Warframe Powers Extension And Adjustment

[ApathyZer0]

Warframe Skill system ideas

 

The goal of this post is explore ideas to increase the depth and functionality of the skill system.

 

The current state of the skill system while enjoyable has issues that hold it back. There are powers on a frame that work so much better than others that it leaves many unused.There are frames that are largely unused because of better power set options on a few frames.The way "good" skills scale compared to "bad" skills is inconsistant.

 

Concept 1 Skill Combinations

 

A combo system for skills could help bring the lesser used abilities back into play and add depth to combat. The concept here will be 3 combinations between the 4 frame skill sets.

Limiting the number of possible combinations to 3 will help insure the best possible pairing of skills and provide leeway with powersets that would be more difficult to combine.

So for example take powers 2 and 4 to create combo A, powers 1 and 3 to create combo B, and powers 1 and 4 to create combo C.

 

In practice it could look something like this, Rhino- Skills: (1 Rhino Charge) (2 Iron Skin) (3 Roar) (4 Rhino Stomp)

 

Combo A: 4,1 Rhino stomp knocks enemies into the air, while under this effect Rhino charge does additional damage.

Combo B: 2,3 Iron skin provides additional damage absorption, while this effect is active using Roar increases armour                          of teammates along with the damage buff.

Combo C: 3,1 Iron skin provides additional damage absorption, while this effect is active using Rhino charge blasts                              shrapnel in a radius at the end of the charge, in turn destroying the iron skin.

 

Pros: Added depth makes combat more engaging.

         Would require less time and resources to develop than a set of generalized skills.

         Retains frame personality by keeping the skills that fit it's theme.

         Adds flexibility to already existing skills.

         Creates new options for teams that have 2 or more of the same frame in a mission.

 

Cons: Requires the player to learn a new system.

          Takes time and resources to develop.

      

 

Concept 2 Power Scaling

 

The issue with power scaling is well known, typically skills that deal damage have a hard drop off when working up to higher level enemies.

 

The best solution I can think of is to add a small value of damage based on the max health of an enemy. This would have a minimal impact on low or mid level fights and only start make a difference when up against higher level enemies. This would prevent any damage based skill from becoming useless.

 

Example: Nyx- psychic bolts (200 damage per bolt) now lets give it 2% damage on max health as well.

 

Enemy 1 (100 HP) hit by a bolt dealing 202 damage. This has almost no effect on low level gameplay.

Enemy 2 (1,000 HP) hit by a bolt dealing 220 damage. 

Enemy 3 (10,000 HP) hit by a bolt dealing 400 damage. For higher level gameplay from this point on the percent based damage will be doing equal to or greater than the base value.

Edited February 23, 2014 by ApathyZer0

[AveryJ]

Cool idea! +1

[-Himari-]

Combos with skills, good idea.

[Temfist]

It's cool, but I think it needs to be more intuitive. personally, I'd rather DE just rework warframe abilities to have synergy in general, so that using moves together makes sense, as they would compliment each other, stack, etc.

 

A lot of the powers need to be given buffs, and then given cool downs if they are too powerful to be spammed. Making all the powers useful individually, and compliment each other in the same situations, would strengthen each warframe having a unique playstyle.

[ApathyZer0]

I agree that increasing synergy between skills would help. The two ideas can coexist with synergies improving like skills and combos giving ways to tie in skills that have different functions. 

 

Thank you for the input, this is exactly the sort of feedback I'm looking for. I'll give some thought on how to make the system more intuitive.

[Tulzscha]

Moved to the proper section.

[ApathyZer0]

Thank you for correcting my placement error. Part two is now up.