5 Warframe Ideas

[ShadowSoundsShady]

So I had about 5 warframe ideas and I think they can be pretty interesting so why not share them here, I don't know how many of these have already been talked about but here goes.

First off, and maybe the one I'd like to see the most, Wizard frame, he'd be an ability damage dealer cause he's a wizard Harry:
I've thought of abilities but not to a super detailed extent.

Appearance: All I know is a wizard hat would be a must.

Passive: For the passive something like a blink, or rather an extended dodge if you hold shift, kinda like a wukong cloud but for 1 second or so.

The rest of the abilities would be divided between heat, cold and toxin spells, but the really new thing about it would be an exalted wizard staff, meaning a spellcasting staff so let's start there:

4th ability: Summon your wizard's staff to gain ability damage and casting speed (this is an example but I think it would work well), additionally you can now hold your other abilities for a new effect, meaning tap 1 for a heat spell and hold 1 for a different heat spell, and you can tap your 4th ability for a powerful electricity spell, hold 4 to unsummon staff.

For the spells nothing is set in stone of course so I'll just give some examples.

1st ability: Heat spell:

Tap to summon 3 fireballs above, they then fly in your cursor's direction and explode in a small aoe.

Hold: Create a fire explosion in an area ( with the staff you can "aim" the explosion area, like an mmo for example).

2nd ability: Cold spell:

Tap to rain down icicles in a line.

Hold: Freeze a door/entrance in ice (enemies have to destroy the ice to go through the door).

3rd ability: Toxin spell. Honestly I got nothing for this, there's some obvious things like a toxic cloud for example.

4th ability: Tap: Shoot a potent lightning strike to deal massive damage to an enemy and a small aoe around him.

So there you go, since you can cast spells in the air you got a ninja wizard jumping around flinging fireballs.

(edit): To make this concept feel more like a warframe I came up with some changes which I think would makes this more unique. Exalted wizard staff (4th ability) now functions as a Speargun, during his exalted mode he uses his abilities to change his speargun's normal fire and it's throw. Example: 1st ability changes his speargun's attacks into a lightning bolt that chains between enemies and his throw into a big single target nuke, like a Zeus spear throw. Using his 2nd ability would change the speargun's functions.

 

Second, a Ghost frame, my idea is having a reverse limbo, this frame is usually in ghost form, what that entails depends on what works but some ideas are, she can't interact or damage things and vice versa, like limbo, and/or she's invisible. She's be a control/support frame.

Appearance: My design of her is inspired by those creepy female ghost that are all white with black hair, so she'd have this all white look with some raggy bits and float around.

Passive: This frame is usually hidden behind her ghostly form, and is untangible, you can use your abilities to reveal yourself to your enemies:

So the rest of her abilities revolve around going in and out of her ghost form.

1st ability: Change from your ghost form to your tangible form or vice versa, if you use it in ghost form then frighten enemies (they are stunned in place shivering) in a short area around you, otherwise change back into ghost form.

2nd ability: Dash/fly in a line, enemies hit will feel a chill and be slowed aswell as having their defenses reduces (armor strip), if you're in ghost form change into tangible form and vice versa.

4th ability: Scream in a large aoe frightening enemies in place, change to tangible form if you're in ghost form, after using this ability, during a certain amount of time, if you are killed go back to your ghost form instead and recover health.

I'm not sure about the 3rd ability, but maybe something like draining enemies health and giving to allies would work.

(edit) For the ghost frame you can also call it the jumpscare frame, at least from the enemy's PoV, the thematic is haunting your enemies like one of those creepy all white ghost with black hair and really make the player feel like something scary.

 

 

Third is a concept I've wanted for a while, probably for obvious reasons, Shadow themed frame, the concept revolves around hiding in the shadows and peeking to shoot with another interesting mechanic of controlling enemies. He'd be a squishy damage dealer that jumps around in a unique way.

Appearance: I imagine this frame having a long cloak/drape covering his body, like a sharpshooter had those camo cloaks or nets.

Passive: You have a chance to dodge incoming damage (let's say 25% for now)

1st ability:

Tap: Slip into an enemy's shadow (he's stunned in place), tap again to show yourself (show up to your waist, during this time you can shoot your weapons but can't move, while shooting Tap to hide back into his shadow or Hold to leave) or Hold to take control of the enemy (with spoiler coming this isn't farfetched), the controlled enemy has increased stats. While controlling an enemy Tap to go back into his shadow or Hold to violently leave his body dealing damage and killing him if he's under a threshold, if you kill an enemy this way then recover health/gain a damage buff.

Hold: Burrow into the shadows and create a large "shadow area" where you move faster and you can't be damaged or seen. While in the shadowy area Tap to show yourself (again up to your waist, you can shoot during this time but can't move), or Hold to end the ability. 

With this ability you could possibly even pop up from walls, as if you're wall latching.

(edit) Changed text to try and better explain this ability. Made a few changed to commands and how taking control of an enemy works, making it simpler in terms of coding.

This ability is similar to hydroid puddle, but instead of turning yourself into a puddle that can move, you create a large area you can move in and pop up and down to fire your weapon.

Tap the ability to create the  shadow zone and hide in it, right-mouse click to show up and fire.

When and enemy reaches an hp threshold you can Hold this ability to jump to the enemy and take control of him as a shadowy version of an enemy of that faction (example a grineer lancer if the enemy is a grineer). Tap again to kill the apparition.

 

 

2nd ability: Teleport X meters in front of you (cast time), if you're using your 1st ability the teleport is instant.

 

3rd ability: Buff your crit chance scaling with the amount of enemies "caught" inside your shadowy area.

 

4th ability: Summon an exalted sniper rifle, if you're using your first ability, the snipers shots will ricochet to other enemies in a small area.

 

His gameplay is like wack-a-mole from the enemy's PoV, he shows up starts shooting and leaves when he's in danger.

 

 

Fourth, is a Reaper frame, I know a third exalted weapon in the same post is too much but with the new 2-handed scythe this is basically warranted.

This is basically a melee damage/support frame.

Don't have much for this one other than the exalted big scythe and the mechanic.

So essencially you use and ability to "push out" the enemy's soul, creating a different health bar for you, it is much easier to deplete but to avoid it being useless in early levels, damaging their "soul" health bar also damages the enemy, when you deplete the "soul" health you gain bonuses, maybe depending on what ability you use for example, and you severely hinder the enemy's defense making them a lot easier to kill.

(edit) Changing text to try to better explain the mechanic.

First you cast an ability to create a separate health bar on the enemies, like how eximus work more or less, hitting that health bar with ability and your exalted weapon gives you buffs, for example hitting enemies with one ability can give you armor, or regenerate your hp. When you destroy that healthbar the enemies are severely weakened, for example lose armor, health, damage, etc.

So essencially create a separate health bar to destroy, gain bonuses like armor, healing, damage buff, and weaken the enemy's armor, hp, damage (for example).

Let's say depleting soul with one ability increases your damage, with another it heals you and so on.

 

And finally, a Weaponmaster frame, this would be a damage dealing frame.

Basically you hold 1, 2, 3 or 4 to change between weapon types, like polearm, dual sword, hammer, fist weapon, for example and you can tap each ability for a weapon skill like an aoe cleave, this would be an interesting frame to some players, and not to others since it's a melee heavy frame, but you can add abilities that buff the primary weapon for example, I think this would be a pretty cool and unique frame, imagine a big punch from a fist weapon to kill everything in front of you, and would also allow for some cool new melee gameplay, specially with custom stances that flow well chaining into one another from weapon to weapon.

 

That's all the theme ideas I've had, feel free to give your thoughts, and remember this is just for fun! :p

 

[FrostedMike]

Something small that applies to everything you make/create yourself: NEVER claim it's good or interesting. It's not the creator's job to say if his creations are good or not, it's the customer's job. If for example I made a game and I promised it's good but the players and critics rate it 2/10, I both did a horrible job and lied.
You in this post did something similar: the title promised 5 GOOD ideas for warframes, but after reading I don't agree. There are good bits here and there but nothing that I said "Wow, I love this idea". Just a few "Cool... Next idea...". Don't let it happen to you.

Starting from most boring to most interesting:

1. Reaper.
   I think it's either boring or unoriginal. Hard to tell because you explained it poorly in my opinion. The moment I read "Reaper" I had Nekros and Sevagoth popping in my mind and just asked: "Why do we need another edgelord?". After trying to understand this warframe I came to the conclusion that it is indeed just another edgelord but explained so poorly it's a boring one at that.
2. Shadow.
   This one I just find hard to understand. On one hand I like that idea of an ambush warframe that takes advantage of the lighting around him, one the other hand it sounds like Stalker with a gun. And too many "Tap" and "Hold" mechanics.
3. Wizard.
   Sounds like "Beta Lavos". The main issue here is not that I don't find this idea interesting like I can't see it as a warframe. I read it and say: "This is a nice wizard, but where is the warframe in it?". It's like, this wizard will be cool in a different game and not in Warframe.
4. Ghost.
   "Reverse Limbo": Boom, nice one. This is interesting. Two words and I already know the essence of the warframe and half of their gimmick. Great start for this warframe. What I think it didn't quite do is explain it a little better. It sounds like this warframe is invincible by default but when engaging they become vulnerable. Very unique and sounds like it's balanced enough for a mere idea. What scares me the most is that his warframe sounds very exploitable and will encourage "play without playing" behaviors.
5. Weapon Master.
   This one just have an interesting gimmick of having all of his abilities being exalted weapons. Switching melee weapons mid combo sounds like a lot of fun.

[ShadowSoundsShady]

49 minutes ago, FrostedMike said:

Something small that applies to everything you make/create yourself: NEVER claim it's good or interesting. It's not the creator's job to say if his creations are good or not, it's the customer's job. If for example I made a game and I promised it's good but the players and critics rate it 2/10, I both did a horrible job and lied.
You in this post did something similar: the title promised 5 GOOD ideas for warframes, but after reading I don't agree. There are good bits here and there but nothing that I said "Wow, I love this idea". Just a few "Cool... Next idea...". Don't let it happen to you.

Starting from most boring to most interesting:

1. Reaper.
   I think it's either boring or unoriginal. Hard to tell because you explained it poorly in my opinion. The moment I read "Reaper" I had Nekros and Sevagoth popping in my mind and just asked: "Why do we need another edgelord?". After trying to understand this warframe I came to the conclusion that it is indeed just another edgelord but explained so poorly it's a boring one at that.
2. Shadow.
   This one I just find hard to understand. On one hand I like that idea of an ambush warframe that takes advantage of the lighting around him, one the other hand it sounds like Stalker with a gun. And too many "Tap" and "Hold" mechanics.
3. Wizard.
   Sounds like "Beta Lavos". The main issue here is not that I don't find this idea interesting like I can't see it as a warframe. I read it and say: "This is a nice wizard, but where is the warframe in it?". It's like, this wizard will be cool in a different game and not in Warframe.
4. Ghost.
   "Reverse Limbo": Boom, nice one. This is interesting. Two words and I already know the essence of the warframe and half of their gimmick. Great start for this warframe. What I think it didn't quite do is explain it a little better. It sounds like this warframe is invincible by default but when engaging they become vulnerable. Very unique and sounds like it's balanced enough for a mere idea. What scares me the most is that his warframe sounds very exploitable and will encourage "play without playing" behaviors.
5. Weapon Master.
   This one just have an interesting gimmick of having all of his abilities being exalted weapons. Switching melee weapons mid combo sounds like a lot of fun.

Hello, thanks for your input and sorry about the title, I'll be more careful. Anyways to comment on your opinions I'd first like to apologize if some things were hard to understand but I'm not good at drawing and it's hard to put the abilities into words, I understand it but of course I already have a picture in my head. I'll also mention the main "hook" of the frame here, and probably edit the post a bit later, because most of the abilities are examples, especially for some of these where the theme leaves a lot of room for experimentation.

1. Reaper- Like you said this is 100% the simplest, it's basically "exalted heavy scythe" with a mechanic, it being using an ability, let's say your 1st ability for example purposes, which creates a separate health bar for your enemies, like eximus units have. From here on it's free game, my thought was essencially a bruiser melee playstyle where you deplete those special health bars and, for example, gain health if you hit them with a certain ability. When the bar's fully gone the enemy get debuffed, for example an armor strip.

2. Shadow frame- I guess the best way to explain the 1st ability would be comparing it to hydroid's puddle, but rather than turning into a puddle and being able to move, you create a large puddle where you can move around and pop up to attack. The idea is to create a fluid gameplay where you move around the area and pop up in different places, apart from this theme and I guess the exalted sniper, everything is an example of what abilities he could have.

3. Wizard- This main hook of this one is having a "wizard staff mode" which enhances your ability casting, everything else is changeable and you can get pretty crazy with just the theme "wizard", basically anything goes but if I had to add to the examples I gave I guess rather than cooldowns like Lavos he'd just have some kind of energy management. Could be something like building up energy to then spend during his steroid mode, something involving the rest of the loadout; like kills give a certain amount of energy, or during his Exalted state his abilities are simply free but it has a high energy comsumption.

 

4.Ghost- This idea is the one that drove me to write this, the idea of a "jumpscare" frame seems hilarious but can feel really cool thematically for the player, literally feel like a ghost haunting your enemies. The "play without playing" behaviour shouldn't be any worse than limbo's but again the point of these is the base idea and less about balancing right now.
So essencially it's exactly as you said here "It sounds like this warframe is invincible by default but when engaging they become vulnerable." from this main hook you can balance in different way but it's hard to say what's best without testing it, but the gameplay is simply: 1- show up; 2- scare the living jesus out of everything (basically do your stuff); 3 - go back to being a ghost. In terms of story I think this one is a very strong contender too, although it clashes with Harrow in the horror department.

 

5. Weaponmaster- Not much to say about this one, I personally think melee is quite stale and have thought of some things which could make it more interesting but regardless having this kind of melee frame would be pretty cool in my opinion and it's nice you think so too.

 

Once again thanks for the feedback :)
 

[FrostedMike]

On 2022-08-04 at 3:37 PM, ShadowSoundsShady said:

Hello, thanks for your input and sorry about the title, I'll be more careful. Anyways to comment on your opinions I'd first like to apologize if some things were hard to understand but I'm not good at drawing and it's hard to put the abilities into words, I understand it but of course I already have a picture in my head. I'll also mention the main "hook" of the frame here, and probably edit the post a bit later, because most of the abilities are examples, especially for some of these where the theme leaves a lot of room for experimentation.

1. Reaper- Like you said this is 100% the simplest, it's basically "exalted heavy scythe" with a mechanic, it being using an ability, let's say your 1st ability for example purposes, which creates a separate health bar for your enemies, like eximus units have. From here on it's free game, my thought was essencially a bruiser melee playstyle where you deplete those special health bars and, for example, gain health if you hit them with a certain ability. When the bar's fully gone the enemy get debuffed, for example an armor strip.

2. Shadow frame- I guess the best way to explain the 1st ability would be comparing it to hydroid's puddle, but rather than turning into a puddle and being able to move, you create a large puddle where you can move around and pop up to attack. The idea is to create a fluid gameplay where you move around the area and pop up in different places, apart from this theme and I guess the exalted sniper, everything is an example of what abilities he could have.

3. Wizard- This main hook of this one is having a "wizard staff mode" which enhances your ability casting, everything else is changeable and you can get pretty crazy with just the theme "wizard", basically anything goes but if I had to add to the examples I gave I guess rather than cooldowns like Lavos he'd just have some kind of energy management. Could be something like building up energy to then spend during his steroid mode, something involving the rest of the loadout; like kills give a certain amount of energy, or during his Exalted state his abilities are simply free but it has a high energy comsumption.

 

4.Ghost- This idea is the one that drove me to write this, the idea of a "jumpscare" frame seems hilarious but can feel really cool thematically for the player, literally feel like a ghost haunting your enemies. The "play without playing" behaviour shouldn't be any worse than limbo's but again the point of these is the base idea and less about balancing right now.
So essencially it's exactly as you said here "It sounds like this warframe is invincible by default but when engaging they become vulnerable." from this main hook you can balance in different way but it's hard to say what's best without testing it, but the gameplay is simply: 1- show up; 2- scare the living jesus out of everything (basically do your stuff); 3 - go back to being a ghost. In terms of story I think this one is a very strong contender too, although it clashes with Harrow in the horror department.

 

5. Weaponmaster- Not much to say about this one, I personally think melee is quite stale and have thought of some things which could make it more interesting but regardless having this kind of melee frame would be pretty cool in my opinion and it's nice you think so too.

 

Once again thanks for the feedback :)
 

A tip to help you explain things better: take the entire concept and explain all of it in a single sentence and as few words as possible. If you can't explain in a single sentence than your idea is too complicated. Ghost warframe = "Reverse Limbo" is a great example on how it's done right. Now you added "Jumpscare", also great. "Show Up → Scare the living Jesus out of everyone" also amazing. By this point whoever reads this knows everything they need to know about the warframe, the abilities don't matter because the essence is as clear as it can be.

Shadow warframe now sounds like the Ghost warframe in terms of playstyle. I think Ghost is a lot more interesting especially now. I also think at this point it will be better to either shelve Shadow and continue with Ghost, or combine the two.

I'm still not sold on both Reaper and Wizard for the same reasons: Reaper just sounds weird and unoriginal while Wizard is interesting but in the wrong game.

I will personally continue with Ghost and Weapon-master. I think both of them are ready for a HLD and become proper warframes. In case you don't know, I refer to High Level Design Document, it's basically writing down your idea but in greater details. Enough to get a solid image of your concept.
Don't worry about balancing and concept art, you can still get wild with your ideas in a HLD. I do suggest at least having a clear idea for looks and explain it with words. Just don't overdo it, three lines of text are enough for looks.

Good luck!

[ShadowSoundsShady]

19 hours ago, FrostedMike said:

A tip to help you explain things better: take the entire concept and explain all of it in a single sentence and as few words as possible. If you can't explain in a single sentence than your idea is too complicated. Ghost warframe = "Reverse Limbo" is a great example on how it's done right. Now you added "Jumpscare", also great. "Show Up → Scare the living Jesus out of everyone" also amazing. By this point whoever reads this knows everything they need to know about the warframe, the abilities don't matter because the essence is as clear as it can be.

Shadow warframe now sounds like the Ghost warframe in terms of playstyle. I think Ghost is a lot more interesting especially now. I also think at this point it will be better to either shelve Shadow and continue with Ghost, or combine the two.

I'm still not sold on both Reaper and Wizard for the same reasons: Reaper just sounds weird and unoriginal while Wizard is interesting but in the wrong game.

I will personally continue with Ghost and Weapon-master. I think both of them are ready for a HLD and become proper warframes. In case you don't know, I refer to High Level Design Document, it's basically writing down your idea but in greater details. Enough to get a solid image of your concept.
Don't worry about balancing and concept art, you can still get wild with your ideas in a HLD. I do suggest at least having a clear idea for looks and explain it with words. Just don't overdo it, three lines of text are enough for looks.

Good luck!

Thanks, I'll do that when I have time, unfortunately I can't draw at all but hopefully I can give a decent description of the frames. I'll move on with the ghost frame first since I have a clearer idea on how the frame would look, then weaponmaster.

For the wizard I don't know if you're refering to the edited version there, I changed him to use a speargun that you "load" with your abilities to change what it does, I thought it put him more in line with warframe design.

Final notes with the other 2 frames, starting with the shadow frame while brainstorming I found some problems in terms of camera angles which could be hard to fix in some occasions, aswell as his gameplay style indeed resembling ghost's playstyle, just different roles, I'll scrap it for now and maybe later experiment with other abilities, with it's theme you can do almost anything in that regard. Reaper frame I'm scrapping aswell, I'm not sure what you mean that it sounds weird but I'm guessing the healthbar mechanic needs to do something else. 

Anyways thanks once again for your feedback, when I can I'll try doing an HLD, although I'm not sure I should add it to this topic or create a new one.

[FrostedMike]

What I meant with the Wizard is that while they sound cool, I can't imagine them as a warframe. Too fantasy for Warframe's style that they feel off and unrelated. I can see this Wizard in other games but in the fantasy category.

About explaining looks with words. I think I can give it a shot myself for the Ghost. Do note this is only my interpretation and here to just give an example. Your word matters more and you actually already gave a decent description:

On 2022-08-04 at 10:45 AM, ShadowSoundsShady said:

Appearance: My design of her is inspired by those creepy female ghost that are all white with black hair, so she'd have this all white look with some raggy bits and float around.

My attempt:

Quote

This female warframe is inspired by those creepy girls in horror movies. She wears white rags stained with crimson. Her creepy aura comes mostly from her idle animations: levitates but barely moves a muscle, like a dead body. When she finally moves, she moves too fast, too much and too suddenly, like something possesses her body and she fights it.

When I read "creepy female ghost", I think this:

This graph demonstrates what the Uncanny Valley is. If we looks at something and scale it by how much it resembles a human being, then how much do we like looking at it? The Uncanny Valley is when the thing we look at is too human to be something else, yet not enough to be human. This is what we call "creepy". Warframes are a little after where the "Humanoid Robot" is (at that nice peak at about 60%-70%) but in a weird way: in terms of looks they are human only because they have the same proportions as humans, they walk on two legs, have two hands and have 5 fingers on each hand. In terms of movement, warframes are perfect humans.
To have a creepy warframe is not easy because it should still be a humanoid robot. We can get a creepy look from movement. Do you know why we find those creepy female ghost in horror movies "creepy"? Because they barely move. They just stand there staring at someone or something. It is unnatural for humans to stand still, and "too still" we look like a corpse...

[ShadowSoundsShady]

On 2022-08-06 at 11:37 PM, FrostedMike said:

What I meant with the Wizard is that while they sound cool, I can't imagine them as a warframe. Too fantasy for Warframe's style that they feel off and unrelated. I can see this Wizard in other games but in the fantasy category.

About explaining looks with words. I think I can give it a shot myself for the Ghost. Do note this is only my interpretation and here to just give an example. Your word matters more and you actually already gave a decent description:

My attempt:

When I read "creepy female ghost", I think this:

This graph demonstrates what the Uncanny Valley is. If we looks at something and scale it by how much it resembles a human being, then how much do we like looking at it? The Uncanny Valley is when the thing we look at is too human to be something else, yet not enough to be human. This is what we call "creepy". Warframes are a little after where the "Humanoid Robot" is (at that nice peak at about 60%-70%) but in a weird way: in terms of looks they are human only because they have the same proportions as humans, they walk on two legs, have two hands and have 5 fingers on each hand. In terms of movement, warframes are perfect humans.
To have a creepy warframe is not easy because it should still be a humanoid robot. We can get a creepy look from movement. Do you know why we find those creepy female ghost in horror movies "creepy"? Because they barely move. They just stand there staring at someone or something. It is unnatural for humans to stand still, and "too still" we look like a corpse...

That's a pretty interesting graphic, I have been brainstorming when I have the chance on how to counteract the fact that it's a warframe and so the animations wouldn't work well with the frame, and creating new animations seems unrealistic (things like firing, melee, etc). I have some ideas that might be interesting and with what you said there I think I also have a way to make it work, theoretically speaking, I'll have to give it some thought since I'm keeping balancing and the kit in mind now but tldr:

- I'm thinking of adding an " horror system", it's still work in progress, but the idea is adding a fillable bar or circle, like baruuk's, that you have to maintain. Let's call it the "jumpscare meter" for now.

- With this new meter she'll "interact" with enemies in some way during her ghost form to fill it.

- I've thought about whether she should fly or not, I think floating could be interesting, like aim gliding, meant to be slow but lasting.

-The idea I had from the graph is her spawning "apparitions" to scare the enemies and fill the "jumpscare meter", this way we can maintain her being a ninja robot to a much bigger extent while not giving in the horror and her haunting. I guess thinking of her as the final ghost boss in the movie makes sense, there's the little ghosts that mess with you and the big bad that eventually shows up and eats your face or something.

-Lookwise her ghost form depends on vfx and animations for her movement and ghost look, same for abilities, and for her normal form and overrall design I'm still thinking about it cause I want it to make sense with the ghost form, for example in her normal form covers her face with 2 hands from an extra pair of arms that are attached to her neck, shoulders or maybe her back and in ghost form she reveals her face, or maybe the other way around idk I'll figure it out afterwards.

- Finally, about her role, I see her as a crowd control warframe but I'm just thinking of whether I add some damage, or a lot of damage and make her a nuke frame.

In regards with the wizard, I think it's fine right? Essencially it's about how he'll be designed look wise, instead of being a fantasy wizard he's a cyberwizard ahah, I'd imagine he'd look more monk-ish but I don't think it'd be that out of place if he's just boiled down to "load abilities into speargun", I'd say it's flexible enough? Anyways thanks again for the comments.

[WarspitePOWAAAAH]

On 2022-08-04 at 3:45 AM, ShadowSoundsShady said:

So I had about 5 warframe ideas and I think they can be pretty interesting so why not share them here, I don't know how many of these have already been talked about but here goes.

First off, and maybe the one I'd like to see the most, Wizard frame, he'd be an ability damage dealer cause he's a wizard Harry:
I've thought of abilities but not to a super detailed extent.

Appearance: All I know is a wizard hat would be a must.

Passive: For the passive something like a blink, or rather an extended dodge if you hold shift, kinda like a wukong cloud but for 1 second or so.

The rest of the abilities would be divided between heat, cold and toxin spells, but the really new thing about it would be an exalted wizard staff, meaning a spellcasting staff so let's start there:

4th ability: Summon your wizard's staff to gain ability damage and casting speed (this is an example but I think it would work well), additionally you can now hold your other abilities for a new effect, meaning tap 1 for a heat spell and hold 1 for a different heat spell, and you can tap your 4th ability for a powerful electricity spell, hold 4 to unsummon staff.

For the spells nothing is set in stone of course so I'll just give some examples.

1st ability: Heat spell:

Tap to summon 3 fireballs above, they then fly in your cursor's direction and explode in a small aoe.

Hold: Create a fire explosion in an area ( with the staff you can "aim" the explosion area, like an mmo for example).

2nd ability: Cold spell:

Tap to rain down icicles in a line.

Hold: Freeze a door/entrance in ice (enemies have to destroy the ice to go through the door).

3rd ability: Toxin spell. Honestly I got nothing for this, there's some obvious things like a toxic cloud for example.

4th ability: Tap: Shoot a potent lightning strike to deal massive damage to an enemy and a small aoe around him.

So there you go, since you can cast spells in the air you got a ninja wizard jumping around flinging fireballs.

(edit): To make this concept feel more like a warframe I came up with some changes which I think would makes this more unique. Exalted wizard staff (4th ability) now functions as a Speargun, during his exalted mode he uses his abilities to change his speargun's normal fire and it's throw. Example: 1st ability changes his speargun's attacks into a lightning bolt that chains between enemies and his throw into a big single target nuke, like a Zeus spear throw. Using his 2nd ability would change the speargun's functions.

 

Second, a Ghost frame, my idea is having a reverse limbo, this frame is usually in ghost form, what that entails depends on what works but some ideas are, she can't interact or damage things and vice versa, like limbo, and/or she's invisible. She's be a control/support frame.

Appearance: My design of her is inspired by those creepy female ghost that are all white with black hair, so she'd have this all white look with some raggy bits and float around.

Passive: This frame is usually hidden behind her ghostly form, and is untangible, you can use your abilities to reveal yourself to your enemies:

So the rest of her abilities revolve around going in and out of her ghost form.

1st ability: Change from your ghost form to your tangible form or vice versa, if you use it in ghost form then frighten enemies (they are stunned in place shivering) in a short area around you, otherwise change back into ghost form.

2nd ability: Dash/fly in a line, enemies hit will feel a chill and be slowed aswell as having their defenses reduces (armor strip), if you're in ghost form change into tangible form and vice versa.

4th ability: Scream in a large aoe frightening enemies in place, change to tangible form if you're in ghost form, after using this ability, during a certain amount of time, if you are killed go back to your ghost form instead and recover health.

I'm not sure about the 3rd ability, but maybe something like draining enemies health and giving to allies would work.

(edit) For the ghost frame you can also call it the jumpscare frame, at least from the enemy's PoV, the thematic is haunting your enemies like one of those creepy all white ghost with black hair and really make the player feel like something scary.

 

 

Third is a concept I've wanted for a while, probably for obvious reasons, Shadow themed frame, the concept revolves around hiding in the shadows and peeking to shoot with another interesting mechanic of controlling enemies. He'd be a squishy damage dealer that jumps around in a unique way.

Appearance: I imagine this frame having a long cloak/drape covering his body, like a sharpshooter had those camo cloaks or nets.

Passive: You have a chance to dodge incoming damage (let's say 25% for now)

1st ability:

Tap: Slip into an enemy's shadow (he's stunned in place), tap again to show yourself (show up to your waist, during this time you can shoot your weapons but can't move, while shooting Tap to hide back into his shadow or Hold to leave) or Hold to take control of the enemy (with spoiler coming this isn't farfetched), the controlled enemy has increased stats. While controlling an enemy Tap to go back into his shadow or Hold to violently leave his body dealing damage and killing him if he's under a threshold, if you kill an enemy this way then recover health/gain a damage buff.

Hold: Burrow into the shadows and create a large "shadow area" where you move faster and you can't be damaged or seen. While in the shadowy area Tap to show yourself (again up to your waist, you can shoot during this time but can't move), or Hold to end the ability. 

With this ability you could possibly even pop up from walls, as if you're wall latching.

(edit) Changed text to try and better explain this ability. Made a few changed to commands and how taking control of an enemy works, making it simpler in terms of coding.

This ability is similar to hydroid puddle, but instead of turning yourself into a puddle that can move, you create a large area you can move in and pop up and down to fire your weapon.

Tap the ability to create the  shadow zone and hide in it, right-mouse click to show up and fire.

When and enemy reaches an hp threshold you can Hold this ability to jump to the enemy and take control of him as a shadowy version of an enemy of that faction (example a grineer lancer if the enemy is a grineer). Tap again to kill the apparition.

 

 

2nd ability: Teleport X meters in front of you (cast time), if you're using your 1st ability the teleport is instant.

 

3rd ability: Buff your crit chance scaling with the amount of enemies "caught" inside your shadowy area.

 

4th ability: Summon an exalted sniper rifle, if you're using your first ability, the snipers shots will ricochet to other enemies in a small area.

 

His gameplay is like wack-a-mole from the enemy's PoV, he shows up starts shooting and leaves when he's in danger.

 

 

Fourth, is a Reaper frame, I know a third exalted weapon in the same post is too much but with the new 2-handed scythe this is basically warranted.

This is basically a melee damage/support frame.

Don't have much for this one other than the exalted big scythe and the mechanic.

So essencially you use and ability to "push out" the enemy's soul, creating a different health bar for you, it is much easier to deplete but to avoid it being useless in early levels, damaging their "soul" health bar also damages the enemy, when you deplete the "soul" health you gain bonuses, maybe depending on what ability you use for example, and you severely hinder the enemy's defense making them a lot easier to kill.

(edit) Changing text to try to better explain the mechanic.

First you cast an ability to create a separate health bar on the enemies, like how eximus work more or less, hitting that health bar with ability and your exalted weapon gives you buffs, for example hitting enemies with one ability can give you armor, or regenerate your hp. When you destroy that healthbar the enemies are severely weakened, for example lose armor, health, damage, etc.

So essencially create a separate health bar to destroy, gain bonuses like armor, healing, damage buff, and weaken the enemy's armor, hp, damage (for example).

Let's say depleting soul with one ability increases your damage, with another it heals you and so on.

 

And finally, a Weaponmaster frame, this would be a damage dealing frame.

Basically you hold 1, 2, 3 or 4 to change between weapon types, like polearm, dual sword, hammer, fist weapon, for example and you can tap each ability for a weapon skill like an aoe cleave, this would be an interesting frame to some players, and not to others since it's a melee heavy frame, but you can add abilities that buff the primary weapon for example, I think this would be a pretty cool and unique frame, imagine a big punch from a fist weapon to kill everything in front of you, and would also allow for some cool new melee gameplay, specially with custom stances that flow well chaining into one another from weapon to weapon.

 

That's all the theme ideas I've had, feel free to give your thoughts, and remember this is just for fun! :p

 

I don't want to go too deep into the abilities as that would feel like I am making my own concept but I do have some suggestions for how some of these frames can be tailored around a specific playstyle to further strengthen their theme, I have only figured out Wizard and Ghost right now.

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Wizard frames are going to be difficult to implement in Warframe, it's quite a far stretch from the sci-fi genre of this game and can easily end up as too "fantasy" and possibly cringey. I think Lavos is already a very wizard-y frame that we have got currently, and I once designed a wizard frame that is somewhat inspired by Lavos. I have seen quite a few wizard frame concepts and most of them usually just focuses on the flashy magical AoE stuff without bringing anything new and creative. For me, the process of "chanting" and "spellcasting" are things that should be explored on a Wizard frame. It's very difficult to explain on words what I got in mind so I might just slap on an example at the end.

Let's say your 4 abilities each corresponds to a primary element (When I made mine, it was Light / Fire / Water / Darkness but Heat / Cold / Toxin / Electricity could bring something different as well), I can create a spellbook system where casting an ability writes its elements onto the book, and then you can combine these spells (by holding down any ability button) to create extra elemental effects that strengthens your abilities. This will make the order of which you cast abilities important to how you want to play the frame, basically mimicking spellcasting with its playstyle. Additionally, I can also assign different properties to each element more than just their status and damage, like Heat would reduce ability range but adds duration and damage, Cold would reduce damage but offers more duration and AoE, Electricity would offer more range and damage but much less duration, etc. It would make for a frame with an extremely steep learning curve and definitely challenging to play, but will be able to do a wide variety of things if you mastered the elements.

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A Ghost frame to me, is a perfect candidate for a true assassin-like frame design. Using the mechanic you have provided of staying in stealth and then manifesting to attack, this is a perfect line up of how an assassin stalks their pray in dark, striking at critical moments to assassinate its target, then quickly fall back into the shadows. It would be a far cry from your proposed control/support role so take this as like an alternative suggestion, but it's possible for her to retain these features while also being offensive. I could see her using her ghost form to patrol around in high speed, unhindered by enemy abilities and nullifying methods, then using her abilities to manifest, ambushing groups of isolated, weakened enemies or saving teammates with CC/Weakening effects in a pinch. She would probably be the strongest right after she manifests, being able to output massive damage that decays quickly, or absorb a large amount of enemy fire briefly, and then needing to avoid attention and return to her ghost form after the ability has expired to strike again.

Of course the abilities can change, and she can do some continuous AoE debuffs and stuff while in her ghost form, but the idea is to play into the mechanic of changing forms and create a dynamic of "passive and docile form with brief moments of extreme aggression and activeness", which also ties into the jumpscaring theme somewhat.

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I think these are all concepts that has a lot of interesting ways that they can be done, but I would say try only working on 1 or 2 frames at a time, having multiple themes that you are working on simultaneously can limit the amount of quality ideas you can come up on a single theme.

[ShadowSoundsShady]

21 hours ago, WarspitePOWAAAAH said:

I don't want to go too deep into the abilities as that would feel like I am making my own concept but I do have some suggestions for how some of these frames can be tailored around a specific playstyle to further strengthen their theme, I have only figured out Wizard and Ghost right now.

===============

Wizard frames are going to be difficult to implement in Warframe, it's quite a far stretch from the sci-fi genre of this game and can easily end up as too "fantasy" and possibly cringey. I think Lavos is already a very wizard-y frame that we have got currently, and I once designed a wizard frame that is somewhat inspired by Lavos. I have seen quite a few wizard frame concepts and most of them usually just focuses on the flashy magical AoE stuff without bringing anything new and creative. For me, the process of "chanting" and "spellcasting" are things that should be explored on a Wizard frame. It's very difficult to explain on words what I got in mind so I might just slap on an example at the end.

Let's say your 4 abilities each corresponds to a primary element (When I made mine, it was Light / Fire / Water / Darkness but Heat / Cold / Toxin / Electricity could bring something different as well), I can create a spellbook system where casting an ability writes its elements onto the book, and then you can combine these spells (by holding down any ability button) to create extra elemental effects that strengthens your abilities. This will make the order of which you cast abilities important to how you want to play the frame, basically mimicking spellcasting with its playstyle. Additionally, I can also assign different properties to each element more than just their status and damage, like Heat would reduce ability range but adds duration and damage, Cold would reduce damage but offers more duration and AoE, Electricity would offer more range and damage but much less duration, etc. It would make for a frame with an extremely steep learning curve and definitely challenging to play, but will be able to do a wide variety of things if you mastered the elements.

================

A Ghost frame to me, is a perfect candidate for a true assassin-like frame design. Using the mechanic you have provided of staying in stealth and then manifesting to attack, this is a perfect line up of how an assassin stalks their pray in dark, striking at critical moments to assassinate its target, then quickly fall back into the shadows. It would be a far cry from your proposed control/support role so take this as like an alternative suggestion, but it's possible for her to retain these features while also being offensive. I could see her using her ghost form to patrol around in high speed, unhindered by enemy abilities and nullifying methods, then using her abilities to manifest, ambushing groups of isolated, weakened enemies or saving teammates with CC/Weakening effects in a pinch. She would probably be the strongest right after she manifests, being able to output massive damage that decays quickly, or absorb a large amount of enemy fire briefly, and then needing to avoid attention and return to her ghost form after the ability has expired to strike again.

Of course the abilities can change, and she can do some continuous AoE debuffs and stuff while in her ghost form, but the idea is to play into the mechanic of changing forms and create a dynamic of "passive and docile form with brief moments of extreme aggression and activeness", which also ties into the jumpscaring theme somewhat.

================

I think these are all concepts that has a lot of interesting ways that they can be done, but I would say try only working on 1 or 2 frames at a time, having multiple themes that you are working on simultaneously can limit the amount of quality ideas you can come up on a single theme.

Hello! Thank you very much for your input I'll try to adress it the best I can!

First things first I think warframe can take basically any concept and make it into a frame, in some way, we have vampire-like frames, there's gonna be a werewolf, there's a fairy...I don't think a wizard is a farfetched thing to see, of course a warframe wizard would be very different from a "normal" wizard but that's just how warframe rolls, a good example is Lavos actually since he's an "alchemist", not really a sci-fi thing either, on the contrary.

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As for the abilities I've put it aside for now, your idea reminds me of Magicka, you can do a lot of things with "wizard" and the most important I think is the feeling of it but also to make it flow well with warframe's fast gameplay with guns and sword and so on, which is why I'll probably go with the exalted speargun, It's the best way to have a "magic staff", for the rest we'll see, I've thought of giving him a time spell of sorts that when it's "loaded" into the speargun the shots suspend enemies in time, kinda like rhino's stomp, and they move really really slow for a short duration, but like a said, wizard is on hold right now.

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For the ghost frame I plan on making a separate topic on her alone and then we can discuss more on abilities but yeah I'm thinking whether I should give her a nuke type gameplay or not, I'm mostly considering the core part of her kit right now and how it will go with gameplay, I don't want to make it feel like limbo, but I don't want it to get in the way of gunplay and melee either.