Regenerating Snow Globe. De, Please Consider It.

[Blazer-X]

As we all know (unless you live under the thousands of Corpus bodies left by Detron hunters), Frost's recent changes of Snow Globe brought many concerns over the longevity of the defense ability. The main concern, aside from, "OMG, WHY YOU NERF MAH FAVORITE SKILLZ!? T_T," is just how long this skill could hold up in a high level content.

 

Raising the overall health and/or adding damage mitigation with Armor is certainly a good step towards the right direction. However, all this really change is raising the approximate levels in which Snow Globe starts to fall behind, which is something that cannot be made up easily with good gameplay. 

 

So instead of simply adding more health or armor to the Globe, I would like to suggest making it into a regenerating "shield". I take this inspiration mainly from Halo Reach, where the drop shield also works behind a similar mechanic of taking damage and falling apart, but also recovers health when it stops taking fire. This can help serve several purposes:

 

1) It gives synergy to Frost's CC capabilities. Right now, Frost's CC, at most simply reduce the damage the Globe and his teammates takes. But if Snow Globe can regenerate health either passively or when there's no attack, then a proper Frost player can use a CC move (Avalanche, Ice Wave, or even Freeze) to temporarily stop incoming fire and let his Globe regain health.

 

2) It makes defending the globe rewarding. The Globe doesn't just sit limited to eating only "x" damage. The amount of damage it can soak up can actually be much higher, assuming the team can keep the damage it takes per second below its regeneration rate. 

 

Again, its just an idea, but assuming some kind of health or damage cap is here to stay, having a regenerating Snow Globe can add a new dimension to the ability that isn't just "take x damage and breaks".

 

Thank you for reading.

 

*Sets up Snow Globe for Flaming*

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait.. crap, that was the health version... shiiiittttt.

Edited February 9, 2014 by Blazer-X

[Mainabi]

ze upvote you've earned it

[Verryn]

Make it act like a giant cryopod/defense? Sounds good, but it breaks sooner or later.

[-CM-Syein]

forget snowglobe for now, how about make him an ability to produce "freeze path" (like the one you see in void, the freeze road that slow you down)

I was thinking Oberon's hallow ground should have this ^ but since the freeze related to frost's elemental skill. (why not) 

[Bobsplosion]

I'd like to imagine Napalm shots or Rockets making holes in the Snwoglobe, that would close after a few moments.

[shut]

forget snowglobe for now, how about make him an ability to produce "freeze path" (like the one you see in void, the freeze road that slow you down)

I was thinking Oberon's hallow ground should have this ^ but since the freeze related to frost's elemental skill. (why not) 

Hallowed Ground is silly-useless as it is. Oberon would benefit from it far more than Frost would.

 

OT:

I really like this idea, but (how will)/(is it) going to combine with Duration? If it still has a set Duration, then defending a Globe with a straight-up Health value would have the same effect anyways. If it doesn't have a set Duration, then it's basically a mini Defense mission with super-high HP and no penalty if it gets destroyed, which would kinda be overpowered. And lowering the health to compensate would make it impossible to defend at high levels.

 

It's gonna need tweaking for sure. xD

Edited February 9, 2014 by SortaRandom

[MageMeat]

Yes. All of my yes.

The problem with the current Snow Globe is that it doesn't scale into later levels well at all. Giving it a chance to gain health back would be great and definitely increase the skill's viability.

[ArmyOfFun]

Casting ice skills over globe refreezes and adds more layers of ice(globe hp) ?

[Monolake]

Not bad of an idea, needs testing to see if it would make much of a difference. And Globe must have some indication of its health status.

[Duk282]

So snow globe has health and shields that regenerate -great idea. It works with the rest of his CC abilities, but we need to be able to see the globes health bar though. 

[TheCometCE]

This is probably the best solution I've heard for snow globe of the bunch I've read, it would definitely reward keeping the globe untouched while still doing its job in later levels.

[Ryjeon]

I agree. I think the snowglobe should act like a regenerating shield that buckles under steady pressure. It should start to turn red as it gets closer to breaking, and when it finally shatters perhaps it can stagger nearby enemies. I think it's health should not be based on HP values. Different enemy types should have different "pressure" ratings against it. So that it falls when it's under extreme pressure from multiple sources, and it can take heavy damage from a "bubble buster" enemy like a Napalm. But it should remain just as effective or vulnerable independent of enemy level. Higher level enemies will naturally cause more pressure because the Tenno will not be able to neutralize their threat as quickly as with lower levels and they will therefore accumulate and be too much for Snow Globe alone to handle.

[Blazer-X]

Thank you for the feedback so far.

 

OT:

I really like this idea, but (how will)/(is it) going to combine with Duration? If it still has a set Duration, then defending a Globe with a straight-up Health value would have the same effect anyways. If it doesn't have a set Duration, then it's basically a mini Defense mission with super-high HP and no penalty if it gets destroyed, which would kinda be overpowered. And lowering the health to compensate would make it impossible to defend at high levels.

 

There HAS to be some sort of duration. I don't think its fair to have Snow Globe without it. I mean, just think of what happens in an infested map: You have a never ending Globe of slow that you can put on choke points and there'll be NOTHING they can do to stop you.

 

As far as how much duration it should have, well... that is still up in the air. It would take a bit of balancing and playing around with numbers until we can get it right. 30 seconds (its default) is not too bad for a start, and we can always increase it using mods. However, I'd think that the Globe will need to have its toughness (shield strength) improved from the current one. 

 

Make it act like a giant cryopod/defense? Sounds good, but it breaks sooner or later.

 

Yes, eventually, enemies will out-level or even one-shot it. That's a given as long as we're not looking at an invincible Snow Globe. However, regeneration will give the player some control over its longevity, instead of making it based on how many enemies RNG decides to spawn.

[ThePresident777]

Rather than take ideas from other games, I prefer for DE to try something more unique and interactive.  How about some type of heat attack?  From an attack helicopter?  Mortars?

 

I'd like the AI to be good enough to give the impression that there is a battle going on, that the enemy has a commander that is watching and directing the battle, deploying counter measures based on experience and what the Tenno do, not an omniscient commander, but, something more believeable.  It should take time for the enemy to observe and analyze and deploy and ratchet up the response.  This is possible even in a Horde Mode game.  You can have mass catastrophic carnage and a believable evolving battlefield rather than just a bunch of scrunchy faced, box headed, or rubbery morons running around.

Edited February 10, 2014 by ThePresident777

[NeopetsMaster4432]

I'm in no way against this idea, but a common complaint seems to be that level 65+ enemies can drop his globe in a few seconds, and that leaves me wondering how effective any sort of regeneration could be in such a short time period.

How much health do you think would be reasonable for it to regenerate, how far apart should the regeneration intervals be? 

[ZephyrPhantom]

If you removed the duration from Snow Globe, this suggestion actually looks pretty good (I'm giving it my +1 for being well thought out), and I'd say if we can't get back original Globe, this would be my #2 option.

 

The main reason I feel original Snow Globe would be more practical than this is that it was able to be used to protect teammates that are reviving others; this version of Globe will work better on defense, but it lacks that utility to defend players under heavy fire. Ultimately it's a very good suggestion but I'm going to have to hold my stance that the simple old Snow Globe was best globe.

Edited February 10, 2014 by ZephyrPhantom