A Complete Rework Of The Foundation Of Warframe.

[ensignvidiot]

-snip-

 

 

I support the OP, and the post above me. I would love to have both of you on the DE team.

 

+1

 

I haven't the time, currently to give you the full feedback on your epic redesign of warframe, but I do want to hope besides Mhyrria, on his/her soapbox:

 

Balance is Key

Edited December 13, 2013 by ensignvidiot

[goodpoltergeist]

I think this is great.  Very well thought out, and incredibly well presented.  
From the perspective of a player who has been playing for about 2 weeks, here is how Warframe plays out in its current state:
It starts off great.  It throws you right in with little in the way of explanation, but just enough to get you slicing, dicing, and shooting.  For hours you'll play.  Reveling in the shiny new experience and slaying hordes of enemies without a care.  However, you have very little direction.  Eventually you'll learn about building new weapons and blueprints and warframes, and you'll set out towards that purpose.  However, by the time you've actually built your first warframe, you've been grinding a long time.  You've got a handful of weapons at level 30.  You've been tinkering with mods, not to mention all the farming you've been doing for blueprints.  Then you start it all over again on a brand new warframe.  By then, all the new and shiny has worn off, and you're finding that really warframe isn't all that much fun anymore, and it is instead tedious.
That is where I'm at now.  I haven't even cleared every node on the map.  I'm not sure I care to.  Why?  It's just the same thing I've done hundreds of times already, and it was only really fun the first few dozen times.  I sit around waiting for the occasional alert because I am not particularly interested in trudging through the rest of the map.
I imagine I'm not the only new player that feels like this.  Grinding for the sole purpose of gear is pointless, unless you are actually enjoying playing the game (in which case you wouldn't really call it grinding).  I believe the OP alleviates that significantly by making the game at its core an enjoyable experience, so that when you're grinding, it isn't drudgery.  People aren't rushing past enemies to get to objectives and extract so they can get in another mission faster.  People are actually having fun farming for whatever it is they're looking for  (or to clear the solar map).
However, there is something missing that the OP doesn't address, and that is that even with a core game that is lots of fun to play, it will get boring and tedious after a while.  Right now everything is pretty much the same thing from mercury to Pluto to the Void to the Derelicts.  I have heard many calls for an "endgame" and I think there's something to that.  I don't know what to implement or how to implement it, but there needs to be something out there aside from grinding and farming for that next shiny to keep players interested.

[destroyer12]

duuuuuuuude, that's like the Great Wall of Text

[illusionastic]

Firstly Hats of to your effort and time taken to come up with such new ideas. This might actually work well i feel. Grinding of credits just to level certain mods to max levels makes the game kinda grind fest which was so old school style. Hope DE takes a look at this and come up with a better system for mods and weapons.

[Y0URD34D]

I like the idea of a revised Upgrade/Mod system, as getting bored with farming stuff was the reason I stopped playing some time ago. I just recently began to play again, as i was curious about DMG 2.0 and the new Frames. Having farmed those, it just gets running around and farm mods while beeing as timeefficient as possible.

[Curaidh]

Just two comments:

 

You propose to take the skill system out of "Rift", a game that failed quite hard. Also the fight lab out of "Remember Me", which had it's combat system as the biggest weakness causing flocks of players to just not play it after the first few hours.

 

 

While I agree with a lot of your sentiments and also feel railroaded in all my builds in Warframe, just taking two flawed systems from other games and putting them on top of Warframe will not make the problems go away. A for effort, but the rest...

[laubauflo]

So, you want to combine crappy MMORPG concepts with CoD accesorizing and remember me? I'd rather keep the old connect teh dots system.

[at35z]

I actually have to say that the "Skill-tree-system" is just an incredibly giant bag of cliché and I hate it.

 

I really like this Mod Card system, because it's unique, and it also allows the players to truly personalize their gameplay. Yes, having 300 Warframes and 1000 Weapons is a point, because with this system and some experience, you can choose your weapons by just looking at how they look like (however, not always...).

 

Yes, this "drop"-thing can be annoying, but come on... deal with it...

 

If there would be anything that I would change, probably the method of getting them. But I would never put this Mod-Card-System to the trash.

 

And the abilities are mods, yes. They should have been removed from the mods and handled as different things, so we would have more slots for customization, but this would be additional, I didn't have any problems with it.

Edited December 14, 2013 by at35z

[Captator]

words

 

unique =/= useful/good/working

 

visual example ^^ http://www.marcofolio.net/images/stories/fun/imagedump/demotivational_posters/unique.jpg

[SoulConnector]

You really put your effort into writing this out, and its just great ! :) But I think we rather not combine the other games concepts into this game, coz i feel its quite original and... good enough for now.

Edited December 14, 2013 by SoulConnector

[Ruriko]

I'm arriving in this thread quite late, and for that, I apologize to Zamboni for the excellent post they created for all of us to read and give our thoughts on.

 

Weither we like these ideas or not, they are not the issue. Many people have voiced distaste for honest ideas to address real issues. Unfortunately, Zamboni is completely correct about the Mod System. Like it or hate it, the fact remains that it was created to give players the freedom to play as they choose. Unfortunately, the dreams and ideas that this system embodied for DE has actually failed to be realized due to the very nature of the game they created. Due to the need to survive and the human desire to be an equal member of the cell, players are reduced to "Main" builds that consist of identical mods: Damage+, Multi-shot, and Elemental Mods.

 

This is not the vision DE desired for their system. This is not the system that we, as players, wanted. We need to be more than copies of one another. Zamboni's suggestions have garnered a massive amount of rate-ups, more than I've seen any single post gain since I became a member back in U7. This tells me that the player base is in agreement: Things need to change.

 

I don't necessarily agree with all of what Zamboni is suggestion, like tying Mastery to what Planets you can access. This system can be overdesigned and heavily restrict what resources can be collected at lower levels. Unless the weapon recipes also receive adjustment to scale with progress (I.E: No recipes that require nano spores or rubedo until you reach Mars/Jupiter), this creates a physical barrier that means that people can't pursue weapons they would find enjoyable. With that said, it also means that certain weapons would be unfortunately classified as "Rookie Gear", creating stigmas and ultimately backlashes from the player base about Player Interaction being profoundly negative toward newer players.

 

On the subject of skill trees, I do not believe that it presents any danger to Warframe. In the spirit of what the Mod system was meant to be, this is actually in keeping with the desires that DE had for us as players and testers: The ability to choose your own destiny. It gives flexibility to frames that we have all truly desired, the ability to control our own destinies and take the template that DE has provided and play it our own way. It encourages one to experiment, to find a structure that works for you and you alone. It still satisfies those players that focus on being the Ultimate while giving the rest of us the chance to be as creative as the world that DE has built for us.

 

On the subject of attachments, I feel I may be slightly bias because I proposed something similar not long ago. I still support the idea because it allows players to take weapons they like and adjust them to better suit their tastes. There is no way to know if this will just become how Weapon Mods are currently, with there being 1 and only 1 set of 'optimal' attachments. Even still, I feel this is a more accurate representation of what the mod system was intended to be.

 

Given the fact that the devs themselves have already expressed a desire to change how Melee combat feels, I believe that Zamboni's suggestions are a fair choice for consideration in how that might be achieved. I'm not saying the suggestion is flawless. To me, there is no such thing. Every system has a flaw, if not multiple. Still, I support the idea, even if I am not necessarily comfortable with the 'fight lab'.

 

I call upon you, my fellow Tenno, that if you disagree with the efforts made by Zamboni, or the points that I offer in support, please step forward and make your views clear. What do you like? What do you dislike? Help to move the discussion forward and refine ideas that capture the ideals DE had in mind for Warframe.

[-BELLUM-]

Excellent suggestions buddy, hope they some how at least get partly implemented in the future! +1

 

On a side note, i scrolled through all 30 pages on this thread. Seeing the wall after wall of text responses.....and i only saw 1 DE reply.

lol xp

Edited December 14, 2013 by -BELLUM-

[Scintilus]

Skill trees from Borderlands, Weapon customizations from Destiny, Night and Day cycle from the Witcher 3, Mecha Orokin from Titanfall and Hawken, Spaceship battles from Eve Online, Weapon melee and skill comboes from Devil May Cry series & Badass whip combos from Ninja Gaiden,

[rafacasper]

I am against skill trees.

 

One of the things that made me like so much Waframe was the mod system, reminds me of Final Fantasy 7. I played lots of other games with skill trees, , but I always feel the trees always end forcing you to take things you dont like, even on Borderlands 2 that has a short skill tree.

 

I agree that somethings are bad, like nobody using melee, everybody using +% damage mods on weapons, the utility mods taking precious space, but thank you, no skill tree.

[DreadScourge]

This may seem like a large change, DE, but i have been playing over 1000 hours on this game and have simply stopped. The current system is broken filler. Please listen to this player.

[chimp77]

I am against skill trees.

 

One of the things that made me like so much Waframe was the mod system, reminds me of Final Fantasy 7. I played lots of other games with skill trees, , but I always feel the trees always end forcing you to take things you dont like, even on Borderlands 2 that has a short skill tree.

 

I agree that somethings are bad, like nobody using melee, everybody using +% damage mods on weapons, the utility mods taking precious space, but thank you, no skill tree.

 

The skill tree doesn't have to be progression based like Borderlands. I imagine the OP's skill trees would function much like the mod system does, but instead of worrying about slots, you have to worry about point distribution (which gives us more options for customization). It also separates the mods based on their uses, so the more niche mods can be used without totally gimping your build.

 

The trees open up many possibilities as far as implementation. It could just be a grid with no real progression, you just put points wherever you want. Or it could be a classic "rooted" tree where you put points into a power for example, and then choose which "branch" of the power you want to focus on more (this would allow for interesting trade-offs, as you could spend all your points to unlock all the branches, but are rewarded more for focusing your points on one branch). It could also be a combination of these things, and it could vary for each of the three trees.

 

My point is that there are ways to adapt it so that it makes sense. Not everything has to be a literal interpretation from other games.

[AshenHaze]

DE needs to hire OP as main game concept design dev.

 

I'd play OP's Warframe for years and not get tired mainly because I have unique/oblong playstyles that aren't complimented by the "run and gun" direction that Call of DE: Modern Warframe 2 is taking.

[Sha_Kharn]

Just skimmed OP before going to sleep and OMG can wait to read it all tomorrow looks awesome. Hope DE had a dam good look at this. 

[theGreatZamboni]

Just two comments:

 

You propose to take the skill system out of "Rift", a game that failed quite hard. Also the fight lab out of "Remember Me", which had it's combat system as the biggest weakness causing flocks of players to just not play it after the first few hours.

 

 

While I agree with a lot of your sentiments and also feel railroaded in all my builds in Warframe, just taking two flawed systems from other games and putting them on top of Warframe will not make the problems go away. A for effort, but the rest...

 

I really feel like your superficial analyses is just that, superficial. Without having to overly explain why, (I shouldn't have to) let me just say this again: Just because something borrows from another game, does not make it that game.

Edited December 15, 2013 by theGreatZamboni

[tmtke]

Let's put aside customizaton for a minute. For me, it's not what makes warframe even more fun to play (maybe because I'm still enjoying it). Instead, I have a few thoughts:

 

* Scott said they have an idea for balancing the RNG system a bit more. This will help removing problems related to most high tier players are doing survival/defense missions only.

* More possible routes in tilesets, like ones to get around enemies (stealth)

* Updated level generation system, to have more balanced map sizes (sometimes they are too big - leads to rushing, or too small - leads to boredom, if repeated), and they are very linear currently.

* The best maps in any game are often mission related in layout, which also can help make players slow down a bit and think ("which route is the most rewarding for me?"). If specific rooms can be bottlenecks (in enemy resistance or skill/ability related), it would encourage team play more.

* Larger scale gameplay, which is lore related. Invasion is a good direction towards dynamic events, hopefully we will see more, much more - I pretty much interested in new, scanner based missions and what will come off of them. Hopefully scannable stuff scattered through the whole map, which in fact is not so easy to rush.

[theGreatZamboni]

Let's put aside customizaton for a minute. For me, it's not what makes warframe even more fun to play (maybe because I'm still enjoying it). Instead, I have a few thoughts:

 

* Scott said they have an idea for balancing the RNG system a bit more. This will help removing problems related to most high tier players are doing survival/defense missions only.

* More possible routes in tilesets, like ones to get around enemies (stealth)

* Updated level generation system, to have more balanced map sizes (sometimes they are too big - leads to rushing, or too small - leads to boredom, if repeated), and they are very linear currently.

* The best maps in any game are often mission related in layout, which also can help make players slow down a bit and think ("which route is the most rewarding for me?"). If specific rooms can be bottlenecks (in enemy resistance or skill/ability related), it would encourage team play more.

* Larger scale gameplay, which is lore related. Invasion is a good direction towards dynamic events, hopefully we will see more, much more - I pretty much interested in new, scanner based missions and what will come off of them. Hopefully scannable stuff scattered through the whole map, which in fact is not so easy to rush.

 

You can balance the RNG all you want, but 2 years from now we are gonna have so many mods it will be out of control. They shouldn't have to waste time designing mods or implementing them, then spend more time making sure the drop tables are "fair". They claimed they have it down now (the tables), but I will believe it when I see it. Most of you are suggesting/speaking of could exist in either the current or suggested system. These ideas are ideal for making the game more fun. But again, like always, the game is being held together by the art direction and promises. Full focus could be placed on the things you listed if they were not so focused on balancing drops and messing with core mechanics, which is a primary observation in the OP.

Edited December 16, 2013 by theGreatZamboni

[Neruell]

Can someone tell me why will the new system will make us not rush the missions and "enjoy" them?

[chimp77]

Can someone tell me why will the new system will make us not rush the missions and "enjoy" them?

 

TL;DR: The new system makes gameplay a fun, satisfying experience that is fueled by the player rather than the frustrating, RNG fueled grindfest that it currently is. It also gives an accurate measure of player skill, which in turn provides a much more solid foundation for DE to base deeper, more enjoyable content on.

 

I recommend you read the highlighted text below for further understanding:

 

People play to obtain drops. Mods are drops. Now this is a point of contention, but I am willing to bet some people are tired of the game and find themselves only playing to obtain said drops. The problem being the gameplay in and of itself is not satisfying. The drops/rewards are acting as the driving force for player retention, instead of creating experiences that are rewarding and letting the drops compliment those experiences. This is the very idea that lead people to begin rushing en masse. People rush because they do not want to waste the time, energy (in game and out) as well as ammo when they can just reach extraction and receive their reward. Sometimes there is a boss in the way and players will take an extra two seconds to kill said boss, then proceed to rush to the exit. A many of bosses are designed with invincible phases, which only highlight the issue at hand and people become frustrated. The idea is, people go fast because it is a means of coping with the mechanics that cause them to second guess whether they are they are having fun. They want the end goal and find nothing in between to be rewarding.

 

[snip]

 

Let's recap.

 

With the new skill tree you remove mods from the drops tables. It refocuses the game around how you use your Warframe based on your preferred style of play. All aspects of the Utility tree are available from the get go, because variances on how you play should not be relegated to railroad design. Things like the Power and System tree are still progressive trees. But due to precepts and independent pools of points for each tree, players will still be encouraged to create expressive builds and never feel slighted due to the RNG gods or min-max builds. It also makes leveling new Warframes faster and more fun, due to the precept points. It restores meaning and function to Mastery Rank. Because precepts are tied to Mastery Rank, it now becomes feasible to construct content for just about any player, at any level. You have a measurable means of identifying player vitals and progress.

 

With the new attachment system, it removes railroading or false customization, just like with Warframes themselves. Because leveling your gun affords it base stat increases, by the time it is level 30 it is already a formidable means of killing the enemy. The attachments keep damage types in place and better work around the new Damage 2.0 model. Because certain modifications are unique to certain slots, it forces the player to make strategic decisions in how they customize their gun. It rids the system of useless mods like Serration, which should never have existed in the first place as it plays against the whole idea of the game. This new system also means you can continue using your preferred weapons, while accentuating its positives and hiding its weaknesses. Someone who likes the Lex won’t feel stupid for not using the Brakk. Because each weapons’ own innate traits are more prominent, it creates niche purposes for certain weapons while keeping them all in a stone-throws distance of effectiveness. The guns themselves are what provide choice and customization, not the attachments/modifications. It also removes mods from the drop tables, refocusing on the gameplay. Attachments can be added to the store or ClanTech and do not necessarily have to be representative in the gameplay (visual attachments). This in turn makes actual resources more useful as they are required to build new attachments.

Finally, the Fight Lab. A simplistic yet extremely effective way to make melee viable. Allowing players to further customize their experience and refocusing on the gameplay. Players will play levels not to get drops, but to test out new combos or try out new stance/weapon combinations. It rewards players for playing because of the precepts in the combo tree as well as the interaction with the system. It is merely a skin/purpose for the melee system they showcased here:

 

Everything I listed here is a foundation. It creates systems that are centered on gameplay rather than drops. These systems do not need constant additions like the Mod Card system. The entities that these systems support are the means of delivering content. Making using that new Warframe mean more. Letting you try out a new gun regardless of what mods you have. This also allows for more focus on creating exciting game experiences to keep people interested rather than creating rewards. Again, ask yourself what kind of mods we will have 2 years from now. This emphasizes the point of my systems. Create core mechanics that do not need to be updated every month to keep players interested. The focus then can be taken away from randomness, away from grind and be placed on making new enemies, levels and game modes that are fun. This is what my post is about, making the game fun.

Edited December 16, 2013 by chimp77

[syle]

the picture with the mod load out and a potential tenno joining your group with such is a reason why I hate the mod cards

that's why I was always pushing for something that would at least get rid of the garbage mods that are out there by using

transmute and fusing those into powerfull mods that would be actually acceptable to have in your load out

the problem is that now with the trading system in place DE will say that they don't want to go back to a tree skill system

I say that those should be combined and useless mods mods should be taken out and replaced by the tree system

just like lol skill trees

somebody wants to be tanky ? well no more vitality/warmcoats etc - just survival tree

somebody wants to do dmg ? - dmg tree will buff their weapons and ability dmg

someone wants to be quick , have fast recharge on energy , lower cooldown , larger effect for powers and duration , faster movement speed and recovery ? - utility tree is for them

 

they can be universal

 

and I bet DE can look at trade logs and will see no one trades warmcoats/maglevs/vitalitys etc - those mods are S#&$ , no one wants them

 

gives us choice to customize the feel of our frames with skill trees instead

Edited December 16, 2013 by syle

[tmtke]

Ok, I re-read the OP again, because I still have this itch in the deep caverns of my mind.

 

So, for attachments, they would present in the game as blueprints - mission rewards, market items, etc. How does this prevent players for rushing the level to get the reward? Or the reward will depend on how the player perform in the mission? If so, how this system will work? What are the measures? Players will get different rewards depending on playstyle/most used weapon/whatever?

 

On melee weapons, how will the attachment system work? They are far more primitive than an advanced firearm, only two components, a blade and a handle (glaive has 3 blades, but it won't make any difference). If melee weapons will be as strong (in DPS) as firearms (and can be throwing ones, like the glaive, again), these will be OP against infested, but almost unused against corpus, and barely used against grineer. This is the same as the current situation, because we don't have too much stealth options, where melee weapons can shine.

 

By mastery ranks, you wrote that player gets first 2 abilities on start, the remaining 2 on lvl 10. How will this help if you levelling up multiple warframes, and instead of have their abilities based on their level, you get ALL if you're having mastery rank high enough? Will this keep players playing? Where's the reward in that?

 

With having strong enough weapons on the start, why would players need another? For aesthetic reasons? I for myself really like to play with bows as primary. How would you balance bow's strength against a burst rifle? If you make arrow damage so huge that it can compete with any firearm, wouldn't this imbalance the game? Everyone will take the Dread and the others.

 

How would you scale enemy levels from noob level gameplay to end tier gameplay, if (again, as you stated in the OP) "The gun should already be a lethal entity"? How will this motivate players to advance towards the endgame? Certain blueprints on higher tier levels? Wait, if they will be in the market also, won't this allow players to have a strong urge to just buy the attachments, craft them, and done? At first this will lead to resource farming, which is not by any means better than farming for mods. Then it will lead devs to move items into plat only, because of the huge number of quasi-free purchases, and this would make the game p2w immediately.

 

And please, if you answer, don't tell me to "read the OP again", or "these are already answered", because they are not. This is why I'm citing them, and asking questions. Believe me, I'm trying to question your system to make you think, not just simple arguing. Btw I'm just hate the fanboy posts as much as hater posts.