argument topic, and it didn't go well. I'm against it; it is up to a player to manage their energy and use their powers as sparingly or as often as they wish. Not being able to use them all the time does not make it a bad mechanic, depending on if the player can equally kill an enemy with their sword/gun or their powers, as well as encouraing players to think rather than spam. Cooldowns make players fall into old MMO standards of how to fight and use their abilities and would make them over-rely on them because of how easy it would be to use them which would then drive them away from weapons as the game is meant to play. Powers are meant to be supportive, use only when necessary, that is probably why there is only four of them.

Your argument is also subjective with your warframe choice as both Excal and Frost are offensive frames. I started with Loki and found myself using my powers less often but still consistently throughout the levels as I improved and began to understand how to use them properly. Then I received Excalibur and realized the change it was from support to offensive and found myself using my new powers differently than I had Loki, but just as consistently. You just have to know how to use your energy and powers and when; artifacts and inventory items can also sometimes factor out the lack of energy problem entirely.

Edited February 18, 2013 by G3rman

[aMannus]

Already have had a cooldown argument topic, and it didn't go well. I'm against it; it is up to a player to manage their energy and use their powers as sparingly or as often as they wish. Not being able to use them all the time does not make it a bad mechanic, depending on if the player can equally kill an enemy with their sword/gun or their powers, as well as encouraing players to think rather than spam. Cooldowns make players fall into old MMO standards of how to fight and use their abilities and would make them over-rely on them because of how easy it would be to use them which would then drive them away from weapons as the game is meant to play. Powers are meant to be supportive, use only when necessary, that is probably why there is only four of them.

Yeah, somehow I already expected the cooldown idea was brought up before already. I'm not saying skills currently are a 'bad mechanic' as they are though. You bring up a good point by saying gun and swordplay is perfectly viable within the game and I understand why they want to keep focusing on this, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea to make powers useful in more ways. Oh, and I agree with you on the part that players shouldn't be driven away from sword and gunplay, which in my opinion, could still be 'fixed' by long cooldowns. Again, I'm not saying the current system is bad, but I do think warframes don't differentiate enough from each other right now, or atleast, they felt too similar to each other to me.

Your argument is also subjective with your warframe choice as both Excal and Frost are offensive frames. I started with Loki and found myself using my powers less often but still consistently throughout the levels as I improved and began to understand how to use them properly. Then I received Excalibur and realized the change it was from support to offensive and found myself using my new powers differently than I had Loki, but just as consistently. You just have to know how to use your energy and powers and when; artifacts and inventory items can also sometimes factor out the lack of energy problem entirely.

You see, these are reasons I kind of expected to get as a response. Yes, I'm new to this game so far, and you might be entirely true about that it's just Excalibur and Frost being similar, but the point still stands that their abilities can't be used a whole lot in a run. I don't know how artifacts or inventory items work just yet, but as far as I know you need quite a bit of luck of hitting the right '?' mission to get a power artifact, which makes me not consider this to be a base mechanic as such. Then again, maybe it really is just the lower levels that play the same and this thread could be completely irrelevant, but keep in mind these are my first impressions.

Edited February 18, 2013 by aMannus

[WildJuice]

If we had cooldowns, defense missions would not be a breeze as it is now with Mags and Frosts. It is a blessing :P.

[aMannus]

If we had cooldowns, defense missions would not be a breeze as it is now with Mags and Frosts. It is a blessing :P.

That was actually one of the few times were I REALLY felt a difference between my excalibur warframe and my frost warframe. Where I had to actually shoot and slice stuff on my excalibur I could just wait on the objective with frost, use my ability, pick up some power orbs and repeat next wave. But this also kind of proves my point of how much you can calculate your power usage. I did the same defense mission twice. The first time around I had all the power I needed and could easily use my '4' almost twice per wave, while the second time around almost no power orbs dropped and I was struggling pulling off a single '4' per wave.

Edited February 18, 2013 by aMannus

[Katakuna]

If we had cooldowns, defense missions would not be a breeze as it is now with Mags and Frosts. It is a blessing :P.

That actually sounds like it would be a good thing. No more sitting around being bored while the Mags and Frosts of the squad press 4 every half a minute or so.

[WildJuice]

Yes, it would be a good change of pace. Ultimates would be more of a "oh crap" button. However some characters, such as Mag would be very limited, since her only damaging skill is that one.

Maybe we could do with a hybrid system based on cooldown and cooldown reducers. Those cooldown reducers would drops from mobs but would be harder to come by. It would allow reliable skill usage (for low levels), with a way to cast it more in harder situations, such as defense missions, but not as often as now.