Why do Warframes have shields anyway?

[OmegaVoid]

A mod giving Shields some DR could sort out how quickly they melt, and unlike Steel Fiber such a mod would be useful to all 'frames as it would not be scaling off a base stat like Armour mods do. But...

The thing about Shields is there's no way to reduce the delay before they start to regenerate, and AFAIK no active measures the player can take to get them back. Healing Return, for example, does a solid job of keeping me alive despite my ropey dodging skills, and there's no equivalent to that for Shields.

Lore wise...

On 2020-01-02 at 9:24 AM, DrakeWurrum said:

I think, technically, every frame has some fancy Orokin tech integrated into their body. [...] Either Ballas managed to include shields himself, or else we spontaneously develop shield tech as part of the Helminth strain that produced warframes.

Except Nidus, who is bare Infestation and has no shields. Seems like the Shield tech is built into the fancy armour.

On 2020-01-02 at 9:24 AM, DrakeWurrum said:

It may even be an unintended side-effect of channeling our Void powers through the warframe bodies.

No, 'cos Nidus again, and also Inaros -- the Orokin probably didn't bother to give him shields because he has innate healing powers.

Also, Corpus units have shields, and their use of Void energies seems limited to isolated instances of salvaged Orokin tech (like the Torsion Beam device they use in Void Sabotage). Alad V, genius though he is, admits (during the Natah quest IIRC) that he never understood Void tech.

Even the Orokin, who had technological ways to interact with the Void, didn't really understand Void energies (which is why they feared the Tenno). It takes a special kind of mad to comprehend the true mysteries of the Void.

On 2020-01-02 at 9:24 AM, DrakeWurrum said:

Remember that Alad V's Mutalist strain can infect technology, which is how we got the infested moas and osprey and even Jordas.

Yes, but prior to Alad's tinkering, the Infestation only affected organics.

Speaking of which: Infested MOA pets when? 😃 

Edited January 3, 2020 by OmegaVoid

[ganjou234]

12 hours ago, Avienas said:

D.R. that requires you to get hit a few times and continue to get hit by multiple damage instances for it to get `high` and `retain` that value, on a value that has no D.R. originally to begin with is already a doomed concept on any type of gameplay that does not allow rapid recovery of shields or being able to have them `disabled` long enough for the battery to fill up enough to have a sizable pool to make use of things like that D.R.

I gain Adaptation stacks and defensive arcanes by blocking/autoparry(quickmelee), they seem to trigger even with 100% DR from blocking. The problem is that shield regen arcanes are so unreliable and damage is so high that it's always better to go Arcane Guardian since Quick Thinking benefits from both Adaptation and Guardian...

[Steel_Rook]

9 hours ago, Avienas said:

Sadly i never played PD2 that extensively to know about that setup. It would kind of artifically curve the issue with enemies able to just rapid fire dakka the crap out of you. But i feel like those `grace` periods would get abused, the only reason i suggested the layer shield idea since it basically makes low shield users not able to take advantage of it much while high shield users get more sessions of safety.

I don't really see how you can abuse a damage grace period, though. You still want a high shield capacity so that you get to keep the grace period over shields longer before you start taking damage to health where it would presumably not apply. Then again, a damage grace period is just damage resistance by another path, which I feel is the wrong way to go with shields. I'd personally rather invest in shields being more quickly and easily replenishable over them being comparable to health and armour in terms of EHP. This is why I'm more in favour of either removing the shield recovery delay or keeping it but making shield recovery instant.

 

9 hours ago, Avienas said:

SADLY warframe still has the issue of individual powerful enemies as in anything with the name Bursa, Bombard, Nox or a few others who can chunk out ridiculously chonky amounts of damage, even at lower levels, with little window to take notice since they are not exactly marked with a warning label icon nor do you have a `alert` go off when a freaking micro nuke just got shot straight at your arse or how they can shrug off most damage and stuff like bursas and noxes can quite `easily` C.C. smash you ded, and noxes can still slow you down with that nasty gunk gun even if you try to `jump away`.

There's that, too... Though I'd argue this is a separate issue. Warframe has far too many redundant unit types and far too little audio-visual separation between them. The Nox is probably the one exception, in that he has his own unique sound package and a very distinct silhouette. You're never blindsided by a Nox, because you always hear him before he shoots you and you can usually pick him out of a crowd. Pretty much all of the other "Specials" and "Minibosses" just blend in with the Commons, however. A Bombard looks like any other Elite Lancer and the first time you know one's on the field is when you start taking rockets to the ribs. This, again, is where Payday 2 generally succeeded. Each Special had his own voice package, from Bulldozers yelling taunts at the top of their lungs to Cloakers making a distinct buzzing sound to shields playing an audible "clank-clank" sound as they moved.

Unit distinction is a problem across Warframe as a whole. Whether we do something with shields or not, I'd still like to see any given mission spawn fewer but more mutually distinct enemies with defined roles, sound packages and unique looks.

[DrakeWurrum]

6 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

Except Nidus, who is bare Infestation and has no shields. Seems like the Shield tech is built into the fancy armour.

Well the point of it being brought about by Infestation implementing it's own shield tech through mutation is that, because of how the Infestation works, every frame is unique. So in the cases of Inaros and Nidus, it simply didn't mutate that way.

6 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

No, 'cos Nidus again, and also Inaros

Again, with Void powers, we're talking about what is essentially channeling pure chaos. Every frame reacts to our Void energy differently, which is why they all have different powers from each other. Keep in mind that Vauban uses various devices for his abilities - are these a result of Infestation mutation, Orokin tech, or Void powers? A combination maybe? So it could be that in the cases of Nidus and Inaros, they simply don't react to our Void powers in a way that generates shields.

I do agree it's more likely that Orokin built it in themselves, but we have to remember that the reason for these supersoldiers was to avoid fancy Orokin tech because of Sentient adaptability. It could be that personal shields aren't an issue here, but it's hard to really say until it's spelled out in lore.

6 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

Corpus units have shields

Yes, but warframes are beyond anything the Corpus have done. Pretty sure anything we have shield-wise would be the result of either Ballas or just specifically Tenno technology. Shields are shields, but the tech behind it all can obviously be varied (as evidenced by Hildryn).

6 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

The thing about Shields is there's no way to reduce the delay before they start to regenerate, and AFAIK no active measures the player can take to get them back. Healing Return, for example, does a solid job of keeping me alive despite my ropey dodging skills, and there's no equivalent to that for Shields.

Hence the suggestions I put forth in my previous post that would, in theory, bring shields closer to where armor is, but maybe not close enough:

22 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

1. We need significantly MORE shields on every frame (besides Hildryn, really, but they would have to overhaul her kit if my suggestions were put in), since the full damage is done to shields. It needs to be able to scale up alongside how much incoming damage we take. Maybe shields should scale with our health by a percentage, and we can use mods to increase that percentage.
2. Shields need to completely prevent status effects while up (Anthem did this, and it actually worked well), to give us a really strong incentive to wanting shields as a defense.
3. Every warframe needs a universally-applied method of actively restoring their own shields during combat as an "active" defense method, rather than cowering behind cover, as that doesn't fit the combat style of Warframe. It could be as simple as picking up an energy orb, or a major regeneration boost upon using a Roll or Bullet Jump, or even when blocking with the melee weapon.
4. Shield-gating needs to be universal for all frames, in order to reinforce that it's meant to protect our HP.
5. Any shield regenerating method needs to do so by percentage, rather than flat amounts.

 

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by DrakeWurrum

[Avienas]

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I don't really see how you can abuse a damage grace period, though. You still want a high shield capacity so that you get to keep the grace period over shields longer before you start taking damage to health where it would presumably not apply. Then again, a damage grace period is just damage resistance by another path, which I feel is the wrong way to go with shields. I'd personally rather invest in shields being more quickly and easily replenishable over them being comparable to health and armour in terms of EHP. This is why I'm more in favour of either removing the shield recovery delay or keeping it but making shield recovery instant.

The abuse would be how `rapid fire oriented enemies and swarm of enemies that spray gunfire normally mow you down work. But granted if that only applied to shields, then it would be kind of negated in purpose because it would not last long enough to matter. At this point, they might as well convert shields from a numerical damage soaker and make it a ailment soaker instead, which could atleast give it a nice niche for soaking out status procs, maybe give a `few second grace period` to prevent that same status applying again and would take one of the `shield layers` for that damage type. Would need a good amount since you likely will take easily between 3 to 6 status effects alone in say a regular romp in hydron, not counting repeat effects.

Very least it would also double as a nice excuse for them to get rid of the shield value except for very special warframe instances (over shields and hildryn) and maybe just buff the gain values gotten thru them while making the mods involved with those stats be zoned out while also buffing health pools for warframes in general to compensate. Which pretty much means less stats for them to have to balance out on survivability measures.

Well, thats just a 4th muse idea, with shields having a unique role compared to health & armor, by letting warframes be able to ward off status procs spamming them constantly, instead of having to rely on warframes which can constantly cleanse them, but usually only Oberon is one of the few `full on status blockers` that actually exist.

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

There's that, too... Though I'd argue this is a separate issue. Warframe has far too many redundant unit types and far too little audio-visual separation between them. The Nox is probably the one exception, in that he has his own unique sound package and a very distinct silhouette. You're never blindsided by a Nox, because you always hear him before he shoots you and you can usually pick him out of a crowd. Pretty much all of the other "Specials" and "Minibosses" just blend in with the Commons, however. A Bombard looks like any other Elite Lancer and the first time you know one's on the field is when you start taking rockets to the ribs. This, again, is where Payday 2 generally succeeded. Each Special had his own voice package, from Bulldozers yelling taunts at the top of their lungs to Cloakers making a distinct buzzing sound to shields playing an audible "clank-clank" sound as they moved.

Unit distinction is a problem across Warframe as a whole. Whether we do something with shields or not, I'd still like to see any given mission spawn fewer but more mutually distinct enemies with defined roles, sound packages and unique looks.

Visual and Audio ques are always nice but due to how messy warframe can get on those, its kind of why i want eximus units at the very least have unique icons on the map, especially since they are usually overloaded with so much b.s. such as grineer eximus units tend to always be bombards or noxes and pretty much can always AoE knock down everyone in the map as a flame one. It honestly feels like the eximus units need to get toned down and get better visual ques with thar auras and maybe actually drastically lower the range they can reach on top of b.s. like a stackable cold aura, stackable energy leech aura or just stackable toxin aura. Its honestly an issue why D.E. hasnt taken the time to revamp those so its just COVERAGE they do, they can`t stack the same effect on you period.

[Filanwizard]

I dunno why one would say shields are useless they provide a pretty nice buffer before things get scary.   And its not like its raining red orbs unless you play maybe a few specific frames.

[Xarteros]

I really liked Shield Mitigation from Sins of a Solar Empire.

More or less, it was like an inbuilt version of the Adaptation mod, where shields automatically adjusted to the 'harmonic frequencies' of incoming attacks, and became more efficient as a result. It's a rather common theme in Sci-fi shows too.

I feel like shields should have this built-in, and maybe even have a directional boost factored in. By that, I mean if you're taking damage ONLY from the front, your shields should naturally re-route towards the front and further boost your 'Shield Mitigation' factor. If you're suddenly shot from behind, your shield mitigation vs that shot would be much lower, and the shot should have some bleed-through damage. Your shield would then redistribute a bit more to your back as well, balancing out power from your front. Out of combat, your shield should effectively spread out evenly again, but it means you can surprise your enemies by suddenly hitting them from behind where their shield is weakened.

Then, shield recharge mods could affect the mitigation speed as well to make them a bit more desirable on more than just Hildryn or certain niche builds.

Games that have a similar system usually simplify the programming by making shields function like a box (max 4-6 sides to adjust Mitigation value for, depending on whether or not top/bottom counts or is integrated into 4 quadrants instead). Sins of a Solar Empire included it in their graphics too, so as your shield mitigation rose against enemy attacks, the shield became more opaque towards the direction of fire.

Anyways, just a ramble. There are most likely better methods of making shields useful again, but the moral of the story is that they make sense in warframe due to the immense cybernetic augmentation already in-place (I mean, what else do you think mods are? They're modular components of our Warframes). It makes perfect sense that they contain shield emitter relays except in rare, specific cases like Nidus and Inaros.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I remember back in the early days it was actually worth modding for max shields and shield recharge on most frames but that was before reaching the point where scaling was out of hand. 

Shields are still useful for certain frames whose kit is designed around them, but otherwise the "caster" frames that were meant to depend on them but not specifically built to take advantage of that were left in the dirt without depending on Arcanes that a vast majority of players don't have (let alone have 10 of to max it out).

I agree with the notion of shields having their own "armor" stat for damage resistance, but I think it should only be on certain frames instead of universal. Not all frames need to actually have the same type of shielding. Let the frames that depend on armor and health have the current shields, but other frames that can't benefit from armor mods have a new type of shields with damage resistance. 

[Krenlik]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

 

I agree with the notion of shields having their own "armor" stat for damage resistance, but I think it should only be on certain frames instead of universal. Not all frames need to actually have the same type of shielding. Let the frames that depend on armor and health have the current shields, but other frames that can't benefit from armor mods have a new type of shields with damage resistance. 

 

You know, they could simply solve the problem by changing the way shields regen... always-regenerating shields would basically turn them into DR.   Maybe double the regen rate if you haven't taken damage in the past 2 seconds or something.

This way, shields would always matter to some degree, even if you had armor, instead of only buffering a single decent hit.

 

 

[Chaemyerelis]

I haven't had a chance to read through all the responses but a couple people mentioned how useful shields are and provide this sense of mod options but I haven't found that to be true. Maybe I've been in the "endgame" too long but i find shields get obliterated so quickly that I'd rather have my frame have no shields and more armor and health to compensate. I cant remember the last time I thought to myself "wow I almost died I'm glad I have shields." 

[CopperBezel]

On 2020-01-02 at 12:42 PM, Avienas said:

plus D.E. has yet to simply let us use all augments as exilus mods (since plenty of them are must`haves but not ridiculously op in some cases, some just being just functionality necessities like Mesa`s Waltz without giving any straight up damage buffs). 

Off topic I know, but there are much better examples of mandatory or bandaid augments than this. I've admittedly never tried it, but it's hard to picture the slow walk being better than a bullet jump trajectory for a volley of Peacemaking, or certainly more mobility utility than Rush in the Exilus slot. I actually confused a friend of mine at one point when I mentioned I don't use MW after she saw how mobile my Mesa tended to be before playing Mesa herself. (She's my most used but second best frame.)

But yeah, more and better mods to fit into the same grid are always good, make it hurt DE, I would not still be playing this game if not for difficult build decisions.

9 hours ago, Krenlik said:

You know, they could simply solve the problem by changing the way shields regen... always-regenerating shields would basically turn them into DR.   Maybe double the regen rate if you haven't taken damage in the past 2 seconds or something.

Notice that it's not % DR, but raw DPS negated, which would be a wholly new form of defense. If your shield regenerates 100/s, you soak 100/s, and anything more reduces your shield until it breaks and you start taking real damage. More capacity means more time protected when soaking beyond your regen rate. I'd love to see this happen, along with bigger regen rate mods.

Edited January 4, 2020 by CopperBezel

[Avienas]

1 hour ago, CopperBezel said:

Off topic I know, but there are much better examples of mandatory or bandaid augments than this. I've admittedly never tried it, but it's hard to picture the slow walk being better than a bullet jump trajectory for a volley of Peacemaking, or certainly more mobility utility than Rush in the Exilus slot. I actually confused a friend of mine at one point when I mentioned I don't use MW after she saw how mobile my Mesa tended to be before playing Mesa herself. (She's my most used but second best frame.)

The piece is mainly so people can reposition so they are not behind some pesky corner which somehow prevents you from shooting some enemy or just relying on rolling to keep in your death turret mode. Since its kind of inefficient to be constantly turning on/off peacemakers constantly and there is that bonus the longer you stay in the mode.

Granted for PC players there`s likely more fancier ways to control your frame thru creative button combinations i guess and you have the good old `aerial cast` derping to dodge out of the usual hiccups for full body casting abilities.

1 hour ago, CopperBezel said:

But yeah, more and better mods to fit into the same grid are always good, make it hurt DE, I would not still be playing this game if not for difficult build decisions.

It would still be nice if we had some actual room on some builds, to where its on the point where i wish `Set` modes never came into the game and  Drift mods vanished. So Exilus picks were towards actual utility, like Rush, Enemy Sense, Thief`s Wit or Augments and a few not-necessary to mentioned exilus mods that could shine in those special cases.

1 hour ago, CopperBezel said:

Notice that it's not % DR, but raw DPS negated, which would be a wholly new form of defense. If your shield regenerates 100/s, you soak 100/s, and anything more reduces your shield until it breaks and you start taking real damage. More capacity means more time protected when soaking beyond your regen rate. I'd love to see this happen, along with bigger regen rate mods.

Sadly i would hate to see how D.E. screws up enemy `shields` when they redesign them to match, but honestly if they have to make health and armor scaling be a ridiculous mess between warframes and enemies, i would hope that shields get some form that makes them very good, since they technically have to compete with both Armor AND Health as a `durability pool type`, since Health and Armor are heavily tied to eachother, except super fragile frames that you cant put Steel fiber on and Arcane guardian may not be as useful.

Well, them redesigning stats besides maybe the closest we might see is railjack enemies might get some some heatlh/armor nerfs if we are LUCKY when d.e. does its next dev stream, hopefully next week.

[DroopingPuppy]

Even the steels can be broken or melt, and we can't restore it in the heat of the battle normally. But you can soak some damage by the shield before actual armor kicks in. Then, why not to add a shield generator If you can afford it?

It is even better if health can be regenerated; if you lose both shield and have some damage on the health then regenerates health, shields also regenerates while you restore the health.

It is true that shield soaks lesser damage than the health, because armor is only applied to the health. But anyway the presence of the extra health that frequently regenerates is never be an insignificant thing.

Remember how deadly no shield nightmare missions are.

[Krenlik]

10 hours ago, CopperBezel said:

 

Notice that it's not % DR, but raw DPS negated, which would be a wholly new form of defense. If your shield regenerates 100/s, you soak 100/s, and anything more reduces your shield until it breaks and you start taking real damage. More capacity means more time protected when soaking beyond your regen rate. I'd love to see this happen, along with bigger regen rate mods.

 

True.  This protection is "global" not a per-enemy damage negation.   Ie.  -100 DPS in total, not -50% per hit.  So shields won't stand up to being shot at by 10 enemies as well as armor/health will.  That's the main differentiator.  Perhaps more powerful vs one or two attackers (depending on how hard/often they hit) but definitely inferior in a large scale brawl, so you'd still want to seek cover to reduce the number of people that can hit you at once if shields are your primary defense.

But even if your shields get depleted, you're still reducing damage to health by 100 DPS, so still has SOME utility for the frames that have a mix of shields/armor/health.

 

Quote

Sadly i would hate to see how D.E. screws up enemy `shields` when they redesign them to match

 

Actually, could be good for the enemy too.  Right now enemy shields aren't really worth anything, so the damage types that are beneficial against them are never used.  Could improve variety in the game.  Magnetic damage proc halts shield regen for 2 seconds?

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Krenlik

[DrakeWurrum]

23 hours ago, Krenlik said:

 

You know, they could simply solve the problem by changing the way shields regen... always-regenerating shields would basically turn them into DR.   Maybe double the regen rate if you haven't taken damage in the past 2 seconds or something.

This way, shields would always matter to some degree, even if you had armor, instead of only buffering a single decent hit.

 

 

Would be better to have a method of active shield regeneration, rather than a passive boost.

Edited January 4, 2020 by DrakeWurrum

[(XBOX)ZenithLord 42]

I’ve long wished for regenerating health for Warframes in addition to recharging energy with mods that change regeneration rates and cooldown periods similar to other third-person shooters. In my opinion, sprinkling these systems throughout the game would help immensely in creating a less static Warframe experience. 
 

DE often takes an all or nothing approach in regards to game systems, which includes both good and downright broken systems remaining as they are simply because it fits into their obtuse “head-narrative”. An example would be the percentage based mod system, which for all intents and purposes only allowed mods to be used in specifically on weapons with already high percentages. Instead, it would be much better if a system using a combined percentage based and additive based system so that weapons could be modified according to the player instead of the developer. (We’re finally and slowly moving this direction.) 

Systems within Warframe are in great need of a revamp as the excuse of them existing for “game-play purposes is laughable at best because DE knows their game has problems and will paint themselves into the corner by applying bandaid fixes until finally giving in because the game itself needed to change and not because the community was asking for something outrageous or not in line with the game itself (vacuum comes to mind). 

Shields are an interesting beast as they really do expose a major flaw within Warframe and that is: how can we have regenerating health and not make Warframes with healing powers, various damage procs, and other systems irrelevant? The short answer is you can, but you now have to ask which Warframe kits would benefit from it the most and use it in such a way that it adds rather than subtracts from all those pesky Warframe bandaids that have accrued over the years. 
 

Hopefully if anything like these systems were implemented it wouldn’t just be on one new Warframe and then left to rot. 
 

 

[Krenlik]

2 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Would be better to have a method of active shield regeneration, rather than a passive boost.

We already have it.  The Augur set generates shields when you use abilities.  Once you have some form of DR running it's not bad.  Without that, it's a blip.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Augur_Secrets

 

Also some robotic mods and regenning mods increase regen speed.   Making constant regen intrinsic to shields supplements all of that and would make shields useful in general instead of largely worthless.

 

 

 

[fr4gb4ll]

On 2020-01-02 at 6:38 AM, Chaemyerelis said:

warframe shields melt in less than a second at higher levels

true enough, but even that can give you the time for 'countermeasures', so it's not the shield is that useless in high level environments - it's just less important there... which sadly leads to certain frames being more dominant there than other (hello inaros ^^). ofc, even the weakest (in survivability stats wise) frame can sucessfully do any high level mission, but it comes with a lot specialization in frame and equipment as well as it require some degree in skill of using them (which is quite ok imo - a newbi don't need to run 20 zones in elite onslaught).

that said, i would like if shields where an additional equipment instead of part of a frame (or not for those 'special cases). an increase in health and armor and the removal of the shield from frames in general would be better (ofc again, there are some frames like hildryn that are a different story altogether) and then, at some point later in game (maybe after we finished the normal game map, there is the option to get an personal shield as equipment for the frames which can be modded for different condition like framea and weapons too - with increase resistences to certain damage types for example.

like you said, lore wise the shield on frames makes little sense, as is does on most enemies too - the corpus being the exception since, lets just say, always carring their own personal shield with them. using a personal shield shuold also come at a prise: since using a shield in atmospheric condition is likely to constantly depleting energy due to the air and the grounding of it too (beside those occasionally people shooting at you) it has to either turn off sometimes to recharge or has to be feeded 'fuel', let say resources, like we do in railjack for out payloads. ofc, this should not involve any major micro-management like we have in railjack with its forge (i really hate the time it takes to use that), but should be semi-automatic. it could use those blue energy orbs for example that we don't need for the frames own energy atm - this would mean that we have to decide not using abilities too much in favor of the shield - or not...

anyway, that's my thoughts to this matter...