Powers May Need The Next "2.0 Overhaul"...

[EvoSigma]

Firstly, I want to say that I'm delighted by how DE has altered and changed the basic damage and (soon to be) melee systems from their previous lackluster state... However, I feel like warframe powers/abilities should be the next point of interest as it's currently something you either spam or don't use at all... Now, what I'm about to propose would most likely require a drastic alteration in the very nature of the current powers but they've changed things significantly before and they're continuing to do so in melee 2.0

 

I hate to mention this but before I came to warframe, I played a lot of ME3 multiplayer and if you're familiar with the power system in that game, it's incredibly fun to use and effective. With a system of buffs, debuffs, powers for mobility, synergetic proc/detonate abilities, it made powers significant in a game that's primarily a third person cover based shooter. Now, the power system definitely wasn't perfect but I think warframe can implement similar elements to make abilities actually fairly balanced and useful

 

Biggest change that I propose (hear me out here):

 

- This is the biggest change but I think they should remove the energy cost system and place a reasonable cooldown system.

I know that this is a radical proposal but I never found collecting energy a significant aspect of the game and it often limited your abilities to the point where you use it, and always end up with no energy, or you forget it entirely and don't use a single power throughout an entire mission. 

Most people often found the ultimates as the only useful abilities and would hoard their 300+ energy and spam out their ulties on a whim (commonly associated with molecular prime). It's an ultimate, it should be considered as something valuable and only to be used efficiently. 

 

Ulties would obviously have the highest cooldowns, and other less significant abilities should be spaced out accordingly. Specifically I saw zephyr as a warframe with great potential but every unique aspect about her was often limited by energy and it made her just another warframe with a different look.

 

I'm only scratching the surface of this issue but this is my current opinion on the powers system and I want to see what the rest of the community thinks. By no means do I expect to be the only person that ever had this idea but this is just my own insight.

 

TL;DR : Powers deserve the next "2.0" overhaul and I believe the first step would be removing the energy system and instead implementing a cooldown system within reason.

Edited March 7, 2014 by EvoSigma

[Aure7]

I'd say no. Let the "focus" system take care about the lack of energy sometimes in the missions and other stuff. Maybe even introducing cooldown system.

[ss4chris]

Firstly, I want to say that I'm delighted by how DE has altered and changed the basic damage and (soon to be) melee systems from their previous lackluster state... However, I feel like warframe powers/abilities should be the next point of interest as it's currently something you either spam or don't use at all... Now, what I'm about to propose would most likely require a drastic alteration in the very nature of the current powers but they've changed things significantly before and they're continuing to do so in melee 2.0

I hate to mention this but before I came to warframe, I played a lot of ME3 multiplayer and if you're familiar with the power system in that game, it's incredibly fun to use and effective. With a system of buffs, debuffs, powers for mobility, synergetic proc/detonate abilities, it made powers significant in a game that's primarily a third person cover based shooter. Now, the power system definitely wasn't perfect but I think warframe can implement similar elements to make abilities actually fairly balanced and useful

Biggest change that I propose (hear me out here):

- This is the biggest change but I think they should remove the energy cost system and place a reasonable cooldown system.

I know that this is a radical proposal but I never found collecting energy a significant aspect of the game and it often limited your abilities to the point where you use it, and always end up with no energy, or you forget it entirely and don't use a single power throughout an entire mission.

Most people often found the ultimates as the only useful abilities and would hoard their 300+ energy and spam out their ulties on a whim (commonly associated with molecular prime). It's an ultimate, it should be considered as something valuable and only to be used efficiently.

Ulties would obviously have the highest cooldowns, and other less significant abilities should be spaced out accordingly. Specifically I saw zephyr as a warframe with great potential but every unique aspect about her was often limited by energy and it made her just another warframe with a different look.

I'm only scratching the surface of this issue but this is my current opinion on the powers system and I want to see what the rest of the community thinks. By no means do I expect to be the only person that ever had this idea but this is just my own insight.

TL;DR : Powers deserve the next "2.0" overhaul and I believe the first step would be removing the energy system and instead implementing a cooldown system within reason.

waht is this guy talking about?

i see plenty of abilities being spammed being used/ valuable.. ( powers 1-3 IE: mag's pull, excal's slash dash, nekro's soul punch)

can't tell if trolling or cereal.

Edited March 8, 2014 by ss4chris

[Thaumatos]

waht is this guy talking about?

i see plenty of abilities being spammed being used/ valuable.. ( powers 1-3 IE: mag's pull, excal's slash dash, nekro's soul punch)

can't tell if trolling or cereal.

 

Reading comprehension FTL.

 

He's saying that abilities are currently either "slot-n-spam" or left completely out of builds.

 

While I do believe there are quite a few that are left out, and only a select few that are spammed until keyboards get broken, there are also those that fit the 'use only when needed' category.  Radial Blind is the first and most obvious of skills you can come across that fit.

 

There is definitely something to be said about cooldowns though.  There are a lot of powers that, while overpowered in the current energy state, would be quite balanced with a cooldown.  Trinity's Blessing, for example, could have a cooldown such that even a maximum duration would prove to have periods of downtime.  Instead of making everyone invincible for the entire mission, you'd have to pick key points in battle where it would be most useful.

 

Frost's Snow Globe in its original form would also fit here.  If you had that bubble with a cooldown, there would be periods where you actually had to pay attention in defense missions.  Instead they just nerfed it to holy hell and called it a day.  I agree with DE that it was OP...but a properly implemented cooldown system would have balanced it better.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Thaumatos

[TwiceDead]

There is definitely something to be said about cooldowns though.  There are a lot of powers that, while overpowered in the current energy state, would be quite balanced with a cooldown.  Trinity's Blessing, for example, could have a cooldown such that even a maximum duration would prove to have periods of downtime.  Instead of making everyone invincible for the entire mission, you'd have to pick key points in battle where it would be most useful.

 

Frost's Snow Globe in its original form would also fit here.  If you had that bubble with a cooldown, there would be periods where you actually had to pay attention in defense missions.  Instead they just nerfed it to holy hell and called it a day.  I agree with DE that it was OP...but a properly implemented cooldown system would have balanced it better.

I really like the sound of cooldowns. It would rid every complaint about the ability spam and make sense for powers to remain as powerful as they are depending on how much of a cooldown you give them, and would actually require a sense of timing for when and where to cast abilities. Currently the game is pretty easy because at any moment in the game as long as you have energy (easily exploited by Streamline & Fleeting Expertise combo) you can spam your abilities at any time that may suit you without ever worrying of running out. 

[Neyd]

I can certainly see your point, but I am personally not a big fan of cooldowns in general. This does not mean that I do not agree with your criticism towards the energy based system we have now. I find myself basically putting the same mods in every Frame (1 or 2 exceptions) just for energy management reasons and this is something that totally contradicts the design paradigm of "hard choices" or "painful choices" as Steve called it on today's Devstream I believe.

[LukeAura]

I would rather see a system that rewards good usage of abilities. And abilities and ults that that overlap less while being more fun and engaging for the users. 
Cooldowns are just boring and unfun on their own. 

Just as an example Make Blessing's cooldown directly proportional to a percentage of health and/or shields she heals to any one frame or the whole team. 100% of cooldown when applying just the invincibility, scaling down to a point where she could recast it within the current blessing if she heals enough allies for enough damage.
 

Edited March 8, 2014 by LukeAura

[Cwierz]

I agree with this.

[KrazyKrl]

The current system does need a rework. And just adding cooldowns for free abilities doesn't really sound like good design.

 

First things first; Power Efficiency in its current state is BROKEN. Power Efficiency needs to be changed from "reduces power costs" to "increases amount of casts by." I.e. having 75% efficiency now, lets you cast at 25% cost. Or being able to spam 400% more abilities. It should have been you are able to cast 175% more abilities. (Powercost * Efficiency) gets changed to (Powercost / (Efficiency + 1)) which means that for a 100 energy cast, instead of being 25 energy with the old, it would be 57 energy.

 

 

I'd much rather have an ability system like:

 

-Energy Orbs can exist as a small percentile increase in current energy, not an integer increase of current energy.

-No Cooldowns (The only cooldown should be the cast animations, and energy costs, of the abilities)

-Your energy always regenerates at a moderately slow pace

-All abilities take from this common pool

-Flow can add to the cap, but not increase the recharge rate

-Energy Siphon can add to the energy regeneration rate, but only a minor amount; unless the entire squad is using Energy Siphon maxed.

[Cwierz]

The current system does need a rework. And just adding cooldowns for free abilities doesn't really sound like good design.

 

First things first; Power Efficiency in its current state is BROKEN. Power Efficiency needs to be changed from "reduces power costs" to "increases amount of casts by." I.e. having 75% efficiency now, lets you cast at 25% cost. Or being able to spam 400% more abilities. It should have been you are able to cast 175% more abilities. (Powercost * Efficiency) gets changed to (Powercost / (Efficiency + 1)) which means that for a 100 energy cast, instead of being 25 energy with the old, it would be 57 energy.

 

 

I'd much rather have an ability system like:

 

-Energy Orbs can exist as a small percentile increase in current energy, not an integer increase of current energy.

-No Cooldowns (The only cooldown should be the cast animations, and energy costs, of the abilities)

-Your energy always regenerates at a moderately slow pace

-All abilities take from this common pool

-Flow can add to the cap, but not increase the recharge rate

-Energy Siphon can add to the energy regeneration rate, but only a minor amount; unless the entire squad is using Energy Siphon maxed.

I like this idea (or at least the concept, there are some details that could change). +1

[Onihikage]

We'll have to wait and see what kind of things Focus will allow us to do, but for now, it would be nice if ability mods simply had more variety in their implementation. The current system doesn't seem to have any support for constant-effect/toggled abilities which could drain or reduce maximum energy while active, or abilities which synergize for boosted/extra effects (save occasional exceptions like Bullet Attractor + Radial Javelin). There's obviously support for abilities which cost something other than energy, but these are exceedingly rare. I have a feeling many Focus abilities discussed in the devstreams such as "Beast Mode" will be cooldown-based, so let's see how those are handled. The end result may turn out to be just fine, especially after we throw in some of the other unannounced things that are eventually coming.

 

Still, upvote because it's worth having a discussion about.

[TheOnlyWarBear]

You know the Mod, Energy Siphon? Well, what if something like this was intorduced to "manage" the use of powers? No need to "collect" energy, but if the speed at which energy was gained was sped up, this could possibly make things easier than having cooldowns.

[Eyeless]

I'd really like DE to address the enemy scaling and work in a proper end-game rather than having spongier enemies that can kill us before we can properly react.

 

As it is now what Warframe abilities in general really need looked at is how they scale with the enemy and what kind of utility they bring to make it viable. 

 

I feel if an ability lacks any utility, the damage it deals should be done in a unique fashion that allows it to keep up with standard weapon damage, albeit a bit slower of course. 

 

The cookie cutter 'Press 1 to tickle your enemy' abilities should be given another look. If the ability can't consistently outright kill a standard unit then it needs some utility to it. 

 

Some examples would be:

 

Excalibur's Slash Dash: It's 500 slash is abysmal, along with a buff to its general damage output I think it'd be neat to have it where if cast two to three times in rapid succession at a crowd of enemies everyone but the heavies could bleed to death after a few seconds. 

 

Frost's Freeze: Either make it hitscan or make it so it consistently hits rather than consistently misses. Hell, make it a free aiming ability that lets you lead the projectile, then that projectile explodes in a wide cone radius that freezes everything within that cone solid, and while frozen enemies take three times the damage and can have body parts shattered off. 

 

Ember's Fireball: The enemy set ablaze will panic, run around, and set other enemies on fire which in-turn makes them panic and potentially set others on fire. 

 

Oberon: The projectiles now home in and immobilize the target for several seconds if they aren't killed by the damage. 25% of the damage dealt to enemies under this effect is returned as health.

 

Vauban's Teslas: Give them a 100% chance to proc shock and a 50% chance to utterly paralyze an enemy. An entire row of these things should be devastating, and instead of a time-limit, I think they should simply have a certain amount of charges before they expire, without the disappearance timer.

 

These ideas aren't perfect, but they certainly make me want to keep my 1 abilities slotted in while making them useful for current 'End Game'.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Hastur609

[fatpig84]

Wait for the Focus system.