Primary and Secondary Gameplay is Severely Lacking

[MysticDragonMage]

primary and secondary gameplay is lacking in complexity beyond just point and click.

melee is arguably the most complex and engaging combat aspect the game offers, from the actual combo counter, to air combos, to a mini-rhino stomp that comes with heavy melee slam attacks. easily, the devs can remove certain aspects of melee and turn them into mods (extra damage to slide attacks, gravity effect when using a slam attack, etc, etc.), but melee is lucky to have most of these benefits initially.

meanwhile, primaries and secondaries have only just gotten an exilus update, but in order to apply exilus mods, they still have to take up capacity on builds that barely combat high levels already just for extra accuracy or holstering speeds. not to mention capacity has no way to increase due to the lack of "stance" or "aura" mods.

also it goes without saying that primaries and secondaries have lost their utility in high-level play, because unlike melee, primaries and secondaries still cannot scale in damage.

In Conclusion, Gunplay is in desperate need of an update.

NOTICE: though the topic concerns primary and secondary gameplay in general, the following does not go into detail concerning the damage aspects of gunplay. what is suggested is meant to enhance the gameplay rather than balance its more complicated systems in detail. basic "QOL" additions, if you will.

firstly, i think primaries and secondaries need a lot of benefits when players perform certain actions.

• standing still should increase reload speed and increase holster speed.
• crouching, wall latching, gliding, and sliding should increase accuracy and decrease recoil.
• firing or aiming a weapon should not decrease at least strafing movement speed.

the purpose of these suggestions is to simulate focus, incentivise fast-paced as well as marksman gunplay. the increased strafing speed alone would benefit warframes with low health.

i also think the exilus system needs to be dropped. instead, mods that are currently identified as primary and secondary exilus mods should work like stances, in which they would increase the mod capacity for a primary or secondary as "skills" and even more of these mods should be added. these skills would directly enhance certain aspects of gunplay much like how primary and secondary exilus mods already do so; enhancements such as zoom, accuracy, recoil, gliding time, mutation, etc.

it would even be nice to equip sugatras onto primary and secondary weapons.

now, what i have mentioned thus far does not include primary's and secondary's more complicated mechanics (such as damage, crits, and multishot), but the discussion itself still concerns primary and secondary gameplay in general. i am still curious as to weather or not a scaling system should be applied or how it would work, for example.

in any case, primary and secondary gameplay has not been getting the attention it so desperately deserves. more special and unique primary and secondary weapons in general are of course nice additions, but its not like melee is lacking in unique weapon variety either; there are bows and then there are gun-blades, there are throwing weapons and then there are glaives, if you know what i mean. my main concern is where primary and secondary gameplay stands compared to melee gameplay, especially since this is melees third update that directly involves its gameplay.

Edited February 6, 2020 by MysticDragonMage

[NekroArts]

1 hour ago, MysticDragonMage said:

• standing still should decrease reload speed and increase holster speed.
• crouching, wall latching, gliding, and sliding should increase accuracy and decrease recoil.
• firing or aiming a weapon should not decrease at least strafing movement speed.

• this game is more towards high mobility combat something most, if not all, players like.
  • not only that, but standing still (relative to how strong player is vs the level of the content) is a death wish.
• accuracy is a thing that almost nobody really cares about, landing shots isn't that in this game isn't hard. 
• i believe that's a balancing thing - better aiming for moving speed. All the shooting the games that I played that has ADS had movement speed reduction by default. The times where that doesn't happen is because of some outside force like mods, perks, and upgrades.

1 hour ago, MysticDragonMage said:

the purpose of these suggestions is to simulate focus, incentivise fast-paced as well as marksman gunplay. the increased strafing speed alone would benefit warframes with low health.

Fast-paced is already there; simulate focus is about 3/4 there; and marksman gunplay is... well this one is a huge "depending on where you are". Low levels you really don't have to focus so much on aiming, but higher levels when body shots are taking "too long" players would've already aimed for the head/weak spot. The closest thing to what you suggested are the acolyte mods and only a few of them are considered to use; I use Argon Scope and/or Bladed Rounds on few of my weapons, but mods like Guided Ordnance I don't even consider since accuracy isn't really an issue.

While I don't mind adding things to make gun-play more engaging, I still like the benefits to fit with core parts of the game i.e. standing still to gain a boost to your gun doesn't sound like Warframe.

[MysticDragonMage]

9 minutes ago, NekroArts said:

While I don't mind adding things to make gun-play more engaging, I still like the benefits to fit with core parts of the game i.e. standing still to gain a boost to your gun doesn't sound like Warframe.

interesting.

any suggestions?

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

My thoughts: Basic weapon load outs are dated fundamentally. Primary, Secondary, Melee slots according to weapon classes don't belong in an horder shooter such as Warframe.

Getting rid of primary, secondary, melee weapon slots, and replacing them with weapon slot 1,2,3 opening up to any 3 weapons of our choosing would be a huge improvement instantly. 

Edited February 6, 2020 by (XB1)MandlorPrime

[Teliko_Freedman]

I'm still waiting for them to get back to dual wield.

Also a nitpick, you want to increase reload speed when standing still. Or to reword it, decrease reload time when standing still.

[NekroArts]

1 minute ago, MysticDragonMage said:

interesting.

any suggestions?

• Depending on the number of enemies knocked down with a bullet jump, player gets x boost for y time; y effected by the number of enemies knocked down in that bullet jump.
• Rolling grants increased movement speed for ADS for y time.
• Successful jump-kicking an enemies grants increase damage by x.

That's what I can think of now. Now even though these are my suggestions I like to see your ideas on this. You don't have to use them as a framework just remember to tie the bonuses/benefits to aspects of the game that makes Warframe Warframe.

[taiiat]

Fine Aim slowing you down is a part of the skill of the game - you can still move at full speed if you Slide boost around which you can do in any lateral direction.
you're compensating for and overcoming a negative trait by doing something actively.

Guns as a whole are fairly bland in nature, yes. as almost every single Gun in the game is simply used in a Magdump manner, with no real reason to shoot them in any other manner, since their Spread Cones are fixed, their 'Recoil' is fixed, Et Cetera. 

 

if you want to make Guns more engaging to use, i'd say the fastest avenue is not to change anything on the end of the Player, but to push for the game to have Enemies with more complex Body Part Multipliers. whether it be additional locational destructible Armor or Damage Multipliers/Weakpoints or vulnerable gadgets, Et Cetera - this stuff is classic in Shooters and it's there for this exact reason, to give the Player a reason to pay more attention to their shooting than to just unfocus their Eyes for maximum peripheral vision and just shooting in the general direction of the Enemy shaped blobs in their unfocused vision.
not that you can't do that anyways even in more complex Shooters, in traditional First person Shooters you can generally use that strategy and succeed since your foes are all the same shape/size so you can just use muscle memory for aiming without having to actually pay attention to the details of your foes.
but it still helps a lot. and makes Enemies feel more 'responsive' or 'reactionary' to things that are happening, which everybody likes.

[MysticDragonMage]

3 minutes ago, taiiat said:

if you want to make Guns more engaging to use, i'd say the fastest avenue is not to change anything on the end of the Player, but to push for the game to have Enemies with more complex Body Part Multipliers. whether it be additional locational destructible Armor or Damage Multipliers/Weakpoints or vulnerable gadgets, Et Cetera - this stuff is classic in Shooters and it's there for this exact reason, to give the Player a reason to pay more attention to their shooting than to just unfocus their Eyes for maximum peripheral vision and just shooting in the general direction of the Enemy shaped blobs in their unfocused vision.
not that you can't do that anyways even in more complex Shooters, in traditional First person Shooters you can generally use that strategy and succeed since your foes are all the same shape/size so you can just use muscle memory for aiming without having to actually pay attention to the details of your foes.
but it still helps a lot. and makes Enemies feel more 'responsive' or 'reactionary' to things that are happening, which everybody likes.

to me, that is like turning primaries and secondaries from point and click... to point and click with a little bit more pointing involved.

primary and secondary gameplay needs something beyond "point and click." 

remember when melee used to be simple quick melee strike. obviously it is now beyond that.

[taiiat]

1 minute ago, MysticDragonMage said:

remember when melee used to be simple quick melee strike. obviously it is now beyond that.

visually it is, but Melee has come full circle and now it's literally just mash one button just like Quick Melee all over again.

Guns by nature have little mechanical depth to them. they are an easy tool of interaction for Video Games, since you can control it with a Camera well and it is commonly instantaneous for simplicty.
in games where Guns feel 'deep and complex' or w/e, they really aren't much more than in the most arcadey of games, but rather extra stuff added on top to make the process of point and click more difficult to do via the game fighting against you. which obviously helps to some degree but it's still point and click anyways.

 

if not Body Part Multipliers (which i hope you aren't saying you specifically don't want, makes games more fun all around if you ask me, i'm excited about the announcement of Horizon Zero Dawn for PC, since that game has some of the most complex Body Parts on Enemies that has ever been created in a Video Game), what are we looking for then? i could suggest... everything being Projectiles instead, so that one has to continuously practice actual Aiming? another feature that i really like in games myself personally too.

[Redfeather75]

I just watched a video of someone holding a fire button while running through a level. And everyone saying it was so great at how powerful it was. It was braindead.

[CaptainMinty]

Weapon swap speed. What's the point in swapping to your secondary if reloading is faster? Seriously. My sniper rifle reloads faster than I can pull out my handgun. I find myself not using my secondary ever anymore because of my sniper rifle killing fast enough to not need to. And if I run out of ammo, then I'm in an endless, so I just drop one of the 500 ammo restores I have.

[MysticDragonMage]

33 minutes ago, taiiat said:

visually it is, but Melee has come full circle and now it's literally just mash one button just like Quick Melee all over again.

that is a very biased claim. one button? besides the heavy attack, sure. but the same button can also perform a slam attack, slide attack, combos, and airborne attacks provided that the player input other actions while doing so.

33 minutes ago, taiiat said:

Guns by nature have little mechanical depth to them. they are an easy tool of interaction for Video Games, since you can control it with a Camera well and it is commonly instantaneous for simplicty.
in games where Guns feel 'deep and complex' or w/e, they really aren't much more than in the most arcadey of games, but rather extra stuff added on top to make the process of point and click more difficult to do via the game fighting against you. which obviously helps to some degree but it's still point and click anyways.

the hundreds of games that dared to re-imagine the meaning of "arcade point and click" say otherwise. DOOM alone takes the meaning of shooter to a whole new level with seamless weapon switching and run and gun momentum. in Vanquish, besides the whole bullet-time mechanic, you can draw enemy fire with a thrown lit cigar (not something for warframe, but still pretty cool). even every basic shooter gives the player better accuracy and recoil while they are crouching.

33 minutes ago, taiiat said:

if not Body Part Multipliers (which i hope you aren't saying you specifically don't want, makes games more fun all around if you ask me, i'm excited about the announcement of Horizon Zero Dawn for PC, since that game has some of the most complex Body Parts on Enemies that has ever been created in a Video Game), what are we looking for then? i could suggest... everything being Projectiles instead, so that one has to continuously practice actual Aiming? another feature that i really like in games myself personally too.

firstly, it would be nice to have body part multipliers (so i guess not more accusations right 😄) 

secondly, this conversation seems to concern applying difficulty and skill rather than the main topic. which i can partly agree with.

anyway, to answer the question: this is about enhancing the primary and secondary gameplay by incentivizing players with benefits from performing certain actions while shooting and aiming, besides just shooting and aiming. sliding gives you a boost in accuracy and recoil, strafing and rotating around targets gives you a seamless evasive advantage, and every player conveniently has faster reload and holster speed when they need a slow down.

Edited February 6, 2020 by MysticDragonMage

[taiiat]

34 minutes ago, MysticDragonMage said:

that is a very biased claim. one button? besides the heavy attack, sure. but the same button can also perform a slam attack, slide attack, combos, and airborne attacks provided that the player input other actions while doing so.

i was only referring to the Animation sequences but okay, sure - Slam and Slide are different things too. though we have had those forever technically :P
Air Melee isn't worth acknowledging because they made it useless - they removed the forward Acceleration when performing it, which means that even despite dramatically increasing the average Range of Melee, you still basically always miss an airborne Enemy with Air Melee. give me back my Air Melee Acceleration

37 minutes ago, MysticDragonMage said:

the hundreds of games that dared to re-imagine the meaning of "arcade point and click" say otherwise. DOOM alone takes the meaning of shooter to a whole new level with seamless weapon switching and run and gun momentum. in Vanquish, besides the whole bullet-time mechanic, you can draw enemy fire with a thrown lit cigar (not something for warframe, but still pretty cool). even every basic shooter gives the player better accuracy and recoil while they are crouching.

how are any of those features changing that Guns are just point and click though? i would argue there's nothing especially... special about their Guns perse, just that the game has some Difficulty so you're being pressured to use your Guns well so that you can succeed. something that Warframe is almost allergic to(Difficulty, and actual Difficulty rather than just pretend), as you probably know.

39 minutes ago, MysticDragonMage said:

sliding gives you a boost in accuracy and recoil, strafing and rotating around targets gives you a seamless evasive advantage, and every player conveniently has faster reload and holster speed when they need a slow down.

i'd take the free Accuracy and reduced 'Recoil' for Sliding. i'm... not sure i see the usefuless of getting a Defensive Bonus while walking a circle around an Enemy, you'd still be taking a lot of Damage since you're just casually walking around.
Reloading and Switching Weapons faster when you're not moving seems pretty counter intuitive to the entire design mantra of the game, which strongly encourages Players to use Parkour and their Weapons together. that's what the game wants us to do, and that's a lot more engaging than the alternatives anyways so it's a good fit.

i'd only say to be careful of having these sorts of bonuses be too forced feeling or to not help reinforce/encourage the best parts about the game as they already stand.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

Making weapon swapping between primary and secondary instant like with melee is a good start, as is having damage multipliers for zones other than just the head. Also waiting on dual wield to be fully implemented, that will be nice.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

11 hours ago, CaptainMinty said:

Weapon swap speed. What's the point in swapping to your secondary if reloading is faster? Seriously. My sniper rifle reloads faster than I can pull out my handgun. I find myself not using my secondary ever anymore because of my sniper rifle killing fast enough to not need to. And if I run out of ammo, then I'm in an endless, so I just drop one of the 500 ammo restores I have.

And all I use is my AkVasto Prime, never needed a Primary. 

All that said, having specific weapons classes and slots for those classes mean nothing if we can take one weapon and clear 99% of the game. This is the exact reason why Primary, Second, Melee slots need to be replaced with weapon slots 1 2 and 3 to allow us to choose any 3 weapons we want. 

Primary, Secondary slots are for games like call of duty, not ninja horder shooters. 

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by (XB1)MandlorPrime