Rebalancing Overpowered And Underpowered Skills At The Same Time

[KTribute]

How is this possible? Well, let's talk synergy.

 

You can use one ability, then combine it with someone else's ability, and make it much more useful.

 

Examples? Fireball + Zephyr's Tornadoes = Fire Tornadoes. Bullet Attractor + Radial Javelin = Insane Nuke damage.

 

Decoy + Radial Disarm = Balled up enemies.

 

With that said, you can make frames like Frost as they are now, but make them synergize with other abilities to increase their damage exponentially, or increase their crowd control much more then a normal skill ever could.

 

This also promotes more Teamwork.

 

 

Now, I'm no good at balance, nor will I attempt to balance, that's not my job to fill in the numbers. Just to give my feedback on the situation. But, let's say for instance you use Ice Wave on a target(s) that were frozen by Freeze or Avalanche. That should permanently proc cold on them, since it makes sense to make the target Brittle before shattering, or also do more damage.

 

 

So, while Nova may be overpowered on her own (MAY, I am staying neutral on this topic, please don't devolve it), she could lose a lot of potential compared to a Frost, who is weak on his lonesome, but does *possibly* TONS of damage when synced up with the right frames.

 

I'm not wanting random combinations either, like a Vortex and Snowglobe randomly implode each other, I want something skilled, such as a Slash Dash and an Ice Wave side by side making both more deadly.

 

This gives each frame more variety. Frost could be a coop caster, whereas Nova would be a solo player's caster.

 

Just some food for thought. Thanks for reading. Oh, of course, here's your TL;DR:

 

While Nova may do more damage on her own, Frost could do exponentially more damage (or CC) when syncing up abilities with other players. This gives frames variety, and encourages teamwork.

(Bullet Attractor + Radial Javelin for example)

[ThePresident777]

/signed

 

THIS!  +110000000000............

 

It's a no brainer.  Don't know why DE hasn't done this already.  When they were shopping Damage 2.0, they were asked about this and they said possibly later and now it's just silence.  No one is clamoring for it.  It's all just nerf nerf nerf................

[Thaumatos]

/signed

 

THIS!  +110000000000............

 

It's a no brainer.  Don't know why DE hasn't done this already.  When they were shopping Damage 2.0, they were asked about this and they said possibly later and now it's just silence.  No one is clamoring for it.  It's all just nerf nerf nerf................

 

There's a lot that's too powerful still in Warframe. 

 

If they want to make more intricate AI, they need to have a reason to.  Enemies need to be able to last long enough to perform their function in order to alter gameplay.  The current setup we have is either we one-shot everything or we CC it all until its killed because it will kill us.  The reason we fight massive hoards of enemies is because they all die right away.

 

Things need to change and super-powered skills need to get worse before the game as a whole can get better.  Frost's Snow Globe was one of them.  Another one is Trinity's Blessing with full immunity for a pretty damn decent amount of time, for the whole team, with no maximum range.  Stay tuned.

 

That being said, synergistic skills don't have to be a bad thing or an OP thing.  But one thing's for certain, they would take extra time developing.  I think it could be the next "2.0" ... Skills 2.0.

 

Think about these combos:

• World on Fire + Snow Globe = Death Dome: Burst damage, AoE Knockdown
• Sonar + Bladestorm = Backstab: Direct Hit on Weaknesses
• Slash Dash @Rhino + Rhino Charge @Excalibur = Head-on: High damage at point of impact
• Overload + Bastille = Electric Fence:  Bastille with AoE electric damage
• Miasma + Desecrate = Corpse Explosion: AoE on target death; forced double-drop
• Shadows of the Dead + Hallowed Ground = Walking Dead Bombs: timed explosive summons
• Reckoning + Bounce = Body Slam: Bounces and re-applies Reckoning to the target
• Ripline + Dive Bomb = Ball n' Chain: Higher damage AoE

 

 

I could go on, but you get the point.  This would be cool, but it would take a really, really long time to do.  I think there are a lot more important things on all of their plates right now.  It should be considered nonetheless.

[ThePresident777]

There's a lot that's too powerful still in Warframe. 

 

If they want to make more intricate AI, they need to have a reason to.  Enemies need to be able to last long enough to perform their function in order to alter gameplay.  The current setup we have is either we one-shot everything or we CC it all until its killed because it will kill us.  The reason we fight massive hoards of enemies is because they all die right away.

 

Things need to change and super-powered skills need to get worse before the game as a whole can get better.  Frost's Snow Globe was one of them.  Another one is Trinity's Blessing with full immunity for a pretty damn decent amount of time, for the whole team, with no maximum range.  Stay tuned.

 

That being said, synergistic skills don't have to be a bad thing or an OP thing.  But one thing's for certain, they would take extra time developing.  I think it could be the next "2.0" ... Skills 2.0.

 

Think about these combos:

• World on Fire + Snow Globe = Death Dome: Burst damage, AoE Knockdown
• Sonar + Bladestorm = Backstab: Direct Hit on Weaknesses
• Slash Dash @Rhino + Rhino Charge @Excalibur = Head-on: High damage at point of impact
• Overload + Bastille = Electric Fence:  Bastille with AoE electric damage
• Miasma + Desecrate = Corpse Explosion: AoE on target death; forced double-drop
• Shadows of the Dead + Hallowed Ground = Walking Dead Bombs: timed explosive summons
• Reckoning + Bounce = Body Slam: Bounces and re-applies Reckoning to the target
• Ripline + Dive Bomb = Ball n' Chain: Higher damage AoE

 

 

I could go on, but you get the point.  This would be cool, but it would take a really, really long time to do.  I think there are a lot more important things on all of their plates right now.  It should be considered nonetheless.

 

Too powerful compared to what?  Stragglers that run past you on the way to the objective?  The players and the AI are like foils for each other where the entire experience becomes more entertaining as they react against each other.  Therefore, AI is crucial in an action game for entertainment.  If the Tenno are lame, how can the enemy shine?  If the enemy are lame, how can the Tenno shine?  Warframe is a game of 4 super soldiers inflicting catastrophe on an army.  Mooks are not precious.  But, being able to annihilate hordes of cannon fodder is not enough for mission success(although it is great fun for me and one of the reasons why I play Warframe).  Enemy counter measures must be defeated or the cannon fodder may prevail.  Massive casualties among the enemy against such superior soldiers is unavoidable but does not guarantee failure.  The enemy have numbers on their side, and counter measures behind that screen.

 

A complicated version of what you propose would take a really long time to create.  Simple energy damage type combos are easier.  DE should start easy then flesh it out.  Look at the load out system.  I would have been happy if a load out consisted of a warframe + primary + secondary + melee with whatever mods you had already put in them.  This would have given incentive to own more warframes and weapons too.  Instead we got the more complicated mod load out system which I don't find as useful.  It breeds a lot of inventory tetris and makes me hate Damage 2.0 for it.

Edited February 10, 2014 by ThePresident777

[Thaumatos]

Too powerful compared to what?  Stragglers that run past you on the way to the objective?  The players and the AI are like foils for each other where the entire experience becomes more entertaining as they react against each other.  Therefore, AI is crucial in an action game for entertainment.  If the Tenno are lame, how can the enemy shine?  If the enemy are lame, how can the Tenno shine?  Warframe is a game of 4 super soldiers inflicting catastrophe on an army.  Mooks are not precious.  But, being able to annihilate hordes of cannon fodder is not enough for mission success(although it is great fun for me and one of the reasons why I play Warframe).  Enemy counter measures must be defeated or the cannon fodder may prevail.  Massive casualties among the enemy against such superior soldiers is unavoidable but does not guarantee failure.  The enemy have numbers on their side, and counter measures behind that screen.

 

That's all well and good, but as of right now certain frames turn everything into 'cannon fodder' while others actually have to change weapons and use different abilities to keep from being destroyed.  Changing the AI won't help that and you can't just make things super hard for the uber frames, otherwise you'd be killing the lesser frames.

 

For example, you've got DE trying to make Grineer act more 'militaristic' while in combat.  The problem is, who's going to care when you can just AoE clear the whole room?  What does it matter that there are enemies taking cover, blind firing, gaining vantage points from balconies, forming up behind Shield Lancers, etc. when you can just press '4' and everything goes away?

 

At this point the number of Grineer destroyed in any one mission would be considered a catastrophe by military standards.  They'd have changed their tactics by now.  They wouldn't even engage the Tenno directly anymore.  There's no real risk of losing outside of playing terribly, or pushing the boundaries of the "balanced" levels (considered by DE to be 35 and below) into the absurd of 50+.

 

This isn't about AI directly.  It's about making things less like Diablo 2 and more like Gears of War.  Yes that involves an AI change, but it also requires things to become more challenging and encounters to be meaningful.

 

A complicated version of what you propose would take a really long time to create.  Simple energy damage type combos are easier.  DE should start easy then flesh it out.  Look at the load out system.  I would have been happy if a load out consisted of a warframe + primary + secondary + melee with whatever mods you had already put in them.  This would have given incentive to own more warframes and weapons too.  Instead we got the more complicated mod load out system which I don't find as useful.  It breeds a lot of inventory tetris and makes me hate Damage 2.0 for it.

 

Well speaking of the loadout, they are changing it up a bit with Melee 2.0 and it may go further than that.  Either way, they should have just had a right and left hand equip with a swap.  That way they wouldn't have to keep making akimbo weapons of the same type, all melee in one category, and all primary considered "two-handed" such that there is no primary dual wield.

 

A simple right/left hand choice would have allowed for greater flexibility.  The Skana wouldn't have to be compared directly to the Galatine because the Skana could have been paired with a Bolto and given the benefit of both high-damage melee with a ranged backup without swapping weapons.  Two-handed would have had a benefit as well as a drawback.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Thaumatos