Enjoying Protea A Lot (some feedback/suggestions)

[(PSN)f_r_e_e_b_i_e_bg]

Actually quite immensly :). Congrats on a greatly designed, interesting and yet another cool addition to the roster. Summary at the end.

I admit having a bit of a weakness to time bending gameplay mechanics in games, so that probably played a role (but for that ablity later).

I like that Protea is also easily distinguishable and have a clear silhouette and quirks that make her stand out - be that the turrets on her hips/back or the veil that adds a bit of mystery or an arabic trait. In terms of the model you guys somehow mange to create always a good looking body types that are not looking samey and that's also impressive and representative all those different women in the world.

 

Love her kit and abilities set. Besides the purely visual style - that I've praised thus far - the most important factor in a game is how your character/warframes plays. From my roster of WF's I've experienced so far I can notice that newer ones (understandably so?) play, feel, control a lot smoother or (at least a bit). The way Protea's abilities and casting flow is pleasure to witness. There is snese of fluidity that is not as easy to explain if you can experience it yourself.

 

I guess I'll stop drooling over and make a couple of suggestions that potentially can improve her or make her better (not power wise).

 

I have small issues with her first ability. The first is the fact that when you cast the ability you have to wait for the animation to finish before you change the direction you are aiming at. The way it functions now is a bit counterintuitive to how WF's pace, speed of movement and irratic action goes. You want to aim, cast and aim elsewhere. I'd love if the ability is changed to remember the point at which you were aiming in the moment of casting so you can look elsewhere while the animation finish. I think it's more of a quality of life change than anything else.

The other issue I have is with the second option that gives you or allies (companions) shileds/overshields. I love yellow/orange and maybe Protea's theme is yellowish/orangish in general, but the fact that both the damaging and the shield options have same colour makes it hard to distinguish despite having different animations. I am not gonna go again on rant of how WF have some real visual language issues that can be huge obsticles of helping new players and general comprehension of how things work (ok, ok).

What I'd change or love seeing is the colour of her shields/overshield option on her 1st ability to have a different colour - let's say purple (like the colour of overshields, or blue). It doesn't have to be overly strong. Even if only the circling grenedes had purple/blue color it would be enough. I know it ain't easy to make a game speaking with colours, especially one with so many, but I am still hopeful.

 

Her 2 is great, it looks great, it functions great (I was worried a bit about the angle bit, but thats a game in itself), it's very stark and esay to notice.

For Her 3 I prolly have nothing to say besides a funny noob/new level of outlook story about it. As I was starting with WF when she was releasing I found it weird that such a "boring" and nothing special ability would be good. I couldn't imagine/didn't know that actually resources like hp, energy and ammunitions can be this sparse.

Fastforward a few months later and I can see why it's such well recieved and considered amazing or just a great allrounder.

Ok minor suggestion, maybe the model is not very striking and can be too small. It's usually fine in confine spaces, but in open world you can lose sight of it rather easy (as many other things do so as well). WF's engine shows sign of weakness in how the size of the world compares to everything else defaulted to more closed space or linear level design.

 

Her 4th, the time bender. That such a cool as s ability which sadly I am not sure does much or at all (on certain fronts). I can imagine in terms of concept or theory it looke awesome - "and now she activates it and she is recording all her actions so when it ends or it's canceled she goes back in time with flash of big explosions following behind based on the damage she managed to do while active".

On theory sounds great, it is realized visually amazing, on practice you can't feel it does anything? I am not sure if it's entirely reliable safe/escape button as well, due to how sometime stuff in WF kills ya real fast. Or if it's even worth the escape as you are not quite escaping because you will end up in the same position. Thanks to the short invulnerable seconds it's actually functional to a degree and mostly due to the returned/used resources of energy, munitions or hp loss etc. The 2 later cases are the most frequent usage you will find out of it. At some point you might even not consider using it at all or even forget about it. Which makes me sad, cause it's awesome ability.

I do wonder what can make it better. I heard some of the popular suggestions of - make it like Tracer, returning back to your cast position in a game of WF where you mostly want go move forward is counterintuitive etc. I believe you devs prolly wanted your own spin of this mechanic and quite possibly want to keep it very similar. So I started thinking what currently can be done to be more effective (well stuff have to be tested but). The recording part is cool, the idea is sweet - activate it ramp up damage and after it ends/is canceled unleash all this damage on the remaining foes.

In reality that unfortunately ain't happening for a couple of reasons. One is because when you play Protea you use her 1 or 2 most of the time. Usually if its for more static/waiting situation you dop her 3 before. You rarely think or start with 4 unleash all your stuff - for that you have to have a moment, an opening. So when that moment happens what you end up getting is:

 A) You prolly already unloaded quite of the damage you had before, so when you press 4, the enemies you are about to use it on is either gone yet to spawn and more often than not you just end up using all the time for naught. Even if you mange to get some good damage returning to your activation point usually feels like just rewinding with no consequences for your enemies (at laest not very noticeable).

B) Your team mates most probably will slaugther everything that moves so you did miniscule damage and the end result is - nothing. Plus you are behind them trailing on top of that (unleas it's static objective)

Here's couple of paths or at laest test I feel can be interesting to see.

One is what if Protea was recording/accumulating/accounting for the damage she did a couple of seconds prior her activation of 4 as well coupled with how the rest of the ability works? Let's say 3-4 seconds accounted for the damge done as well. In that way you'd have gathered more functional and actual damage for the implosion after rewind and it will be more natural/less stress intensive - lets do all the damage in the world to nobody :(.

Another idea that came to mind while writing this is if she had a separate UI of damage muiltiplayer stored prior to activating her 4 which decays in time. It will be around her current UI with a circular form filling up. So when you activate it at least you know it's gonna have some impact coupled with the damage you've done. This one is abit of long streatch in will require more work, but hey.

Also maybe a bit of juggling with the stats of her 4 is the simplest solution - if you can notice the effect/changes that is. In the end I just wish such a lovely ability, and ultimate of all things to have it's uses/flashes of awesomeness besides - refilling and an "escape"/safe switch.

 

Summary:

Drooling over Protea

Her 1st ability should remember the position you were aiming when you cast it so you can look elsewhere while the animation finish instead of following crosshair after.

Her 1st's ability second option of generating shields/overshields needs to have different colour - blue(ish) or purple(ish) on the spinning grenades, refelecting the base colour and conotations we make when we think about shileds/overshields.

Her 3rd is not as easy to spot/is way to small in open world environments or very heavy VFX 4 party nonesense action (minour nitpick).

Her 4th is freaking amazing but can't be felt beside refilling energy/ammo/hp and escape/safe switch to a degree. The image of rewinding followed up by a bombardment of explosions ain't quite there both in efficiency and effect. Make her she records damage done a couple of seconds prior activating her 4 to count as well (3-4-5 seconds). Or a bit of re-deisign in adding damage multiplayer counter so the implosions are more effective after her 4 ends/is canceled. Or juggle with the stats of her 4.

Whatever, just make this awesome ability not the worse of her kit :)!

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

Very well done feedback, you covered all her issues and perks

Protea is indeed a sepcial warframe, and you can see the amount of attention DE gave her when she first came out, 2 alt helmets, a whole quest, and more details 

I also agree that temporal rewind is pleasing to looks at and time powers in general are freaking cool, but it's underused and needs more utility

 

All in all, i hope she gets an augment that redefines her the way accumulating whipclaw does to khora.

[(PSN)f_r_e_e_b_i_e_bg]

Thank you very much! Those write ups can take some time (for non-native english or for me at least) and I am happy when someone takes time to read it.

Protea is great - maybe her playstyle just suits me - and I am looking forward to upcoming Warframes and how they gonna fare (yet to build Xaku).

We will see what the future holds for lovely Protea :).