Ranged Weapons

[J-Pax]

I love this game to pieces, so much so that I feel compelled to actually put my 2p's worth into the forums.

Ranged weapon are fantastically varied, and wonderfully deadly - however some things make your weapons very blah blah.

All of them are different, but their mod systems are, aside from layout and number of X nodes, particularly bland.

They definitely add effectivness, don't get me wrong, they just don't feel befitting of a future race of space-ninja-warriors.

Suggestions:

1) Node Variance.

So you currently have: Damage, Clip, Rate of fire, Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Mod Slots for your weapon upgrades.

These are all ridiculously bland titles. In terms of flavour they need to do more for us, and the nodes need to be more Jammy. Say for example, the shotgun. Rather than just plain old damage, you could have "Shrapnel shot" rather than plain old "+10% damage" it adds 10% more pellets" in the form of flechettes of razor sharp metal to your regular blast, with a riccochet effect off of walls and floors - only the shrapnel would have this effect, but it'd be damned impressive to see a wall of pellets and shrapnel sparkling it's red hot razor death at your enemy along it's flight path. Leave the mods to have boring stats like "Added vanilla damage" or "Increased critical chance", have your weapons feel fundamentally unique in their upgrades - even if the effect is basically the same. Personally I'd like to see more "Wow" mods as well on that topic, even ones that don't do much but add function to your weapon. For example the Lato pistol. Great all-round weapon in my oppinion, but it's currently destroying the cartiledge in my first finger for all the clicking -a mod that makes the pistol fully automatic at the rate of it's clicking cap would make it much more functional, and improve average DPS for miss-timed clicks. Having a mod that makes my snipetron ricochet it's bullet to the nearest enemy for 66% and then 33% damage would certainly make me feel awesome, especially, considering it's current lethality. Also, if you're going to go an add a decent stealth feature to the game, then a silencer mod is diffenitely in order, sacrificing +X etc mods for that stealth ninja flair.

2) Node visual affects:

The guns look awesome, but currently the only thing seperating my L30 Boar from a vanilla unranked Boar is the number of blue shiney module slots on the side of my weapon. I'd like to see my Boar get gradually more beefy as improvements are made. Increased ammo should make it's clip change in appearance, rate of fire should change the hammer system and bulkiness, rate of fire should change the barrel to be beefier, maybe make it multi-barrelled. Adding more variety to how awesome your guns currently look will make the game that much more impressive. that + Electricity damage module should add a capacitor to my gun, a big chunky cyclinder hanging off the end, charging my pellets as they fly out my gun. Having the pellets fire with arcs sparking off between them as they fly can only make for an ultimately impressive fire show.

3)Gun sound effects:

Visuals are great, but nothing is better than an awesome sounding gun. As you diversify your gun it should affect it's sound. The Sturn should get a more bassy boom. The Lex should practically thunder it's hand-cannon awesomeness to the world. The Furis should storm it's hail of bullets at the enemy. Making your guns sound different as they progress only adds to diversity.

Developers note: I love your game. I love it so much I want it to be as awesome as can be. I want players to constantly have that "Wow" feeling, to constantly feel their progress is rewarded. As such I feel my suggestions can only add to that experience, even if only a few are actually put into play - but I also understand how much hard work you're all putting into this game. I love you guys for making it, and if my pay day came before March 16th to invest in the Grand Master founders package I would. Again, I love you guys. Your work is amazing so far, and although I know what I'm suggesting is going to, literally, put your art and sound technicians through hell - these suggestions come from me and what I'd want out of the game, and would ultimately constantly make me feel like the most amazing space-ninja out there.

Further Edit: I was going to make another thread with basically these same suggestions about warframes themselves, but take what I've said above and apply the general jist of what could be applied in that field and you've basically got it down. Cheers for reading, many <3's to you all.

Edited March 5, 2013 by J-Pax

[Psyclosarin]

Just an FYI, the mod slot system is being scrapped in the next update :)

It's going to be replaced with a more interesting "card" system.

If you have a free hour, check out their latest dev Q&A