I Realised Why There Are No Unique Builds, And How To Fix That

[lautalocos]

(along with some other stuff)

before reading this, take a look at this great post: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/137875-a-complete-rework-of-the-foundation-of-warframe/

long post, no TL;DR

the reason why we don´t have unique builds is because each weapon and warframe can do everything.

what do i mean? well, take any weapon or warframe, as an example the galantine.

what stops you from putting attack speed, damage, and crit mods on it? nothing, not the mod slots, not the energy points.

take volt too, as an example.

what stops you from putting shields mods, energy mods, and all the stuff that makes you powerfull in every sense? nothing

the mod system had this problem since the start, but it was further mutilated by the addition of auras giving energy and forma.

so, how do we fix this? well, here is a raw idea.

PART 1: leveling up and upgradind your warframe equipment

(PS: this is not a skill tree, you can upgrade whenever you want)

from now on, your warframe and weapons will be upgraded directly with the energy points, without getting for leveling up (instead of getting 5% more health in level 2, you upgrade your health by using energy points on your health stat)

what things can you upgrade?:

warframes:

skill 1

skill 2

skill 3

skill 4

health

shields

shield recharge rate

stamina

stamina recharge rate

speed

armor

energy max

energy efficiency (maybe?)

weapons:

*1 impact, puncture and slash damage (if they are a melee weapon, upgrading damages upgrades both charge and normal attacks)

fire rate/attack speed (this affects too melee charge delay too)

crit chance (see above)

crit damage (see above)

ammo capacity (guns only)

reload speed (guns only)

status chance

accuracy

recoil

with each level, let´s say you get 5 energy points. each kind of upgrade costs different quantities. as an example, damage may cost 5 points, and ammo capacity 1, because ammo capacity is worse than damage.

each skill also has a different cap. while damage may cap at, let´s say, level 10, fire rate might cap at level 5

each level gives bonuses from the base stat. this means that if an upgrade gives me 5% of my base stat, the next upgrade will give me 5% from my base stat again. this translates to 100%+5%+5%=110%

ALSO, and please read, each warframe/weapon would have a cap of how much you can upgrade something, and it would be shared across all weapons/warframes.

this means that if loki can upgrade stamina 10 times, then rhino can too upgrade stamina 10 times.

(these are just examples, in no way they are balanced)

using potatoes gives us double energy points to spend

even with a potato, we will not be able to max everything out. no matter what we use.

*1- how does upgading damage work? if you have a weapon that does 10 impact, 10 puncture and 20 slash, for a total of 40 damage, then if you upgrade impact damage, you will get the bonus from the total damage, not the impact damage alone.

also, if the gun doesn´t have one of these 3 damages, or it´s only elemental, then you can only upgrade the damages you have.

this gives us the possibility to customise that gun you love for every faction.

also, upgrading damage has a limit, but it´s shared with each damage type. this means that you can upgrade either 10 times impact, or you can upgrade 3 times impact, 3 puncture and 4 slash

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PART 2: mod system

how do mods fit in this system? well, we have 2 options, and you are probably gonna hate both of them. this is a really drastic change.

option A)

keep the mod system, but nerf each mod. a lot. no longer we will have redirection giving us 440% shields, or serration giving us 165% damage (of course, these mdos would no longer have 10 levels. maybe 3 or 5).

at max level, serration should give around 30% damage of the base stats (before upgrading with energy points)

not all mods would be nerfed. as an example, continuity is fine, and would be a mod that affects only the warframe skills.

corrupted mods would be nerfed, but only on their max levels. they would have a max level of 3, not 10 or 5.

again, this is not balanced, just an example.

----

option B)

get rid of most mods.

serration, redirection, vitality....all gone.

instead, we keep mods that affect warframe skills (continuity, stretch and focus) and all of the utility mods (maglev, intruder, enemy radar, rage) and also multishot, but nerfer, because at max level it´s just a double damage. make it 30% chance when it´s maxed.

----

mods will cost energy points, but auras will only give extra energy points to be usedexclusively on other mods. the energy points given by auras can´t be used to upgrade your stats.

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PART 3: damage

with both systems, we keep elemental damage mods.

with this system, they don´t add damage. they change it.

if a weapon does 100 physical damage, with a fire mod at 25%, it would do now 75 physical damage, and 25 fire damage.

the current damage system stays, but the numbers are changed. elemental damage is now used to do more damage to a specific enemy resistance. as an example, you sacrifice enery points in that fire mod which you could be used in just increasin your damage, but the exchange of fire damage will give greater bonuses againt, as an example, infested.

where does forma fit? no idea.

maybe they can still work by cutting by half the cost of mods, or maybe they can do another thing.

any ideas with respect to that would be appreciated

also, to accomodate things like the lack of serration and redirection, enemy damage and health should be accomodated.

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with all of these changes, the RNG will be fixed quite a bit (no more hunting for mods), we get a more balanced progerssion, and above all, we can create our own unique builds.

well, i think thats it.

i will check later if i forgot of anything.

again, this is a raw idea. numbers are unbalanced, and it needs polish.

feedback would be appreciated. once we get everything working, we can go to the exact numbers of everything

edit: added more stats to weapons

Edited December 15, 2013 by lautalocos

[taiiat]

while an upgrade tree sounds cool in theory, there is sort've a reason why we no longer have one... because it didn't work. 

you've been around long enough to have seen the horrors of those skill trees.

 

to keep players from getting too far out of hand (otherwise known as OP), players couldn't do all that much upgrading on their equipment. 

when upgrading equipment, players were forced to choose effectively, one thing they wanted to be high. and nothing else. it didn't really work :/

 

Skill Trees don't sound horrible as a supplementary system, but we may have already passed the point of no return where even mentioning such a thing can cause whiplash. 

 

 

Option B in Pt 2, honestly, is probably something that should happen, regardless of any other changes. the fact that all equipment in the game easily gets 350% 'better' with simple mods, and that can reach 700%+, is a balancing nightmare. in order for weapons with a full loadout of mods to really fit in fairly, they'd need to be absolutely horrible without those mods.

 

mods go too far, and that is a big reason why enemies need to scale so drastically. chopping a Zero or two off of everything would make balance so much easier. 

 

 

and these ideas have been circulating for a lot of months, but have been mostly shot down as soon as people afraid of 'getting nerfed' see them. 

even though there's no nerf there at all, simply stopping the flood and putting the dam back. oh well. 

[Lost_Cartographer]

I think the real problem isn't that any mod can go into any frame or weapon, it's that there's a huge amount of vertical scaling going on in game, and you seem to have actually recognized that in part 2.  Mods like serration are just +damage.  No if's, and's or but's about it.  It's 100% mandatory to have on any and every rifle in game to keep up with the enemy scaling past level 20 targets.  Redirection and Vitality are nearly AS necessary just to take a hit.  Ditch most of the verticality currently in game, place on emphasis on adjusting the remaining damage to a percentile of a damage type for taking on enemies, and maybe this game can see some build variety when people can spare to use some utility instead of feeling forced to go straight up damage else their enemies will take forever to kill.

 

I'm also of the opinion there should be weapons with very constant status procs but that's for another thread.

[Liacu]

I feel like a simple solution would be to introduce more mods so that we may specialize more. Right now we have enough room to have everything we probably ever need. With an introduction of more specialized mods, you'll find people having builds that we have now but also have builds that include mostly one specific stat or pertain to a very specific playstyle. The Corrupted mods were a fantastic addition but we still need more.

Some examples would be mods that are placed onto the warframe but the effects are for the weapons equiped. Maybe we should have weaker versions of auras that do not add mod energy. I'm sure there are plenty of ideas for new mods that aren't so niche.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Liacu

[fatpig84]

I feel like a simple solution would be to introduce more mods so that we may specialize more. Right now we have enough room to have everything we probably ever need. With an introduction of more specialized mods, you'll find people having builds that we have now but also have builds that include mostly one specific stat or pertain to a very specific playstyle. The Corrupted mods were a fantastic addition but we still need more.

Some examples would be mods that are placed onto the warframe but the effects are for the weapons equiped. Maybe we should have weaker versions of auras that do not add mod energy. I'm sure there are plenty of ideas for new mods that aren't so niche.

 

Well mod slots are a real limitation. 

[Liacu]

Well mod slots are a real limitation.

But all my warframes have literally the same build of Fleeting Expertise, Focus, etc. I don't add anything else because most of the other mods are too niche or not all that useful.

[lautalocos]

snip

it´s not an stat tree, don´t worry about it. you can upgrade any stat whenever you want, without the need of upgrading any other stat , but there is a cap to how much you can, so that they can´t go out of hand.

 

of course, most people will upgrade damage/energy/shields, making them go trough early content easily, but that can easily be fixed.

 

how?

 

well, higher levels on the stats could be only unlocked once you reach a level milestone. as an example, once you reach level 10 with a weapon/warframe, you can upgrade all of your stats to level X, and so on and so forth.

 

once you reach max level, you have everything unlocked, and you can make your unique builds.

[AshenHaze]

I feel like a simple solution would be to introduce more mods so that we may specialize more. Right now we have enough room to have everything we probably ever need. With an introduction of more specialized mods, you'll find people having builds that we have now but also have builds that include mostly one specific stat or pertain to a very specific playstyle. The Corrupted mods were a fantastic addition but we still need more.

Some examples would be mods that are placed onto the warframe but the effects are for the weapons equiped. Maybe we should have weaker versions of auras that do not add mod energy. I'm sure there are plenty of ideas for new mods that aren't so niche.

But if you add more mods that just adds exactly what OP and OP's OP quote are trying to stop!

 

More grinding!

 

The players are trying to say they've had enough of the grind, not beg DE to add more!

[Liacu]

But if you add more mods that just adds exactly what OP and OP's OP quote are trying to stop!

 

More grinding!

 

The players are trying to say they've had enough of the grind, not beg DE to add more!

Well I kind of skipped the post =V I didn't feel like having new mods added much grind.

[lautalocos]

I feel like a simple solution would be to introduce more mods so that we may specialize more. Right now we have enough room to have everything we probably ever need. With an introduction of more specialized mods, you'll find people having builds that we have now but also have builds that include mostly one specific stat or pertain to a very specific playstyle. The Corrupted mods were a fantastic addition but we still need more.

Some examples would be mods that are placed onto the warframe but the effects are for the weapons equiped. Maybe we should have weaker versions of auras that do not add mod energy. I'm sure there are plenty of ideas for new mods that aren't so niche.

that would clog the mod drops even more.

also, using mods as bandaids isn´t a good idea.

 

my idea is more of having mods being a secondary thing, so that your progress isn´t tied to RNG.

[lautalocos]

But all my warframes have literally the same build of Fleeting Expertise, Focus, etc. I don't add anything else because most of the other mods are too niche or not all that useful.

that´s what this idea would fix too.

[lautalocos]

Well mod slots are a real limitation. 

and mods themselves are a problem

[Rickiso]

I had an idea not so long ago about the issue with mods and mod limitations. How they ultimately push the player to go cookie cutter because they don't have much option. Specially end game builds since they require you to go cookie cutter in order to be functional let alone survive. My concept was... what if we had two different mod sets. In other words we have the main ten mod slots + the aura... and another X number of slots just for "utility" in other words stuff like Maglev(increased slide.. Yes this exist) and increased hacking time, and maybe even some agility mods like rush or acrobat. etc. Mods that people don't generally use (except for rush) and at the same time do not really contribute much to conclave and overall "opness". 

 

Some few extra slots just for these "utility" mods in my honest opinion would not exactly break the game but would add use to all of these great utility mods. I always frown when i see these awesome mods but can't seem to be able to add them to my build. The only times i ever use them is (or will) is when i make a "fun build" where i just add all those "useless" or unpopular mods and just have fun with them.

[taiiat]

Some few extra slots just for these "utility" mods in my honest opinion would not exactly break the game but would add use to all of these great utility mods.

while i agree in principle, and we've all thought that was a good fix at one point or another, adding more slots, for those Utility mods (or separating Warframe powers from those slots, etc), just ends up with players equipping more of the min/max mods, and then stacking Utilities on.

 

which doesn't sound horrible, until you start playing matches. imagine powers being 'better' than they are now. just all around. imagine those Explosions wiping entire rooms for another 20 levels, or enemies floating for another 10 seconds.

the game doesn't need to be easier than it already is, so that would break the balance of the gameplay, which isn't held together that well as it is(has a lot of holes in it).