Warframe Ability Transplantation Feedback: Why it has risk of being BORING

[KVenom]

Watching and rewatching that part of the stream, where DE were discussing Helminth and his new functions, i couldn't help but catch myself on one thought: is the hype train worth it?
Short answer: No, not in the current state.
Here is why.

As far as I get it, the system works that way:
1. You Donate Tons of materials to Helminth
2. You Donate a Warframe to Helminth, so it can Extract it's Abilities
3. Only 1 Ability can be extracted per Warframe
4. Only 1 Extracted Ability can be placed in the Target Warframe

Unless anyone already sees the problem, let me explain:
The Part number 3 is the key problem. Not only it will require additional analytic work from DE's own personell, it will also mean that the abilities obtained will be mediocre.
Meaning that you must do parts 1&2, and already have a limitation in part 4. In short terms: too much effort for not much of a reward. No one likes these, except for completionists/hoarders.
And yeah, considering that you need to make Helminth's diet balanced, if you want a normal resource production for all the Warframe transplants, it will be more costly, than you think.

The best course of action is increasing the ammount of abilities gained from the Subsumed Warframes.
That way we will have more options, than putting one mediocre ability in place of another.
The most balanced ammount of abilities will be 2 - not only it's easy to find 2 least signature abilities outa 3 (since 4th is a no-no) on the frame, one of them always has the chance to be at least somewhat good. Examples: Saryn(Molt and Lash), Excalibur(Dash and Blind), Loki(Decoy and Teleport), Ash(Shurikens and Invis), Frost (Freeze and Wave), Nekros(Punch and Terrify)

Train-brain here made pretty simmilar great points about this whole shebang. Watch him, if you want.

You agree with Me? You think I am wrong? I missed something? - discussion is always open.
 

[Myscho]

Of course it will weakest/less used abilities because DE dont wanna for everyone running with Saryn Spores or Mesa autoaim on everything and that will kinda undermine releasing new warframe in future since their kits will be obsolete

And from my personall view this Helminth donation/transfer ability seem unwanted because question like "warframe was create for purpose with specific powers" appear and this option will ruin that, but if will be optional and no hidden progress behind than Min-maxers are free to try

[KVenom]

1 минуту назад, Myscho сказал:

Of course it will weakest/less used abilities because DE dont wanna for everyone running with Saryn Spores or Mesa autoaim on everything and that will kinda undermine releasing new warframe in future since their kits will be obsolete

And from my personall view this Helminth donation/transfer ability seem unwanted because question like "warframe was create for purpose with specific powers" appear and this option will ruin that, but if will be optional and no hidden progress behind than Min-maxers are free to try

Bruh. It's obvious that those will be the lamest abilities. But don't you wanna have more fun with this feature, other than a one-time ride, to be forgotten like Steel Path got?
Or should I mention Railjack, Liches, etc.?
Yeah, no one plays those anymore.

[Myscho]

1 minute ago, KVenom said:

Bruh. It's obvious that those will be the lamest abilities. But don't you wanna have more fun with this feature, other than a one-time ride, to be forgotten like Steel Path got?
Or should I mention Railjack, Liches, etc.?
Yeah, no one plays those anymore.

No, not really, im not fan of modular things which Helminth chrysalis start to feel like even is only one ability per frame, im happy how DE release warframe with preddefined kits

[lukinu_u]

il y a 17 minutes, KVenom a dit :

In short terms: too much effort for not much of a reward.

That's exactly why it works without destroying the game.
It's a high end goal for little optimisation, that not all players will go for, which make it a special thing for min-maxing rather than a normal thing all players get on all their warframes, a bit like Umbra formas right now.

Also, replacing one abillity with a "not so good" but different one can be MUCH stronger than you thing.

[(PSN)Deeceem]

I think I'll wait for the full list of abilities before I judge how boring, mediocre or unrewarding that part will be. So far I can see myself easily put 3 out of the 5 known abilities on other frames and get good use and potential synergies out of them. Whatever Octavia's shared ability will be will be good enough for other frames with a bad ability by default too for example. Same for the abilities of Khora, Wukong, Rhino, Gara and Nova and probably others. There's actually not a bad enough ability DE could choose on some frames.

Hoarders and collectors are actually not really that better off since they probably build another copy while others just scrap their regular frames because they want to keep their collection of built regular frames - at least I do. I'm already building like 20 frames and let them sit in the foundry until it's feeding time. I plan to re-farm and pre-build the majority of frames before the update. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it's not really that beneficial for hoarders in this instance.

They also said that this system - obviously honestly - isn't made with new players in mind. For once older players get something for specifically them and the mountain of resources they sit on. That's good to me.

[Aadi880]

il y a 22 minutes, KVenom a dit :

But don't you wanna have more fun with this feature,

Lets be real here.

Majority of the warframe players are NOT this kind of people.

On some devstream in the future, Reb's gonna show a chart and see that mesa's pacemaker and Saryn's spores are the most popular, taking up over 80% to 90% of that usage chart, and then they'll nerf them.

I would rather avoid this situation.

I am completely fine with DE using underused abilities as transferable, because these abilities most likely are better suited to someone else. (Pull octavia instead of resonator, now she's does even more damage. Smite infusion on Titania: now she can deal with eidolons without external buffs).

Any ability that's unpopular would be meaning that the ability is poor, and can't compete in the class of underused abilities. More likely that DE will buff them rather nerfing already underused abilities.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I'm not optimistic about this feature at all, but now I'm seeing posts that there's confirmation from Pablo that not all abilities will be be converted exactly the same. This was in reference to frames like Limbo and Grendel who have no reasonably transferable abilities, but that still changes things a bit. More powerful abilities can be potential donations, with balancing adjustments to them.

So maybe we'll get more interesting abilities after all, because if they're all just replacing this frame's crappy ability with that frame's crappy ability...then I'm opting out...

[Xepthrichros]

So your idea is instead of 1 ability donated over, each frame gives out 2, or can have 2 replaced. Your suggestion still won't solve the problem though. Because there are many frames that have 2 mediocre abilities anyway. Giving out 2 won't fix much. 

The helminth system in general feels unnecessary to be frank. I don't have a high hype level for it. 

[-NEP-ImAlreadyTracer]

The only problem that I have is that I can already see only a few abilities being useful and people won't be using other abilities, like who would use any of Inaros's abilities on another frame?

[Lutesque]

Im against this whole thing simply because I think carefully thought out reworks are a better alternative...

[selig_fay]

4 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

On some devstream in the future, Reb's gonna show a chart and see that mesa's pacemaker and Saryn's spores are the most popular, taking up over 80% to 90% of that usage chart, and then they'll nerf them.

Two words. ESO and the scarlet spear. I don't often see Saryn or Mesa outside of their niche. But I see Inaros very often. So when are we nerf Inaros?

[Aadi880]

il y a 16 minutes, selig_fay a dit :

Two words. ESO and the scarlet spear. I don't often see Saryn or Mesa outside of their niche. But I see Inaros very often. So when are we nerf Inaros?

I don't think this has anything to do with what's being discussed here.

[selig_fay]

1 minute ago, Aadi880 said:

I don't think this has anything to do with what's being discussed here.

I think this has to do with the popularity chart that you mentioned when you discussed what is being discussed here.

[Aadi880]

à l’instant, selig_fay a dit :

I think this has to do with the popularity chart that you mentioned when you discussed what is being discussed here.

Oh?

Well, think about it in this way. If Mag gave 2 abilities, what would they be? pull and...?

Mate, a warframe like Mesa getting Magnetize or Polarize is going to be a nuke that scales effectively to infinity (in other words, level 10000, which is the cap). Polarize will strip all armor and shields, and getting magnetize is self explanatory on what would happen. Majority of warframes have 3 abilities that are useful with one more of a utility. Some have all 4. Others have 2. The potential problem here by allowing 2 abilities won't take long to be realised by the devs if it goes live.

What if Revenant gets Magnetize? And then Reaves through everyone?

Not only that, but you can have CONFIGURATIONS. Meaning you can have Magnetize AND Polarize on every warframe.

There won't be in a niche anymore, purely because it is less likely a warframe has 2 mediocre abilities, and with the same abilities being copy pasta-ed because it can scale infinitely.

 

Either that, or I still do not understand what you are asking me for.

[selig_fay]

2 minutes ago, Aadi880 said:

Mate, a warframe like Mesa getting Magnetize or Polarize is going to be a nuke that scales effectively to infinity (in other words, level 10000, which is the cap).

You don't need peacemakers to do this. Melee will still be more effective than this.

3 minutes ago, Aadi880 said:

Polarize will strip all armor and shields

400 shields / armor on the base ability. Even if there are 1200 shields/armor, it's not even close to how useful Hildryn 2 will be.

5 minutes ago, Aadi880 said:

What if Revenant gets Magnetize? And then Reaves through everyone?

May be. But I think it's still not that important, because people are easily killing 9999 levels as Mag already.

10 minutes ago, Aadi880 said:

Not only that, but you can have CONFIGURATIONS. Meaning you can have Magnetize AND Polarize on every warframe.

There won't be in a niche anymore, purely because it is less likely a warframe has 2 mediocre abilities, and with the same abilities being copy pasta-ed because it can scale infinitely.

It sounds like you can put all the abilities in the game. As far as I understand, the TS says that each frame can give multiple abilities to choose from, but you are still left with a tougher choice because you can only change 1 of your ability. I don't see anything wrong with that. Strong frames are already OP, so this will change a strong ability to another strong ability. On the other hand, are you worried that weak frames will finally get strong synergies? 

I see a different situation where I can play any frame and still perform the specific role that the team expects of me, instead of taking a specific frame for a specific task. I mean, I can configure a single frame that I like with different configurations for different tasks, and that's great. I don't care what the meta is.

On the other hand, TS talks about fun builds that won't be too effective, but that either give a lot of gameplay or are just memes. If you are worried that your builds will be too broken, DE can always block a certain transfer ability for a specific frame. But I don't want it to not happen just because meta might be, even though we don't even know it, because we can't be in the future. Actually, Octavia is the frame that has almost all the meta stuff, but I don't see many players playing on it.

 

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

I mean yeah there's ways it can go wrong.  But I want to see the list of abilities first.  Having something like Greedy pull for Mesa already sounds quite appealing.  I also really like that it's a system specifically aimed to not be for newer players.  This means it can be totally niche and something for long time players without having to mess with the ecosystem of the main game where newer players are.

[Kaggelos]

7 hours ago, KVenom said:

Or should I mention Railjack, Liches, etc.?
Yeah, no one plays those anymore.

I do. Still love them ^^

Doesnt change the fact that we need more content in RJ and Lich combat is still kinda bugy (grabs you from 10 meters away).

[TheEternalBurden]

Ok first post on the forum lets go. 

 

So 2 extra ability wont work in a lot of ways, it will only strangle the system. It needs to be built around the idea that a lot of warframes have abilities that are similar to one another in effect, Invisibility is the best example for this. 

Not all warframes change if they turn invisible, say a rhino being invisible changes the game little but its useful, and for the hole system thing to work well both from a bug fixing and game balance it needs to be injecting the no fluff but good invisibility ability making it accessible to the players who want invisibility but not overly powerful or maniacally complicated. 

So Lokis invisibility is added. repeat this for the other classes of ability like CC, Durability, Support, single target damage, Nuking ECT. 

This mindset of what is good and worth using but not the best thing of its class is the only way to have a not broken system. 

Once they have this kind of archetypes of ability established its about adding side grades that are not meaningfully better or worse like Ashes smoke cloud. The ability in the transfer system need to be balanced  next to each other not warframe ability on a hole. My biggest fear with this is that we will have three or for ability on every frame like say shock with shock trouper because non of the rest of the ability are comparable to about a mods worth of electric damage. 

[Orfeusz]

Well, I wouldn't call it boring, rather extremely bad designed in relation to Warframe's economy system and players' time investment to the game. The idea is good, but the implementation is not (or I should say the rules that we are meant to follow when using this Helminth transfer). Best comparison ? It's kinda like focus system from Second Dream, as it was on launch, before all changes - grindy, beyond limits of sanity and all the grind  with little to no rewards. And what about Ability Transfer ? (because I said "it's kinda like...") It's much worse ; _ ; It needs some reworks and redesings, even before launch with Heart of Deimos.

The largest waste of potential for this system manifests in it's "one time usage" nature. Change 1 ability for 1 warframe, for good, and it does not help that you can transfer certain ability to only chosen configs. Solution ? Make it modular, just like modding, players will invest resources to unlock and upgrade Helminth's abilities or warframe's abilities instead of using them to install 1 ability on 1 frame. Therefore, after unlocking, we are free to switch between unlocked abilities without costs, as easy as changing mods in arsenal. Unlocked abilities are available for all your warframes. Oh, and maybe add an additional fifth slot for Helminth's abilities only. Excessive grind beyond limits of sanity ? Solved. Fun, enjoyment, satisfaction ? Added. Respect to players' time investment to the game? Sure... well, not exactly, there is one problem.

Everything is probably coded as it is right now or done in 70% and DE don't have time to recode or code this system again, almost form scratches, just to implement such big changes. I belive that Ability Transfer has been tied to configs, so there is nothing we can do. 

In short words, current version of Ability Transfer is unhealthy for customization depth that Waframe has to offer and is not fair for players. If anyone wants to try all possible combinations of powers on every warframe, how much time and resources will it cost ? Too much, we could be building new warframes (to try these combinations) for our entire life and it still won't be enough. 

[selig_fay]

23 minutes ago, Orfeusz said:

The largest waste of potential for this system manifests in it's "one time usage" nature.

A new warframe is coming out, and you'll want to know what ability you can transfer, so you'll use it again and again.

[(PSN)Unstar]

8 hours ago, KVenom said:

Not only it will require additional analytic work from DE's own personell, it will also mean that the abilities obtained will be mediocre.
Meaning that you must do parts 1&2, and already have a limitation in part 4. In short terms: too much effort for not much of a reward.

Trust me when I say that if you were able to think of this within a few days, the devs and designers at DE definitely thought of this in the months of time they've devoted to designing and implementing it.  I think you're reaching a bit far suggesting that you know better about how much work this system will take to manage than the people whose job it literally is to manage this.

[Aadi880]

Il y a 9 heures, selig_fay a dit :

Strong frames are already OP, so this will change a strong ability to another strong ability. On the other hand, are you worried that weak frames will finally get strong synergies? 

Oh no, not weak warframes getting strong synergies, problem is, well,  that just won't happen.

Rather, a warframe being jack of all, master of all is one I'm not comfortable with. Such a warframe is not going to end well to the game as a whole.

Even already OP warframes are not free from one bad ability that players would want to replace. Weak warframes with strong synergies will not have any place in the game if another warframe can do the same thing better, and also do other things as well. Players will pick that option just because it won't involve changing loadouts.

transferring 2 abilities is more than likely to cause this issue with the number of warframes that are currently in the game right now.

Also, what do you mean by "TS"?

[Benaful]

i love how we can add the bad skills of a frame to other frames, like trinity well of life, it wont brake any frame, is S#&$ in trinity but its useful in a lot of frames,now a lot of not used skills will be useful, and some build can use some skills, for example my nova prime teleportation is horrible, be cause narrow minded, now i can use Nezha Firewalk to cover up the mobility :D, i love this idea, and now people will actually farm normal frames even if they have the prime version more often.

[selig_fay]

4 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

Even already OP warframes are not free from one bad ability that players would want to replace. Weak warframes with strong synergies will not have any place in the game if another warframe can do the same thing better, and also do other things as well. Players will pick that option just because it won't involve changing loadouts.

This is your opinion. I think people don't need strong frames to play this game.

4 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

Also, what do you mean by "TS"?

Topic starter

4 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

ransferring 2 abilities is more than likely to cause this issue with the number of warframes that are currently in the game right now.

Well, I don't think it has to be 2 abilities. I just think it shouldn't be limited. But to be honest, I'll be fine with even 1 ability if they don't rig the nerf into the ground.