Open Call for Warframe Theme Ideas!

[BakedFrodo]

Isaac Clarke from Dead Space as a cameo warframe 🤑

[LegendaryNeurotoxin]

How about a Tarot-themed or Card-themed frame? 

There's a few ideas I've thought of with this:

1) Shuffle & Draw. This version uses an ability that shuffles the deck, then draws 3 cards. The drawn cards provide buffs for the player and their allies, and remain around the frame (perhaps circling their hand). Each suit and unique card correlates with a different buff and ability, while the number on a suited card determines the cost and power of the ability. 2, 3, and 4 activate the card's use ability. Pressing and holding 2, 3, or 4 for a couple seconds will discard that card, and a new one will be drawn. It could have a limiter in place to prevent 2 of the same suit from being up at once.
 - The good in this is that you have a frame with more variability and dynamic opportunities. It may take some discarding, but a player can eventually lock in a set  of cards that they like, and will keep them til the end of the mission or a death and revive. 
 - The bad is that the lack of consistency means it is tougher to rely on any specific abilities, and allies have less of a specific idea what the frame will actually be providing. I expect players will spend time drawing til they get what they want.

 

2) Kill to Draw. An alternative is that the creatures they defeat determine the cards they draw, so players can discard and selectively get a card by killing a certain type of enemy. This might mean that certain buffs and debuffs only be possible when certain factions are being fought, and I don't think that is a problem, because it means the player will be getting abilities that specifically help with defeating their current opponents. Unique cards could be earned for bosses and special enemies, while suited cards could start at 1 and build up to 5--or whatever the upper-limit is--for repeat kills of the unit type which provides that card. This doesn't require ability 1 to be "draw" so this provides 4 abilities, but the hold ability number to discard mechanic can remain. 
 - The good in this is that there's variance that is specific to the enemies being fought, so there's a bit of variance, but it should make them more adapted to the situation.
 - Despite that, the bad of not having a predictable set of abilities to use and buffs to provide can still make them awkward to play alongside. 

 

3) Choose Your Hand. The player CHOOSES the cards. Holding the ability slot brings up a gear/emote selector with the cars which can be used at that level, and the player assigns them as needed. 
 - The good is that it creates a very dynamic and adaptable frame, which can change as needed to match the situation.
 - Still, the bad is that you have no idea what the Tarot frame player is going to use unless they tell you. 

 

As a bonus, Prex could add to the frame's ability set, expanding beyond the basic suits. This creates a frame with an alternate, but hopefully meaningful, progression system. Or not, it could use the images from the Prex cards, though! 

 

Just as much as their gameplay capabilities, the emotes and roleplay elements should be pretty nice, even being able to do a Warframe Tarot reading in common areas or even mid-mission while you're waiting for the party slowpoke to make it to the boss battle trigger. Community artists could even make cool art with them, or DE could partner to have physical decks made and provided to donors as part of a charity event. 

[FilosophicalTunaFish]

I would like an alchemist support like warframe. Based off things like transmutation and sacrifice for the abilities. Someone very nomadic. That either uses abilities to be tanky alone. Or supportive with a group. 

Ability 1: creates a pool of unused resources like energy and health that the player picks up and can store in the pool for future use or to be used by players. Pool is decast when empty or hold to evenly distribute pool to all players.

Ability 2: sacrificing your own health to make an enlarged health drop that can heal both players, yourself, specters and defense targets. Wouldn't mind being able to sacrifice health for other stuff too like buffs. Decided like ivaras arrows.

Ability 3 a ranged whip attack using health instead of energy. Like a blood splatter that does low damage. Like inaro's pocket sand. But 100% status for either a toxin or corrosive proc. Stackable granted you have the health. 

Ability 4: ability to make an explosive concoction. Similar to the pool except in exploded for damage in a certain time frame and does different effects based off of what stuff you put into it based of your 2 and 3 ability. Nothing put into to it just makes a burst of slash damage. 

This would be a low energy frame with high health. Balance however liked but I wouldn't mind it being a nomadic woman frame. 

 

[Crescendoh]

I would love to see a Warframe themed on the idea of airborne mobility; jumping from enemy to enemy without touching the ground. Jumping around and parkouring in Warframe is part of the appeal for me, and a frame which could do all the elegant parkour and murder at the same time sounds wonderful.

[(XBOX)TachankaPewPew]

Nano-machine based Warframe.

The Warframe is made up entirely of Nano-machines/nano-plates.

The Warframe armor shifts and changes, never really keeping one form, even looking similar to other Warframes as it constantly shifts what it looks like, meaning it doesn't have a set form so to speak (of course there will be a base form however). This can be achieved similar to how the scarabs move along the armor of Inaros, but making its own unique look with little metal bits and sparks constantly shifting, and it actually changes the armor. The character can "disassemble" and turn into a swarm/cloud of Nano-machines that attach to metals/alloys, or even as an idle animation, before returning to an amalgamation of a Warframe.

Imagine this: A Warframe whose identity is not necessarily easy to tell upon looking from the outside because you see faint similarities shifting to look like other frames and faction units, before extending their left arm and holding their hand to their face. As they lift their hand up, the other arm begins to dissolve and Nano-machines race up the body and onto the hand, forming a "cloud" of metal.

This Warframe assimilates all metallic objects in it's surroundings to gain more power, and the faint grinding of metal comes from the frame as it gathers energy from it's metallic meal, before suddenly bursting into another cloud and fully encompassing an unfortunate corpus engineer.

It copies his form, walks amongst the others, before shedding it's false skin in a burst of metal and machine.

Infiltration through what they least expect. Their weapons, their armor, what is real and what is mimicry? 

Name Ideas:

Nano, Deus, Gnaw, Alloy, Jinzō (Synthetic/Artificial), Vox, Cluster, Swarm... Etc

[0nyxx]

An interesting idea would  be to see an warframe that is able to shift/transform between  its two forms (something like equinox but not nonstop... barely simillar). Its first form can be a luxurious one showing its sassy side of things with its looks/movement, abilities and the other form can be the more infectious/ wilde side, depicting its ravenous part with a more horrific look, movement and abilities.

    An warframe that can bend the will of the opponents to do its bidding like defense a certain point, distract the attentions of others in its luxurious form and the infectious one being the destructive part for a brief period of time.

With the new war coming it would be interesting to see a warframe torn apart by  the war  with the middle form more sentient, luxurious form more orokin and the other side infected. The interesting part can be its that the frame can't stay in one form for too long or it will suffer side effects.

[PieExplosion]

Duelist frame, focused around showboating and excels in one-on-one combat. Abilities of overwhelming charisma twists enemies to behave differently than normal and expertise in the duel reduces worthy opponents to nothing.


Sample abilities:

Boast - Provoke enemies in an area to ignore their usual roles and attack the Duelist recklessly. They're so upset that they aren't properly using their weapons or guarding the prisoner anymore!

Contend - Forcefully choose an enemy to enter one-on-one combat and pushes others out of "the ring". Onlookers are forced to watch with such intensity that they share the fate of the victim. Losers are demoralized (open to finishers?) and winners will have boosted morale (even if the Duelist is the loser?). edit: What if it could be used on bosses to change what they do and maybe additional flavorful dialogue? Or maybe just Vay-Hek screaming more about his air.

[Taliira]

Oasis, a warframe based around what focus tree you choose (zenurik, naramon etc.). It's name is based around being a protector for the operator and it encoureges playing more as operator while the frame protects and helps you in combat as a sort of duo partner. It works similar to umbra (engages in combat while operator is out) but the player can use it's abilities while being out of warframe. The passive might be some kind of operator stat buff. The abilities change their effect based on chosen focus tree.

[(NSW)Leo_Steelcry]

It's been reported by many different traveler that have been along the edge of the system; an unnerving emptiness in the black void of space. The kind of unnerving feeling you get when you know something big, mean, and nasty is staring back at you but you don't know where it is. This Warframe is based around a eldritch/cosmic horror monsters. It could have tentacles that can change the Warframes appearance to cause varying psychological effects on the enemy. Making them attack one another or blinding them from fear. The Warframe also feeds off fear so consuming enemies could give the Warframe a stat boost.

[SadTrooper]

Galaxie themed frame

Name: Xingxi

1st Ability: Galactic whip, something like Khora but it looks like a galaxy arm and does area damage

2nd Ability: Blink, this would be the movement one, just blink a short distance to avoid damage.

3rd Ability: Asteroids armor, Similar to rhino Iron Skin but not that powerful and this one has a damaging area.

4th Ability: Blackhole, throw in a blackhole to attract enemies o the middle where they receive increased damage.

 

 

[Tadpoll27]

I think it would be really cool to see a researcher based warframe. Able to hold it's own in combat but has abilities like AOE scans, turrets that catch fish for you or attempt to tranq small game when you lure them, scanner & tranq gun vision hands free for specified time, quick scans. A Tenno who's ultimate goal is to learn everything about the universe. 

[RenegadeX557]

I'm so glad this has come up. 

I've been thinking of a warframe for a long, LONG Time.... 

 

Fenrir, the Raging Wolf Warframe.

 

Fenrir is a feral warrior, craving its next battle and a goal to sate its bloodlust. It will beset itself upon any target it sees with ravenous fury with claws and fangs. Beware its howl, for the hunt is on... and you are the Prey.

 

Pounce. A charged pounce-slash using your melee weapon stats. Able to target flying enemies as well, allowing you to essentially 'pinball' through numerous flying foes and ground foes alike.

Raging roar. A howl so powerful it blasts all enemies in range away in a cone, use this when you're backed into the corner,

Charge. Target an enemy, sprint at them then impale them with your claws, using them as a shield.

Full Moon. Take on a quadruped mode, gaining "Blood" with each kill that fuels abilities in said mode.

Main weapons are replaced with a melee setup using fangs and claws, draining blood with each successful kill. 

 

First Moon ability, infectious bite. Launch yourself at an enemy, biting them and make them wolf-thralls, attacking others in a feral frenzy.

Second moon ability, Whirlwind Blade. You become a whirling storm of claws and death, moving around like a top of blades to eviscerate any unfortunate foe that gets too close.

Third Moon ability, Pack Call summons spectral wolves that act as Kubrows to aid you.

Fourth moon ability, deathly howl. A howl towards the skies beckons the Hunter's Moon light to shine down, forming into tendrils of light that slaughter any targets within your area. 

Passive Ability: Wolf Scent, acts as an enemy radar allowing the Wolf to see outlines of enemies through walls. Only works when melee is out or in 2nd form.

 

Regretfully I am not an artist, however I am happy to say the Norse Wolf himself was an inspiration for this creation.

[.PAZUZU.]

I suggest creating a warframe based on the idea of stellar particles (gluons, photons, neutrons, Higgs bosons, etc.) with the ability to control these particles.

[DeltaRennard]

The Unknown Soldier. "Built in honor of all those lost, and those yet to die."

For those not familiar in the real world concept, the dawn of industrialization lead to a new reality of warfare. Many soldiers who die would either not have their bodies recovered or not be identifiable (explosives don't leave much of the body intact). Things like dog tags were designed to aid identification but many soldiers still have no grave. In an effort to address this many countries would build a "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" and bury an unidentified body as a memorial for all the families have no grave to mark their loss. Putting this in a Warframe context, the Old War represented a new reality in warfare. Faced with a foe that adapted to soldiers as fast as they were trained and war machines as fast as they were produced, the Orokin turned to a new kind of weapon. One that radically changed tactics with each design iteration. Many of these Warframes would never be recovered, reduced to atoms or dissected in a sentient lab. The end of the Old War would mark a time of reflection, considering the losses of the last war, and planing for the next war. Chaotic flights of fancy replaced with cold empirical analysis. A new soldier built upon the countless ones lost. Standardized, Generic, Faceless. An Unknown Soldier.

Real life interlude. I have always been fascinated by the the background character designs in mecha anime. The focus on the show is nearly always about a rag-tag group of weirdos turning the tide against overwhelming odds. Yet both the hero and villain faction have mass-produced staples that presumably make up the majority of actual combatants. In mecha games their is a certain appeal to beating someones Gundam with a humble Zaku. Using a weapon that is good enough to get the job done instead of a highly advanced prototype. Warframe doesn't really have an equivalent to that fantasy. Each frame is a unique work of art built to fight a foe characterized by their ability to rapidly adapt. Yet we know that warframes were built to fight more than Sentients. The Vauban blurb hints at war against the Corpus, Saryn at combating the Infestation. I think there is room for a frame that focuses on straight-forward design principals, designed to be good enough to fight the prevalent threats of the Origin System. A space rifleman to complement the current space ninjas. Built in honor of those lost, to win the next war before it starts.

[XSXShadowKnightXSX]

What about a frame that assimilates the enemy and changes the types the ability it has like a mix of equinox/grendel/(chroma?). Example of what I mean:

Spoiler

 

[(PSN)okkaj]

It would be Great if it was an EMOTIONAL WARFRAME 

[Guest]

I think that a frame based around, Coral, or the Coral Reefs, would be an interesting approach. I find the colors of coral to be quite revitalizing and their biology quite interesting. For example what's the first thing that most would think of when you say the word coral, probably a rock in the ocean that's colorful with holes and such. (Maybe? I have no clue what people actually would think but not many people care too much about it!) In reality, that's not the case, not only are corals alive, but they're alive and providing protection and shelter for other living organisms. To add to that not all corals are hard! Star Polyps (a coral I have previously owned) which can be comparable to a wavy green grass is actually a coral. There are even corals that eat other living organisms, such as jellyfish, and some that are even poisonous. I think there's a lot of potential for basing a warframe around coral. It would definitely be a very vibrant and unique frame too.

Although unrelated, I think that a frame based around coral reminds us about the wonders of the ocean and beauty of coral reefs (which are vanishing quickly).

[(XBOX)Berzerker347]

Za warudo!!!

[(XBOX)Nagano Sempai]

A snake bender frame focused on rapidly afflicting status effects on enemies could be interesting.

There could also be a combo/timing mecanic involved within his kit to increase the effectiveness of the snake's toxin/venom as well as its damage.

Thank you for giving us a chance!

Nagano Sempai (or Nagano_senpai on reddit)

[VoliOsnowong]

Navitas (Energy in Latin)

An One Armed Duelist - with the power of harvesting energy to disarm or even her plainfield.

Theme: Energy

Royalty, Honor, & a strong willed fighter.

Even with one arm, she will charge through the enemies and fulfill her mission.

 

""Inspired to by arena fighters and duelists, the Orokin designed this Warframe to be such honorable warriors on the battlefield.

Due to over-engineering, she releases a lot of heat and the power it posses often causes the right arm to fail and break during testing. Along side many problems, the Orokin higher ranks see this a potential threat when rebel against them. Therefore, they decided to remove the right arm completely.

However, with the energy manifested from the core, she managed to recreate her right arm with pure energy and continue to seek for opponents of equal levels.

This is Navitas - the One armed duelist.""

 

She has a heavy pauldron on her right shoulder and a small cape that covers her left arm. she wears a combat skirt like ancient Romans legionaries.

Her abilities are surrounding manipulating energy and to buff or debuff enemies/opponents, not directly killing them. CC and debuff should be the main focus of her kit, affected by strength, range and duration.

Game Mechanic: The more abilities she uses, the stronger it gets, but she will over heat and unable to cast abilities at certain limit, or else she will inflect self-damage. (it will also affect her visual appearance too, fuel cells [on her back and shoulder] will pop out to cool her off.)

 

(Appearance: During combat, her right arm will appear, hold and cast abilities. While off the battlefield, it will disappear.)

https://twitter.com/voliosnowong/status/1237875123740217349

 

ps.. yea, i kinda went ahead of myself and drew it, cuz' I want to show visually what i was going for. Hope you like it 🙂

[Jedi_pup]

a frame that is a rockstar that has a shawzin that shoots lightning bolts. This universe needs an rockstar; that puts the rock in the stars and make faces melt from just looking at them and when they strum their shawzin, angels fall from heaven and hearts explode from the flooded emotion of desire. they are truly sought after throughout the galaxy and rocking the radio waves with all their greatest hits, blasting their tones on every planet. They want noting but to play for their fans. no song writing here, its all about the jam.

 

 

[GOLANX]

Zanuka 2.0 
Zanuka Hunter is the weakest assassin enemy in the game right now, giving him a refresh would help with the entropy in the game that you are focusing on right now, bonus for the players he is very easy to implement as a frame in a way that isn't an island, you can add his drops to invasions giving vets a good reason to return to invasions. Zanuka the frame and Zanuka hunter the enemy would have the same set of abilities hopefully making zanuka hunter a compelling assassin (key note: the enemy version will be significantly tankier than the frame as he is an assassin and not tanky for the player but needs to be tanky as an enemy so as to be a compelling enemy).  when designing his kit I would base it on how the corpus and Alad V create a warframe to kill warframes, while invisibility would be an obvious choice i would advise you to keep an open mind for other methods for low detectability or instead would have a good CC for disabling grineer and infested, he will use Corpus to distract while he attacks from the shadows. he also would have means to debuff tenno slowing them down restricting their mobility so he can kill them. he could have abilities that increase his damage or cause specific targets to take additional damage, he would be high single target damage so as to kill tanky tenno. 

[(PSN)NidhoggValkyrian]

No art sadly yet since biomechanical designs are a TAD beyond my skillset XD
I can try but no promises it'll be up to par.
Also, no numerical stats were added cause balancing isn't my strong suit either, so I shall leave those up to the experts.

Working name: Drosera
Theme: Carnivorous Plants
Female Frame

Depicted, left to right: Venus Flytrap, Pitcher Plant & Sundew, the three types of carnivorous plants Drosera's abilities are based on.

Passive Ability: Hunger
Slow stacking buildup meter that enhances Drosera's active abilities.
Hunger stacks build up over time while slowly draining energy as well as health (bypassing shields).
Hunger buildup is dependant on power strength, with negative power strength making for a slower,more steady Hunger buildup, while high power strength causes a fast, violent but potentially risky buildup of Hunger stacks. Hunger buildup also benefits from the number of enemies affected by other abilties.
Hunger buildup halts when out of energy (failsafe to prevent lack of energy causing certain death).

Playing around with Hunger buildup management can make for some great high risk- high reward playstyles

Ability 1: Consume (Life steal/resource management)
Drosera launches mawed sproutlings ( venus flytrap type) in a forward cone/arc. The sproutlings will attach to enemies within range and eat at the target, doing x amount of damage instant and DoT for the duration, stealing x amount of health/shield (allows Overshield) and energy.
This ability slows down Hunger buildup to some degree, making it a key ability to keep Hunger in check while also feeding Drosera's health and energy pools.
The number of active Hunger stacks when casting Consume increases the ability's Power and Duration.

This ability scales with Power Strength and Duration

Augment: Tendrils
Instead of launching seperate sproutlings, these maws remain attached to Drosera's body by their vines, effectively binding the affected enemies onto Drosera.
While the damage of the ability decreases, affected enemies are dragged and ragdolled for it's duration.

-----
Ability 2: Nectar (crowd control)

A treacherous plant (Sundew type) blossoms at the targeted area, luring enemies closer and dazing them by its sweet scent when nearby for it's duration.
This ability synergies with Secretion, causing Nectar's area of effect to increase when Secretion is cast on the affected area.
This ability scales with Power Duration and Range.
The number of active Hunger stacks when casting this ability increases the range at which enemies become dazed.

Augment: Fragrant Spread

Enemies affected by Nectar spread it's effect within x amount of range for the remainder of it's active time. (similar to Baruuk & Equinox abilities spreading)
------
Ability 3: Secretion (crowd control)

The ground around the targeted area swells with a sticky secretion, slowing enemies within it down x amount of time. Enemies walking into the area or approaching those affected by the ability trigger the effect on themselves.
This ability has increased duration on enemies affected by Nectar.
This ability scales with Power Duration and Range.
The number of active Hunger stacks when casting this ability increases the range at which Secretion spreads between enemies.

The combination of Ability 2 & 3 are great for kiting targets together for Devouring Bloom.

Augment: Slippery Shield

Secretion no longer directly affects enemies, but instead offers x amount of damage protection for x duration to you and your allies. Enemies within melee range trigger the Secretion slow effect.
Scales with Power Strength, Range and Duration.

-----
Ability 4: Devouring Bloom (Area attack, Crowd control, Life Steal)

A forest of starving carnivorous plants sprout from the target area, descending and feasting upon those in the affected area. Sundews grasp for surrounding targets similar to Hydroid's tentacles, Venus flytraps bite down on them, and giant Pitcher plants swallow targets whole, slowly digesting them.

This ability consumes all active Hunger stacks.
Naturally, the higher the built up stacks, the more devastating the carnage, affecting the ability's duration, range and DoT.

Besides dealing large amounts of damage, this ability also steals health, shield (enables Overshield) and energy from it's victims.

Learning to balance the use of Hunger and Devouring Bloom, players can decide to play it safe with frequent but less powerful ability use, or opting for a more high risk-high reward playstyle, allowing Hunger to eat a healthy chunk out of their health for a bigger payout when casting Devouring Bloom. Building Drosera more tanky with a higher health pool also offers more leeway for Hunger buildup, while playing with the energy pool can offer a larger casting pool but also more energy for Hunger to eat away at you. These traits should offer some possibility for build variation depending on playstyle.

After feasting, Drosera's Hunger is 'satisfied', offering increased passive health regeneration for x amount of time. After this grace period, Hunger stacks will start to build up again.

This ability scales with Power Strength, Duration and Range.

Augment: Ravenous Garden
Casting Devouring Bloom only consumes x amount of Hunger stacks, rendering the ability's effects less powerful/wide, but allowing it to be recast at multiple locations.
This allows Drosera to lockdown multiple area's.

[(PSN)Avenka]

Too many to read through so I doubt mine will be seen.

I know there's usually some kind of loose link to an existing mythology/story so here's my thought that covers some of what I've seen already. We already have a kavat (cat) companion warframe so let's get a kubrow (dog) companion warframe. It can be loosely based on "Arawn, king of Ännwn, is believed to set the Cŵn Annwn loose to hunt mundane creatures." This would then make the kubrow Cŵn Annwn, a spectral white hound with red ears.

I haven't fully worked out what the abilities could be but given that the stories deal with "The hunt" where they (Cŵn Annwn) drag souls to the otherworld. Perhaps something stealthy-ish (I keep seeing something similar to what you see when Frodo wears The One Ring but not fully invisable like Ivara and not fully invulnerable like Limbo. Perhaps a ghostly form similar to the way Nekros' Shadow's of the dead look that reduces the damage taken and reduces the perception range of enemies as a sustained ability. Maybe another that summons spectral versions of your Cŵn Annwn to "drag" enemies with their damage scaling off the modded stats of your companion as a 4th ability.

As a "just for fun" bonus he can have an exalted weapon that works like Garuda's Talons. A glaive weapon that is the default weapon if no other melee is equiped. When thrown at an enemy your companion will chase the glaive to "retrieve" it but really it just means that it will focus attacks on that enemy.

[Richsterswag]

How about mirrors, it might be kind of similar to Mirage but this time with actual mirrors, i feel like it should be a female Warframe and possibly having her fourth ability to be that: she can temporarily be another Warframe that is currently in their squad and if their flying solo the ability allows them to become any random Warframe. Now i know it might sounds outrageous but think about it please change it up if you'd like it doesn't really matter since its your amazing game not mine.

Her passive could be while in some types of lights like sunlight, enemies around her take small amounts of damage.

The other abilities i don't really know what to think of but i'm positive you guys will be able to come up with something. 🙂🥳