Opinion about improve Warframe's Focus System.

[LEE_ash_prime]

The current Focus system is imbalance, according to my observation and doing survey with players around me, I found that the majority of players use Zenurik and Madurai in their daily run, followed by Unairu, and just a small number of players use Naramon and Vazarin (only use Naramon when combine with some melee weapons in order to keep the combos, and some players use Vazarin when in high level waves of disruption missions), I personally believe this is the result of the inconsistent functionality and practicality of different focus, and the Naramon and Vazarin should be buffed, for example, by increasing the melee duration as well as the Critical chance and Critical damage of the Naramon, and by increasing the invincibility time of the Vazarin's void dash and the number of once-a-minute immunity to death, which would increase the game's playability and balance the ratio of the various focus school used.

Secondly, Warframe is a PVE game. Players are happy to see they become stronger, not because of the buff of focus make the game imbalance, now most high rank players’ focus XP are overflowed too much, focus schools’ XP become useless numbers when they are all max rank, but we still get these useless XP every day! I think DE can design a system to emphasis on how to use these useless focus XP, such as add more options to current schools’ ability.

For Example

Example 1: Every 300,000 focus XP increases the invincible time of the Vazarin's Protective Sling by 0.1 seconds (currently max is 5 seconds), or 0.05 seconds for every 300,000 focus XP, and countine on with no upper limit.

Example 2: Every 300,000 focus XP increase the ability strength of Madurai’s Sling Strength by 0.5% (currently max is 40%).

Example 3: Every 300,000 focus XP increases the ability strength of Zenurik’s Hardened Wellspring by 0.02% (currently max is 20%).

Example 4: Every 300,000 focus XP increases the range of Unairu's Magnetic Flare by 0.1 meters for 1 second (as of now, beside stripping enemies’ armor, only resist knockdown in Unairu has a role to play, so it could be a good idea to buff this focus school).

Example 5: Every 300,000 focus XP increases range of Naramon Void Sling’s distance 1%, or change the Killer’s Rush to after use Void Sling two times in a row, increase melee weapon’s critical chance and critical damage. Currently Killer’s Rush’s trigger conditions are particularly harsh, which also leads to no one use the Naramon.

By doing something like this it would increase the viscosity of the game for players, and it would allow players to still have something to do every day after they've gotten all the Focus school maxed, because they really don't know what to do after the weekly missions and the daily missions.

The options I've proposed so far are just brief ideas. I'm sure DE have better ideas.

[(XBOX)Killahead]

Would love to see some balancing effort to the focus schools, especially naramon, like you say, but I think they should touch the core stats rather than provide buffs than can go to infinity and beyond.

I am one of the players that are unhappy with getting stronger, believe it or not. Instead of introducing more power I wish the game looked into creating systems that incentivize cooperation, but I do understand that power creep is one hell of a drug for most of the playerbase and is what keeps them chasing and thus what makes DE money. I'll stick to my non-meta guns and find my enjoyment in variety rather than in power.

Another simple solution would be an expanded focus shop, but why are we more troubled by getting focus points than we would have been if focus points had been completely out of the picture once we had bought all items from the represent shop? I simply ignore focus and it's honestly something I enjoy as a veteran, being able to not care about certain things anymore.

Edited December 11, 2023 by (XBOX)Killahead
typo

[Chewarette]

They need to rework focus deeply if you want to get rid of the Zenurik's supremacy.

Why is Zenurik the most used one ? Energy. Energy is cool, Energy is versatile whatever you're playing, having Energy is fun, having no Energy sucks. Everything that gives energy is quite important to most of your builds (except Inaros OK, but nobody cares).

What would be the first balancing step so that all Focus Schools are used relatively evenly ? Give an energy node to all schools.

Zenurik could keep semi-passive energy as of today

Unairu could have a Rage-like effect (X energy on damage taken, either a very small value or a big one on cooldown)

Vazarin could have an Equilibrium-like effect, or Protective Sling could also regenerate a bit of energy over time (in addition to invuln / healing)

Naramon could have energy gain on melee kills or increased orb drop chance (akin to Voruna's 2)

Madurai already has the Void Strike / Void Fuel combo which is kinda cool, but too limited (8s duration on 40s cooldown). Making it a bit less restricted, at least for the Warframe as you already waste 3 seconds transferring back to the Warframe might expand its use.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Chewarette

[LEE_ash_prime]

8分钟前 , Chewarette 说:

They need to rework focus deeply if you want to get rid of the Zenurik's supremacy.

Why is Zenurik the most used one ? Energy. Energy is cool, Energy is versatile whatever you're playing, having Energy is fun, having no Energy sucks. Everything that gives energy is quite important to most of your builds (except Inaros OK, but nobody cares).

What would be the first balancing step so that all Focus Schools are used relatively evenly ? Give an energy node to all schools.

Zenurik could keep semi-passive energy as of today

Unairu could have a Rage-like effect (X energy on damage taken, either a very small value or a big one on cooldown)

Vazarin could have an Equilibrium-like effect, or Protective Sling could also regenerate a bit of energy over time (in addition to invuln / healing)

Naramon could have energy gain on melee kills or increased orb drop chance (akin to Voruna's 2)

Madurai already has the Void Strike / Void Fuel combo which is kinda cool, but too limited (8s duration on 40s cooldown). Making it a bit less restricted, at least for the Warframe as you already waste 3 seconds transferring back to the Warframe might expand its use.

Good idea

[crazywolfpusher]

I bet DE has actual numbers on which focus school is the most used across all mastery ranks. No secret for them.

So the question: is DE willing to change it further for the sake of balance? I'd say no. And I wouldn't be surprise if eventually we get another rework, the new shiny, and call it a day.

Problem is and to put things on perspective, Lethal Levitation from Naramon has been bug since day 1 of the last focus schools update. It doesn't work on melee weapons. How to balance something when bugs are not even fixed for years. I know is not game changing, the buffs are so small, but still.

 

11 hours ago, LEE_ash_prime said:

now most high rank players’ focus XP are overflowed too much, focus schools’ XP become useless numbers when they are all max rank, but we still get these useless XP every day! I think DE can design a system to emphasis on how to use these useless focus XP, such as add more options to current schools’ ability.

Played a few years of Elders Scrolls Online and there we had a system called Champion Points that worked very similar to the the progression system you are proposing. It didn't go well. Eventually everyone reach the cap, raising the same issues all over again. 

 

Anyway, yes. Some focus schools could get some touches. Nothing big though.  

Naramon only thing going on for it is the combo decay passive. Everything else is very lacking. Building combo is so damn easy. And for someone who enjoy melee weapons the most, I rarely use Naramon. It just doesn't provide anything. I mean, Vazarin can provide better Melee synergies. Specifically Void Snare. Can group enemies making build combo super easy and on top of it, open enemies to Ground Finishers which can hit multiple targets. Front/Back Finishers can only hit 1 enemy.

Vazarin cheese the game across all difficulties. 5s of invulnerability on demand with no drawbacks is huge.

I made another post about this a few weeks ago:

Vazarin

Quote

 

How about change Guardian Shell to give Overguard instead of the current unlisted effect only visible on the buff bar? If it was visible on the HUD like Overguard is, it would be a lot more intuitive and would help frames such as Inaros and Nidus to get Overguard gating.

Right now the ability is just an excuse to keep Guardian Break up. Which btw would be a lot smother to have that effect on transfer, same how Madurai Power Transfer work, it just make sense.

 

The next suggestion might be a bit too much for some of you, but I strongly believe Protective Sling should change to a tap ability and create a small area of effect visually similar to Wellspring.  Protective sling is probably the strongest survivability tool in the game so this change is not meant to make it stronger or weaker, just more intuitive for oneself and allies.

If I wanted to balance it, I would probably make it consume all of the operator's energy, similar to Madura Void Strike. It would be less spammable and just as strong.

In the same process, move Void Snare to Naramon who would benefit a lot more from grouping enemies to build up combo.

 

Naramon

Quote

 

Power Spike: Current effect+ 30% Heavy Attack efficiency.

Void Levitation change to apply Knockdown instead of Lift. Lifted status is annoying. Knockdowns have Ground Finishers.

Opening Slam the most useless focus ability by far. Replace it to apply Stagger on 8m radius on transfer. Just a small cc that can create short windows where you can engage in melee combat without having to worry that your frame/operator is going to get hit in the face. Very useful on melee frames.

Killer Rush 50 % crit chance replace it with +15% parkour velocity and 30% Attack speed. The value of 2 mods? 1 mod and 1 shard? seems a lot more useful.

Sling Stun: Replace it with Void Snare from Vazarin. Grouping enemies and open them to ground finishers is a lot better for melee.

 

Madurai is perfectly fine.

Zenurik Hardened Wellspring buff could last a few seconds after you leave the area.

Unairu, and I know this might be controversial, Last Gasp take away the fear of dying. I fear more Falling of the map than my Warframe getting killed. On top of it, make some Warframe undying abilities redundant. Change it to something else.

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by crazywolfpusher

[Agall]

I exclusively use Unairu personally. Naramon used to be my go-to, but the lack of immunity makes it harder to justify. Unairu in itself being the perfect 'generalist' school in my opinion.

Vazarin is still extremely viable because of its immunity. It makes Unairu or Vazarin practically required for level cap content.

 

Naramon could use a little love, I think there's some more useful amendments they could make to the tree. I'd like to see some sort of damage mitigation apart of the tree that would benefit melee play. Currently its easier to just use Primary/secondary Dexterity to maintain combo duration than Naramon for primary melee gameplay, but maybe that's the point.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

Vazarin literally makes you immortal when combined with this game's embarrassment of riches concerning survivability,  and you want it buffed?

No offense, but some of us are already almost half asleep during endurance runs, especially after the shield and companion updates.

Kind of a weird topic tbh

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by (XBOX)zThulsaDoomz

[trst]

The schools are already far more balanced than they ever have been.

Madurai for passive damage and speedrunning. Vazarin for easy immortality. Naramon for saving mod space/buffing melee. Unairu for CC immunity and armor stripping. And Zenurik for power strength and free energy.

The only one that's sort of underwhelming is Naramon since it lost the 100% heavy efficiency (which is even more dead once TennoKai drops) but all the rest have viable and effective use cases. So aside from Naramon there's really nothing here that needs buffing.

[Hexerin]

Most of my loadouts use Unairu, with Madurai being a close second. Zenurik is actually trailing far behind those two in the third place. I simply don't use Vazarin nor Naramon, as neither of them have anything of value to bring to the table.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Your observations and surveys were wrong. 

Please explain how you're getting data on 50,000 players by "observing" and "surveying" I'm assuming a few clan mates and alliance chat members....

 

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

13 hours ago, LEE_ash_prime said:

The current Focus system is imbalance, according to my observation and doing survey with players around me, I found that the majority of players use Zenurik and Madurai in their daily run, followed by Unairu, and just a small number of players use Naramon and Vazarin (only use Naramon when combine with some melee weapons in order to keep the combos, and some players use Vazarin when in high level waves of disruption missions), I personally believe this is the result of the inconsistent functionality and practicality of different focus, and the Naramon and Vazarin should be buffed, for example, by increasing the melee duration as well as the Critical chance and Critical damage of the Naramon, and by increasing the invincibility time of the Vazarin's void dash and the number of once-a-minute immunity to death, which would increase the game's playability and balance the ratio of the various focus school used.

Secondly, Warframe is a PVE game. Players are happy to see they become stronger, not because of the buff of focus make the game imbalance, now most high rank players’ focus XP are overflowed too much, focus schools’ XP become useless numbers when they are all max rank, but we still get these useless XP every day! I think DE can design a system to emphasis on how to use these useless focus XP, such as add more options to current schools’ ability.

For Example

Example 1: Every 300,000 focus XP increases the invincible time of the Vazarin's Protective Sling by 0.1 seconds (currently max is 5 seconds), or 0.05 seconds for every 300,000 focus XP, and countine on with no upper limit.

Example 2: Every 300,000 focus XP increase the ability strength of Madurai’s Sling Strength by 0.5% (currently max is 40%).

Example 3: Every 300,000 focus XP increases the ability strength of Zenurik’s Hardened Wellspring by 0.02% (currently max is 20%).

Example 4: Every 300,000 focus XP increases the range of Unairu's Magnetic Flare by 0.1 meters for 1 second (as of now, beside stripping enemies’ armor, only resist knockdown in Unairu has a role to play, so it could be a good idea to buff this focus school).

Example 5: Every 300,000 focus XP increases range of Naramon Void Sling’s distance 1%, or change the Killer’s Rush to after use Void Sling two times in a row, increase melee weapon’s critical chance and critical damage. Currently Killer’s Rush’s trigger conditions are particularly harsh, which also leads to no one use the Naramon.

By doing something like this it would increase the viscosity of the game for players, and it would allow players to still have something to do every day after they've gotten all the Focus school maxed, because they really don't know what to do after the weekly missions and the daily missions.

The options I've proposed so far are just brief ideas. I'm sure DE have better ideas.

The challenge I have with balancing Vazarin (my favorite focus school) is that you are requesting an already too powerful set of abilities to be even stronger. As it is now, having 5 full seconds of both invulnerability AND rapid eHP recovery during that invulnerability is way too good to touch. To put it another way, that is 5 seconds of uninterrupted killing time against Acolytes, Liches, lethal procs and AoE blasts. The bigger punch is that also comes with basically teleportation via the sling itself, placing you away from or right at the danger. This doesn't even include the tethering and shield generator.

I think the numbers make it seem like the abilities are not strong enough but, IMO, the focus schools are wildly powerful and have nearly cult followers now. Giving them even a touch more power would be way too much.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

7 hours ago, Agall said:

Naramon could use a little love, I think there's some more useful amendments they could make to the tree. I'd like to see some sort of damage mitigation apart of the tree that would benefit melee play. Currently its easier to just use Primary/secondary Dexterity to maintain combo duration than Naramon for primary melee gameplay, but maybe that's the point.

I like this idea. Maybe some added physical damage reduction (5% to 50%, depending on melee multiplier). This would fit the "head on" berserker type that Naramon represents. 

[Agall]

15 hours ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

I like this idea. Maybe some added physical damage reduction (5% to 50%, depending on melee multiplier). This would fit the "head on" berserker type that Naramon represents. 

What I'd love to see is an auto parry feature and/or addition of the reflect mechanic. double your melee's parry angle as well. That would be sufficient damage mitigation to go quite high up. This feature already exists if you use secondary+glaive, where as long as you're not ADSing, it'll auto parry within the parry angle.

[Agall]

17 hours ago, trst said:

The schools are already far more balanced than they ever have been.

Madurai for passive damage and speedrunning. Vazarin for easy immortality. Naramon for saving mod space/buffing melee. Unairu for CC immunity and armor stripping. And Zenurik for power strength and free energy.

The only one that's sort of underwhelming is Naramon since it lost the 100% heavy efficiency (which is even more dead once TennoKai drops) but all the rest have viable and effective use cases. So aside from Naramon there's really nothing here that needs buffing.

I think there's perfectly reasonable ways that DE could upgrade Naramon to continue its melee focused gameplay. My biggest complaint with melee only gameplay, especially with overguard Eximus, is that you can be simply 1 shotted by CC immune enemies or toxin clouds. It honestly could be as simple as adding the Decree "overguard on melee kill" that might be enough for a melee focused build to survive, as long as you turbo-nerd hard enough with melee.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Agall

[crazywolfpusher]

33 minutes ago, Agall said:

I think there's perfectly reasonable ways that DE could upgrade Naramon to continue its melee focused gameplay. My biggest complaint with melee only gameplay, especially with overguard Eximus, is that you can be simply 1 shotted by CC immune enemies or toxin clouds. It honestly could be as simple as adding the Decree "overguard on melee kill" that might be enough for a melee focused build to survive, as long as you turbo-nerd hard enough with melee.

a small amount of non stackable Overguard by doing melee stuff, not necessarily killing, sounds fantastic against Toxin enemies.  But in all honesty I'd rather have Toxin reworked to not pierce Tenno shields. 1 shot mechanics are bullS#&$.

 

Worth notice that there are some niche mechanics  like Slams+Heavy Slams, Finishers, Slide Attacks, Aerial Attacks and Blocking, that feel forgotten. It would be a great opportunity for a deeper Naramon rework around those.

 

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

44 minutes ago, Agall said:

What I'd love to see is an auto parry feature and/or addition of the reflect mechanic. double your melee's parry angle as well. That would be sufficient damage mitigation to go quite high up. This feature already exists if you use secondary+glaive, where as long as you're not ADSing, it'll auto parry within the parry angle.

I like this! Honestly, I would add both ideas, with the condition of your frame must be in melee only mode. This would add a type of "melee purest" feel to the setup, similar to how Mesa gains power when she does not have a melee weapon with her.

In all, this setup would work very well with combo counter mods, other party/reflect mods and other damage reduction mods. I would love to try and berserker setup like this!

[0_The_F00l]

I don't think focus is the issue by itself.

The issue is that the rest of the game is too pigeonholed for most content.

[Agall]

16 minutes ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

I like this! Honestly, I would add both ideas, with the condition of your frame must be in melee only mode. This would add a type of "melee purest" feel to the setup, similar to how Mesa gains power when she does not have a melee weapon with her.

In all, this setup would work very well with combo counter mods, other party/reflect mods and other damage reduction mods. I would love to try and berserker setup like this!

What my goal with Naramon to be would involve a seemless melee only mode experience that includes operator as your 'firearm', so mechanisms to encourage that type of gameplay. I'd like to use Naramon, but its sacrificial for the immunity mechanic in Unairu at the moment. Unless they rework it to have some defensive capabilities or add a mod/augment/subsume that provides similar functionality (that isn't [Rolling Guard] since the downtime of it just isn't worth it), it'll likely stay that way. The armor/shield stripping and immunity is just too powerful with Unairu comparably.

 

If it puts it into perspective, I've been a 'no primary/secondary melee only' type player for nearly a decade. The melee weapon I've used over the years has evolved over time, currently varying between several options which includes Exalted Blade. I've never liked having to switch weapons in the game, so most the time with Exalted Blade, I only run a melee weapon.

[(XBOX)Rez090]

On 2023-12-11 at 7:22 AM, crazywolfpusher said:

Played a few years of Elders Scrolls Online and there we had a system called Champion Points that worked very similar to the the progression system you are proposing. It didn't go well. Eventually everyone reach the cap, raising the same issues all over again. 

Lol, using past tense for something that still exists and got reworked quite awhile ago.

[Agall]

35 minutes ago, crazywolfpusher said:

a small amount of non stackable Overguard by doing melee stuff, not necessarily killing, sounds fantastic against Toxin enemies.  But in all honesty I'd rather have Toxin reworked to not pierce Tenno shields. 1 shot mechanics are bullS#&$.

 

Worth notice that there are some niche mechanics  like Slams+Heavy Slams, Finishers, Slide Attacks, Aerial Attacks and Blocking, that feel forgotten. It would be a great opportunity for a deeper Naramon rework around those.

 

It depends on the melee weapon regarding niche mechanics. I still regularly do finishers and block, but I'm a strange animal in this game. I personally think Toxin should stay as a shield bypass mechanic because otherwise, it would be just like everything else. That unique aspect to toxin does make it terrifying, just really problematic for melee mode players like myself. I'd say what would be a reasonable compromise would be to make the toxin resistance arcane work for toxin clouds as well, so that the toxin mechanic can be entirely negated.

non-stackable overguard from regular melee could work without imbalance, although that would force melee mode players to maximize their attack speed. Worst case scenario, it could be balanced by stance variety or some other variable that would mitigate spam gameplay but not make the talent worthless against bosses (although that's not a big deal in my opinion).

Another suggestion would be to base the overguard mechanic off of unique melee interactions with variety, including slams, finishers, slides, blocking, stance variety. I think any added overguard mechanic to Naramon would most benefit from enticing the player to properly use the quite complex melee mechanics that Warframe has that most players can simply ignore, especially with auto melee now.

[Brian_with_a_Buh]

I havent read all of this yet, but have to say i would love a "borderlands 2-esque badass rank' system put in for focus school. The cosmetic 'represent' options there are for overflow focus points...i dunno, just kinda underwhelming. Mostly decorations, instead of more stuff for fashion frame. No resources at all (would happily spend 1 million focus points on an umbra forma BP). I think 1 weapon per school that you can only get from this way would be awesome. Make them themed to the school.

For example: a primary or secondary with a healing mechanic for vazarin.

A non zaw melee weapon that has exodia brave's effect built in for zenurik.

A second melee weapon with infinite combo count like xoris, for naramon.

A New operator amp main piece for madurai

For unairu....no clue, never use it, i think its the least interesting/useful focus school.

 

MIddle earth shadow of war, after being out for a year, or 2 & releasing 2 dlcs...added a 'badass rank' mechanic for extra skill points, it was great!

Edited December 12, 2023 by Brian_with_a_Buh

[Brian_with_a_Buh]

Also, in shadow of war...there was an upper limit. 100 levels, which i think was okay. Bcuz there were 6 things that each went to 100 & i played quite a bit & only had 1/6 at 100, the others all at 0

 

So, i think an upper limit can work. Just make it take time to hit. Nice goal for veterans.

Maybe even after a year or two, when some players have hit it...increase it to 200. Or, add in another 100 levels that give another effect. (Or, if DE wants to go a little harder on balance, make this new 100 levels a different thing & only 1 or the other can be active at a time. That way, in a couple more years, a third thing could be added).

Edited December 12, 2023 by Brian_with_a_Buh

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

I think the trees are in a decent spot , except maybe Vazarin which doesn't really do it for me.

Just think it's way too tedious to max for the average player. They made it easier to hit your daily cap now with the new focus orb and lens changes, but since so many upgrades cost a million standing, it's quite a big job to max all trees.

[LEE_ash_prime]

2023/12/11 PM11点58分 , Agall 说:

我个人只使用Unairu。奈拉蒙曾经是我的首选，但缺乏免疫力让我更难证明其合理性。在我看来，Unairu 本身就是一所完美的“通才”学校。

由于其免疫力，瓦扎林仍然非常可行。它使得 Unairu 或 Vazarin 成为等级上限内容的实际必需品。

 

奈拉蒙需要一点爱，我认为他们可以对这棵树做一些更有用的修改。我希望看到树之外的某种伤害减轻措施，这将有利于近战游戏。目前，使用主要/次要敏捷来维持连击持续时间比使用奈拉蒙进行主要近战游戏更容易，但这也许就是重点。

Yep

14小时前 , Brian_with_a_Buh 说:

而且，在战争的阴影下……也是有上限的。100级，我觉得还可以。因为有 6 个东西，每一个都达到 100，我玩了很多，只有 1/6 达到 100，其他都是 0

 

所以，我认为上限是可行的。只是让它需要时间来击球。对于退伍军人来说，这是一个不错的进球。

也许甚至在一两年后，当一些玩家达到了它时......将其增加到 200。或者，添加另外 100 个级别，以产生另一种效果。（或者，如果 DE 想要在平衡上更努力一些，请让这个新的 100 个级别变得不同，并且一次只能激活一个或另一个。这样，在几年后，可以添加第三个东西）。

Good idea

[Xzorn]

Well, they kinda made the Focus system into the nonsense it is now.
Believe is or not outside some changed/nerfs. This is the best iteration Being the 3rd rework.

Vazarin's Dome used to protect a lot more and prevented enemies from going inside it. It was very strong. Naramon used to make you invis on melee Crit, which holy crap someone was drunk when they thought of that. Ironically the old Madurai passive would be more useful more with status weight changes. It added +% to your physical damage. More Slash procs. As for the second version Naramon's combo count bonus died when combo multipliers died. Vasarin lost value when you could revive in Operator mode.

The original concept of the system was a soft cap to Affinity "For players who have leveled everything" - DE Steve. That never happened.
Interestingly the Focus system could have just been the Archon Shard system without the FOMO. 5mil for 1% Duration, 10mil for the next 1%, etc.
Each school provides a bonus for using it per frame but they also made Focus waaaaay too easy at his point to get so *shrugs*.