Warframe Rebalance // Progenitor Elements: Lack of choices/diversity.

[bnuy]

Progenitor Bonuses

With the release of Progenitor weapons most people's initial thought was "Why can I only get these specific elements?"
The reasoning for this was likely balance, DE didn't care to fix up status procs and damage types so they simply only allowed bonuses that aren't seen as OP meta options. This itself is a flawed implementation, as you are actively ignoring the state of imbalance and building upon it adding even more imbalanced systems.

Despite balance being the likely reason for having such narrow elemental choice, I ended up thinking on it lots and came to the conclusion that it must have been to allow room for unique elements among each faction. This theory was proven wrong with the release of Parvos Sisters, and now it's very clear the only reason for the elemental choice being so narrow is balance.

Balance aside, one way to fix this issue would be allowing us to get any element as a Progenitor bonus, on any weapon. Another would be to make each faction's Progenitor bonuses be somewhat unique to grant them options the others do not have access to.

All elements or unique elements?
There are two ways to fix up these arbitrary elemental choices Progenitor weapons have.

1. ) Change Progenitors of all factions to have access to every element.
2. ) Change Progenitors of each faction to have access to a few unique elements the other factions don't.

 

Option 1: How to implement all elements as Progenitor choices.

Spoiler

Reworking Progenitor elemental bonuses granted by all Warframes is the only requirement to implement this new more diverse player choice.
I have gone through and picked new elements for all appropriate cases, the list is below.

• Baruuk: Impact
• Wukong: Impact
• Zephyr: Impact
• Atlas: Impact
• Mesa: Impact
   
• Ivara: Puncture
• Khora: Puncture
• Gara: Puncture
• Banshee: Puncture
   
• Ash: Slash
• Equinox: Slash
• Garuda: Slash
• Valkyr: Slash
   
• Volt: Electricity
• Loki: Electricity
• Trinity: Electricity
• Vauban: Electricity
   
• Frost: Cold
• Limbo: Cold
• Titania: Cold
• Sevagoth: Cold
   
• Chroma: Heat
• Ember: Heat
• Nezha: Heat
• Protea: Heat
   
• Grendel: Toxin
• Mirage: Toxin
• Wisp: Toxin
• Nyx: Toxin
   
• Mag: Magnetic
• Hildryn: Magnetic
• Harrow: Magnetic
• Revenant: Radiation
• Nova: Radiation
• Oberon: Radiation
   
• Gauss: Blast
• Rhino: Blast
• Caliban: Blast
   
• Inaros: Corrosive
• Hydroid: Corrosive
• Yareli: Corrosive
   
• Nidus: Viral
• Saryn: Viral
• Harrow: Viral
   
• Nekros: Gas
• Lavos: Gas
• Octavia: Gas
   
• Xaku: Void

 

Option 2: How to implement unique Progenitor elements. 

Spoiler

Unique Progenitor Bonuses per Faction

Why should we make Progenitor bonuses unique per faction?

1. Giving each faction unique progenitor bonuses would add more of a unique identity to them, instead of all of these progenitor bonus weapons feeling similar.
2. It would add more diversity to the weapons present in the game.
3. From a lore perspective it makes sense, each faction prioritizing different elements that are effective against their enemies. (we already see this in weapon design)
4. It just feels fresh and fun!

Something I always found strange since the release of Parvos Sisters and Tenet weapons was that the elements they can get are identical to the Kuva weapons.

I feel this is strange because the Kuva weapons don't have access to every element, and we knew we would get Lich systems for more factions, so it made sense that DE was saving specific elements for the other factions. This not only makes sense because of this, but also because each factions weaponry is different. The Grineer and Corpus are the main opposing factions of each other, and their weaponry is generally tuned for fighting one another as a result. On grineer you mainly see impact type weaponry for dealing with the Corpus' shields, and on Corpus you see plenty of puncture weaponry to deal with armour.

3 IPS types: one per faction.
4 Base Elements: every faction has access to all of them.
6 Combined Elements: two per faction.

It breaks down perfectly, each faction will have access to three elements the others will not.
Now when we break it down this way, it actually seems like the Grineer have their elements specifically chosen by the devs to be tuned for fighting the Corpus, their main opposing faction.

Grineer:

• Impact: strongest against shields, with general utility.
• Radiation: strong against robotics, a great element for fighting Corpus. (Grineer need radiation to shred through robotics)
• Magnetic: strongest element for damaging shields. (Grineer need magnetic to shred through Corpus shielding)

Corpus:

• Puncture: strongest against armour, with general utility.
• Corrosive: (meant to be) strongest against armour, a great all rounder for fighting Grineer. (Corpus need corrosive to be effective against Grineer armour)
• Blast: strongest element for machinery health type used among Grineer. (Corpus need blast to be effective against Machinery health that Grineer have)

Infested:

• Slash: general damage type for health and armour.
• Viral: strongest against health, thematically relevant to infested (toxic type elements).
• Gas: strongest against health types, thematically relevant to infested (toxic type elements).

How to Convert Them
After some discussion it's become increasingly clear players would not want their weapons to randomly be changed without their input. Due to this I've compiled a short list of potential implementation methods to convert the old Tenet/progenitor element system to the one proposed here.

1. ) Convert all existing Tenet weapons to their new elements, no player choice.
2. ) Give a one time prompt, upon selecting valence on these weapons, either keep the legacy/"retired" element, or convert to a new element.
3. ) Keep legacy/"retired" element on all previously existing Tenet weapons, and convert all newly made ones to the new element system.

Potential Status Rework to avoid imbalances.
A reason lots of people seem to disagree with this idea simply because it would lead to specific elements being the only viable choice, and pushing the rest out of use. While this is true, we already currently see this with progenitor bonus weapons anyway. The meta is toxin on just about everything that has a progenitor bonus. Despite this already being the case, I do hope for better balance among status types, so I've summarized my status rework and compiled it below in the spoiler section.

Spoiler

• Impact: Crowd Control, Mercy Finishers
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc increases the enemy's Mercy Finisher threshold.
    • threshold +(3 * [1 + impact modifier] *  n)% of maximum health
      • this can once again affect all units, not just heavies
      • this means with 10 procs you will be able to perform a mercy finisher on any enemy below 30% max health
      • n = number of impact procs affecting target
  • Every proc has a disabling effect depending on the body part it was triggered on.
    • head-shot: blinded
      • potential to grant you finishers or stealth damage bonus
    • torso: stumble back, staggering any other enemies contacted during the stumble
      • potential for group stun if falling into other enemies
      • airborne enemies will be knocked to ground briefly instead of staggered
    • legs: trips the enemy/knocks them over
      • potential to entirely lock enemies in place if you impact proc their legs/feet
        
         
• Puncture: Resistance Ignore / Punch Through
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc creates a small visual marker around the point of impact called a "tear".
    • tears have a radius of 0.25 meters
    • tears can overlap/stack, and are affected by energy colour
    • no cap on how many tears there can be on an enemy, but your damage can only be affected by up to 10 at a time
  • Targeting a tear grants bonus effects to your attack.
    • attacks will have punch through when targeting tears (for that enemy only)
      • this punch through does not apply to explosive weapons
      • melee is instead granted 1.00 follow through, as opposed to punch through
    • damage has a +(3 * [1 + puncture modifier] *  n)% bonus to all damage type modifiers
      • this means your procs change the damage type modifiers such as the -50% that
        puncture suffers against proto shields, and the -75% electricity suffers against alloy
      • n = number of tears your bullet hits at the point of impacting the enemy
        
         
• Slash: "True" Damage over Time 
  • Stacking, no cap.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc triggers a damage over time effect called "bleed".
    • 25.0% base damage * (1 + slash modifier)
      • 4 ticks per second
    • proc damage ignores damage type modifiers
      • this means your proc damage is not affected by damage type modifiers such as
        the -50% that slash suffers against alloy
        
         
• Heat: Debuff / Damage over Time 
  • Stacking, no cap.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc triggers a damage over time effect called "burn".
    • 25.0% base damage * (1 + heat modifier)
      • 4 ticks per second
    • all incoming heat damage is affected by "heat build-up"
      • heat damage dealt = (1 + [bU / 32])
        • bU = heat build-up
        • bU = 3.125% per tick, 12.5% increase per second
      • each tick increases build-up by 1, until the enemy is entirely cleansed of heat procs
        
         
• Cold: Crowd Control / Damage
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc adds a stack of the "frost" debuff to the target.
    • enemies are slowed by (10 * n)%
      • n = number of frost stacks affecting target
    • these stacks fall off one at a time instead of all at once
    • at 10 stacks enemies are encased in ice and afflicted with "permafrost"
  • Enemies afflicted by permafrost turn into a solid pillar of ice, receiving increase damage, and applying cold to nearby enemies.
    • all damage instances to affect an enemy afflicted by permafrost will have the following formula applied and then dealt as a separate instance of cold damage with 0% status chance.
      • cold damage instance = damage taken * (0.5 * [1 + cold modifier])
    • ice pillars emit an aura of frost that over time afflicts nearby enemies with cold build-up
      • frost zones have a radius of 2.5 meters
      • frost zones apply 1 cold proc to all enemies inside once per second until they expire
      • enemies that die while under the effects of permafrost have the ice pillar stay in place for the remainder of it's duration
        
         
• Electricity: Area of Effect Damage
  • No stacking.
  • Procs have no duration.
  • Every proc triggers an effect called "shock".
    • deals 100.0% base damage * (1 + electricity modifier)
    • every proc creates an arc of electricity that chains to 4 random enemies within 8.0 meters
      • arc beam has a radius of 0.3 meters
      • any targets caught in the arc will be inflicted the damage
        
         
• Toxin: Debuff / Damage over Time
  • Stacking, no cap.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc triggers a damage over time effect called "poison".
    • 25.0% base damage * (1 + toxin modifier)
      • 4 ticks per second
  • Enemies afflicted by "poison" have all health regeneration and healing effects reduced by 100%.
    
     
• Viral: Debuff / Self Buff 
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc applies one stack of the "illness" debuff.
    • increases all incoming damage to the target's health by (20 * n)%
      • n = number of viral procs affecting target
        
         
• Corrosive: Debuff / Self Buff 
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc applies one stack of the "corrode" debuff.
    • increases all incoming damage to the target's armour by (20 * n)%
      • n = number of corrosive procs affecting target
        
         
• Magnetic: Debuff / Self Buff
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc applies one stack of the "static" debuff.
    • increases all incoming damage to the targets shields by (20 * n)%
      • n = number of magnetic procs affecting target
  • Every proc grants the Tenno the "leech" buff.
    • regenerate 1.5 + (2 * electricity modifier) energy per second for 4 + (2 * cold modifier) seconds.
    • this buff cannot stack, subsequent procs will refresh the duration
      
       
• Gas: Area of Effect / Damage over Time
  • Stacking, no cap.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc triggers a gas cloud that follows the affected enemy dealing damage over time, and lingers for it's full duration upon death.
    • 25.0% base damage * (1 + toxin modifier)
      • 4 ticks per second
    • clouds have a radius of (4 + heat modifier) meters
      
       
• Blast: Area of Effect / Damage
  • No stacking.
  • Every proc deals immediate damage in the area surrounding the target.
    • deals 100.0% of base damage * (1 + cold modifier)
    • blast radius of 4 * (1 + heat modifier) meters
  • Procs ragdoll/knock down all enemies caught in the blast.
     
• Radiation: Crowd Control / Area of Effect / Damage over Time
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc applies one stack of the "confusion" debuff.
    • confusion makes the target faction neutral, they can receive damage
      from and deal damage to anything
    • forces the nearest unit(s) to attack the target
      • taunt affects the nearest 1 + (n / 3) units within 20.0 meters
        • n = number of radiation procs affecting target
      • taunt also affects main target itself, it will be forced to attack the nearest unit
  • Irradiated enemies absorb incoming damage and project it outward in a damaging aura.
    • while an enemy is irradiated, all incoming damage is stored
    • aura deals 100% * [1+ electricity modifier] of stored damage per second
      • 4 ticks per second 25% stored damage per tick
      • all damage dealt to target is stored, this includes critical
        hits as well as damage from status procs
    • aura has a radius of (2 + heat modifier) meters
      
       
• Void: Debuffer / Utility
  • Stacking, cap of 10.
  • Procs have a duration of 4 seconds.
  • Every proc triggers a bullet attractor around the impacted area.
    • bullet attractor absorbs all bullet that enter
  • Every proc adds a stack of "void decay".
    • decay reduces the enemy's current and max health, armour and shields by 3.5% per stack
      • enemy current health, armour & shields = current * (1 - [0.035 * {1 + void modifier}])
        • by 10 procs the target will have 30.0% reduced total health, armour, and shields
        • n = number of void procs affecting target

 

[krc473]

1 hour ago, bnuy said:

Convert all existing Tenet weapons with impact, radiation, or magnetic bonuses to a new type.

•  

I doubt people would appreciate having their weapons changed like this. I would much rather have a radiation based weapon than a blasted based one.

 

I don't mind having what FUTURE Sisters use changed. Do note that DE would also have to change what Ephemera were on offer.

[bnuy]

8 minutes ago, krc473 said:

I doubt people would appreciate having their weapons changed like this. I would much rather have a radiation based weapon than a blasted based one.

 

I don't mind having what FUTURE Sisters use changed. Do note that DE would also have to change what Ephemera were on offer.

The only reason you wouldn't want blast is because it's just bad right now. If blast were actually useful no one would mind having it, imagine if blast procs just triggered instant AOE damage.

100 base damage -> proc blast -> all enemies within 3m radius are hit with 100 blast damage

Would this still bother you if blast were good, like in the bit I explained above?

[bnuy]

10 minutes ago, krc473 said:

I doubt people would appreciate having their weapons changed like this. I would much rather have a radiation based weapon than a blasted based one.

 

I don't mind having what FUTURE Sisters use changed. Do note that DE would also have to change what Ephemera were on offer.

Oh I missed the Ephemera bit. They wouldn't need to change them, just reword the descriptions of the impact, radiation, and magnetic ones to reflect their new elements. Keep the ephemeras but change them to the other elements, simple.

[Lutesque]

But I like my Radiation Envoy and my Magnetic Detron and Plasmor 😥 !!!

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

The issue is that innate Corrosive would overshadow all the other elements. Corrosive + Viral is a really strong combo. Also, Puncture is just a straight up an inferior Corrosive; weaker bonus against Ferrite and a useless proc. At least Impact stagger offers something over Magnetic, Puncture's damage debuff is unnecessary at low levels and useless at high levels.

[bnuy]

1 hour ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

The issue is that innate Corrosive would overshadow all the other elements. Corrosive + Viral is a really strong combo. Also, Puncture is just a straight up an inferior Corrosive; weaker bonus against Ferrite and a useless proc. At least Impact stagger offers something over Magnetic, Puncture's damage debuff is unnecessary at low levels and useless at high levels.

Yeah, there are balance issues with this suggestion, but only because the statuses are so imbalanced currently. These changes would encourage DE to implement a proper status rework so there are no procs that always overshadow the rest, but that is asking a lot of DE even though I've written up an entire rework to status procs already as well.

[LillyRaccune]

This makes sense. Sign me up. I don't like how "Sisters of Parvos" are really just glorified Corpus Liches with the exact same damage bonuses.

On the other hand if leaving the system as it is makes it easier to add more factions to the kingpin/lich system, I might be more inclined to accept the blatant similarities.

Looking forward to Infested/Zealots-of-Arlo liches and Corrupted liches (also looking forward to hearing their monologues).

"Tenno use the keys, but they are mere trespassers. Only I, [Deedo Doskuub], know the true power of the Void."

[Tiltskillet]

8 hours ago, bnuy said:

Convert all existing Tenet weapons with impact, radiation, or magnetic bonuses to a new type.

I like a lot of your proposals, but not this one.  Converting pre-existing weapons to new bonuses would irritate a lot of people.  And even though it wouldn't necessarily be a nerf if your status proposals also happened, I find the approach troubling in a way that I wouldn't a change that was just a reasonable or semi-reasonable nerf.  Altering people's stuff because its overpowered or has unintended effects is one thing;  altering to make a system feel more symmetrical, lore appropriate and  "fresh and fun!" is another.  

So if this didn't come with some sort of compensation for people with affected weapons, I feel it would be a big mistake.  It might be a mistake anyway, because reasonable or not, people get attached to their weapons.  And it's not always about stats or compensation.

Safest bet is to keep the original element on legacy weapons.  Or, even better yet but more trouble, give people a one-time option to convert or not.

Couple of other things:

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see a proposal for changing the progenit...progenita...progenitialnationalization system.   Would you just convert existing frames to the new bonuses when they're spawning Candidates?   So for instance, Mag would have two possible bonuses:  Magnetic with Larvlings, and one of the three new possibilities with Candidates?

I didn't look over the status suggestions very carefully, but I'll just note on puncture that punch through is usually an unpleasant negative on weapons with AoE components, and that it does nothing for melee.  The latter is maybe addressable via  Follow Through instead.  Maybe.  But AoE would need some special treatment for sure.

[bnuy]

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

I like a lot of your proposals, but not this one.  Converting pre-existing weapons to new bonuses would irritate a lot of people.  And even though it wouldn't necessarily be a nerf if your status proposals also happened, I find the approach troubling in a way that I wouldn't a change that was just a reasonable or semi-reasonable nerf.  Altering people's stuff because its overpowered or has unintended effects is one thing;  altering to make a system feel more symmetrical, lore appropriate and  "fresh and fun!" is another.  

So if this didn't come with some sort of compensation for people with affected weapons, I feel it would be a big mistake.  It might be a mistake anyway, because reasonable or not, people get attached to their weapons.  And it's not always about stats or compensation.

Safest bet is to keep the original element on legacy weapons.  Or, even better yet but more trouble, give people a one-time option to convert or not.

Yeah, you bring up some very good points.

I dislike leaving "legacy items" in the game, for the sake of people not feeling like they missed out by playing with the systems earlier.
For this instance though, I think this might be the best way to go about it. Like you said, even if the new elements are useful, it would be a lot of cognitive dissonance on like "what happened to my gear???" we already get enough of that with other rebalance tweaks.

I like your suggestion to offer a one time transfer, that sounds like a very reasonable approach. Keep the old elements as legacy weapons for those that wish, and then align the new system to this new philosophy.
 

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

Couple of other things:

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see a proposal for changing the progenit...progenita...progenitialnationalization system.   Would you just convert existing frames to the new bonuses when they're spawning Candidates?   So for instance, Mag would have two possible bonuses:  Magnetic with Larvlings, and one of the three new possibilities with Candidates?

I didn't look over the status suggestions very carefully, but I'll just note on puncture that punch through is usually an unpleasant negative on weapons with AoE components, and that it does nothing for melee.  The latter is maybe addressable via  Follow Through instead.  Maybe.  But AoE would need some special treatment for sure.

Progenitors could either be changed up entirely to more appropriately match the elements of different factions, but my assumption was just keep all the progenitors the same but simply swap the elements that will be removed to the new ones.
So like I explained, converting weapons from say magnetic to corrosive, this would also mean any progenitor that would grant magnetic for Kuva Liches will instead grant corrosive for Parvos Sisters.

On puncture, those are also good points. I did forget to add a note for explosives not working with the forced punch through. The follow through is a good idea though, so I think I will add another little note to address that. 

[krc473]

8 hours ago, bnuy said:

The only reason you wouldn't want blast is because it's just bad right now. If blast were actually useful no one would mind having it, imagine if blast procs just triggered instant AOE damage.

100 base damage -> proc blast -> all enemies within 3m radius are hit with 100 blast damage

Would this still bother you if blast were good, like in the bit I explained above?

My issue wasn’t about thinking blast was bad. It was that radiation is better. If all the elements were roughly on par with each other you could probably get away with changing them. I do think there is a reason we are missing some damage types (like slash) from the pool of what is available. DE probably realises that some of them would just be too much better than the others to have.

• Blast could be as good as you want, but I still would not want my existing weapons automatically swapped to it.

The ephemeras have visuals vaguely based off the element they use. You cannot just change the descriptions for them, whole new effects need to be made. Edit: I don’t mean get rid of, or swap the ones people already have. More just give us new ones that relate to the new elements.

[bnuy]

3 minutes ago, krc473 said:

My issue wasn’t about thinking blast was bad. It was that radiation is better. If all the elements were roughly on par with each other you could probably get away with changing them. I do think there is a reason we are missing some damage types (like slash) from the pool of what is available. DE probably realises that some of them would just be too much better than the others to have.

• Blast could be as good as you want, but I still would not want my existing weapons automatically swapped to it.

Totally valid, and I refer you to the above post where I break down some potential options for player choice while also implementing this system.
Also just updated the post to reflect these potential methods of implementing this change for the players.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

22 hours ago, LillyRaccune said:

This makes sense. Sign me up. I don't like how "Sisters of Parvos" are really just glorified Corpus Liches with the exact same damage bonuses.

On the other hand if leaving the system as it is makes it easier to add more factions to the kingpin/lich system, I might be more inclined to accept the blatant similarities.

Looking forward to Infested/Zealots-of-Arlo liches and Corrupted liches (also looking forward to hearing their monologues).

"Tenno use the keys, but they are mere trespassers. Only I, [Deedo Doskuub], know the true power of the Void."

I'm so going to have nothing but infested liches on my railjack, infested ftw

[LillyRaccune]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

I'm so going to have nothing but infested liches on my railjack, infested ftw

What "kind" of infested lich were you thinking of? I would dig a monstery lich:

Art by @N4n0-1805

[Kaichi16]

unless we get a huge rebalance of elements, this would make people focus on viral weapons and ignore all others

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

9 hours ago, LillyRaccune said:

What "kind" of infested lich were you thinking of? I would dig a monstery lich:

Art by @N4n0-1805

Just about anything creepy looking works for me 💙💙💙 Spiders, rotting looking Demonic werewolves (I love wolves), Flying vampire looking creatures

Would take it all

And first weapon I'd want from them is a buffed Keratinos, my current favorite melee weapon

[Andele3025]

Congratulations, you made a element to frame list even less logical than the official one.

[bnuy]

4 hours ago, Kaichi16 said:

unless we get a huge rebalance of elements, this would make people focus on viral weapons and ignore all others

I have included a status rebalance in the post, it's in the second spoilered section at the bottom. You are correct though, the current status procs are too imbalanced for people to not just go for a specific one all of the time, which is viral. As explained however, this is already present, in the form of toxin being meta on just about every Progenitor weapon.
 

58 minutes ago, Andele3025 said:

Congratulations, you made a element to frame list even less logical than the official one.

If you think about it for more than a second you'd realize DE did this to balance the number of progenitors for each element.
Going through and only assigning elements that felt "appropriate" quickly lead to 90% of frames taking up like only 2 or 3 of the potential elements.
This would be a very bad mechanic for newer players, and players lacking large sets of Warframes to use.

Oh you don't have the single frame that grants corrosive to Progenitor weapons? Sucks to be you!

That is why I chose to instead balance mainly over breaking it up evenly, I did still mainly pick elements that felt relevant, but for some I had to assign based on making all groups somewhat balanced.