The Issue About Warframes Ult Abilities

[Otakuwolf]

I think that if a game allows the players to "abuse" of certain powers, like the warframes ults, maybe the problem is not about the skills themselves, but rather the mechanic behind those.

 

I'll try to explain myself better, most of the players seem "lazy" and tend to abuse of the ultimate powers of most of the warframes because "it's easyer to kill an entire army with a nuke rather than shooting down every enemy one by one", and it's true, however this is not a "nuclear warfare" game, and even if such strategies should be an option the game shouldn't encourage those eighter bur rather make the player strategize theyr use or have to think carefully about what to do and when, with an eventual penalty of an harder struggle later for having thought to have "dropped a bomb" when in real they have "wasted" it.

 

To make an example, how many of you have ever played the "Aero Fighters" games ? Or some Neo-geo Shmup ? Or any japanese Shmup with the "bomb" weapon ?

I know Warframe is not such game but please, follow my example: those games also offer to the player the possibility to "nuke the screen" and destroy everything on sight like most of the warframe ults do, but those games don't really encourage theyr use, it's true that you often find yourself in such situations that make your finger "tingle" to press that one button, but using those "bombs" in the wrong moment might result in a problem later, because you might regret to haven't saved those for the later stages or one of those bosses with insane bullet patterns which the bombs would have cleared out, exactly if you wouldn't have "wasted" those.

 

Warframe is kinda like that sometimes, there can be so many enemies that most of the players want to clear everything by pressing one single button, but the difference between those old shmups i wrote about and Warframe, is that in Warframe you can have "builds" with the same effect of allowing the use of unlimited bombs, and THAT is the problem of the ults in the game.

 

People might go around complaining "this frame is OP, that frame is cheap" and so on, but thinking about it, the core problem is not just about the warframes skills themselves but rather about the mechanic behind the powers, that indeed, works like those old Shmups bombs but without a "Limit" that might prevent the players from abusing of those and make them instead think twice about when to use X or Y ability, especially when certain mods like "Energy syphon" are equipped and combined with other related mods.

 

Imo, the frames never really needed buffs or nerfs but rather some kind of "failsafe" to "restrain" the powers usage and prevent people from abusing those and strategyze instead.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Otakuwolf

[Llyssa]

Yeah. Let's have them cost something that the players have a limited reserve of. We could call it "energy" or something. Not enough energy? No nukes for you!

[WhateverISayisRoyalOcean]

90% of ults suck late game anyway because their only benefit is damage dealing without any crowd control/extra benefits, so who cares.

 

let them blow 100 energy on Radial Javelin with nothing to show for it against level 40+.

Edited March 17, 2014 by -AR.Sianvar

[Otakuwolf]

Yeah. Let's have them cost something that the players have a limited reserve of. We could call it "energy" or something. Not enough energy? No nukes for you!

 

The problem is that with certain builds you can pratically have a neverending energy stock, and even if you happen to use one single ult and kill every single enemy, you might probably get enough blue orbs to can replenish what you have used, and start over in a cycle.

[7grims]

The game is changing, powers used to be something to reserve and only use in a certain moment of glory or of difficulty.

But now its more of another gun and utility you can use, DE is changing the way abilities are abused, if you look at new frames they have less limitations to use their powers, wile the old ones have a ton lot of those limitations (cant be use wile in air, power is being used, etc)

 

Fleeting expertise mod came out, also as a mark to say: "the powers aren't exclusive" or "precious", specially since the they give the negative effect of less continuity, frames with ultimates that destroy everything don't really have any problem loosing continuity.

 

 

Either way, after playing so many hours, I have reach the point were I can mod, and abuse my abilities as much as I want, and to be honest, the game is 100 times more fun like this.

[Lavanite]

Most of these nukes are on Warframes designed before Mods 2.0 and were not available to every frame without a reactor. Now that the limitation is gone, it's not special to have an ult anymore.

 

OP is trying to say a one button win ruins the game. We're not talking about how useless these nukes are in the "late" game. We're not comparing any skills as inferior to another. We're just saying that it makes the game less fun, if you can believe that. A large number of players, including myself in some cases, have adapted to believe warframe is too much of an easy game. The missions we do aren't fun anymore. They turn out to be more of a chore. What's the fun when someone, anyone, presses 4 and leaves you nothing to deal with? I don't understand why people even spam it. Is seeing your kill score the entire game for you?

 

I understand both sides of the argument. I do often spam 4 when I feel the need to rush things, but I also feel that it kills the game. For myself, and for others. I've played many games and the ones I enjoy most are on Kiste where none of the players use their room-clearing ult or even has one. It's always messy, but in the end, I enjoy it way more than I should. I always thought to myself "if only Warframe was originally like this every match."

 

When you give players an easy way to do things, they will do it. As of now, it's a bit too late to try and balance that without causing a riot in here. Although if anything, I still say it's better late than never.

[Krymanol]

90% of ults suck late game anyway because their only benefit is damage dealing without any crowd control/extra benefits, so who cares.

 

let them blow 100 energy on Radial Javelin with nothing to show for it against level 40+.

And this is the main reason why this game is hard to balance.   End game enemies make most powers and weapons totally useless when it comes to damage while mid to low level enemies will be massacred by any weapon and any power.

 

So it's not the powers that are the problem, it's the open-ended nature of the game, the total freedom to take any build, any amount of power and fight any level of enemies or missions.  It's the ability to fight enemies that scale higher and higher in level.    You simply cannot balance any game with content like that.  The players will always be either too powerful or too weak at various points throughout the progression of games like this.   You can't have it all.    Either you go with the sandbox style play or you go the same ole generic themepark route where everything a player is allowed to do is decided by the devs at design time.   That will most likely come in the form of linear progression and restrictions on where you can go, what you can do and how much of it you can do.   As long as the game remains mostly sandbox style, it will forever be unbalanced in a lot of areas of the game at various points.

[LukeAura]

When you give players an easy way to do things, they will do it. As of now, it's a bit too late to try and balance that without causing a riot in here. Although if anything, I still say it's better late than never.

At this point the best I can see happening with Ults is that they still lock down enemies or wipe them off the field, but do so in a way that is not instant, or at least involves a lot of player agency and interaction. 

Something closer along the lines of Zephyr's tornadoes. We can still have an effect on them as they move, changing their damage type and procc, and they don't instantly destroy everything but pretty much will by the end of their duration.

[7grims]

We're just saying that it makes the game less fun, if you can believe that. A large number of players, including myself in some cases, have adapted to believe warframe is too much of an easy game. The missions we do aren't fun anymore. They turn out to be more of a chore. What's the fun when someone, anyone, presses 4 and leaves you nothing to deal with? I don't understand why people even spam it. Is seeing your kill score the entire game for you?

 

So you are one of those? The kind of the-game-is-easy person.

 

How is this game easy? I do survivals in ceres and planets above for 40m, not easy at all.

Or the ppl that say the game is easy, spend their life in low difficulty planets and doing extermination missions?

Edited March 17, 2014 by 7grims

[Lavanite]

So you are one of those? The kind of the-game-is-easy person.

 

How is this game easy? I do survivals in ceres and planets above for 40m, not easy at all.

Or the ppl that say the game is easy, spend their life in low difficulty planets and doing extermination missions?

Again dude, I'm not comparing this to late game stuff where things just power creep. I'm generally speaking about how poor the mechanics of a 360 room clear mechanic makes most missions require little to no effort. I've played enough of this to see what hard is and that's not even 30% of the game.

 

The best suggestion I can come up with is drop the whole "the more damage, the better" idea and give a utility to each of them instead, even if it means dropping the damage low enough to not kill anything. Scaling is already a major problem of the game and it seems nearly impossible as long as DE refuses to do it by percentage instead of fixed numbers. Utility skills encourages more creative play and use of Warframes rather than a Nova built solely to hit 4 and neglecting 1, 2, and 3.

[RealPandemonium]

The main problem is that there are too many "press 4 to clear the room" ultimates that have no gameplay.  Stuff like Zephyr's 4 is how things should have been done from the beginning, but it's too late now.  Fourth abilities that don't kill everything immediately are considered useless by many players.

[7grims]

Again dude, I'm not comparing this to late game stuff where things just power creep. I'm generally speaking about how poor the mechanics of a 360 room clear mechanic makes most missions require little to no effort. I've played enough of this to see what hard is and that's not even 30% of the game.

 

The best suggestion I can come up with is drop the whole "the more damage, the better" idea and give a utility to each of them instead, even if it means dropping the damage low enough to not kill anything. Scaling is already a major problem of the game and it seems nearly impossible as long as DE refuses to do it by percentage instead of fixed numbers. Utility skills encourages more creative play and use of Warframes rather than a Nova built solely to hit 4 and neglecting 1, 2, and 3.

 

I do agree, I use my exca allot, and I use radial blind as an utility all the time, instead of radial javaline, which i always have the mod on, but never use.

 

Still saying the game is easy, doesn't feel right, since DE choose to make it this way, its a game design way, they choose to have tiers of difficulty, instead of enemy scaling. Not sure if that is good or bad, but makes me think why the hell they allow taxi rides, and skipping content, if they choose to make planets with tiers of difficulty.

[GSDAkatsuki]

So you are one of those? The kind of the-game-is-easy person.

 

How is this game easy? I do survivals in ceres and planets above for 40m, not easy at all.

Or the ppl that say the game is easy, spend their life in low difficulty planets and doing extermination missions?

This game gets really easy fast. The so called "late game" content being survival missions going to lvl40+ is just an artificial means of making the game seem hard and give longevity like grind. The gameplay itself gets stale fast and presents little to no challenge due to no actual difficulty curve, just a artificial ceiling that is being lifted each time you pass a level. DE needs to revamp and add another more dynamic gameplay option that presents an actual challenge and difficulty. It should force the players to play tactically and conservatively. 

[Axterix13]

I don't think what the 4s do is a problem, for the most part.  Rather, the energy costs are the problem.  There's Efficiency, which makes it easy to drop the cost to 25% of what it should be.  If there's enough mobs to warrant hitting 4, odds are you'll get a blue orb.  It should be returned to its previous functionality (100% efficiency = 50% activation cost).  That or the corrupt mods should be reworked to pair Efficiency with -Range rather than -Duration.  And there's the cost structure (25/50/75/100), which makes hitting 4 very appealing.  If the #1s cost 10 instead, while ultimates cost 150, you'd see a lot more use of 1 and less of 4.

[7grims]

This game gets really easy fast. The so called "late game" content being survival missions going to lvl40+ is just an artificial means of making the game seem hard and give longevity like grind. The gameplay itself gets stale fast and presents little to no challenge due to no actual difficulty curve, just a artificial ceiling that is being lifted each time you pass a level. DE needs to revamp and add another more dynamic gameplay option that presents an actual challenge and difficulty. It should force the players to play tactically and conservatively. 

 

But i like those missions, and defense too, 300 times better and more fun then doing linear missions, like exterminate, capture, deception, spy.

I also beleive the game is evolving that way, removing old linear missions, and acquiring new dynamic missions (surv, interception, def)

[VentiGlondi]

If there was a proper limit to how often you can use ults then "Buff everything to Nova level" would become a viable argument.

[RealPandemonium]

I don't think what the 4s do is a problem, for the most part.  Rather, the energy costs are the problem.  There's Efficiency, which makes it easy to drop the cost to 25% of what it should be.  If there's enough mobs to warrant hitting 4, odds are you'll get a blue orb.  It should be returned to its previous functionality (100% efficiency = 50% activation cost).  That or the corrupt mods should be reworked to pair Efficiency with -Range rather than -Duration.  And there's the cost structure (25/50/75/100), which makes hitting 4 very appealing.  If the #1s cost 10 instead, while ultimates cost 150, you'd see a lot more use of 1 and less of 4.

35 vs 25 isn't that big of a difference.  People will still press 4 to kill everything in the room instantly.

[Trickshaw]

I don't understand how people can not have fun spamming Bastille and Ogris for two hours straight. How is that not fun? Amirite?

AMIRITE?!?

/sarcasm_off

[Monolake]

Fleeting is op, right. 

I see the solution differently, people want to spam powers, game should let them. But make those damage powers targeted so the game doesn't become 'press 4 to win' for one players, making other 3 spectators. Large AOE abilities would remain utility.

 

Also you are wrong that spamability is the only problem, there is huge disparity of powers as well.

 

 

 

So you are one of those? The kind of the-game-is-easy person.

 

How is this game easy? I do survivals in ceres and planets above for 40m, not easy at all.

Or the ppl that say the game is easy, spend their life in low difficulty planets and doing extermination missions?

Easy for a veteran player unless you deliberately gimp yourself and use weaker weapons and frames. Also complete snoozefest for a start, I don't want to wait 30min in survival just for the game to pick up.

Funny thing is that 90% of the players never bother to learn to play well, because its not needed. And those who are  good at this game did levels that dont even exist anymore, since you can exploit the powers to be perma-immortal, do absurd damage and lockdown the room with perma-CC. There are way too many abusable broken things that need to be fixed before creating any challenging end-game.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Monolake