Retune *all* The Frames! (11/19: Wildfire)

[--Q--uaint]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

i'm not entirely against Consumables, having supplies for... Emergencies, is reasonable. ofc that's not what we have.

lul I know this is the wrong thread (or is it?), but do you have thoughts on making them "emergency only?" I suppose I might be okay with that, depending on implementation...

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

i don't really know what to do with Focus either. the active mode thing and all of the active sides of it are completely irrelevant, while a few passive effects are quite useful but without meter.

Do you even Vazarin? Vazarin can heal objectives. That includes Hijack. That property has saved at least one LoR that I know of.

The fact that you're effectively immobile during Focus activation is also... objectionable.

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

had an interesting discussion once upon a time. no formal write up yet, but i'll get around to it sometime.

Iiiiiiinteresting. Thought: Energy Vampire procs a Finisher stun for the full duration. Perhaps it would also provide a boost to Finisher damage against the target based on power strength. (To account for people not having melee weapons equipped, maybe give the enemy an interact prompt that results in a Sparring finisher animation that drains the same as a current EV pulse would?) (if cast on an Osprey, maybe it would fall to the ground so someone could ground-finisher it?)

When the enemy is finisher'd, X% of the damage taken is pulsed out to all allies in range. All damage dealt, regardless of source, gives X% energy to Trinity. (Optional whether that means Trin gets double energy)

Synergy with WoL is maintained because the target has more health to turn into energy.

EDIT: lololol just realized this is probably very abusable by Ash... Oh well, at least it'd bring him into the meta?

Edited March 9, 2016 by ChronoEclipse

[Archwizard]

Almost finished up with Inaros due to this Tactical Alert.

He's definitely a bit tricky just by nature of how much health his ultimate consumes, but the fact that you can stop charging, discharge for snap lifedrain and continue charging it without resetting is definitely a beneficial counter to this. Scarab Swarm's probably fine over all.

So far the biggest issue I've encountered is that his first ability doesn't reliably open targets to Finishers. The healing effect is also pretty weak, though that's probably because it's balanced around opening targets to Finishers. (Weirdly.)

Additionally, the interaction between his second and third abilities seems... odd, due to the massive energy consumption of the combo, primarily his third ability. Some have also mentioned that his second ability and sarcophagus passive don't do enough damage to warrant having "on target death" effects. (I've also noticed some inconsistency with how the draining effect functions if you drag a target to you and begin devouring them, though that's more than likely a bug instead of a feature.)

Anything I'm missing?

Edited March 11, 2016 by Archwizard

[tnccs215]

@ChronoEclipse and @taiiat ,

For whatever it's worth, I use Night Equinox quite a lot, and the mad energy drain of pacify (going below 160% is not recommended. At all) demanded me to use Energy Overflow in order not to instantly loose my energy (and my slow effect).

Using Energy Overflow, on missions that have a low energy drop rate (for whatever reason), allow me to use my abilities reliably, but spamming will result on losing my precious energy. I've even gave up on fleeting expertise on most frames: When recharging is ensured, efficiency loses its importance, even if you are no longer allowed to spam.

In the end, this extensive use showed me how essential a natural energy regeneration is. energy mechanics exist in order to limit the use of powerful abilities while not preventing its use, no one disagrees on that. They are little more than cooldowns that demand more resource management. Yet the fact that the only ways to recharge it are either spammable consumables, an overpowered power (EV), or drops, show how unbalanced and unreliable it currently is. I've read some topics regarding energy (some better than others), and it was noted that making energy recovery dependent on rng (orb drop) is borderline ludicrous: It ensures a bipolar state of either empty or full (a problem we also have with health--that's why currently only trinity Is an effective healer. Though Inaros might become one too), and that full squads will always be on the more positive end of the spectrum, while solo players will stand on the other (for the simple fact that they can't kill had many enemies per minute).

And that's what we need. A reliable energy system, that prevents spamming, while also preventing the opposite (being unable to cast at all).

In my personal opinion, I believe removing fleeting expertise, introducing a relatively intense energy recharge (around 3/s), reducing energy reserves (no more 300 units energy pools. Sorry Volt and Saryn Prime), MAYBE removing flow (or at least it's primed version), completely reworking EV (those ideas that you, @taiiat, presented, aren't bad at all), heavily diminishing energy orb drop rate but increasing its value to 100's, and introducing cooldowns on consumable use is the way to go. The smaller energy pool means less spamming, but the recharge means more reliable use. Cooldowns on consumables demand you to think twice before using them, and EV's reworked prevent the spam fest any squad with a Trin becomes.

Less spamming, but more reliable use.

 

[Archwizard]

Finding with yet another group healing ability (in this case, Inaros' ultimate) that the healing doesn't affect Sentinels.

Weirdly, you'd think that would be the default.

10 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

A reliable energy system, that prevents spamming, while also preventing the opposite (being unable to cast at all).

Ironically, a lot of problems with Warframe would probably be solved if they swapped the frequency of health and energy drops. 
^{On top of adding a low amount of base energy regeneration, of course.}

Granting, I'm also of the mind that Caster frames should have access to as much energy as they need, since without a high availability of energy, the idea of "casters" in general falls further to the wayside compared to weapon attacks. The grey area mostly comes about when every frame is then treated like a caster (ie Excalibur spamming RJ), except for those designed as actual mage analogues (ie Ember casting WoF once).
Of course, this could be addressed with ability Comboing like Atlas', addressing the costs of designated caster abilities relative to designated tanks and melee (you know, relative to how often the button is intended to be pressed and how big an impact they have rather than just 25/50/75/100 increments), giving them passive bonuses to energy generation, or even just altering the abilities themselves so they can't just be fired and forgotten and need to be actively controlled instead (like Mesa's).

Edited March 11, 2016 by Archwizard

[Gurpgork]

9 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

And that's what we need. A reliable energy system, that prevents spamming, while also preventing the opposite (being unable to cast at all).

In my personal opinion, I believe removing fleeting expertise, introducing a relatively intense energy recharge (around 3/s), reducing energy reserves (no more 300 units energy pools. Sorry Volt and Saryn Prime), MAYBE removing flow (or at least it's primed version), completely reworking EV (those ideas that you, @taiiat, presented, aren't bad at all), heavily diminishing energy orb drop rate but increasing its value to 100's, and introducing cooldowns on consumable use is the way to go. The smaller energy pool means less spamming, but the recharge means more reliable use. Cooldowns on consumables demand you to think twice before using them, and EV's reworked prevent the spam fest any squad with a Trin becomes.

Less spamming, but more reliable use.

 

If I may, I have a couple thoughts on this.

I think that if passive regeneration were a thing, every frame would have their own energy regeneration stat. Maybe Nova and Equinox would get 4-5 energy a second, while Valkyr and Rhino might get 1-2. I think it should also diminish the more energy a frame has, based on flat numbers. For instance, once a frame reaches 50 energy, they lose 10-20% of their energy regeneration, then at 100, they lose 10-20% of their remaining energy regeneration. This would allow frames to spam cheap abilities, while they would have to think twice about casting an expensive one. Energy Siphon would still be useful here, because it would provide consistent regeneration no matter how much energy you had. 

I don't think removing Fleeting Expertise is the way to go. I'd rather have the efficiency cap changed to 150%. Blind Rage being the main reason. It would be one of the few corrupted mods that you couldn't really counteract with other mods. 

9 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Ironically, a lot of problems with Warframe would probably be solved if they swapped the frequency of health and energy drops, on top of adding a low amount of base energy regeneration.

That would also give Equilibrium a use for frames that aren't named Nekros. 

[Archwizard]

50 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

That would also give Equilibrium a use for frames that aren't named Nekros. 

Preeeeeecisely.

So, probably some things to put under general:
- Enemies now naturally drop health orbs instead of energy orbs, while crates and lockers will now drop energy orbs in place of health orbs.
- Power Efficiency cap is now 150% instead of 175%.
- All frames now have a base amount of energy regeneration, scaling with the amount of maximum energy they are missing.

Would need to make a note for the meta frames to no longer have boosts to health orb drop chances, naturally, since it'd be redundant. Already have it crossed off for Nekros and Oberon, I'd just need a note for Equinox to not have to do the same.

And probably something about replacing Primed Flow.

On 3/9/2016 at 2:35 PM, ChronoEclipse said:

EDIT: lololol just realized this is probably very abusable by Ash... Oh well, at least it'd bring him into the meta?

Only for periodic damage, but it'd be even more abusable by anyone using Covert Lethality. _{^{I say as someone who's been using exclusively daggers to level Inaros.}}

Honestly though, what if it just allowed a target to drop energy orbs on death? Perhaps an amount based on the damage the target received during EV? It'd at least be a hard counter to most loot cave compositions of "sit on a box and spam", especially with Greedy Pull defunct for group availability since the last orb-based meta. Could have it cause the target to periodically discharge electric shocks to stun nearby enemies to boot, allowing you to combo with her first ability to create a stun totem.

The big question then becomes what to do with the augment.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Archwizard

[tnccs215]

 

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

Finding with yet another group healing ability (in this case, Inaros' ultimate) that the healing doesn't affect Sentinels.

Weirdly, you'd think that would be the default.

Ironically, a lot of problems with Warframe would probably be solved if they swapped the frequency of health and energy drops. 
^{On top of adding a low amount of base energy regeneration, of course.}

 

Agreed. I understand not giving health natural regeneration-- in the end, you are meant to protect it, not use it-- but the lack of healing methods on this game baffles me a bit (god forbid mentioning making Life Strike innate. People will go after me with pitchforks). Increasing its spawn rate should,be good enough.

 

1 hour ago, Archwizard said:

 

 

Granting, I'm also of the mind that Caster frames should have access to as much energy as they need, since without a high availability of energy, the idea of "casters" in general falls further to the wayside compared to weapon attacks. The grey area mostly comes about when every frame is then treated like a caster (ie Excalibur spamming RJ), except for those designed as actual mage analogues (ie Ember casting WoF once).
Of course, this could be addressed with ability Comboing like Atlas', addressing the costs of designated caster abilities relative to designated tanks and melee (you know, relative to how often the button is intended to be pressed and how big an impact they have rather than just 25/50/75/100 increments), giving them passive bonuses to energy generation, or even just altering the abilities themselves so they can't just be fired and forgotten and need to be actively controlled instead (like Mesa's).

In general, I agree with you. The combo mechanic is substantially underused (though we cant expect every change to happen instantly), and seeing it applied to Fireball, SoulPunch, Shock, etc is a very good idea, since it encourages their use. Other than that, I think energy cost in general needs to be revised, specially if this system is applied, and specially on toggle abilities. Toggle, as they are, are little more than infinite states, and they aren't used more often simply due to the fact that even players frown upon easy cheese. The amount of Valkyr players I know that pride themselves of never using hysteria is a good example of that. Toggles such as hysteria, exalted blade, etc, need to have a relative cost (that is, balanced towards energy regeneration rate, energy pool and time meant to be up) substantially higher than the current one, while abilities that are indeed meant to be kept up (like effigy) really need a lower one. I think DE is realizing that: Inaros' 3 is impossible to maintain for long, and Mend&Maim is arguably meant to be up a lot of times (even though Equinox needs a whole talk, but Ill leave that to later).

53 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

If I may, I have a couple thoughts on this.

I think that if passive regeneration were a thing, every frame would have their own energy regeneration stat. Maybe Nova and Equinox would get 4-5 energy a second, while Valkyr and Rhino might get 1-2. I think it should also diminish the more energy a frame has, based on flat numbers. For instance, once a frame reaches 50 energy, they lose 10-20% of their energy regeneration, then at 100, they lose 10-20% of their remaining energy regeneration. This would allow frames to spam cheap abilities, while they would have to think twice about casting an expensive one. Energy Siphon would still be useful here, because it would provide consistent regeneration no matter how much energy you had. 

I don't think removing Fleeting Expertise is the way to go. I'd rather have the efficiency cap changed to 150%. Blind Rage being the main reason. It would be one of the few corrupted mods that you couldn't really counteract with other mods. 

That would also give Equilibrium a use for frames that aren't named Nekros. 

I do like the idea of different energy regeneation rates. However, remember: Enery orbs would be rare, so recharge rates like 1-2 (barely more than energy siphon) are simply not enough, even for a non-caster. I'd be more into 3-4 for non casters, and 7-8 for casters. Though this requires actual testing.

regarding the dimiahed returns... Meh. I understand the idea, but ultimates already require more time to recharge. Adding even more becomes frustrating.

and regarding fleeting... Yes, I agree. So I suppose reducing its benefit to +30%/-45%, no?

Edited March 11, 2016 by tnccs215

[Archwizard]

2 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

and regarding fleeting... Yes, I agree. So I suppose reducing its benefit to +30%/-45%, no?

Not really necessary - as Gurpgork said, just dropping the Efficiency cap would automatically do the job. Trying to go over the cap would penalize your Duration more than it needs to be.

[tnccs215]

26 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

 

(...)
- All frames now have a base amount of energy regeneration, scaling with the amount of maximum energy they are missing.

(...)

And probably something about replacing Primed Flow.

 

 

I dont really enjoy this idea. As I've stated before, ultimates are already more wxpensive. Energy rate diminishing with how much energy you already have seems like the game making fun of you. But oh, its your topic in the end.

Also, beyond primed flow, I think Frames with 300 units energy pools should get them droped to 250 at most. Maybe its me, but when the ultimate is a nuke, it should drain, at the very least, half of your pool.

11 minutes ago, Archwizard said:

Not really necessary - as Gurpgork said, just dropping the Efficiency cap would automatically do the job. Trying to go over the cap would penalize your Duration more than it needs to be.

maybe. But if so, blindrage becomes even more powerful than before. A maxed one, plus streamline and fleeting give, atm, 199% strength and 125%(?) power efficiency which, with the state of the meta, is not advisable, since 125% efficiency doesn't allow spamming. However, maintaining such values would mean that this trinity stops having just a third of the maximum efficiency possible, to have half. Not to mention efficiency will be substantially less important if energy regeneration is a think-- saving is no longer as necessary, because you'll just have to wait to have it again (in the ends, that's the whole point of the change), and so blind rage will become even more a good choice.

plus, I dont think it makes sense for a mod to give you more efficiency than the maximum possible. Maybe reducing fleeting to +40%/-40%?

Edited March 11, 2016 by tnccs215

[Archwizard]

39 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

-snip-

- Costs can be changed. The call is already for costs to be adjusted relative to the amount of energy the frame is going to be spending, and you were the one who said casters should get 7-8 energy a tick (which is rather near or more than the periodic costs of some toggled ultimates, giving you no reason not to have it toggled on more often than not, even if regeneration is disabled while toggled active).

- Realistically it shouldn't affect Blind Rage at all. If anything though, the reduction to energy availability actually puts a harsher penalty on having a low efficiency.

- I suppose I could see them dropping Fleeting from a 5 rank to a 3 rank mod, just to make that last rank less of a trap.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

Energy regen would be more consistent, yes. better, i'm not sure.
personally, the current style of glorified cooldowns is more interactive to the Player than the suggested replacement. if i'm low on Energy, within reasonable Level Ranges, i have agency to do something about that, Kill some Enemies.
if i have to generally rely on Regen, i have no agency and if i need the Energy to control the situation, i can't and now i'm dead.

'should have used less and saved it for when you really needed it' - i already do that in Combat in every game. Warframe creates a lot of 'unexpected situations you need to control'.

i don't think it'll be successful at doing what it's intended to do. for what it's worth, the current system doesn't achieve what it is intended to do either (which is, meter Ability usage) but being able to use Abilities when needed feels better than not.
if the problem is Players locking down the game with Abilities - which ofcourse it is - in this game, i'd rather we make the Abilities lock the game down less, rather than being unable to adjust a situation when the necessity arises.

6 hours ago, Archwizard said:

(you know, relative to how often the button is intended to be pressed and how big an impact they have rather than just 25/50/75/100 increments)

\o/

5 hours ago, tnccs215 said:

The amount of Valkyr players I know that pride themselves of never using hysteria is a good example of that.

i'll note that:

while in part i avoid the use of Hysteria because it's an infinite win state - honestly, i avoid it for the other part of the problem.
it's complete garbage.
being permanently invulnerable is not worthy trade for the fun in the game.

i don't even set the bar very high for Hysteria, only to be about equal with the other Melee Weapons in Warframe, which are already rather terrible compared to successful Melee in the Games Industry.
and Hysteria is still complete garbage compared to other Melee Weapons in Warframe.
sure, it's basically a glowy analogue of the Fist Glove Weapons - but those are also complete garbage. why does NOBODY use them? because they completely suck! they do NOTHING well, and fail at everything else.
and this has nothing to do with Damage, this has to do with usability and flexibility to the end user.

if you're about to quote me(who ever you are), and say "but Hysteria is 'fine' " - and you're talking about the Weapon you get to use instead of your three others - you're saying you literally have no opinion, don't generate opinions for your self and you simply ben dover and accept anything that someone hands you. your opinion is irrelevant because you don't have an opinion. don't waste my time with robotic speeches that have no actual backing.

that's the core of why i don't use Hysteria unless i absolutely need to (like low on Health and need to recover). not for the timeless win, not for the 6 digit Damage. because the Weapon, regardless of whether i consider the stats or not - is just abysmal. any of my three Weapons that are disabled in this mode are superior to the Weapon i'm getting, no matter what Weapons i had with me. any of the Weapons i brought with me are better.

- - - - - 

i am quite serious, and not trying to get people mad or sad from saying - if Digital Extremes either won't or cannot create Melee that isn't 'variations of mash one button', i would wish they'd outsource and have someone(s) else help them out with this.
Melee in Warframe can't be trying to be an action movie - because this is in realtime and has to actually work in Combat, it's not a movie. since it's not a movie, you can't just bend time and space to make sure it works. 

Warframe can easily have a 3 button Melee System, plus Block and Channel. worst case scenario, 2 button plus Block and Channel.
this is totally enough to have a myriad of attacks to let Players have the tools they need to perform in Melee, instead of simply hoping that they are already doing the right button mashing to get the strike they need to happen at the right time in the future. Digital Extremes is saying that people need to be able to see the future to do Melee Combat...
instead of one button and 4 out of place modifiers (with one of the worst ones ever thought of, pause because of varying time windows, and hold because if you hold for slightly too long you do a Charge instead but you can't tell if you have successfully sent the hold input unless you just risk letting go and hoping it doesn't cancel the entire Animation), we can have 3 buttons, 5+ logical modifiers, making for atleast 18 different attack types that the game can support, with only one Modifier and primary attack button to trigger.
so all you'd need to do, in a simple form, is perform attack 1-3 while holding Modifier 1-5. and you have 18 different attacks.
so many tools potentially available to the Player, without any button mashing needed to have those tools.

5 second visual aid:

Spoiler

+3 for the attacks without any Modifiers ofc.

 

 

'but what about all the Stances' - they're great to have, just they'd actually have different attacks. 18 different styled attacks, plus different Finishers.
so you can still use Stances to separate styles. just make sure all attacks match the intended style, ofcourse.

Edited March 12, 2016 by taiiat

[--Q--uaint]

12 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Only for periodic damage, but it'd be even more abusable by anyone using Covert Lethality. _{^{I say as someone who’s been using exclusively daggers to level Inaros.}}

Honestly though, what if it just allowed a target to drop energy orbs on death? Perhaps an amount based on the damage the target received during EV? It'd at least be a hard counter to most loot cave compositions of “sit on a box and spam”, especially with Greedy Pull defunct for group availability since the last orb-based meta. Could have it cause the target to periodically discharge atomic shocks to stun nearby enemies to boot, allowing you to combo with her first ability to create a stun totem.

The big question then becomes what to do with the augment.

I was saying it’s abusable because Bladestorm is a string of finishers in every respect. Arcane Trickery and such all see it as that. So you could bring Ash to Bladestorm the EV targets and keep up the flow of energy. It would at least make the loot cave require more effort/attention?

Mag is still a decent contender for the loot cave nuker (with Crush, I mean). Greedy Pull + nuking build means she could stay pretty full and only EV would really care too much about running for energy.

My idea was that a) Trin would have to be somewhat selective on her EV targets and b) you'd have to actually interact with that individual enemy to get the energy for the group. Therefore, you'd have to at least add Ash to any loot-cave setup. This also makes the augment for EV still fit its role just fine.

I feel like orbs aren’t the way to go, especially since casting EV means you want energy NOW rather than later.

6 hours ago, taiiat said:

Energy regen would be more consistent, yes. better, i'm not sure.
personally, the current style of glorified cooldowns is more interactive to the Player than the suggested replacement. if i'm low on Energy, within reasonable Level Ranges, i have agency to do something about that, Kill some Enemies.
if i have to generally rely on Regen, i have no agency and if i need the Energy to control the situation, i can’t and now i'm dead.

Hmmm. Perhaps have a decent base energy regen up to, say… 50% of max energy? Aside from that, small amounts of energy would be gained from kills with weapons (potentially with a different value per kill with each type for each 'frame) and using combinations of powers (Spore+Toxic Lash granting energy is a great mechanic, and I think the game would benefit from adding more synergies of this kind).

Format for examples: x/y/z energy for kills with primary/secondary/melee

Rhino 2/2/2: He’s a 'frame that doesn’t need to cast often, and doesn’t focus on any individual aspect of combat
Excal 2/2/3: Melee focused, a bit more need to cast than Rhino
Volt 2/2/4: Melee focused caster 'frame
Mesa 2/3/1: About the same as Rhino on casting, but dislikes melee and loves secondaries
Valkyr 1/1/4: About like Rhino on casting, but very melee focused
Limbo 3/3/3: Squishy caster 'frame, no strong CC or damage
Nova 3/3/2: Squishy caster 'frame with great CC and an emphasis on weapons that work with her #2
Ivara 2/2/2, 3 for anything silent
Zephyr 2/2/2, 4 for kills while airborne
Loki 2/2/2, 3 if the enemy is unaware/CC'd/Disarmed - CC'd counts any hard CC like knockdowns or stuns (this means jumpkicking or STing helps get more energy)
Ash 2/2/3, 4 for melee finishers

This would strongly discourage lootcave-style spamming of powers, as well as require some killing for things like Interception where the general strategy is to sit around and watch Mirage blind everything. It also gives agency to the player without going crazy with RNG or giving too much too fast. 

[Alphascrub]

Rhino.

While I'm still on the fence about his actual uses (still testing how competitive he is in lategame levels like sorties) the one place that I can see that needs a change is his passive. This thing is garbage, and frankly its an annoying waste of time unless you are quick on the ctrl slide on a long fall.  I've literally landed on top of standard troopers before and had the game fail to register its nockdown effect. Honestly I feel like this S#&$ was just handed out like a cheap plushy at a graduation party. Hey you graduated! Have a pink teddy bear! it will be useful for everything your trying to do with your life! I have a couple of ideas for it but im wondering at their overall power/reliability/ability be coded in. 

 

The first one is an easy route, take his passive cc immunity from Iron skin and make it his actual passive. The great part of this is its very doable and would be a decent quality of life thing for rhino. Also I can't fail to mention that fact that moving this off or Rhino skin could be a reasonable way to re-balance the skill later on without taking away something that I'm sure a lot of Rhino players feel is pretty core their abilities. Not give a F***. The bad part is pretty powerful and its kind of stealing  Atlas's passive.

The second Idea I had would probably be pretty overpowered. You could call it heavy sprint or momentum or whatever but the basis of the idea is that he rhino would be able to sprint into enemies and ragdoll them. Being able to nock a level 100 heavy gunner/bombardier down and do whatever you please after that might be a tad to strong (and rapey). Part of me feels like this might synergize well with the fact that Rhino runs so fast...(why is this a thing? Seems silly that Rhino Prime is faster than say Nezha). To balance it out it could also require kind of startup but at that point we are pretty much just passively Rhino charging people.... and that point pretty much brings me to another possible negative about this idea is the fact that his charge exists. 

The 3rd/4th passive Idea I had rutting around in my brain is that fact that well Rhino seems to hit the gym a lot. More so than about apparently any frame, and apparently he enjoys arm day much more than leg-day. So why not give him some passive soft stats for better gun handling on heavy recoil weapons or more stagger chance on his melee swings. I'm not sure how easy this would to code but for the most part they would be kind of useful in some places and still not be overpowered or useless like his current passive.   

 At the end of the day even if these Ideas seem bad or not plausible, anything, and I pretty much mean anything would be better than the garbage passive he has been inflicted with right now.  

 

[taiiat]

27 minutes ago, Alphascrub said:

Rhino.

Rhino having CC immunity negates the point of that Atlas already has that - furthermore, doesn't do good to incentivize not garbage gameplay from Players using Rhino as a crutch(which he's bad at, due to the nature of the game - which no, doesn't mean 'Iron Skin buff' it means if you want a crutch, Rhino isn't the right choice).

Rhino... doesn't run fast? Sprint speed of goldfoil prime is 1.0, Nezha is 1.15?
the only Warframes slower than goldfoil prime is normal Rhino, Frost, and Saryn.
that being a passive makes little sense considering Charge exists. but you recognize that already.

less Kick or higher Stagger with Melee - idunno.

Heavy Impact innate isn't a bad thing to have - but it uh, shouldn't cause a catching animation, should only trigger if it would normally for any Warframe from that height, and both Heavy Impact and that passive need to be more reliable, in the sense of forcing Knockdown.
and then you'd have a useful tool, more CC for your CC Warframe - 'cause why not.

[tnccs215]

11 hours ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I was saying it’s abusable because Bladestorm is a string of finishers in every respect. Arcane Trickery and such all see it as that. So you could bring Ash to Bladestorm the EV targets and keep up the flow of energy. It would at least make the loot cave require more effort/attention?

Mag is still a decent contender for the loot cave nuker (with Crush, I mean). Greedy Pull + nuking build means she could stay pretty full and only EV would really care too much about running for energy.

My idea was that a) Trin would have to be somewhat selective on her EV targets and b) you'd have to actually interact with that individual enemy to get the energy for the group. Therefore, you'd have to at least add Ash to any loot-cave setup. This also makes the augment for EV still fit its role just fine.

I feel like orbs aren’t the way to go, especially since casting EV means you want energy NOW rather than later.

Hmmm. Perhaps have a decent base energy regen up to, say… 50% of max energy? Aside from that, small amounts of energy would be gained from kills with weapons (potentially with a different value per kill with each type for each 'frame) and using combinations of powers (Spore+Toxic Lash granting energy is a great mechanic, and I think the game would benefit from adding more synergies of this kind).

Format for examples: x/y/z energy for kills with primary/secondary/melee

Rhino 2/2/2: He’s a 'frame that doesn’t need to cast often, and doesn’t focus on any individual aspect of combat
Excal 2/2/3: Melee focused, a bit more need to cast than Rhino
Volt 2/2/4: Melee focused caster 'frame
Mesa 2/3/1: About the same as Rhino on casting, but dislikes melee and loves secondaries
Valkyr 1/1/4: About like Rhino on casting, but very melee focused
Limbo 3/3/3: Squishy caster 'frame, no strong CC or damage
Nova 3/3/2: Squishy caster 'frame with great CC and an emphasis on weapons that work with her #2
Ivara 2/2/2, 3 for anything silent
Zephyr 2/2/2, 4 for kills while airborne
Loki 2/2/2, 3 if the enemy is unaware/CC'd/Disarmed - CC'd counts any hard CC like knockdowns or stuns (this means jumpkicking or STing helps get more energy)
Ash 2/2/3, 4 for melee finishers

This would strongly discourage lootcave-style spamming of powers, as well as require some killing for things like Interception where the general strategy is to sit around and watch Mirage blind everything. It also gives agency to the player without going crazy with RNG or giving too much too fast. 

Not a bad idea... But what about support frames (like banshee or trinity) that can make long missions without socring a kill?

[Aquasurge]

hey arch, you really need to check this thread out.

 

[RealPandemonium]

5 hours ago, Aquasurge said:

hey arch, you really need to check this thread out.

 

Jesus Christ, why would you want to subject someone else to that wall of pain?  

Never mind that the entire premise of that post is someone who never learned to play the game properly due to relying on crutches, complaining that he won't be able to win anymore if you take away his crutches (and implying that this will be the case for all other players as well.)

[taiiat]

oh, i normally ignore people trying to advertise other Threads in here - but i read it because of your reaction...

i'll admit a few of the points in the thread have merit, while the rest are complaining the game isn't automatically win enough. or just talking about problems that... aren't problems if you know how to play the game.
- Sentients do have a habit of applying AoE to most of the room to 'be dangerous'. but tbh that just punishes Players that didn't decide to bring invulnerability or extreme Damage Reduction of some sort to trivialize everything. if the attacks were more directed, i'd be all for it. the disco ball attack is the prime candidate.
- and i suppose technically yes, Sentients are supposed to be basically immune to Elemental Damage but still able to be damaged by Physical... IF Sentients are infact (or these Sentients atleast) the old Enemy we had to defeat with ancient technology to get around technology blocks. this one is questionable.
- Magnetic Status is indeed rather underwhelming, especially compared to it's vs Armor counterpart.
 

[Myamsa]

Man, if i could give you a medal, i will give you a lot... i mean a lot is A LOT!

i really like how you explain it in depth and for limbo part i like how you see it :3 MAKE THIS THREAD TO THE TOP! LET THE DE HEAR IT!

[Archwizard]

On 3/10/2016 at 1:00 AM, tnccs215 said:

reducing energy reserves (no more 300 units energy pools. Sorry Volt and Saryn Prime), MAYBE removing flow (or at least it's primed version)

Now that I'm thinking about it... why bother reducing the energy cap?

On a surface level sure, it's a logical step in the progression - but if we think about it realistically, a frame like Excalibur who spams Radial Javelin on Draco isn't dangerous because he may take Primed Flow, it's because he regenerates energy faster than he casts through Trinity. The only impact the reserve makes in that scenario is... what, giving him more energy when he enters the mission? Maybe giving him wiggle room for Blind Rage?

We're already talking about standardizing energy generation to be less bursty and reducing Efficiency to be less drastic (sidenote: could also go back to the original form of Efficiency, where +50% meant being able to cast 50% more often, as Duration now). It wouldn't matter if someone can cast their ultimate 5 times in succession now or drags out a toggle for a minute, because that's 5x the amount of energy she has to build up before she can do it again and there are no orbs along the way to help her.

In the long run, without an innate energy-boosting mechanic, it should only help you with an extra cast every so often.

I only bring it up because Saryn, for instance, is already partially built around building up that reserve between casts simply due to the high reliance each of her abilities has on one another. A frame like Ivara is built specifically to use her energy reserve as her quiver. And Volt... is generally questionable, since he's an intended "alternative to gunplay".

Edited March 14, 2016 by Archwizard

[--Q--uaint]

On 3/12/2016 at 1:43 PM, tnccs215 said:

Not a bad idea… But what about support frames (like banshee or trinity) that can make long missions without socring a kill?

Hmmm. Support 'frames. I'm not sure what you mean by specifically calling out support 'frames, but I guess I can try addressing things?

First off, this idea was in the context of adding some level of base energy regeneration. This means they'll be able to cast sometimes regardless.

Another key point here is that killing is what Warframe is about. I mean, sure, you could technically bring a Trin that did nothing but EV and Bless the whole time… but is that person even playing the game at that point? Also, having people able to CC everything all the time isn’t really what I'm desiring here.

The list:

Spoiler

Trinity can feed herself with EV, as long as killing is happening, even with my idea for reworking it.
A Banshee is not worth her salt if she’s not killing anything. I'm sorry, but I'm just ignoring Soundquake altogether… and the rest of her kit is localized CC, a damage buff, and a non-spammable CC and sometimes damage buff.
Oberon is a hard question. TBH, the 'frame needs help for a lot of other reasons. Regardless, I think an Oberon that’s not killing is doing something wrong.
I can’t think of any reason Equinox would spend so much time casting that she can’t kill. I suppose Rest spam, but that’s cheezing in an incredible way anyway.
Ivara has her ult. She’s not solely a support 'frame.
Limbo needs help, and this would definitely not fix him. However, he has Rift energy and TBH nothing much to do outside just killing things…
Loki could be a problem, I suppose… but Invisibility + melee = stronk.
Nekros is seriously doing something wrong if he’s not killing, since his #4 entirely depends on having killed things. Oh, you mean you like just mashing 3 all day? I dunno what to say to you.
Nova has her #2 which is one of the best damage abilities in the game. End of story?
Nyx is a real question. No good way of outputting damage, no real function outside CC. I suppose you could use a combination of MC and Chaos to never have to kill anything, but that’s metagaming pretty hard IMO. I think you'd be pretty silly to not ever kill anything as Nyx in a long mission.
Rhino has a damageboost that works on his weapons. End of line.
Vauban is another serious question, I guess. I might almost give him a small amount of energy for each enemy he manages to affect with a power. Actually, that seems like a good buff for him. Encourage intelligent placement to affect maximal targets with each cast.
Zephyr… Words fail me to describe my opinion of bringing Zephyr to a long run, particularly if not running good weapons. If you aren’t killing things as Flappy, you are probably hurting more than you're helping. Turbulence isn’t a reason to bring a whole squad member of deadweight. Being AFK might even be better than Tornado spam.

Have I addressed what you're getting at? If not, please clarify. Maybe clarify anyway.

Also, @Archwizard, you should totally comment on my energy system post.

 

On 3/12/2016 at 11:58 AM, Alphascrub said:

So why not give him some passive soft stats for better gun handling on heavy recoil weapons or more stagger chance on his melee swings.

Thought on specifics: Rhino experiences 50% of the recoil any other 'frame would receive, and his melee slam attack AoE has a 25% boost to radius.

I like this idea, though just making Heavy Impact work correctly would be better IMO.

[Archwizard]

On 3/11/2016 at 1:07 AM, ChronoEclipse said:

I was saying it’s abusable because Bladestorm is a string of finishers in every respect. Arcane Trickery and such all see it as that. So you could bring Ash to Bladestorm the EV targets and keep up the flow of energy. It would at least make the loot cave require more effort/attention?

Mag is still a decent contender for the loot cave nuker (with Crush, I mean). Greedy Pull + nuking build means she could stay pretty full and only EV would really care too much about running for energy.

My idea was that a) Trin would have to be somewhat selective on her EV targets and b) you'd have to actually interact with that individual enemy to get the energy for the group. Therefore, you'd have to at least add Ash to any loot-cave setup. This also makes the augment for EV still fit its role just fine.

I feel like orbs aren’t the way to go, especially since casting EV means you want energy NOW rather than later.

And I understood that, but I was saying that a Covert Lethality would do at least the target's full HP as Finisher damage in one blow while Bladestorm does breaks of 2000 damage during which only one target is guaranteed to be hit once. It might be slightly more abusable at high levels if you have negative Power Range, just so you can eek out the energy over a longer period of time, but that still requires a lot more circumstances to line up. Can't see how one frame pressing 2 and another pressing 4 requires any more effort than one pressing 2 and the other running up to press E.
All semantics though, can't support either.

Worst comes to worst, Greedy Pull can be changed. It was suggested around the time it was nerfed that it could steal targets' weapons, disarming them for a short time.

Fairly certain the half the point of this is not to have a new meta where X frame is preferred, but to just tackle caving in general.
Casting an EV so a target drops an energy orb means A) the target has to die, so you still have to be somewhat selective for targets who will die faster and B) everyone who needs to cast has to go out and collect those orbs, rather than just having someone feed the top contributors energy.

It defeats the point of these changes at all if you can still spam EV for energy NOW from across the map.

On 3/11/2016 at 1:07 AM, ChronoEclipse said:

Hmmm. Perhaps have a decent base energy regen up to, say… 50% of max energy? Aside from that, small amounts of energy would be gained from kills with weapons (potentially with a different value per kill with each type for each 'frame) and using combinations of powers (Spore+Toxic Lash granting energy is a great mechanic, and I think the game would benefit from adding more synergies of this kind).

Honestly, I feel like the "X kill gives Y energy" method just overcomplicates things.

For one, the issue of communicating it to players, keeping in mind that DE still has no in-game method of informing players what each frame's passive does. If the interface changes, that means expanding it to include both the individual frame's base energy regeneration, as well as values of each of the different weapon types, and any special conditions of generation like Ash's.

Second, by having several mutable values on every frame, it communicates that "it's more rewarding to play this way" hand in hand with "it's less rewarding to play that way". Anybody who wants to use Valkyr for anything more than mashing E (like debuffing or mobility) is now almost completely railroaded into it due to how deeply their energy economy is gouged by not.

Third, since the energy varies by kills, that just further contributes to some frames feeling overpowered at low levels and underpowered at higher ones.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Archwizard

[--Q--uaint]

11 years ago, Archwizard said:

~snip~

Ok. Fair enough. I figured there were a lot of problems I wasn’t seeing…

Another problem that would crop up is killstealing; even if squad kills grant energy, the Ash would still be sad because the enemy got shotgunned instead of finisher'd.

18 years ago, Archwizard said:

since the energy varies by kills, that just further contributes to some frames feeling overpowered at low levels and underpowered at higher ones.

The reason I was saying it should be rewarded by kills is that the current system is based on kills and one or two other people noted it’s nice to have something to do to help regain energy instead of just having to wait. That’s also why I said the regen would only go to 50% of max; the time it takes to regen that energy is not much, but you have to actually do stuff to get more.

You could also base it off of weapon attacks, but that would require a lot of ugly balancing issues. Opticor =/= Twin Vipers =/= Skana =/= Mios.

Perhaps damage inflicted by weapons would work? Then again, that gives a substantial boost to 'frames like Rhino who can buff their weapons.

*sigh* This is hard lol…

[tnccs215]

13 hours ago, Archwizard said:

Now that I'm thinking about it... why bother reducing the energy cap?

On a surface level sure, it's a logical step in the progression - but if we think about it realistically, a frame like Excalibur who spams Radial Javelin on Draco isn't dangerous because he may take Primed Flow, it's because he regenerates energy faster than he casts through Trinity.

 

Well, because, limiting the amount of energy limits how many times you can spam before having to wait to recharge. If the energy recharge exists in order to ensure you can use your abilities reliably, having a limited energy pool ensures you wont be able to use them more than X times per minute.Yes, it is true that a RJ spamming Excalibur is dangerous not due to primed flow, but due to instant recharge via EV. But doesn't EV basically results in an infinite energy bar? That is, in the moment you recharge energy faster than you spend it, it's like your energy bar is eternal. Only on those cases it is irrelevant.

When that doesn't happen, it works as an important limiting factor to deter spamming. It has the same objective that a cool down possesses, but we already knew that. The difference is that this limits the max number of times you can use a power over X time while allowing you to choose when to use over said time, while pure cool down forces you a certain amount of time beteen casts, reducing your "Freedom". But if that is to happen, your maximum energy must be limited to some extend.

[tnccs215]

1 hour ago, ChronoEclipse said:

 

 

The reason I was saying it should be rewarded by kills is that the current system is based on kills and one or two other people noted it’s nice to have something to do to help regain energy instead of just having to wait. That’s also why I said the regen would only go to 50% of max; the time it takes to regen that energy is not much, but you have to actually do stuff to get more.

You could also base it off of weapon attacks, but that would require a lot of ugly balancing issues. Opticor =/= Twin Vipers =/= Skana =/= Mios.

Perhaps damage inflicted by weapons would work? Then again, that gives a substantial boost to 'frames like Rhino who can buff their weapons.

*sigh* This is hard lol…

While you did satisfy me, the problems archwizard mentioned still exist.

to be honest, I think that if you want to use a per kill energy system, you might as well simply replenish % of the energy bar every time an enemy dies in a 50 meter radius, a la affinity sharing (or even remove the range limitation altogether), and make that percentage variable according to people in squad, to prevent the current problem of full squads having an energy advantage vs the solo player.