Frost Revisited 3/3/2014

[KaiserBushido]

Removing the timer and applying frost armor to his snow globe would definitely help. Putting a limit on the number of snowglobes that could be made will prevent griefing. A good limit in my opinion would be two. One for defending an objective, and the second for whatever the situation call for, e.g. reviving. A maximum of 3 snowglobe on the field if there is more than one Frost.

Making a fourth snowglobe would make the player's first snowglobe disappear so that there will always be a maximum of 3 snowglobes in the field at all times. Also, I like how the enemy leaders can use snowglobe that centers around the leader itself so maybe Frost's should snowglobe should also do that. For example, if I hold Frost snowglobe key for 2 seconds, then the snowglobe would center around Frost wherever he goes, but if I were to just press his snowglobe key like normal, then a snowglobe would be placed on the ground. Pressing his snowglobe key again, while a snowglobe that is center on Frost, would drop his current snowglobe on the ground at the cost of no energy. Having a snowglobe that centers around Frost would be beneficial in extractions for not only the player but for the team. For example, in survival when the oxygen supply just ran out and everyone has to go extraction. That is all have for now.

[direcyphre]

To alleviate concerns that people will start spamming globes everywhere, you could just as easily make it a really long timer (like a minute and a half or two minutes) so that they would fade eventually. Personally, I vote for no timer at all, and armor rating applying would at least make it vaguely more viable, provided that armor rating worked well enough in the first place against whatever damage types are being thrown at it. Otherwise you may as well just boost the bast health levels, so we get our money's worth from strength mods.

[Rakosta_Kai]

I'm reading a lot of interesting ideas in this thread.

Why can't the Dev proposed changes be instituted this week and the players test though them?  We merge this feedback thread with (hopefully objective) feedback from the changes and keep playing with it until we hit something balanced?

This is, after all, a Beta.

[Kartumterek]

Anything that encourages the use of more than a Redirection mod to tank and help your team is good. Apply the armor rating of the frame to the shield. As others have mentioned griefing is a problem that needs to be considered, and not just with Frost but with the CC frames in general.

[Psycomet]

Freeze: It's better now. But make is spread out in a cone because have you ever tried to freeze someone far away? Still impossible.

 

A suggestion: "Remote Freezer" in place of current 1 or 2. For the duration of the power, Frost emits a freezing aura that causes slowdown and slight damage to enemies near him. This would give players an incentive to move around. To mitigate the chance of being butchered, the power will reduce damage done to Frost slightly and any melee attackers will take additional damage and extra slowdown when they hit Frost.

 

Snow Globe:

I think what worries people is the number "3500". I'm sure this was hit upon after some testing. Otherwise it is fine IMO. Just my thoughts:

 

At level 50+ iron skin is also brittle but he is a point target whereas snowglobe is HUGE. So no way to protect the globe.

But wait a minute, GLOBE should protect ME, why should I need to protect IT. This actually puts an additional restriction on Frost players.

 

No amount of HP (unless an infinitely high value) will help at these levels. But this renders it OP at low-medium levels.

 

Health indicator: I'm always afraid when it might break and I have to look in its direction again and again. Please put damage indicator. The timer stops when it's broken I know, but some kind of warning when its health is low? Timer isn't always visible when you're on a kill frenzy. A permanent health indicator right under cryopod health would be nice.

 

Armour: Don't. Now I need to put Redirection, Vitality AND Steel Fibre? Increase HP, keep timer.

 

Also, why do Frost and Rhino have the exact same health/shield/armour? Rhino should have more health and armour and Frost should have less health and armour traded for immense shields. I mean, he IS wearing a coat after all and Rhino has a 2 inch thick skin!!

[Brasten]

It almost sounds like you're saying that it needs to either be immortal or it's useless though. The whole point is to get rid of that.

That is not what I said, at all. Please follow the math... unless that will be too scary.

--> THE FOLLOWING ASSUMPTION ABOUT ENEMY DAMAGE ARE WRONG

--> IT IS FAR FASTER THAN THIS

-> Assume a Grineer Lancer does 10 per shot at Level. This increases 1 point per level.

-> Rank 3 Snow Globe can take 3,500 damage

Level 1: 10 Damage: 350 Hits to Break (HtB)

Level 21: 30 Damage: 117(HtB)

Level 41: 50 Damage: 70 (HtB)

Level 91: 100 Damage: 35 (HtB)

Level 1001: 1000 Damage: 3.5 (HtB)

Lancers use Hinds, which fire 5 round bursts. By this EXAMPLE level 1001 it takes less then burst to break a Snow Globe. Level 40 enemies are not uncommon a higher ends of play where it takes 8 bursts to break the Snow Globe.

=====

ARMOR = MORE EFFECTIVE HP

If you have 50% Damage Reduction you get 2x the Effective HP. All you do by adding Armor is just increase the total HP pool. Only its worse than just boosting Snow Globes HP because from 3500 to 7000 because you don't get Power Strenght on top to boost it further... not that it matters at all there.

THIS IS BAD FOR LOW LEVEL PLAY

Because you are boosting the amount of HP it means you increase the number of shots it takes for an enemy to bring down the Snow Globe. This makes it STRONGER the weaker the enemy. By increasing the total Effective HP you make lower level play that much easier to drop functionally indestructible globe, and just walk away.

THIS IS BAD FOR HIGH LEVEL PLAY

The reverse holds as you continue to scale the enemies. Slapping on more and more HP just gently nudges the problem down a ways. It doesn't even qualify as even a kick. It doesn't actually address the underlying problem. Just hides it under a feel-good-bandaid.

--> With 50% Damage Reduction from Armor

Level 1: 5 Damage: 700 (HtB)

Level 21: 15 Damage: 234(HtB)

Level 41: 25 Damage: 140 (HtB)

Level 91: 50 Damage: 70 (HtB)

Level 1001: 500 Damage: 7 (HtB)

We go from 8 to 16 burst of Level 41 Lancer's gun. BIG DIFFERENCE, SUCH CHANGE.

We can can just throw more HP and Armor on there, but that just kicks problem down the road AND makes lower level play with Frost a snooze fest.

======

This is why I said HARD CAP enemy damage done to the Snow Globe. This DOES NOT make the Globe invulnerable as you so erroneously concluded. What setting a maximum amount of damage the Globe will take PER HIT does is create a maximum number of hits the Globe will take before breaking at any level above the cap.

Why not just make it just make it a total number of hits then? Because Snow Globe works at levels of play and lower that it is Balanced for. If you just make it work of X number of total hits you fundamentally change which enemy units are a threat. Enemies that shoot faster will break the globe faster. A Lancer will be more dangerous to Snow Globe then a Bombard.

As I just said Snow Globe works, until you cross DE hypothetical "balance" point. This is the point that the way Snow Globe functions needs to change to help with the scaling.

=====

If you Hard Capped incoming damage to 50, this would mean from level 41 on it would always take 70 Hits to Break a Rank 3 Snow Globe (without Power Strenght). As this gets into Post-DE-Balance-Point level play having a change in threat would be good. Making Lancers and other quick fire enemies more dangerous to static defense like Snow Globe than a Bombard or Napalm makes them a higher priority to kill or Crowd Control.

A Hard Cap does not negatively impact lower levels of play the just dumping more Effective HP (Armor) on does. It slightly impacts mid and higher levels of play as enemy damage begins hitting that Cap, but that also creates a built in transition as the threat moves from single High Damage per shot to many fast shooting.

A Hard Cap, once in place can also be adjusted as Warframe scales. If DE wants to bump up/down the level they use as a balance, they can adjust the value of the Hard Cap to match expectations.

=====

They can also determine what the Hard Cap should be mathematical through statistics on sustained Damage Per Second the Globe should be stopping. This includes looking a things like the Time Limit on a Snow Globe.

Again using the incorrect assumptions from earlier. If a Snow Globe keeps a duration of 30 seconds and it is supposed to be 100% time/damage-stop efficient, it should be taking 116 damage per second. This is equivalent to 1 level 14 Lancer shooting a full burst every second.

Now DE has their AI code and the tools to model this better than we do. At the most empirical they can just put a bunch of different AI units around a snow globe and just run the scenario a few hundred iterations and look at the results.

Which really comes down deciding is 116 damage per second the balance point. How long is a Snow Globe supposed to last under sustained AI fire? At what level?

 

Also a lot of abilities get worse as time goes on (Think Iron skin being immortality at low levels), this shouldn't be really any different unless they start trying to rebalance everything.

YES THEY BLOODY WELL NEED TO DO THIS! Iron Skin would be a very good starting point because it is a JOKE for the same reasons Snow Globe is. Rhino Stomp is FAR more useful at later levels of play because it hard stops attacking enemies. Actually Iron Skin NEEDS this exact same kind of incoming damage cap to remain viable.

Warframe direct Damage powers are under CONSTANT complaint for lack of scaling.

And yes IT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED. Slapping little bitty feel good bandages on these problems will only make them continue to grow worse with time. Damage 2.0 DID NOT accomplish one of its objectives (dealing with ever scaling enemy armor), and like DE's idea of adding Armor to Snow Globe is only kicking this problem down the road to have to be kicked again later if they ever expand the "intended" level of play beyond about 36 or so.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Brasten

[tsubasakuroi]

Removing duration would be a good step forward in making Snowglobe fine again. While I'm not against to the idea of the armor stat applying to Snowglobe, I can't help but wonder if this will just end up shifting it so that pretty much every Frost user out there will be using Steel Fiber. Seems like a step backwards on encouraging build diversity with choices.

 

Other things I'd like to see- just let friendly fire pass through snowglobe. Gets rid of possible griefing towards AoE weapon users or even the team if there's no plan to limit power in use like with Nyx's Chaos

[Phantasmo]

1 needs faster projectile speed.

 

I wouldn't remove the timer unless you set a 1 active bubble per Frost player limit.

 

I still think the bubble should be removed in favor or an area skill that helps both long range and melee warframes.

Something that increases survivability without blocking our own shots and with no invulnerability.

[Sumnus]

None of the changes you ever make to snow globe are going to prevent it from being absolutely horrible until you remove the ridiculous scaling of the current system. It will always be 1-hit killed, followed by the warframes once you get to high enough waves of defense, or long enough stays in survival. Having a health value at all makes it worthless past a certain point in the current system, and no amount of changes to snow globe are going to change that, because the issue lies somewhere else entirely, which is your lack of adequately designed end-game.

[Shashu]

Double the Health and armor 20-30% of the health of the globe? or health and armor is increase with warframe mods?

 

But main reason which alot of ppl are unsure is ether having 1 perm snow globe due to no timer or a limit of  snow globes which only tenno can shoot through and pretty much be stacked..

 

 

Id prefer a single snow globe that gets deleted if another is put down rather stacking bubble on bubble BUT increase the SIZE of the bubble to make up for the single use of the bubble.

[nightrunner_ks]

Tenno,

 

Frost and his recent changes are still being reviewed by dev, and we'd like to start up another 'mega' post for discussion based on dev's current thoughts.

 

Dev has expressed the following considerations in the continued balancing of his skills, particularly Snow Globe:

 

1) Have the Armor value apply to health of the Snow Globe

2) Remove Duration timer from Snow Globe

 

As your sessions with Frost go on, please weigh in this week on dev's current considerations as well as your own thoughts.

 

Please keep the discussion and conversation in line with our best posting practices and rules - constructive posts are best posts.

 

Thank you!

 

1. Snow Globe should scale heavily with Focus and should have the Iron Skin armour logic applied to it. Right now health only scales with Fusion Level which sucks Tenno balls. 

 

I also think Snowglobe should be tied to Damage 2.0 more tightly. Instead of having its own special slowdown proc, it should deal slight damage over time with 100% chance to Cold Proc per unit time.

 

2. NO. DURATION. TIMERS. Either you make Snowglobe have a timer but be invincible (Old Iron Skin), or give it health but make its duration infinity (New Iron Skin). NOTHING IN BETWEEN DE. 

Edited March 5, 2014 by nightrunner_ks

[Toaman1994]

As someone who doesn't venture into the "endgame" (read: Very high level content), Snowglobe is only a concern to me in very long survival/defense missions. I'm far more concern with Freeze...and how it could be a cheap, useful method for dealing with foes when low on ammo (or, high on energy. Heck, just a quick blast of damage that takes less focus than aiming with a sniper rifle for me).

 

I like the armor idea for Snowglobe's health, but I'm honestly more concerned with how Freeze is just dead weight to me.

[Oriviagene]

i don't mind whatever DE intended for snow globe,but my opinion is giving limit of snowglobe that was casted like 2 or 3 globe max(or recasting erasing the first casted)

and about the durability i think give the frost snow globe health bar information when casted so the frost know when he should re casting SG again

and i think SG durability should not dependent on frost's armor

it should be depend on how much hit SG receive,for example unrank SG able to hold for 250 hits,maxed 1000 hits

that's my opinion

[Taranis49]

I'm not sure how this counts as "revisiting", since the idea to apply Frost's armor rating to the globe was brought up nearly a month ago in the Feb 7th hot topics, and it was (rightly) pointed out then that it doesn't really make globe any more viable at higher tiers of play... which is incidentally when a Frost and his team would most want/need it.

 

Bare minimum, it needs to be depended on to take hits, regardless of enemy level (as pointed out multiple times in this thread); it's a giant, immobile target that can't take cover (in fact, its job is to act as cover) - it needs to be able to take a pounding, giving it an arbitrary (and ultimately static) amount of HP simply doesn't cut it.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Taranis49

[Arzete]

The only way I can see to make snow globe scale with enemy levels is to change the HP/damage model.  Instead of what we have now, I would suggest that every snow globe be able to support a certain number of "hits".  The actual amount of damage that the rocket/laser/bullet would do to the globe is irrelevant, just the number of times that the globe is struck.  This would have a couple of interesting consequences:

 

1) Scalability - A level 1 trooper does the same damage to the globe as a level 35 trooper, but the globe "will" fall eventually.

2) Strategy - It would be important to target enemies with shotguns and rapid fire weapons over snipers and bombards due to the number of hits the globe would take.  This creates a situation where you could make tactical decisions in the game that affect your team's success.

3) Power Strength mods would still affect the globe, it would simply grant more hits before it dissipates.

 

If this has already been suggested before, my apologies.  I didn't see it anywhere so I thought I'd throw it out there.

To be honest, I like this suggestion the best out of any simply because it scales pretty well into endgame. The snowglobe isn't invincible like before but it also won't drop in 1 second at higher tiers. Make it have no duration but only one snowglobe allowed at a time will make it more like a rework than a straight up nerf like now.

[psyanide]

I do not know if this has ever been suggested, but could Freeze be used to buff the globe?

 

As in, you cast Snow Globe, and then are able to buff its health up or repair it by casting Freeze on it... but only from the outside. Being inside and casting Freeze would just allow it to pass through and hit enemies etc. You would be forced to keep jumping out of safety in order to keep your defenses up. This promotes active gameplay but still brings back some of the old 'Bastion of Ice!' feel to Frost's signature ability.

 

There would have to be some indicator (visual or otherwise) of when the Globe is about to break... Perhaps glowing cracks begin to appear along the surface? 

 

What do you guys think? 

 

EDIT : Other Frosts could buff the Globe with Freeze as well!

Edited March 5, 2014 by psyanide

[Sumnus]

I do not know if this has ever been suggested, but could Freeze be used to buff the globe?

 

As in, you cast Snow Globe, and then are able to buff its health up or repair it by casting Freeze on it... but only from the outside. Being inside and casting Freeze would just allow it to pass through and hit enemies etc. You would be forced to keep jumping out of safety in order to keep your defenses up. This promotes active gameplay but still brings back some of the old 'Bastion of Ice!' feel to Frost's signature ability.

 

There would have to be some indicator (visual or otherwise) of when the Globe is about to break... Perhaps glowing cracks begin to appear along the surface? 

 

What do you guys think? 

 

EDIT : Other Frosts could buff the Globe with Freeze as well!

 

Doesn't fix it getting 1-shot by high level enemies - which is really the only issue with it having health. You notice no difference between the current snow globe and the old one in low level missions, it seems just as invulnerable as it did back then, because they don't deal enough damage to matter.

 

The only time it starts to matter, is when you get into higher levels of enemies,  but once you get there, it's not long before they just 1-shot it anyway because of the poor game design.

Until they redo how damage is handled in higher ends of survival and defense, it's always going to be awful if it has a health amount. The better fix is really just to remove the health (again) and just drop the duration or something, sort of a band-aid fix, that would work similarly to how they handled Bastille. Making it more "interactive" by just having to cast it more.

Although to be honest, if you don't feel like you're doing anything as frost, then you just shouldn't play him. The snow globe really was fine how it was, and it was necessary to get to the "end game", which is now attainable with even fewer methods than before, meaning most players won't even get there. You could still..you know..kill things as Frost with the old snow globe, if you sat and did nothing inside of it, that was your own problem, not the fault of the ability.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Sumnus

[Syhron]

 

Freeze could use a freezing AoE, really when will first skills ever be worth something? Why not make them cooldown-based instead of giving them an energy cost?

 

 

 

I absolutely agree with Genoscythe. The freeze ability is a joke and doesn't hit half of the time. I almost never use it, but rather save the energy for an ice wave. I suggest allowing the freeze ability a small AoE which allows to hit a maximum of 3 enemies. You can also reduce the range of this one, so  for example it only hits enemies which are standing 2-5m away from Frost. 

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

The main problem with SG now is that it doesn't scale. It has a finite usage bandwidth. The paradox is that due to how defense works, SG becomes crucial at later stages and is less relevant in earlier stages.

 

So balancing both armor and duration is pointless since it doesn't address the main issue, the lack of scalability.

 

My suggestion would be to limit SG in another way instead. Revert SG to it's former state with infinite HP, but remove the slow-down of enemies inside the globe since that's overpowered. That opens up the field for synergy with Vauban and gives him a much needed role in infested defense where him and Frost have to work together. 

 

Additionally, since it's such a powerful skill, Frost should only be able to cast it one globe at a time. But, to combat the "damnit, I cast it in  the wrong place!" situations, casting SG when one is already placed should cancel out the globe prematurely, but still use energy too.

 

Edit: Actually, disregard my entire post. The community has clearly come up with super brilliant ideas that I'd like to highlight instead:

 

* Other Frost skills can repair the globe

* Cold damage (from weapons) can repair the globe 

* Snow Globe visually shrinks when damaged to indicate remaining HP (this is BRILLIANT!)

* Snow Globe increases again when healed

 

No really, hands down community, you rock!

Edited March 6, 2014 by Hap-muhr

[Bubsters]

I like these that were posted

 

- Ice abilities/mods heal % globe 

 

-Block x amount of targets like bastille. Has Duration.

 

-Block x amount of hits.

 

EDIT: and toss the armor idea please

Edited March 5, 2014 by Bubsters

[ChaosCVZ]

If it does have no timer, make sure it doesn't affect performance much PLEASE! already have low FPS in this game.

 

P.S Maybe limit the number of globes to like... 3? (just saw some people already suggested a cap)

[(PSN)MoTiVaTeDKiLLa]

The main problem with SG now is that it doesn't scale. It has a finite usage bandwidth. The paradox is that due to how defense works, SG becomes crucial at later stages and is less relevant in earlier stages.

 

So balancing both armor and duration is pointless since it doesn't address the main issue, the lack of scalability.

 

My suggestion would be to limit SG in another way instead. Revert SG to it's former state with infinite HP, but remove the slow-down of enemies inside the globe since that's overpowered. That opens up the field for synergy with Vauban and gives him a much needed role in infested defense where him and Frost have to work together. 

 

Additionally, since it's such a powerful skill, Frost should only be able to cast it one globe at a time. But, to combat the "damnit, I cast it in  the wrong place!" situations, casting SG when one is already placed should cancel out the globe prematurely, but still use energy too.

I agree with this

[(PSN)Luther_Yungblood]

I love the way Frost Prime plays now.  I love the new changes to his offensive powers.  Before the update he was useless to me except for defense missions.  Now, he can be used for all missions.  One of my faves now.

 

As far as the snow globe, I still have yet to see his snow globe destroyed so the health and duration seems to be fine I would just say that there should only be one SG casted at one time.  Shouldn't be able to cast multiple.

Edited March 5, 2014 by (PS4)Luther_Yungblood

[ChaosCVZ]

If it does have no timer, make sure it doesn't affect performance much PLEASE! already have low FPS in this game.

 

P.S Maybe limit the number of globes to like... 3? (just saw some people already suggested a cap)

off-topic here, but make pods' hp/shields in defence scale as the waves increase(like +hp/shields every 5 waves) and maybe add some form of repairing it while reducing passive regen, I dunno, just an Idea :P

[Replacement]

I think people hating on the Armor idea need to realize something: assuming +Power Strength also increases the globe's health, Armor creates quadratic growth.  This is a good thing for the game, given the way weapons and enemies scale!  

 

Plus, it just makes me feel good about Frost's naturally high armor.  GiveRhinoSameTreatmentPlease.