HELMINTH - legacy, reworks, and resource sink

[NovusKnight]

I view Helminthvas a great idea with poor execution. After using the system a fair bit and having plenty of fun with new playstyles, I am unable to ignore how actually flawed it all is... And I thought of what it COULD HAVE BEEN.

 

how would I have designed the Helminth system?

1 - do away with arbitrary 'this operation requires X% of each resource'. Now, all operations ALWAYS require 100% of all resources, at once. Subsuming a warframe is much more expensive now, and so are other operations.

2 - get rid of the diminishing returns in feeding helminth. Pointless timegating and an abusive use of player frustration. Every feeding stays at the normal value of 15% a click, not increasing or decreasing with use.

3 - abilities no longer have a cost to being infused. You can inject an ability, remove it, replace it as many times as you want, with no extra cost. You can, finally, be creative and not get pidgeonholed into the meta choices.

4 - each warframe has 3 config slots... each slot takes 100% of each resource to unlock as a useable helminth alternative. In other words, you have a single-time investment to unlock a config slot for unlimited helminth swapping. It hits you much harder than a single infusion currently does, but it is a permanent unlock, in a system that no longer has a cost for trying things. Unlocking all 3 configs means you can maintain THREE alternative infused abilities at all times. And freely swap them around as needed, without further costs.

 

5 - use the data on most replaced abilities per frame to do a rework pass. It's logical that the most replaced abilities will be the least useful ones, meaning they need a tune up to be considered desirable. Otherwise they are non-content. Look at Chroma. He does not have 4 abilities, he has two. don't kneejerk nerf; instead, buff the bad stuff. put the stuff on test server, that's what it exists for. From number tweaking to mechanical changes, use this system as a source of actual data on what needs a touch up. 

 

6 - since there are no more costs to infusing abilities for fun... Put here abilities that would otherwise only be kept as memes during reworks, or that were replaced in the past. Long Jump? Jump Pad? A nerfed World On Fire? Limbo's old movespeed+attspeed voidwalk ability? And in the future, instead of clinging to clearly bad abilities during a rework, actually replace them, instead putting them here as an option that is unlocked when the warframe is subsumed. Example: Instead of shoe-horning Vector Pad - a crap ability that is at best a meme drop on jump pads from before - make it a helminth option that exists when you subsume vauban, appearing alongside Tesla nervos. Often these throwaway abilities are redundant or simply outdated - not necessarily just terrible, and sometimes they have function with other frames. Vector pad + grendel, to mega catapult yourself, WOULD be valid - or at least fun, and you would not be slapped in the wrist if you tried and didn't like it.

 

7 - sentient appetite now charges to 100%, and once a day, you can spend 100% of it to make **single** resource be worth 100% of its category, only once, during that day. If you are REALLY hurting on a resource, you can just use this to make it count! You can't however instantly fill everything to 100% at a fraction of the cost. 

 

8 - after unlocking all config options for infusion, allow us to enter a *second* infusion level by unlocking the ability to infuse TWO abilities per warframe. Doing this costs 3x 100% of your resources per slot, totalling 9 full stocks of helminth resources to finally, permanently, max out a specific frame and allow almost endless combinations.

 

 

the result of these changes would be a system that obliterates your resources - but does not force you to wait impatiently to progress. It gives you a much clearer goal to work towards every time. It allows you to play around and only invest as deeply as you are willing to invest. Are you a chroma main? Replace both abilities, but say goodbye to your resource stocks. Just want your mag to have larva for ONE build?... Pay it once, get it done... Maybe fool around now and then. Not your min frame, so you don't have a lot of builds, and there's no point in mega investing... Lastly, this would lead to wide scale rebalancing of crap abilities and also allow memery and fun to exist, separate from serious, functional reworks.

 

 

 

 

 

[Tesseract7777]

13 minutes ago, NovusKnight said:

8 - after unlocking all config options for infusion, allow us to enter a *second* infusion level by unlocking the ability to infuse TWO abilities per warframe. Doing this costs 3x 100% of your resources per slot, totalling 9 full stocks of helminth resources to finally, permanently, max out a specific frame and allow almost endless combinations.

 

 

 

 

 

I would put this is general, as this is general discussion (not the best place for feedback, they usually go looking in the forums below). 

That said, I read your ideas and I wanted to comment on that part I bolded:

I think the thing is, this is kind contraindicated by the part where you say they should use the data to give a balance pass. 

You start letting people change two or more abilities and not just one, and an already very hard balancing task becomes next to impossible.

It also gives them an easy bandaid on an already easy bandaid system, which will demotivate them, imo, or at least give them an excuse, to put off proper reworks and balance passes of older abilities. 

If I can remove two or more of the worst/most classic/in need of updating abilities from a frame that could use a rework, where is DE's motivation to fix that frame overall? I really think we should stick with changing just ONE of a warframes abilities per loadout at a time, in perpetuity. I really don't think that should ever change, and only bad things will come if it does.