The Snowglobe: Revision Edition (Hey Look, Rhymes!)

[Starius]

A word of warning: Prepare for a wall of words. Do please take a look at everything before responding.

 

The Snowglobe, the signature invincible orb of ice that stood between us and the angry hordes of the Grineer, Corpus, and occasionally the Infested, that made us so grateful to see a Frost in defenses everywhere.

 

I've seen the community outcry regarding Frost's changes, calling out "He's nerfed and useless!" It was expected, everyone loved Snowglobe, it was what let everyone reach those high wave numbers in defense as you had a hard time losing with a half decent team that had a Frost popping Snowglobe.

 

DE saw this, and they changed it because they saw him almost exclusively in defense. They want him to be viable in places other than that. Personally, I both agree and disagree with the changes made (Oh I love Ice Wave and Avalanche now), but that's not what this is about, this is simply a suggestion topic involving two of the most talked about abilities: Snowglobe, and to a lesser degree, Freeze.

 

I'll start with Snowglobe. No, this isn't a simple "Make it invincible again," or "Add more HP."

 

Take a look at this:

Plenty of people will be familiar with this, it's the Bubble Shield from Halo 3, one of the closest comparisons to our friend the Snowglobe. Unwavering (Well, against projectiles anyway), temporary, yet immobile defense in an instant.

 

Do you see the hexagonal sections forming the shield? Yes? Good. That's important for the next part.

 

Imagine Snowglobe with somewhat larger sections similar to that, each with a separate amount of health. As a section is shot, it starts to show faintly glowing, energy based cracks running along it and the cold air from the inside begins to seep out in a visible fashion. This continues to get more severe until it runs out of health, at which point it then shatters, allowing anything shot through the area that section used to be to get inside of the Snowglobe as well as lowering the effectiveness of the slow effect it provides on the inside. A section can also be destroyed if it runs out of adjacent sections, unless it is touching the ground.

 

This means that, as a whole, Snowglobe is stronger, as it doesn't have a shared health value, but it means you have to watch it to make sure one section isn't lost.

 

"But why would I care to watch it?" I hear you say, "I can't do enough damage to stop that Heavy Gunner from unleashing the equivalent of an atom bomb in damage within a millisecond."

Valid point, one I hope to have a couple of solutions for:

 

One:

I saw this suggested in another topic by a fellow Tenno as something to apply to the whole Snowglobe, and used it as a general idea for this. I am unable to find the Tenno or topic in question, so my apologies, but if found I will edit a link in.

 

Each section would only take the base, unscaled amount of damage from enemies. As an example:

 

A level 1 enemy takes a shot at a section, doing 1 point of damage.

A level 10 enemy of the same type takes a shot, 1 damage.

A level 100 enemy of the same type takes a shot, 1 damage.

 

Enemies of different types would do different amounts of damage to a section, and perhaps even weaknesses could be factored in, such as fire doing 2x as much damage, and explosives (Blast) doing 1.5x damage.

 

Obviously that wouldn't be the final damage numbers, as it's just an example.

 

This means that Snowglobe would be as viable against the lowest level of enemies on Mercury as it would be against the highest of levels in a Tier 3 Orokin Tower. This puts an emphasis on enemy types and enemy numbers.

 

Two:

Freeze.

 

"What?"

You heard me, Freeze.

 

Yes, it's fairly bad, even with the recent buffs, but what if it had another use? What if, when you notice a section of the Snowglobe is close to shattering, you could fire Freeze at it and repair it? Or even replace a lost section (At a certain percentage of health, dependent on the rank of Freeze) if fired at a spot one used to occupy? (And maybe giving it that AoE freeze that everyone keeps asking for...)

 

This makes Freeze an ability that synergizes well with Snowglobe, and something that may be worth using again instead of gathering dust with all of those other abilities people tend to neglect.

 

"But what if I don't want to babysit my Snowglobe all day?"

Wasn't that what everyone did as a Frost in defense anyway?

 

"Well why don't I just spam Snowglobes? Then I don't have to repair, ha!"

What if attempting to place another results in the familiar "Power is in use" response? Who legitimately needs more than one Snowglobe other than to revive that downed teammate who decided to go outside?

 

"I polarized the slot for it/got rid of Freeze though!"

All I can say is: Always be prepared. Nothing is set in stone.

 

 

In conclusion, no, there won't be a TL;DR. It's only a minute or two of your time, if you're browsing this forum you obviously have that.

 

For those who did read it all, thank you, and if you have any ideas do please feel free to reply with them.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Starius

[Sweetie_Belle]

Oh my god, make it happen!

EDIT: To go into detail, "One" would solve a lot of scaling issues. There would still be things like Heavy Gunners shredding the $&*^ens out of the globe (which they should anyway) and increased mob numbers in waves. This would be a good thing though, because ti would still scale well. For "Two", I wholeheartedly agree. Freeze is not a great power right now. Supposedly it should be like Ember's Fireball, but I don't even notice it.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Sweetie_Belle

[Ronon2222]

Wow.. I absolutely love this entire post!

 

AWESOME idea! =D

 

Also, it reminds me of my favourite series of PS3 games, resistance =D

(Low quality pic cause I couldn't find any good ones)

[xveganrox]

In practice, nobody would actually use Freeze that way -they'd just layer multiple snow globes on top of each other, exactly like they are now.

[Archwizard]

The big problem I have with "baseline amount of damage"-type solutions and "blocks X shots regardless of HP", is that most of our ranged enemies use shotguns and fully automatic rifles; you're getting hit with a spray of about 20 bullets a second per enemy. It'd be a solution only good for stopping single-shot weapons like Corpus Snipers and Grineer Bombards (who can, I might add, already penetrate Snow Globe).

 

But I understand that that isn't the whole point of this solution. I'm definitely a fan of the repairable barrier concept.

[Starius]

In practice, nobody would actually use Freeze that way -they'd just layer multiple snow globes on top of each other, exactly like they are now.

True enough, but this could be stopped by only allowing a single Snowglobe at a time. Trying to place another would yield a "Power is in use" message. Because honestly, why would you need more than one Snowglobe?

 

Thank you for bringing that up though as it's something I overlooked while writing this up, I'll edit a small line in to cover that.

 

The big problem I have with "baseline amount of damage"-type solutions and "blocks X shots regardless of HP", is that most of our ranged enemies use shotguns and fully automatic rifles; you're getting hit with a spray of about 20 bullets a second per enemy. It'd be a solution only good for stopping single-shot weapons like Corpus Snipers and Grineer Bombards (who can, I might add, already penetrate Snow Globe).

 

But I understand that that isn't the whole point of this solution. I'm definitely a fan of the repairable barrier concept.

Shotguns and rifles would of course be factored into this and have variable damage between enemy types, so there wouldn't be an issue.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Starius

[Arcane_Intelligence]

I really like this idea, but I think that Snow Globe should have infinite duration and it wouldn´t be spammable, so you can have only 1 of them at a time.

 

Of course, this would cause problem of single segments being still unbroken, not allowing to create another SG, however, if it would "collapse" after number of segments getting destroyed, this problem disappears.

 

Using Freeze would restore multiple segments instead of just single one, "baby-sitting" SG would make more challenging/entertaining gameplay for Frost.

 

Also, animation of creating SG should be long, making it harder to create a new one after old one gets destroyed.

Edited February 12, 2014 by DarkNebula

[xveganrox]

True enough, but this could be stopped by only allowing a single Snowglobe at a time. Trying to place another would yield a "Power is in use" message. Because honestly, why would you need more than one Snowglobe?

 

Thank you for bringing that up though as it's something I overlooked while writing this up, I'll edit a small line in to cover that.

Hmm, good point - that would make your solution much more realistic, and might also justify having a Snowglobe with panels that could take a reasonably high amount of fire before breaking.

[Starius]

I really like this idea, but I think that Snow Globe should have infinite duration and it wouldn´t be spammable, so you can have only 1 of them at a time.

 

Of course, this would cause problem of single segments being still unbroken, not allowing to create another SG, however, if it would "collapse" after number of segments getting destroyed, this problem disappears.

 

Using Freeze would restore multiple segments instead of just single one, "baby-sitting" SG would make more challenging/entertaining gameplay for Frost.

Those are good ideas, especially the AoE repair for Freeze. Perhaps once half of the segments making up the globe are gone, it will collapse.

[Varzy]

Love the idea of Freeze restoring Snow Globe, synergy between skills is always a huge boon to gameplay.

 

The Segments idea is a good one too, I've seen it suggested a few times. One of the other ones I saw was the idea that the Snow Globe rotates so that no segment gets hit by concentrated fire for too long. This could make repairing it with Freeze easier.

[Arcane_Intelligence]

Love the idea of Freeze restoring Snow Globe, synergy between skills is always a huge boon to gameplay.

 

The Segments idea is a good one too, I've seen it suggested a few times. One of the other ones I saw was the idea that the Snow Globe rotates so that no segment gets hit by concentrated fire for too long. This could make repairing it with Freeze easier.

 

Rotation sounds nice, it would make it easier to repair SG under heavy fire.

 

Also, I say again, animation of creating SG should be long, so you cant just make a new one after old gets broken, making it more important to repair SG.

Edited February 12, 2014 by DarkNebula

[Starius]

Love the idea of Freeze restoring Snow Globe, synergy between skills is always a huge boon to gameplay.

 

The Segments idea is a good one too, I've seen it suggested a few times. One of the other ones I saw was the idea that the Snow Globe rotates so that no segment gets hit by concentrated fire for too long. This could make repairing it with Freeze easier.

Rotation is definitely interesting, although it would have to be slow, and possibly the segment health a bit low, otherwise it would be too easy to keep up.

 

Rotation sounds nice, it would make it easier to repair SG under heavy fire.

 

Also, I say again, animation of creating SG should be long, so you cant just make a new one after old gets broken, making it more important to repair SG.

Slow casting time is something Snowglobe has probably needed for a while now, and would need even more under these conditions. While it's nice to place one within half a second, it makes it more of a panic button rather than a strategic decision.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Starius

[azmyth1]

I think the rebalance of Frost was done very well. To be perfectly honest, Snow Globe was OP before and made defenses boring, and anything that makes an entire mission type boring for everyone should be eliminated.  I finally have a reason to add additional mods to my Frost besides duration, duration, and more duration.  I like the idea of only being able to deploy one snow globe at a time.  I think it should work like Decoy or Molt in that you should be able to drop another one at any time, but it should remove the previous globe.

[(PSN)MyTagForHalo]

my god, someone give this guy  a freaking medal. This is about one of the only solutions ive agreed with.. (glad we had  the same idea when it came to freeze) +1

 

I think the rebalance of Frost was done very well. To be perfectly honest, Snow Globe was OP before and made defenses boring, and anything that makes an entire mission type boring for everyone should be eliminated.  I finally have a reason to add additional mods to my Frost besides duration, duration, and more duration.  I like the idea of only being able to deploy one snow globe at a time.  I think it should work like Decoy or Molt in that you should be able to drop another one at any time, but it should remove the previous globe.

Personally i would love to have it remove previous snow globes even right now. A misplaced snowglobe is somewhat a pain sometimes.

 

Honestly my largest concern for this concept would be Lag. (comming from a PS4 standpoint) If it was made like this, i could see them overdoing the particles and causing some performance issues. Having to render all of the segments and all..

[Drazhar14]

I have another idea for snowglobe that I think would be more simple for DE to implement. The idea is that once snowglobe runs out of health, its starts to "phase" but it stays up. While in this state, enemy fire can pass through it. If the snowglobe goes without taking damage for a number of seconds, its health will start to recharge, and bullets will be blocked again until it once again reaches 0 health. This way, duration will still be important in addition to power strength. 

 

I like the idea of only having one globe up at a time, however snowglobe should be able to be recast while the other is still up and replace it. 

[Charm123]

Hey everybody who's seen this post, you should signal boost? Create new threads and post in existing and related ones to get more people, and possibly DE's, to see it! That means it will have a much higher chance of becoming a new thing.

[Charm123]

I think this would make a lot of people happy if it actually happens.

 

[Doom_Bunny]

Questions, can we still shoot out of the globe or do we destroy one of our hexagons to shoot out? can they still enter the globe?

[Starius]

Questions, can we still shoot out of the globe or do we destroy one of our hexagons to shoot out? can they still enter the globe?

Ideally you would still be able to shoot out, as I could see issues with trying to shoot out of a single lost segment, and they would still be able to enter the globe.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Starius

[(PSN)Crackle2012]

I love the Idea of using Freeze to repair the broken parts of the Globe-- this is freaking Awesome....  

[Dead_Rabbits]

[(PSN)MyTagForHalo]

I freaking love this idea xD (i wonder why)

[Volt_Cruelerz]

The globe rotation and plates were things I put forward several months ago in my frame overhaul mega thread. Rotation would be exceedingly low. Even at max level, it would only be a couple RPM.

Also, the idea for freeze to repair the plates has had my support from the first time I saw it shortly after U12 came out.  Passive regeneration (which should differ between when a plate is and isn't under fire) should occur as well.

I also agree with the proposal of making it a longer cast.  Not Elsa-making-her-ice-castle-long, but each plate should have a distinctive creation process and should have a discernible edge to it.  The plates should also be sufficiently large that losing a plate is a dreadful thing and doesn't impact collision detection performance, but small enough to look appealing.

 

I disagree with the idea of making an entirely different damage system just for Snow Globe.  It's way too much work and would have meager benefits.

 

EDIT: for the record, there is nothing wrong with Snow Globe being heavily defense focused.  So long as Frost's other abilities are useful in a wider variety of situations it's fine.  Frost before his recent rework had zero viability outside of SG.  Focus/specialization are good.  Situational is bad.

 

Original post.  The whole objective was to make SG a tactical ability that required focus by the player and/or team to keep running, but so long as it remains, it is still very potent.

 

Snow Globe *****

Change: snow globe is no longer invincible but rather becomes a series of ice plates in the shape of a dome.  If an ice plate receives too much damage from enemy forces, it will shatter, leaving a hole.  Dome is composed of 7 plates, each having 500/1000/2000/3000 health.  Each unshattered plate will regenerate 10% of its maximum health per second; when under fire, a given plate will regenerate at 3.3% of its maximum health per second.  Globe rotates around its vertical axis at 2/2.1/2.2/2.3/2.4 RPM to help distribute damage.

Explanation: I know I'll get raged at for this, but right now, SG is no different from the old Bastille except that it is for use against different factions.  It artificially extends the ability of a team to survive in defense simply because they are invulnerable inside it and it practically mandates that a Frost come along.  This change gives Frost the chance to defend his allies provided that the team is responsible.  Take care of the globe and it will take care of you.

Projected Rating: 4

Edited February 13, 2014 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Starius]

The globe rotation and plates were things I put forward several months ago in my frame overhaul mega thread. Rotation would be exceedingly low. Even at max level, it would only be a couple RPM.

Also, the idea for freeze to repair the plates has had my support from the first time I saw it shortly after U12 came out.  Passive regeneration (which should differ between when a plate is and isn't under fire) should occur as well.

I also agree with the proposal of making it a longer cast.  Not Elsa-making-her-ice-castle-long, but each plate should have a distinctive creation process and should have a discernible edge to it.  The plates should also be sufficiently large that losing a plate is a dreadful thing and doesn't impact collision detection performance, but small enough to look appealing.

 

I disagree with the idea of making an entirely different damage system just for Snow Globe.  It's way too much work and would have meager benefits.

 

EDIT: for the record, there is nothing wrong with Snow Globe being heavily defense focused.  So long as Frost's other abilities are useful in a wider variety of situations it's fine.  Frost before his recent rework had zero viability outside of SG.  Focus/specialization are good.  Situational is bad.

 

Original post.  The whole objective was to make SG a tactical ability that required focus by the player and/or team to keep running, but so long as it remains, it is still very potent.

Passive regeneration would be a nice thing to have, although it couldn't be too much, otherwise using Freeze to repair it would be pointless. Larger sections was what I originally imagined, to make it a real problem when one is lost while making it easy enough to use Freeze to keep it up.

 

The separate damage system wouldn't take much work if you think about it, it's simply another damage value added to each enemy type, or even the Snowglobe itself. It's important to allow something as large as Snowglobe to rely on a health system while being reliable in any level range you could think of. As it stands now, 3,500 health isn't much at higher levels due to enemy damage scaling, as everyone knows.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Passive regeneration would be a nice thing to have, although it couldn't be too much, otherwise using Freeze to repair it would be pointless. Larger sections was what I originally imagined, to make it a real problem when one is lost while making it easy enough to use Freeze to keep it up.

 

The separate damage system wouldn't take much work if you think about it, it's simply another damage value added to each enemy type, or even the Snowglobe itself. It's important to allow something as large as Snowglobe to rely on a health system while being reliable in any level range you could think of. As it stands now, 3,500 health isn't much at higher levels due to enemy damage scaling, as everyone knows.

The amount I suggested back in October was before anyone had come up with the idea of using Freeze to repair it.

 

Allow me to clarify my stance on the damage to SG.  I am against the idea of creating an entirely new damage system just for SG.  I am ambivalent, however, towards the idea of SG only taking damage from a unit's base damage rather than its scaled damage.  In the current state of the game, this has balance issues, but as more and more elite units are created (Elites Lancers for instance have higher base damage than normal Lancers and spawn at higher levels), this could potentially be a very good thing for endless defense.

 

 

If I were to just spitball stats assuming that SG took damage only from enemy base damage and not level-scaled damage, I'd say numbers along the lines of...

 

Snow Globe

Energy: 50

Plates: 8 (one top, one bottom, and 6 around the sides)

Health: 500/750/1000/1500/2000 [influence by power mods]

Regen: 3%/s (1.5%/s while under fire) [influenced by power mods]

RPM: 0.0/0.4/.8/1.2/1.6/2.0 [influenced by duration mods]

Duration: unlimited (casting a new one will replace the old one)

Cast Time: 5 seconds (plates are generated one at a time and begin blocking and rotating immediately after spawn)

 

Freeze

Energy: 25

Effect1: AoE cone, freezing enemies that happen to be caught by it until 20% of their health is removed (10% on elite units and bosses will unfreeze after any damage) or 2/3/4/5/6 seconds elapse.  Enemies take 50/75/100/125/150 Freeze damage immediately [influenced by power and duration mods]

Effect2: If aimed at a Snow Globe Plate (or aimed through the hole left by one), the plate will have 5/10/15/20/25% of its health restored/be reconstructed with that percent of its health over the next 5.0/4.5/4.0/3.5/3.0 seconds [influenced by power mods and inversely influenced by duration mods]

Edited February 13, 2014 by Volt_Cruelerz