Warframe Differentiation/Pro System: A Proposal

[MJ12]

We've had at least two similar threads on this and a lot of people saying in other threads they want Warframes to be more unique.

The two threads I'm mentioning, for the record, are these two:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/1636-warframe-class-rebalancing-and-adding-replayability/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/1169-warframe-uniqueness-or-lack-thereof/

So here's my full proposal for how to differentiate Warframes:

1. All Warframes should start out with all four powers unlocked. Yes, it doesn't take long to level up to 1, but that's still time people are spending not engaged in the full game mechanics. The tutorial already teaches you how to use abilities, it's not as if people won't know what these abilities are for before then. You can mouseover them in the arsenal screen to figure out what they do or just play with them on the first level. The four initial skill unlocks would be replaced by Warframe-unique passive skills. I go over ideas for those in my thread (Warframe Uniqueness [Or Lack Thereof]) for Rhino. Things that define a character.

2. All Warframes have unique and differentiated stats. Or rather, semi-differentiated. Let's take the three starting frames for examples. We have a caster (Volt), a support/mez guy (Loki), and a balanced melee specialist (Excalibur). So their stats should imply how they should play.

For Excalibur, he needs to get up in people's faces and hit them a lot until they stop moving, which means he's gonna be taking a lot of damage and needs to chase down fleeing enemies. So he gets increased stamina and stamina regeneration (+100%), a slight shield boost (125 versus 100), increased armor (60 instead of 50, which is a net 20% health damage reduction), and an innate melee damage boost (+10%). Excalibur gets a slight amount of regeneration of energy for every melee kill. (1/2 seconds for 6 seconds for every melee kill he makes).

For Loki, his job is to be $&*^ing around with enemies and avoiding head-on fights. Which means he's not going to be getting too many kills since he's going to be throwing down decoys and cloaking and teleporting around the place. So he gets power efficiency (+25%), baseline energy regeneration (1/second maybe?) and increased max energy (150?). However, he shouldn't be getting into huge head-on fights, so he loses armor (25 instead of 50).

For Volt, he's a caster. He should be slinging spells as much as (if not more than) he uses guns, right in the thick of it. So he gets increased max energy (150?) and regains energy per kill (5? 10?) with a very slow regen drip in case you run entirely out (1/2 seconds as long as you're actually 'in combat', i.e. you've taken damage or dealt damage within the last 5-10 seconds). On the other hand he's also fragile (25 instead of 50 armor) and all those capacitors and electroshock projectors and whatnot cut into his ammo capacity (-50% base ammo).

The others generally follow this pattern, with Ember being a caster, Mag being a caster/mez hybrid (so she can use either Volt or Loki's stats), and the two odd men out being Ash and Rhino.

Ash is a ninja Warframe. He's all about stealth and stealth kills. Thus he needs to move fast, do assassinations very well, and avoid fights. So Ash gets a +100% damage boost against unaware enemies and is naturally 'hard to notice' (he will be a lower-priority target). Killing a target gives a slight amount of energy (half as much as Volt, but doubled if the target wasn't attacking him, and triple if the target wasn't aware of any players). He also moves just as quickly crouched as walking, and has improved sprint speed/duration (+50% speed, +50% stamina).

Rhino is a tank. Tanks hit hard and take loads of damage. So Rhino gets a buttload of health (+100), shields (+50), and armor (75 instead of 100). His sprint is slower than everyone else's (by say, 10%) but if he runs into an enemy while sprinting he deals a slight amount of damage and knocks them down. Rhino's energy regenerates at 1/2 seconds as long as he's taking damage. He gets even more if he's taking health damage. So you get more energy to use your cool abilities as long as you're blocking bullets with your face.

3. All Warframes should have very minor affinities with favored weapons. This would take the form of a Minor Affinity, which covers an entire group of weapons (shotguns, rifles, sniper) and a Major Affinity, which is a single weapon. These weapons would be part of the packs. So Loki would have an affinity with Semi-Auto Rifles (Snipetron, Latron, any others) that would give it, say, +25% headshot damage and reduced recoil. It would have a Latron affinity, which would give it an extra 10% damage using the Latron. Now, Ronyn (hi Ronyn!) would want you to be able to customize these. Which is on the books here. Just wait.

4. All upgrades in the normal upgrade tree would be unlocked for use. You can fully spend points up to level 30 just like if all Warframes were Pro. However, the Pro system isn't abolished, it's just getting changed slightly. It would be split into two halves: Mastery (which can be gained via ingame grinding OR cash) and Elite Upgrades (which are cash-only).

5. The first tier of Warframe enhancements would be Warframe Mastery. These would give benefits like +Stamina, +Armor, +Sprint Speed, +Loot Radar, +Enemy Radar, and so on. You can get these via XP after level 30 (or possibly you can get them by 'prestiging' a Warframe and dropping it back to level 1, with all its Mastery points still retained in your profile)... or you can just buy them for real cash. Most people will probably just give in and buy them via cash.

6. Elite Upgrades are a different beast entirely. They would let you "steal" traits from other Warframes to enhance yours, letting you make a hybrid class. You would have 5 Elite Upgrade "slots" wherein you could slot in Class Modifiers (i.e. 'Caster', which would give you the benefits and penalties that Volt and Ember have, i.e.better energy, energy regen on kill, base energy regen, etc, 'Tank', which would give you Rhino's benefits or penalties, 'Swordmaster', which would give you Excalibur's, and so on), Unique Skills (which would emulate another Warframe's unique skills), or Affinities, which would let you steal another Warframe's affinities. These would take the form of special mods which could only be purchased via cash.

Thoughts? Comments? "I know where you live and will hunt you down for your blasphemy"? Paypal donations?

[Ralmstein]

I agree with all of this minus one thing.

You should not have to pay to get these "Elite" skills. The things you should pay for should be only COSMETIC.

I don't understand, so many games have cash-shops for merely cosmetics items or just unlocking things faster and they are incredibly huge beasts of games now (LoL, Planteside 2).

Again, I support all of this minus the whole cash for skills only. I agree with cash to unlock them faster, but make it so free players can attain them too.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Ralmstein

[MJ12]

I agree with all of this minus one thing.

You should not have to pay to get these "Elite" skills. The things you should pay for should be only COSMETIC.

I don't understand, so many games have cash-shops for merely cosmetics items or just unlocking things faster and they are incredibly huge beasts of games now (LoL, Planteside 2).

Again, I support all of this minus the whole cash for skills only. I agree with cash to unlock them faster, but make it so free players can attain them too.

You know why I suggested it? Because if the DE execs were of the mind that "the things you should pay for should be only COSMETIC", the game wouldn't have had Pro in the first place. Thus, any suggestion which says that is almost certainly going to be rejected out of hand unless you do a full-up research study on "pay to win", its economic ramifications, and whether or not the per-capita increase in profits is counterbalanced by the loss of players.

And the last (And only) time anyone did that study it turned out that pay to win worked pretty well, so really you'd have to fund your own study. Now, I could pay a bunch to create that study, or I could just go with the flow and let people pay some money for a little bit more power instead of pay some money for a whole load of power.

[Vectos]

I'd have to agree with Ralm on this one. Games with any sort of $ only advantages like the elite skills you're proposing get the game involved branded with "pay-to-win". For a growing indie game that's still crawling out of it's early beta phase in a western market, there is no better way to kill it than tagging it with that term.

I really like your other ideas for giving each warframe their own identity though!

Edited January 6, 2013 by Vectos

[MJ12]

I'd have to agree with Ralm on this one. Games with any sort of $ only advantages like the elite skills you're proposing get the game involved branded with "pay-to-win". For a growing indie game that's still crawling out of it's early beta phase in a western market, there is no better way to kill it than tagging it with that term.

I really like your other ideas for giving each warframe their own identity though!

So thus, basically every game is "pay to win"? "$ only advantages" are exactly how these games work. Tribes: Ascend has them. Blacklight: Retribution has them. The fact that these advantages come in time instead of in ingame items isn't actually relevant, in pure economics. Sure, you could in theory get these things via ingame cash (at a much-reduced rate) but if you think the design is such that they expect most players to unlock the "intended game experience" via ingame cash, you're fooling yourself. What making them available for ingame cash only versus making them cost 50 million credits does just simply makes it fairly obvious.

"This is stuff you are supposed to pay for. We want you to pay for it. Do you want to pay for it y/n?"

The "not pay to win" games like PS2 and DCUO and the like? They're actually pay to win in the same way, in the sense that a free player in DCUO or PS2 is going to always be at a disadvantage to a paying player due to consumables and other sources. Yet they don't get tagged with "pay to win". So you could simply change it so that you can get Elite skills randomly by scrapping a Warframe which has them. That'd make it "not pay to win" in the sense you're using it... and it'd still make it a thing you want to put down real cash for. Monetization is a thing. I want Warframe to be an awesome, enjoyable game. I also want it to be a huge moneymaker for DE so that it keeps supporting it with new and cooler stuff.

Also, this disingenous idea that "pay to win" is inherently a bad business model really, really needs to die because what it means is that generally, items end up overpriced because since nobody's paying for other things but cosmetics they need to gouge you on cosmetics. BF:Heroes went "pay to win"... which coincidentally also involved them lowering real-cash prices on almost everything. It's not some kind of unalloyed evil we're talking about.

Edited January 6, 2013 by MJ12

[Vectos]

So thus, basically every game is "pay to win"? "$ only advantages" are exactly how these games work. Tribes: Ascend has them. Blacklight: Retribution has them. The fact that these advantages come in time instead of in ingame items isn't actually relevant, in pure economics. Sure, you could in theory get these things via ingame cash (at a much-reduced rate) but if you think the design is such that they expect most players to unlock the "intended game experience" via ingame cash, you're fooling yourself. What making them available for ingame cash only versus making them cost 50 million credits does just simply makes it fairly obvious.

"This is stuff you are supposed to pay for. We want you to pay for it. Do you want to pay for it y/n?"

The "not pay to win" games like PS2 and DCUO and the like? They're actually pay to win in the same way, in the sense that a free player in DCUO or PS2 is going to always be at a disadvantage to a paying player due to consumables and other sources. Yet they don't get tagged with "pay to win". So you could simply change it so that you can get Elite skills randomly by scrapping a Warframe which has them. That'd make it "not pay to win" in the sense you're using it... and it'd still make it a thing you want to put down real cash for. Monetization is a thing. I want Warframe to be an awesome, enjoyable game. I also want it to be a huge moneymaker for DE so that it keeps supporting it with new and cooler stuff.

Also, this disingenous idea that "pay to win" is inherently a bad business model really, really needs to die because what it means is that generally, items end up overpriced because since nobody's paying for other things but cosmetics they need to gouge you on cosmetics. BF:Heroes went "pay to win"... which coincidentally also involved them lowering real-cash prices on almost everything. It's not some kind of unalloyed evil we're talking about.

I could argue with you about the topic, but it seems like you've already make up your mind about the subject. That's fine. I'm just expressing my own experiences of games as someone who's been raised with a controller in their hand and is going to college for game development and 3D art. I look at games more from the quality perspective. If a game is fun, fair, and poses a proper challange on a equal field for all, many people will be attracted to that. I've already seen Warframe start to crumble just from the minor systems which require money to upgrade. Anyone I try to get into it immediately gets pushed away by these systems, and understandably so. In this age, most western gamers have an inate distate for any game that involves "pay-to-win" and it causes accelerated decay of a game's community rather than growth. Frankly, it's sickening to me when a game's executive decides to turn someone's passion (the artist's passion, not the gamer's passion) into a get rich quick scheme. But then again, I'm dragging personal beliefs and experiences into somthing you'd refer to as business. That's the path you've persued, correct?

I hope I don't come off as a jerk, I'm just trying to get you to understand where I and many others are comming from on this topic. Arguing would be pointless.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Vectos

[MJ12]

I could argue with you about the topic, but it seems like you've already make up your mind about the subject. That's fine. I'm just expressing my own experiences of games as someone who's been raised with a controller in their hand and is going to college for game development and 3D art. I look at games more from the quality perspective. If a game is fun, fair, and poses a proper challange on a equal field for all, many people will be attracted to that. I've already seen Warframe start to crumble just from the minor systems which require money to upgrade. Anyone I try to get into it immediately gets pushed away by these systems, and understandably so. In this age, most western gamers have an inate distate for any game that involves "pay-to-win" and it causes accelerated decay of a game's community rather than growth. Frankly, it's sickening to me when a game's executive decides to turn someone's passion (the artist's passion, not the gamer's passion) into a get rich quick scheme. But then again, I'm dragging personal beliefs and experiences into somthing you'd refer to as business. That's the path you've persued, correct?

If you've actually seen what I've said on pay to win, it's fourfold:

1. Western gamers have an innate distaste for games which involve "pay to win"? A big fat lie. BF:Heroes went from not pay to win to pay to win (an incredibly dangerous transition) and didn't lose any significant proportion of their playerbase. In fact, if I remember the graphs right there wasn't even any dip. I'd like to believe that this is true, and I'm sure plenty of people believe it's true, but there is very little evidence for it. I think Tribes: Ascend and LoL don't have "pay to win" not because they don't think it'll sell but because as PvP only games they'd impact, and quite negatively, other parts of the game, whereas a game with more indirect competition (like leaderboards) such as Warframe doesn't have quite the same issues.

2. Monetizing Pay to Win items is risky because they have to provide bonuses which people are willing to buy but not enough that other players reject the game as just 'pay money get shinies'. Right now, Pro is the latter. The Elite Upgrades proposal is an attempt to remove that to create a system which retains the idea that DE clearly has embraced to some extent (paying for power is a net moneymaker) which removes the worst parts of it.

3. A lack of "Pay to Win" is actually a bad thing for players who are willing to pay money for the game because it means the developer, with nowhere else to recoup their costs from, will increase real-life monetary costs for cosmetic items and the other stuff you're likely to buy anyways. If Riot Games could somehow charge money for ingame advantages and not break the competitive balance of the gameplay (note: Warframe, as a PvE shooter, doesn't need strict competitive balance, it just needs a 'soft' balance where everything can get some damage done and get some kills) I bet avatars and skins would cost less. Possibly significantly less.

4. The plural of anecdote is not data, and all the "anti-p2w" people have are anecdotes. Meanwhile, the people who have engaged in "pay to win" design like World of Tanks and BF:Heroes and we have statistics on them, have actually had quite a bit of success in the west as well as in Asia. We can measure that empriically. Thus one has to conclude that there is zero evidence of this "pay to win kills games" attitude if it is done well. If it is done poorly, well of course it kills games. Literally anything done poorly can do that.

Edited January 6, 2013 by MJ12

[NeverDT]

I totally understand where DE's coming from with the Pro system and all - my only concern is that it comes too early in the game's progression. I'm not objecting to paying for some modicum of power at some point in progression, only that it doesn't come as early as it does now.

PS2's system gives you advantages, yes, and it will take a non-paying player some time to catch up to a paying player - but the ability to catch up in gameplay terms regardless of paying is still there. Part of the motivation to pay will come from enjoying the game, part of it will come from wanting to accelerate, and part of it will go towards cosmetic items because, well, if you're playing for a long time, you want to look like a badass.

I'd also bring up Vindictus because it's one of the games that plays closer to Warframe (yeah, it's run by Nexon, yeah they suck, it's still a pretty fun game). I haven't reached endgame content in Vindi, but really the only thing I know of gameplaywise that you'd need to pay for are items to prevent enhancements on items from screwing up - in other words, paying for perfection. Of course it has quite a lot of cosmetic stuff as well.

I think Warframe could easily succeed with a system similar to either of these.

Elite would fall reasonably under my definition of "pay for perfection" - but I do not like the idea of "stealing" abilities at all. I'm not sure how I feel about "class types" either - I'd rather see a Path of Exile style passive skill tree where I can decide what I want my Excalibur or my Mag to be like. If I want a super agile glass cannon Excalibur, I can do it. If I want a tanky Mag I can do that as well. It might be easier to access certain stats on a certain frame, but the option is still there to be different. In my eyes, the first step to seeing varied frames is in making their skills viable, powerful, and unique. I do agree with having a more in-depth passive system though.

In any case, MJ12, I know where you live and will hunt you down for your blasphemy.

(KIDDING)

[ApokalypsBZH]

I'm all for stats differenciation between frames, that doesn't especially lock you into a particular playstyle, but that gives incentive on playing different frames to perform different roles on mission.

[Scyfle]

I like the idea of extra upgrade trees.

And no, not everyone will just give in and pay.

A big number of people don't spend money on f2p games.

And about Tribes Ascend and Blacklight Retribution (although really more Tribes) is that while one can pay for an advantage, normal players can eventually (although after an extremely long time) obtain the same weapons.

[STARSBarry]

world of tanks is pay to win (gold rounds) and is one of the most populer PvP F2P games on the market

[Scyfle]

It's also why there are plenty of people who do not feel like getting into it.

[Archazad]

I'm kind of agreed having diffrentiated stats between warframes that will give advantage playing as team and each of warframe playing as their roles. That's just my opinion tho, how about yours?

[Nitrogolem]

The main problem I have with the game so far is the PRO for weapons and frames, the problem is that you cant buy them for credits, i would not care if its 200k or more credits for a pro, since it is not too hard to get credits but it still takes about 2 hours to get 30k if there are enough mod drops, but in any case, if they plan to do pvp and PRO will be platinum only, its going to be p2w and all the people who dont pay, will be stuck with playing pve only, since the pro version of weapons and frames are twice as good, therefore people who pay will have twice the firepower, twice the shield and defence, etc. while people who dont want to pay will die after 2 shots because of not having the pro unlocked. I dont mind if paying for pro is a way to speed up the process of getting all the skills, but what I DO care about is if paying is the only way of unlocking these features, I already hate SWTOR F2P, dont make me hate this one...

[NaGeL]

I just started recently and i'm already experiencing annoyence with the Prosystem.

I'm thinking about paying

but I'm also thinking about leaving.

the Whole pro system is a turn off for many people becouse it gives lot of potential and not everyone can unlock it sadly.

many peaople will be a lot weaker than pro users..

and thats quite a big dissadvantage if Warframe evergoes PVP... and sooner or later it willl. Community will demand it.

So i say ether drop the pro system, and ther ank should cost more XP and sell XP boosters t othe guys who want to play and the guys who ether dont want to o cant still havethe chance to unlock all the abilities.

OR

give the Pro update a Credit price around 200k that is 10000 credit for every 1 platinum.

or 500k aka 250000 for every 1 platinum. (thought i wont like this but still, it would put off less peaople becouse there is a chace to unlock it....meager it is to be..)

Other than the pro system I agree with the OP.

Edited January 6, 2013 by NaGeL

[Antharax]

Clap Clap Clap. Listen to this man. I agree with everything. Aside from the pro system but it's a free game with great gameplay so I might be acting like a cheap coin hugger.

[Xiangzhu]

world of tanks is pay to win (gold rounds) and is one of the most populer PvP F2P games on the market

Well that's because in WoT buying the gold is optional, you don't need to really buy the gold to advance to the next level. Unlike Warframe where you *really* need to use real money to unlock more skills.

--

Extra message: Why can't we purchase the first 3 warframe with in-game currency or at-least make their warframe blueprints available. :)

[Molasses]

as a loki player, i resent the idea that i would not be in the middle of the fight.

[FanaticGamer]

Well that's because in WoT buying the gold is optional, you don't need to really buy the gold to advance to the next level. Unlike Warframe where you *really* need to use real money to unlock more skills.

--

Extra message: Why can't we purchase the first 3 warframe with in-game currency or at-least make their warframe blueprints available. :)

Depending on your level of play, buying gold is not optional in World of Tanks, try to go to any clan war without gold ammo, and you'll get owned so bad.

As long as this game remains PvE, there's absolutely no problem with the current setup. If they're ever going to introduce PvP they need to revise the PRO bit, but for now, it's perfectly fine.

[PaleMinerva]

I'd honestly prefer the warframes' stats to remain fairly undifferentiated. I don't want my playstyle to be determined by my warframe.