The Shield / Health Issue

[Pathyriel]

Problem: Health and more importantly shield mods are pretty necessary to progress into higher difficulty planets. Unfortunately, they seem to be pretty rare drops (even though they are common mods). I’ve been lucky enough to get one of each, yay! I have 7 frames, boo!

Maybe I’ve just been babied by the previous system, but some levels are pretty hard to do with the standard shield/health, especially solo. I don’t think I’m alone thinking this.

Even If I get enough shield/health mods to cover all my frames, they are so important they would permanently take up 2 of my slots reducing my customization options on all my frames. So out of 10 slots I get 4 for customizing.

Solution: Much like power mods come with a frame, so should basic health and shield mods. They should have their own slots so as not to reduce customization. We would still limited by our power level, so health and shields would have to grow over time as we leveled. The standard shield/health mods should be capped how high they can go to encourage us to seek out better s/h mods.

Then, we can get creative with s/h mods. For example:

Electric shields: Add a small amount of electric damage to all attacks, electrocute any melee attackers, and would excel at reducing damage from corpus - but be weak against infested.

Fire shields: Add fire damage to attacks, burn melee attackers, block all fire/explosion damage – but completely fail on levels with coolant leaks.

Ice shields: Add cold damage to attacks, freeze melee attackers – but fire/explosion damage does double.

Ricochet shields: They act like normal shields, but they have a chance of returning projectiles back to the attacker.

Stealth shields: They act like normal shields, but when you stand still you become invisible.

Vampire shields: They convert a percentage of your health into shields.

Overcharged shields: Regular shields with a higher cap.

Rejuvenating health: Health that regenerates.

Berserker health: You get a damage modifier that gets higher the lower your health gets.

Vampire health: As your shield is depleted your health gets a temporary buff.

Overcharged health: Regular health with a higher cap.

Obviously these should be balanced so they aren’t game breaking. We would have to tune the caps and energy cost to offset the benefits. You should only be able to equip one of each. I’m sure there are more ideas or tweaks that could be feasible.

TLDR:

Shield/health mods should come with a new frame like powers.

They should have their own slots.

There should be alternate specialty Shield/health mods.

[plznohurtme]

I think this would be a very interesting idea if they could impliment it especially given how their system is setup now. More mod things dropping the better, and with the new system I think variation is far more important than it ever was before since we cannot just "stack what's best" so everyone ends up using the same setup of things for the most part weapon wise. Either way I certainly agree that health/shields are a massive progression block right now no matter what frame you have... I still haven't gotten a shield mod and in turn haven't really been playing much because it just isn't fun having to struggle with baseline stats.

Also your idea ties in with the conversation going on over here you might check it out: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/17285-do-you-want-passive-stat-boosts-from-leveling-up/

Edited March 24, 2013 by plznohurtme

[TheSmash]

Good ideas. You only really need one health and one shield mod though because you can just unequip them from one frame and equip it on another for free. Only problem is energy.

[VelenoHargreaves]

I agree, except with the part of "making especial Shield mods", it is a good idea, but not for now... We need first to focus on the unsolved problem that is Shield/Health mod drop rate... For common mods they are pretty hardass to drop, and the two slots for health/shield can be improved with the power max too... (Just my two cents of the point). But power max be capped at 100% more power to limit at 200 energy, at my view is a good ammount and you can spam alot of skills with it...

So overall, Boost the Shield/Health drop rate, make them like, reward to missions or something like Trick Mag and other mods, and add two (or three for power max) extra slots to keep up with the possibillity of variations

[MJ12]

I'd get rid of basic shield/health mods period, make that an innate feature of your frame, and make the 'new' shield/health mods be weird things like "health regen", "life steal", "shields regenerate per kill", so on and so forth.

[VelenoHargreaves]

Shields and Health could upgrade as your warframe levels up... That would make a little more sense and you wouldn't feel useless with a lvl 30 warframe...

Like this:

Rhino, he has more health them shield at lvl 30

Excalibur: Balanced Health/Shield (equal)

Loki: More health then shield

Volt: More Shield then health

And so on to further warframes... That would make sense...

[SniperDiz]

... make that an innate feature of your frame...

Agreed, this is actually what I've been wanting all along. Having special health, shield and power totals for each frame would give them weight - much like the armor & speed (stamina too?) values do for current stats. As it stands there are differences between frames, but the differences are often negligible.

To segway into another option, allowing more interesting load outs make helmets have higher rewards/bigger penalties.

Just my two cents.

Edited March 24, 2013 by SniperDiz

[Pathyriel]

Good ideas. You only really need one health and one shield mod though because you can just unequip them from one frame and equip it on another for free. Only problem is energy.

Switching out mods all the time would be taxing and increase downtime. I might want to switch what frame I use between rounds, but it would be pretty annoying to have to unequip a bunch of mods then switch frames and reequip. Especially if my teammates are ready to go to the next level. Also, I don't think it's what the devs really have in mind. They could have made it so once you get a mod you could equip it in any all weapons/frames, which is an idea I've seen on the forums, but that's not what they did.

I agree, except with the part of "making especial Shield mods", it is a good idea, but not for now... We need first to focus on the unsolved problem that is Shield/Health mod drop rate...

It seems like you missed the first part of my post where frames come with shield/health mods standard (no need to increase drop rates). They wouldn't be great, but they would do the job until you get an improved shield or health mod. More variation in the mods will make the gameplay more interesting and unique, and it will require you to make hard choices while building your load out.

[Pathyriel]

I'd get rid of basic shield/health mods period, make that an innate feature of your frame, and make the 'new' shield/health mods be weird things like "health regen", "life steal", "shields regenerate per kill", so on and so forth.

I'd agree, but it doesn't seem like the devs want it to work this way. My suggestion is trying to keep with the system they have already built.

I'd love for the frames to each have their own stats that would increase as they level. It would make them feel different to play. Most of my lvl 30 mods right now feel like lvl 1 because I don't have mods for them.

[Gryphticon]

+1 There should also be an effects on the Warframe so that it's on fire, on electricity or on ice.

[Vaskadar]

I'd rather just have a mod frequency increase, tbh. Oh, and more mod slots. 2 more mod slots would be good.

[Pathyriel]

+1 There should also be an effects on the Warframe so that it's on fire, on electricity or on ice.

I agree, visual effects to the shields would be cool. I also think we should be able to choose the color of our shields

[Pathyriel]

I'd rather just have a mod frequency increase, tbh. Oh, and more mod slots. 2 more mod slots would be good.

Technically since there would be more shield/health mod types in the loot pool they would drop more often. Out of curiosity why wouldn't you want to have special shield / health types?

[ZAPTONE]

Ember should be resistant to fire damage

volt resists elec

frost resists cold

makes sense right?

[Gryphticon]

Ember should be resistant to fire damage

volt resists elec

frost resists cold

makes sense right?

Saryn resists toxic, should make sense but would make the warframes more overpowered.

[Nephera]

good suggestion op, i like it. I like it a lot.

Edited March 24, 2013 by Nephera

[VelenoHargreaves]

Saryn resists toxic, should make sense but would make the warframes more overpowered.

So what is the sense of making based elemental Warframe if they aren't even resistent to their elemental? I think it should be something obvious or at least automatic... Buuuuuut The Devs don't seen to work that way...

[Laki]

I like most of the ideas. Especially the elemental based ones.

[Azure_Kytia]

So what is the sense of making based elemental Warframe if they aren't even resistent to their elemental? I think it should be something obvious or at least automatic... Buuuuuut The Devs don't seen to work that way...

It is because the WarFrames have systems that enable the use of said elements, but they are not themselves made of Fire/Electricity/Ice/Toxins. WarFrames are weapons, and just so happen to be the avatars used in the game. Would a Flamethrower be immune to Fire? The metal parts, perhaps, but I'm sure it would be relatively unusable after the fire went at it for any length of time.

In regards to the OP, I completely support this idea; we need variable operations for Shields that can work around people's playstyle. I'd love to see things like this expanded, like "+15% Shield Regen / +45% Shield Regen when in sight of enemy"

[MJ12]

I'd agree, but it doesn't seem like the devs want it to work this way. My suggestion is trying to keep with the system they have already built.

I'd love for the frames to each have their own stats that would increase as they level. It would make them feel different to play. Most of my lvl 30 mods right now feel like lvl 1 because I don't have mods for them.

Well, if you keep hammering on this point maybe the devs will change things. Remember, the "Pro" system was scrapped because people wanted some free way to get "Proed" Warframes/Weapons. DE does pay attention to what players want.

[falz]

Increase the shield mod drop rate!!!

[Tattsuo]

Farmed M prime and Venus for 8 hours......no shild mod, me and my friend did this all day today essentially, and not even 1 between the two of us, this is ridiculous. Its beyond stupid at this point how low the drop rate for the shield mod is....

[plznohurtme]

Farmed M prime and Venus for 8 hours......no shild mod, me and my friend did this all day today essentially, and not even 1 between the two of us, this is ridiculous. Its beyond stupid at this point how low the drop rate for the shield mod is....

This is only a problem because of the fact that you're stuck with base stats no matter what so you're dependent on two specific mods to progress at all. The mods should be there to make things easier, not make or break the viability of being able to do content.

[Grimwing]

Shields and Health could upgrade as your warframe levels up... That would make a little more sense and you wouldn't feel useless with a lvl 30 warframe...

^ THIS.

[Tattsuo]

been 2 weeks now of playing at least 4 hours every night if not more, still no shield mod.... I have 2 lvl 30 warframes with a crap ton of lvl 30 weapons....and this shiled mod is holding me back from content I had no problem playing prior to this patch. If this mod doesnt drop soon, im going to drop this game, and stray any of my friends away from this game because this is way too ridiculous. This 1 stupid thing is holding me back from enjoying the game..........