Ember Rework

[Triandal]

First thing, forgive me for my english. English is not my first lenguage.

I'm really impressed with Ember's rework i didn't touch her in almost a year because i was not happy with her playstayle. But now she is not that passive warframe anymore and i really think this rework is really good and almost perfect. So i decided to express my toughts about her and maybe this can make her even better. Off course i'm not thinking of my ideas be implemented just like i see but i like to share them.

I really like the new mecanic of her 2, is really nice but in my eyes we are basicaly fighting with her fire mether and thats not fun... I would like to see some changings. I really hope her fire mether was just like the Gauss. Because with him we are rewarded to use his powers and that make us stronger. But with Ember when her gets hot she is in a really bad situation and for a Fire warframe thats doesent make a lot of sense for me. Can you imagine Frost beeing frozen because he uses 4 too much? Weird. My idea about this is to change the sense of the mether. We will not trying keeping Ember "warm" anymore we will trying to make her burn as much as possible. Right now is really anoying manage the mether because fills up really fast and you are wasting energy all the time and Ember can drink the energy like is nothing. Basicaly my idea is changing the mether to start in 50% like is right now but if you dont warm Ember can be bellow 50% and thats is when you starts to drain more energy (because you need more energy to get hot) and after this you fill the mether with her 1 and 3. This way you still need to use her other abilities but is because you want that. And using her 4 drains the mether. This way you are not recommended to spam her 4 or you will drain everything. In my eyes thats will make really more easily to manage her fire abilities and her mether and of course more fun.

That's my ideas. Thanks for the space to share them! 

Edited November 13, 2019 by MadNeto

[DarthIronclad]

I do understand there should be downside, but embers energy drain on her 2 when it is full seem to increase endlessly overtime...though you can just turn it off and on again, it can get annoying...i suggest that it is best to have a cap of how much energy per second her 2 will drain or increase the base drain cost but make it so that it won't increase the energy drain over time.

 

Other than that, she is a fun frame to play now...and another one where you get to see lots of explosions too :). 

Edited November 14, 2019 by DarthIronclad

[Uhkretor]

I'm going to assume that Ember's 2 is the one that gives DR...

 

... Someone else suggested that the bar should work the other way around a few weeks ago, because he wanted to actively be invulnerable at a press of a button. I know that this is not the case here, but the Devs were clear on their Devstream. Ember's heat bar works like this because it expends energy to avoid Ember from burning itself, and this is the reason why players are "incentivized" to manage it properly. Also, the bar increases its grown speed the most when you're spamming abilities.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

15 hours ago, DarthIronclad said:

I do understand there should be downside, but embers energy drain on her 2 when it is full seem to increase endlessly overtime

DE: “We don’t want you to have damage buffs that multiply.”

Also DE:”Oh what’s that? A negative effect? Better make it grow exponentially!”

[Teridax68]

13 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

DE: “We don’t want you to have damage buffs that multiply.”

Also DE:”Oh what’s that? A negative effect? Better make it grow exponentially!”

Yeah, exponential costs seem to be a mechanic DE's trying out to impose less escapable limits to our otherwise near-boundless Energy. I personally have many more issues with Ember besides her 2, but her Heat management I think is perhaps the single least pleasant part of her kit for me, as I feel I'm dedicating a vast amount of resources and constant attention for what is ultimately a reward most other frames now get for next to no effort (less so, in fact, considering that the player is unlikely to stay at 90% DR for long).

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

Yeah, exponential costs seem to be a mechanic DE's trying out to impose less escapable limits to our otherwise near-boundless Energy. I personally have many more issues with Ember besides her 2, but her Heat management I think is perhaps the single least pleasant part of her kit for me, as I feel I'm dedicating a vast amount of resources and constant attention for what is ultimately a reward most other frames now get for next to no effort (less so, in fact, considering that the player is unlikely to stay at 90% DR for long).

Honestly I see the energy and meter management as a joint issue. 

[keikogi]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

Yeah, exponential costs seem to be a mechanic DE's trying out to impose less escapable limits to our otherwise near-boundless Energy.

Seens like DE figured out that the only way to beat infinity is exponential cost. At this point I would not be surpised if they add combo conter to aoe skill but intead of dobling the the damage and halfing the energy cost these new combo conters would doble the damage and doble the cost ( they kinda tried that with the last version of world on fire )

[EinheriarJudith]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

Yeah, exponential costs seem to be a mechanic DE's trying out to impose less escapable limits to our otherwise near-boundless Energy. I personally have many more issues with Ember besides her 2, but her Heat management I think is perhaps the single least pleasant part of her kit for me, as I feel I'm dedicating a vast amount of resources and constant attention for what is ultimately a reward most other frames now get for next to no effort (less so, in fact, considering that the player is unlikely to stay at 90% DR for long).

exactly. i dare say, Nezha is the new ember while having none of the downsides of the new ember.

Edit: he is who they should have used as a basis for embers rework. not gauss

Edited November 14, 2019 by EinheriarJudith

[Teridax68]

48 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Honestly I see the energy and meter management as a joint issue. 

Agreed. I don't think either system is fun, or even necessary, and both mostly just paper over poor ability design in a manner that doesn't really fit Warframe. I'd rather get rid of both, and instead of trying to gate our ability spam, figure out how to design our abilities in such a way that we don't want to spam them brainlessly.

[keikogi]

1 minute ago, Teridax68 said:

Agreed. I don't think either system is fun, or even necessary, and both mostly just paper over poor ability design in a manner that doesn't really fit Warframe. I'd rather get rid of both, and instead of trying to gate our ability spam, figure out how to design our abilities in such a way that we don't want to spam them brainlessly.

I feel like DE should write on a wall so all desiners can see every day. 

Would I ever use this skill over my gun ? 

Would I ever use my gun if have this skill ? 

If you ansered NO to one of this question , go back to the drawing board.

[EinheriarJudith]

2 minutes ago, keikogi said:

I feel like DE should write on a wall so all desiners can see every day. 

Would I ever use this skill over my gun ? 

Would I ever use my gun if have this skill ? 

If you ansered NO to one of this question , go back to the drawing board.

stop making sense lol.

[Teridax68]

4 minutes ago, keikogi said:

I feel like DE should write on a wall so all desiners can see every day. 

Would I ever use this skill over my gun ? 

Would I ever use my gun if have this skill ? 

If you ansered NO to one of this question , go back to the drawing board.

Agreed 100%. One of the core problems with many abilities is that they overlap almost entirely with weapons, Ember's 1 being one of them. It's lazy design that ultimately reduces the player's options, precisely because you end up with what are meant to be two distinct portions of the player's arsenal overriding each other. Considering how some abilities are redundant even in the face of other abilities on the same kit, though (e.g. Fireball relative to Inferno), even that much is probably a step too advanced for Warframe's current state.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Teridax68

[keikogi]

2 hours ago, EinheriarJudith said:

stop making sense lol.

 

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

Agreed 100%. One of the core problems with many abilities is that they overlap almost entirely with weapons, Ember's 1 being one of them. It's lazy design that ultimately reduces the player's options, precisely because you end up with what are meant to be two distinct portions of the player's arsenal overriding each other. Considering how some abilities are redundant even in the face of other abilities on the same kit, though (e.g. Fireball relative to Inferno), even that much is probably a step too advanced for Warframe's current state.

The two core problens of warframe's ( the game ) desing ethos are:

More often than not DE does not take the necessary time and effort to distinguish cause from effect. There are two prime examples: energy cost ( the point at hand ) players have too much energy and can spam abilities mindlessly. Quick create a system abilities with exponential cost to combat the energy overflow ( I'm looking at you grendel and emeber ), instead of you know , looking at the mess energy system is. Or at least considering changing the ability desing ( the fact that fire blast stayed and acelerant is dead means they did not rethink their desing).

Another prime example was damage rework from damage 1.0 to damage 2.0. DE made a overly complex system to adress the lack of build diversity what they did not realize was that there was no build diversity becasue players only had to deal with on problem exponential armor scaling. They made the rework and voala , builds did not became diverse because people just looked at the new thing that was good agaist armor and runned with it.

The second one is the overreliance on mods. Seriously , DE goes as far to desing useless system so you can mod usefullness into them. Think I'm joking ?

Look at the parazon kill , it is literally a waste of time until you farm parazon mods. Was it to hard to give it any usefull use right out of the bat , I don't know , shield reset , overshields , heal or energy regeneration. 

Another example , a pet peeve of mine. Why gale kick exist , the air kick is a melee strike why it does not scale with melee mods right out of thr bat. Was it going to break the game? It is a single target attack that is hard to ain. 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by keikogi

[EinheriarJudith]

52 minutes ago, keikogi said:

~snip~

yes to all of the above. there was no good reason to have grendel and ember be as energy hungry as they are when grendel copies nidus resource type and ember copies gauss meter management.

i cant even believe grineer are still a problem to this day. majority of us have been complaining constantly about armor scaling and what has DE done? butcher frame design to bandaid it.

only thing i ever wanted from finisher animations, were for them to be fluid. not only did they not do that they added a fricken cutscene to it like what?? did i just step into destiny 2?

Edited November 14, 2019 by EinheriarJudith

[keikogi]

1 hour ago, EinheriarJudith said:

energy hungry as they are when grendel copies nidus resource type and ember copies gauss meter management.

I don't know about Grendel but I know why Ember received a worse copy I the red line mechanics. Probably after realising that the best way to play gauss was ( before buff ) hide in a room , smash yourself against a wall until you redline , play the game for 30 seconds. Rinse and repeat. Why DE did not crete a new system where the guage is a passive 2 skills cost energy amd generete heat and 2 skills cost heat , and this way the players have enough levers to play the heat managment game is beyond me.

1 hour ago, EinheriarJudith said:

i cant even believe grineer are still a problem to this day. majority of us have been complaining constantly about armor scaling and what has DE done? butcher frame design to bandaid it.

The grinner are both the strongest faction in the game and the weakest. They have isane effective HP and hitscan weapons but they have no all to counter skill use. Meaning if you have cc and armor stripping they are a joke , if you don't have these they are the strongest faction in the game.

1 hour ago, EinheriarJudith said:

only thing i ever wanted from finisher animations, were for them to be fluid. not only did they not do that they added a fricken cutscene to it like what?? did i just step into destiny 2?

I understand why the parazon is a thing. Probably is a way to copy DOOM's homework ( a bad copy because it does not work without mods) and DE want universal finishers. Why the universal finishers ?

The exloiter boss fight received positive feedback so we can expect more puzzle enemies combined with cut scenes.

[Phaeronimus]

3 hours ago, keikogi said:

I feel like DE should write on a wall so all desiners can see every day. 

Would I ever use this skill over my gun ? 

Would I ever use my gun if have this skill ? 

If you ansered NO to one of this question , go back to the drawing board.

It should be the base of their thought process,honestly,which would result in far more fleshed out concepts and designs,unique mechanics that would suplement the warframes.
And most importantly,it should always be mechanic/ability-wise first then graphically second,or at least in conjunction.Never "This is how Warframe will look like,lets make his kit out of the appearance."

 

[keikogi]

1 hour ago, Phaeronimus said:

should be the base of their thought process,honestly,which would result in far more fleshed out concepts and designs,unique mechanics that would suplement the warframes.
And most importantly,it should always be mechanic/ability-wise first then graphically second,or at least in conjunction.Never "This is how Warframe will look like,lets make his kit out of the appearance."

I Both agree disagree with that. Weird answer I know let me break it down. 

In the practical word , I agree. The best way to deliver a good gameplay experience is starting by the gameplay them using a theme as a skin for that theme. I can even name a warframe designed like this. Harrow the pope of the Church of holy Crit. His gameplay works well , everything fits in noce package. But there is a small problem , why is harrow obsessed with Headshot ? His theme is priest, chains and self flagellation where the obsession with crits comes from. Even his operator did not have OCD to justify any kind of obsessive behavior.

After having My own shot at designing a frame ( fan concepts ) I finally had a bit of grasp on how to desing frames. I have to say the best way to desing a frame is :

 theme ->

first visual draft ->

gameplay ( repeat until it works , it took me 7 tries on my own concept and before the 3 the kit wasn't that good {it had just 1 good and unique skill} ) ->

second visual draft ( tie in the gameplay aspects here and repeat until the desing is ready ). ->

Modeling and Implementation.

What is the benefit of doing stuff this way ? The player receives a cohesive package delivering in both flavor and substance. Example of this desing Nidus. His mutation mechanics are really good for his theme , the rest of the kit is solid and usefull. 

This aprouch is also more future proof ? Why do I say that ? Look at Nezha , his kit worked well on a theme level bit sucked hard on gameplay level ( he forgot the reppeat until the gameplay works part ). Pablo steped in changed a few mecchanics around and Voala Nezha is one of the best frames in the game. In conclusion you can't fix a broken theme but you can fix broken gameplay. 

Why more often then not DE does not fallow this aprouch ? Short development cycle. We have a few clear examples of victins of short development. Chorma at one point was supposed to be able to use all elements on tje game and have diferent effects for each element. DE rushed the Idea and what we got ? A aura bot that is not build as a aura bot and has 2 buttons to enable hard mode. Khora is another example to a minor extent. The spider cat lady.

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by keikogi

[selig_fay]

I think that the problem of the concept should be a separate topic because it applies to most frames. I can take the opposite frame like frost. His skills seem useful on the surface, but in reality his 1, 2, and 4 skills act almost identically.

In my opinion, each frame should have a unique style of play that it would be able to implement when left without energy. If this happens, the energy problem will cease to be so acute, because your frame will no longer be a set of survival characteristics. At the moment, the rage of the players is obvious. If I like frame gameplay, then I want this gameplay to be unlimited. If the gameplay is limited, then you will be stuck in a situation that shows you the futility of this frame.

The second problem is progression. Many frames don't even need equipment. You literally need zenuric/rage/AE to destroy enemies without firing a shot. We have 400 samples of weapons. Has anyone tried using non-OP weapons to gather synergy with frame abilities? Anyone? At least a harpoon weapon on Garuda? A dark dagger for Hildryn? 

Energy, abilities, frame mechanics and gun synergy. This is a very big problem for warframe. And the biggest problem is that DE is unlikely to be able to fix it, because we already have more than 400 weapons samples and more than 20 frames. (I forget how many there are)

 

[Arcira]

It´s essentially what they said they don´t want to do. Punishing gameplay. You should be encuraged to use your abilities and stack heat in order to further increase the damage or whatever not to receive an arbitrary drain effect on something other warframes get for free.

Anyway it´s pretty much what I expected to happen. Two weeks without anything by now and I doubt there will be fundermental improvements. But to be fair her rework doesn´t affect me that much. I didn´t really use her abilities in "endgame content" previous to the rework and I don´t use them now.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Arcira