Suggestion: Abilities As Moddable Equipment.

[Renegadejibjib]

I was thinking of ways to make skills scale better into the end game, and I came up with something simple, but effective:

 

Remove skills as mod cards, and add them as equipped items. Each skill would have its own mod slots, and they could rebalance the warframe mods to compensate. This could remedy the problem with damage dealing skills becoming useless in the endgame, allow players to give skills elemental mods and do all sorts of other fun stuff.

I really love the deep customization this game offers. It makes it easy to play the game how I want to play it, and DE has done a fantastic job with balancing all the little pieces of the warframe puzzle; this is just my little suggestion to maybe make it even better.

[Scherhardt]

You have all my support.

[-CM-Aeon]

I went one hour ODS 2 times yesterday but well the amount of mission end credit reward was same. At least i got Burston Parts.

[AlmightyT0T]

Well, that would just be too great if you ask me.

 

After all, we are able to not take any 'ability' (the 4 castable powers of each warframe) in our warframe customization. And with forma we can also change the polarity as desired, so they won't mismatch the mods that we replace our powers with. And yeah, you probally have enough forma's to do so at end game as you were focussing on that situation.

 

Wheter I am not sure if you want to :

1. Have the abilities be 'seperate' of the warframe modding. Having them never occupy the mod slots and the mod capacity you use when 'boosting' your warframe's stats

-or-

2. Having the abilities still occupy the capacity but not the slots

 

This is not really clear in your post since you mentioned:

 

 

.......

 

Remove skills as mod cards, and add them as equipped items. Each skill would have its own mod slots, and they could rebalance the warframe mods to compensate. 

 

.......

 

In here you state you want to have skills removed as mod cards and add them as equipped items. Yet you talk about skill having its own mod slot? So you want skills removed as mod cards, yet you still want them to have their own mod slot? Explain further with a bigger picture of your suggestion of changes because with only this bit of information, I wonder:

 

-How abilities are supposed to have mod slot if you want them removed as a mod card being. (perhaps add this as a technical change in your suggestion)

 

-Why you want them removed as mod card but still want them to 'bring their own mod slot' ? (For example: you want to free up slots for warframe stat customization? you want them to still occupy the mod capacity?)

 

 

Also I question your knowledge of the game's mechanics and end-game experience making you fit to judge the mod efficiency at end game due to:

RENEGADEJIBJIB

Member Since 19 Dec 2013
OFFLINE Last Active Today, 04:50 AM

 

However I heard of several reasons that high ranked players have to post on forums with alternate accounts and lots of other situations that make me take your post serious anyways.

 

As a Tank Rhino in end-game content I have no interest in the Roar ability. So I just use a forma on my Rhino to change the polarity of that slot to a polarity that fits an defensive one ( D is how they call it, with redirection, vitality, steel fiber etc.)

So I just unequip my Roar ability, and put an stat boosting mod in it's slot. And because of the forma the polarities of this stat boosting mod card and the mod slot match.

 

That is end-game situation. Or at least I expect end-game users to have enough forma when done exploring the orokin towers.

 

So still didn 't quite got your idea of abilities becoming problems in specifically during end-game

Edited December 27, 2013 by AlmightyT0T

[Renegadejibjib]

Well, Just because I don't post in the forums doesn't mean I don't play the game a whole lot. I've logged 81 hours of playtime so far, but I don't know if that's relevant; a good idea is a good idea.

I've barely scraped into the endgame content on a larger scale, but from what I've experienced, with maxed out power, efficiency and duration mods, very few of my abilities on all 8 of the suits I have are still useful against enemies level 20 and above, and almost all of the abilities that are still useful are ones that don't deal damage. By level 20, most warframes find themselves down to maybe a single useful ability (if any), and I think that really limits the replay value because then everyone ends up playing each warframe the same way, and I really like the idea of being able to tweak the playstyle of any frame to suit my own style of play.

When I say that abilities fall off late game, I mean that nothing really trumps using Frost's bubble and a maxed out penta. As volt, I could spam overcharge all day and still not kill a single mob, but frost sitting there in his little bubble is murder death killing the crap out of everything that moves. Vauban throws down a Bastille or a singularity and cc's a large group of enemies, and blows them away with a maxed out penta. Meanwhile, Mag is standing in a group of enemies using crush over and over until she runs out of power, and none of them die. By about the 25 minute mark on OD survival, I already feel like if I don't have the penta and serious crowd control, I'm up a creek without a paddle. Wasting power on damage dealing abilities just isn't an option. 

My idea is that instead of skills being mod cards, epuipable to the Warframe via the mods interface, they would be assigned equipment slots in the gear interface. You would equip them the same way you would a weapon or sentinel, and they would be moddable in the same way that weapons and sentinels are. This would allow the devs a greater degree of control over what we can do with abilities, while also giving us more control over how we use them.

To keep the current system intact, perhaps you could craft an item for one of those gear slots that would allow you to equip a warframe mod instead of a skill, and maybe you could, at higher levels, craft items that would allow you to equip two or even three warframe mods.

[Renegadejibjib]

You have all my support.

Thanks man, That means a lot.

[Cobalt313]

On one hand this does sound cool but on the other hand there already are Warframe mods that modify powers. I suppose this would mainly just introduce additional Warframe mod slots so you don't necessarily have to waste slots on the powers you intend to modify, but other than that I can't think of any particular benefit to having each power have its own mod slots unless they made new mods that would work on specific power types and wouldn't be practical to install on a Frame to apply to all of them at once or something.

[Renegadejibjib]

On one hand this does sound cool but on the other hand there already are Warframe mods that modify powers. I suppose this would mainly just introduce additional Warframe mod slots so you don't necessarily have to waste slots on the powers you intend to modify, but other than that I can't think of any particular benefit to having each power have its own mod slots unless they made new mods that would work on specific power types and wouldn't be practical to install on a Frame to apply to all of them at once or something.

Well, the point is to have each ability be more customizable. One might get a damage boost, while another might increase defensive capabilities while it's active (like adding armor for the duration or something like that). Some might get utilitarian effects, like decreased cast speed, or efficiency (in the case of efficiency being added in this they'd probably want to make it not stack with the warframe one, just to keep balance)

Each skill would be equipable in the Gear menu, alongside weapons and sentinels; warframes would drop to 8 slots like all the other gear items, and they'd have 4 additional gear categories, and in each you could equip a skill, or as I mentioned earlier, an item that allows for one or a few warframe mods. They would have to introduce a whole new set of mods for the abilities, but I don't think that would be too much of a problem, in the end.

I like being able to customize the crap out of whatever I'm using. Warframe lets me do weapons and armor in great depth, but skills only to a minor extent. I'd like to see that improved in some way.

[Cobalt313]

Well, the point is to have each ability be more customizable. One might get a damage boost, while another might increase defensive capabilities while it's active (like adding armor for the duration or something like that). Some might get utilitarian effects, like decreased cast speed, or efficiency (in the case of efficiency being added in this they'd probably want to make it not stack with the warframe one, just to keep balance)

Each skill would be equipable in the Gear menu, alongside weapons and sentinels; warframes would drop to 8 slots like all the other gear items, and they'd have 4 additional gear categories, and in each you could equip a skill, or as I mentioned earlier, an item that allows for one or a few warframe mods. They would have to introduce a whole new set of mods for the abilities, but I don't think that would be too much of a problem, in the end.

I like being able to customize the crap out of whatever I'm using. Warframe lets me do weapons and armor in great depth, but skills only to a minor extent. I'd like to see that improved in some way.

Ah, those sort of details would make sense. Still though, some of them can already be applied to all at once from the Warframe mods. On one hand, it would be nice to have separate mod slots to affect the Frame itself and its powers, but on the other hand, the current system has a minor strategy element where you have to wisely choose between offense buffs or defensive ones rather than just equipping all of them at once.

[Renegadejibjib]

Ah, those sort of details would make sense. Still though, some of them can already be applied to all at once from the Warframe mods. On one hand, it would be nice to have separate mod slots to affect the Frame itself and its powers, but on the other hand, the current system has a minor strategy element where you have to wisely choose between offense buffs or defensive ones rather than just equipping all of them at once.

Right, and that doesn't need to go away. They can preserve that with balancing, but it'd make abilities more viable late game. Maybe make the abilities share a mod score or something.