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

[Elydir]

Times like this I consider making a section of the OP devoted to giving each frame an alternate ability, though. I keep being tempted to give Ember a channeled flamethrower in place of Fire Blast, or Volt a mobile thunderstorm ultimate, or even have Nekros play around with resources.

 

Ooooh... Could excalibro get a kind of jump variation? Or making super jump a toggle? Or like a new shrapnel ability to replace his present ult ?

[Elydir]

Also something I wanted to add, Ash invisibility? not silent. It alerts enemies, if they aren't in combat. I see no reason that it should work that way.

Like, smoke screen being a stagger makes sense but it should have conditions around. Enemy awareness for the invisibility. In combat, smoke bomb, out, just fade

[taiiat]

-snip-

Enemies now shoot at your last known locations if you're cloaked. this includes places where you caused a big ruckus or shot Weapons that aren't Silent.

 

feature as intended. they're shooting where you were, not where you are.

[Elydir]

Enemies now shoot at your last known locations if you're cloaked. this includes places where you caused a big ruckus or shot Weapons that aren't Silent.

 

feature as intended. they're shooting where you were, not where you are.

 

I know, but for the hostage missions it would alert wardens even through walls. Intended? Dont think so.

[taiiat]

I know, but for the hostage missions it would alert wardens even through walls. Intended? Dont think so.

i'd suspect Enemies in a sphere will hear you when you fire loud Weapons, regardless of geometry.

 

while i'd agree in principle they shouldn't be behind geometry and still go up in alertness, loud things are always loud, *shrugs*

 

 

unless, you're saying the stun from Smoke Bomb was alerting Enemies? that would certainly be an issue, but that's a bug report to me, not something to be put into a suggestions thread.

[Elydir]

unless, you're saying the stun from Smoke Bomb was alerting Enemies?

 

^^^^^ THIS. But maybe ill put in a bug report for it.

[RealPandemonium]

^^^^^ THIS. But maybe ill put in a bug report for it.

Definitely make a thread in the PC bugs forum; I doubt this is intended behavior.  

[Archwizard]

Ooooh... Could excalibro get a kind of jump variation? Or making super jump a toggle? Or like a new shrapnel ability to replace his present ult ?

 

Woah, slow down there buddy. I'm not even sure I'll add a section for it at all.

 

For starters, I'd need to have an ability set up for every frame coming out of the gate. Currently the idea is that you have one skill that replaces one skill (so you don't end up with two ultimates), and the rest can be Universal mods.

Two, you get down to a flamethrower for Ember and everyone will be like, "well why didn't you give back Overheat, I wanted Overheat"; my only idea for Saryn right now is just to make Contagion an alternative to Allure, which just seems weird to have swapped them in the first place when you think about it. Not to mention you'll get the guys who'll complain about, say, swapping Renewal for a shield when Hallowed Ground is clearly more useless.

[taiiat]

Saryn

speaking of.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/262774-miasma-as-it-should-be-a-miasma/

[Archwizard]

speaking of.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/262774-miasma-as-it-should-be-a-miasma/

 

Eh....

 

The way multiple damage type abilities are set up presently, the damage dealt is split evenly between them. So for Excalibur's ultimate, it's split evenly between Slash, Impact and Puncture.

You've set up Miasma to have varying percentages of each damage type - 10, 20, 20, 50 over all four different Toxin types. Not only is that sort of overpowered, but I don't think they even have the tech for that.

 

It would also be more fitting if the 'creeping death' of which you speak was more akin to how Nova's ultimate is fired; the way you explain it in the OP, it sounds less like a gas and more like a sentient airborne virus.

 

Personally, I think Miasma is fine as is; a tad dull compared to some of the newer abilities, perhaps, but still more interesting than Crush, and with some higher status chance it could completely burn away the targets' armor.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

You've set up Miasma to have varying percentages of each damage type - 10, 20, 20, 50 over all four different Toxin types. Not only is that sort of overpowered, but I don't think they even have the tech for that.

the different amounts of the Damage Types was part of why i was okay with having all of those Damage Types. because the Types other than the primary take a back seat, but are still present.

 

if they were all the same amount, then i'd probably agree that having all 4 of those Damage Types would be rather... convenient in one Power.

 

and i'd be pretty disappoint if the Evolution Engine wasn't capable of multiple Damage Types with varying strengths, because that would be quite peculiar when our Weapons are completely capable of doing it. so the Engine not supporting it would get me to point directly at Weapons and ask how they can have varying strength Damage.

 

It would also be more fitting if the 'creeping death' of which you speak was more akin to how Nova's ultimate is fired; the way you explain it in the OP, it sounds less like a gas and more like a sentient airborne virus.

well, Saryn seems to represent everything from Cyanide to a biological form of the Day Zero Virus, and everything in between.

so i was trying to actually represent the theme, rather than Powers that were created at a time when AoE Blasts were everything because we didn't have better ideas than that to actually create engaging gameplay that gets players to get really invested in the game.

[Skaoi]

I'd love to see Rhino's IS actually become... I guess a more "I tank for the team" sort of version of your proposed version of Allure/of the old Overheat for Ember, making it more viable for 'higher-end missions'. With this I mean the following:

- IS becomes a % damage mitigation. (And to not make the same mistake as was made with Ember, have it have a cap below 100%. I'd say... 20/30/40/50% per rank put in, with a cap of max... 75% if using power strength mods?)
- IS draws aggro (right below Nyx' Absorb, as was suggested) so he actually would be tanking for his team.
- Retain it's immunity to status/CC.
- Make it duration based once again OR make it a toggle.

I'm all fine with nerfing the bacon-helm. I mean, speed rivalling the fastest frames around while being a dozen times more tanky is just... No. That, and I'm more of a Thrak user anyway. =P

On frames in general, I'd love seeing some more % of hp damage pop up on the caster/damage frames, especially if they don't get any added CC on such skills. (With this I mean X base dmg + Y % dmg)
It'd go a long way on actually keeping them viable as you proceed through to 'higher end' missions, even if their specific type of dmg happens to not be as effective against certain types of enemies.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Frost0513

[taiiat]

- IS becomes a % damage mitigation. (And to not make the same mistake as was made with Ember, have it have a cap below 100%. I'd say... 20/30/40/50% per rank put in, with a cap of max... 75% if using power strength mods?)

50%DR before Mods is very useful early game, but ultimately is far too high to start with. let's not forget it's a 50E Power.

 

a 75% cap theoretically resolves most of the issue, but i'd like to think Warframe has evolved since those days, and Powers will be more organic feeling and bring all kinds of different attributes to the table, allowing for a wide variety of preferences, and therefore being useful to cast no matter what the Mission is, while still having a theme.

 

Edit:

in other words, a Power that makes you immune to 75% of incoming Damage and immune to Enemy CC / Status Effects.... is bland for how Warframe has evolved to what it is today, IMO. it's too flat, too... one sided.

Edited July 25, 2014 by taiiat

[Skaoi]

Fair enough, though a Rhino right now simply gets up to 1200 'extra hp' (before counting in power strength), which is also quite high for anything early-mid game. This while also being immune to CC/Status effects.

Imo Rhino was/is meant to be a tank. One to tank for his team. The immunity's been there for ages, and if he becomes the center of aggro as proposed, I'd rather not die to status effects/be knocked around like a football because I actually WANTED to tank for my teammates. That, and y'know, he's had that 'bland/flat/one-sided/... aspect' for as long as he's been around.

So, opposed to what it was at first (full invulnerability with immunity), what it is now, and what I suggested, I'd still prefer my suggestion as it would still be somewhat viable in higher ends of play whilst not being ridiculous on all other points, or simply make content trivial.

As for the numbers, I was just giving an idea to bounce around. (You could even go 0/15/30/45% with a cap of X%) Feel free to change them accordingly if you find them too high. I just wanted to 'have a cap' so that it wouldn't be abused like it was with Ember's Overheat.

Numbers aside, I'll again point to the Allure suggestion for Saryn also getting %DR (albeit there simply where no numbers stated there, which seems one of the main points here). The difference being that where Saryn gets damage/status procs, Rhino instead gets additional tankiness in way of avoiding CC/status as he draws the aggro to himself and away from his teammates.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Frost0513

[taiiat]

Imo Rhino was/is meant to be a tank. One to tank for his team. The immunity's been there for ages, and if he becomes the center of aggro as proposed, I'd rather not die to status effects/be knocked around like a football because I actually WANTED to tank for my teammates. That, and y'know, he's had that 'bland/flat/one-sided/... aspect' for as long as he's been around.

being immune to Status/CC isn't the end of the world, but Iron Skin only reducing Damage and cancelling Status/CC would make for a very bland Power.

 

so the point, that if he's going to be immune to Status/CC - which i'm sure every Rhino will not be able to live without at this point - then Iron Skin needs to bring other things to the table that are more interesting. preferably one Effect for every Mod Effect. something useful on each one so users may choose to specialize in one or a couple ways, or cover many bases adequately.

 

one aspect could be percentage Damage Reduction, which i like the thought of it 'peeling off' over time, both visually and statistically. over time and with taking Damage, the DR amount will degrade. 

 

this could also be paired with the sort of current 'Armor buffer' Iron Skin is now, for good measure and to help protect the DR amount from weaker Enemies, but more powerful Enemies burning the Armor buffer and getting to the Damage Reduction.

 

while we're at it, why not allow nearby Tenno to Iron Skin take less Damage. possibly something else as well as reduced Damage. not sure what.

 

 

and therewego, a preliminary set of effects for Iron Skin, that makes good use of Duration, Range, Power, and ofcourse Efficiency. players may specialize in one or two Effects, but all of the Effects are useful to have, so there'll be the temptation to try to have all of them.

[Skaoi]

being immune to Status/CC isn't the end of the world, but Iron Skin only reducing Damage and cancelling Status/CC would make for a very bland Power.

 

so the point, that if he's going to be immune to Status/CC - which i'm sure every Rhino will not be able to live without at this point - then Iron Skin needs to bring other things to the table that are more interesting. preferably one Effect for every Mod Effect. something useful on each one so users may choose to specialize in one or a couple ways, or cover many bases adequately.

I would argue that Rhino already is in a very decent spot to begin with, and overloading a single skill with more effects will just make people QQ about him even more. Let's not forget it's still just a single skill, and not his entire set. You can't just pump multiple effects into one ability and be done with it, even though your points are very interesting.  (That, and an aura of reduction might put him too close to Frost.)

I suggested this so that it would fully scale, which I would argue is the point of good balance. But if we're getting specific; IS is his "I'm gonna 'tank' (for the team) now" skill. It lets him soak dmg. If it would aggro, in high-end play IS as is wouldn't last over 3 seconds. That's why I would argue for the %DR as opposed to the flat numbers he has now.

As for "one effect for every mod effect", if it would go back to being duration based, you have that. Strength would affect the %DR, and power range could affect the range in which he can aggro enemies. Efficiency should speak for itself. You don't need to look far to have all effects present and still have pros vs cons. That and let's be fair, a skill doesn't always need to have everything affect it, as is the case even now with several frames.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Frost0513

[taiiat]

I would argue that Rhino already is in a very decent spot to begin with, and overloading a single skill with more effects will just make people QQ about him even more. Let's not forget it's still just a single skill, and not his entire set. You can't just pump multiple effects into one ability and be done with it, even though your points are very interesting.  (That, and an aura of reduction might put him too close to Frost.)

As for "one effect for every mod effect", if it would go back to being duration based, you have that. Strength would affect the %DR, and power range could affect the range in which he can aggro enemies. Efficiency should speak for itself. You don't need to look far to have all effects present and still have pros vs cons.

the idea is to have every Power in the game have many Effects to bring to the table. and the effectiveness of any particular Effect would be adjusted to account for having a lot of Effects, to keep things from getting out of hand.

 

that does cover all of the Mod Effects - however all of them are simply upgrades. it does mean you'll take and give on a couple different things, but i want the Power to bring more to the table, so every Mod Effect isn't just an upgrade for something, but is also an Effect you will want to have, but you can't have all of them if you want to have a very Powerful Power.

this causes a conundrum inside people's heads. they want both sides, but they're going to need to think long and hard about what Effects they want Power N to do, and try to make it work in a way they can live with. upgrading one of the Effects on the Power would weaken another part of the Power(assuming Corrupted Mods ofcourse). and because of that, we might even see people preferring not to use Corrupted Mods, because they want all of the Effects and will just use the original set of Mods as an all rounder.

 

variety is the name of the game here.

[Archwizard]

 

- IS becomes a % damage mitigation. (And to not make the same mistake as was made with Ember, have it have a cap below 100%. I'd say... 20/30/40/50% per rank put in, with a cap of max... 75% if using power strength mods?)

 

Power Strength caps out at +129%, so starting at 50% mitigation would end around 114.5% total mitigation.

If you want it to cap at 75%, then the max rank would have to stop around 33%, which could come off a little low - even called virtually useless without Corrupted mods.

 

variety is the name of the game here.

 

To be fair, the early Warframes should hit on the staples of RPG abilities, and save more complex mechanics for later releases or more advanced powers. It would be odd to have, say, delayed the release of Fireball to the 20th frame because every one before then was trying to be unique (or to retroactively create that impression, for that matter). It's okay for an early ability to be simple or a later ability to be exotic, so long as they're effective.

 

Miasma is simple, but with higher status % (a simple addition that does not stretch the effect at all), could be highly effective.

Molecular Prime is a somewhat complex addition, but as a result of its simpler elements, is highly effective.

Hall of Mirrors is a somewhat complex addition, but highly effective as a result of its complexity.

Loki's toolkit is very simple, but highly effective as a result of complex combinations.

Iron Skin is simple, but ineffective as a direct result of being too simple.

 

Variety is only necessary insofar as creating distinction. It has no correlation on effectiveness.

Edited July 27, 2014 by Archwizard

[taiiat]

If you want it to cap at 75%, then the max rank would have to stop around 33%, which could come off a little low - even called virtually useless without Corrupted mods.

 

 

To be fair, the early Warframes should hit on the staples of RPG abilities, and save more complex mechanics for later releases or more advanced powers. It would be odd to have, say, delayed the release of Fireball to the 20th frame because every one before then was trying to be complex (or to retroactively create that impression, for that matter). It's okay for an early ability to be simple or a later ability to be exotic, so long as they're effective.

- i think he wanted it to cap to 75% like Efficiency, higher doing nothing useful.

but i don't like that, because Intensify alone is 65% DR. that's... a lot for the basic Mod. and Blind Rage is pretty inefficient on Iron Skin then. you need a 50% Power Strength boost to cap to 75% - so Blind Rage alone could do it, at a lowish rank, or Intensify plus a even lower Blind Rage.

 

idunno. that sounds weird to me.

 

 

 

- but, if there's so many Effects on every Power, all Powers would simultaneously be simple and complex. it has basic Effects, like say, Fireball does Damage and lights them on fire. but it could have other Effects that weren't hugely obvious without Mods, but are still there. 

such as, if Freeze had a 0.75m AoE. you'd almost never hit multiple Enemies with an AoE like that. but with Mods, you can go right for that Range if you want to halt a small group of Enemies. but that double Range in doing so, would sacrifice the Strength of the 3 other Powers.

 

i'm trying to intertwine all 4 Powers together so that when you tug one string, something else moves. and if all 4 Powers on all Frames are useful in all situations, in some manner - then players have some real thinking to do to decide on how they want to play.

 

this is mildly similar to Path of Exile. that absolutely huge upgrade tree Path of Exile has? you have... a lot of choices in front of you. i'm trying to have a bit of that in Warframe, but a little less 'hnngh' with the upfront 'whoa what am i doing here this is overwhelming' that Path of Exile has due to having a million choices on one screen.

but still kind've the same concept. you can't have it all, but there's a lot of neat stuff to have. so find some setups that you like using, and go crazy.

 

 

we'll probably need more Loadouts for items and in general because of that though, maybe 9 for each item - or atleast Warframes - is reasonable.

[Archwizard]

- but, if there's so many Effects on every Power, all Powers would simultaneously be simple and complex. 

 

Yeah, but you also risk overloading the ability's effects, or adding unnecessary peripheral clutter to the frame's skillset, or even just making a simple ability indecipherable to someone who's used to the standard effect. There's also the worry that if the effects are too separated, it might just seem like one was added as an afterthought, rather than designed with the intent for both.

 

Essentially, don't fix what ain't broke (Miasma), and if it does break, don't hold it together with band-aids (Iron Skin).

Edited July 28, 2014 by Archwizard

[Archwizard]

Unrelated to Rhino --

 

I'm wondering if maybe I should trim down the Nekros section of the post. At this point, Desecrate has been around for almost a year; changing it without advance warning would just cause a massive uproar of "I put X Forma into my Desecrate build to accomodate Equilibrium".

(Granting, that's in no small part because mods with 10 ranks are sort of absurd to begin with, but that's a discussion for another thread.)

 

Besides... I'm kind of preferring a variant on DiabolusUrsus' version. Especially if I do decide to make an 'alternate abilities' section.

[FuzzyRamen]

If they care to make all Frames viable then they "DE" will stop nerfing (DE Special) and start buffing.

[taiiat]

Essentially, don't fix what ain't broke (Miasma), and if it does break, don't hold it together with band-aids (Iron Skin).

but there are quite a few Powers that are broken, by being push button Damage dealing. they have little if anything to offer other than clearing rooms on the early planets.

 

they don't bring anything to the table. or if they do bring something to the table, it's... only one thing, making them not enough to be worth using, especially considering our Weapons can bring several things to the table at once.

 

and Miasma has been broken since day 1 :v

reducing Duration reduces Ticks, but also adds more total Damage, even though all it should be doing is making the Damage more upfront.

the math behind Miasma doesn't work at all. 

[Skaoi]

Power Strength caps out at +129%, so starting at 50% mitigation would end around 114.5% total mitigation.

If you want it to cap at 75%, then the max rank would have to stop around 33%, which could come off a little low - even called virtually useless without Corrupted mods.

And

- i think he wanted it to cap to 75% like Efficiency, higher doing nothing useful.

but i don't like that, because Intensify alone is 65% DR. that's... a lot for the basic Mod. and Blind Rage is pretty inefficient on Iron Skin then. you need a 50% Power Strength boost to cap to 75% - so Blind Rage alone could do it, at a lowish rank, or Intensify plus a even lower Blind Rage.

 

idunno. that sounds weird to me.

See ->

As for the numbers, I was just giving an idea to bounce around. (You could even go 0/15/30/45% with a cap of X%) Feel free to change them accordingly if you find them too high/low. I just wanted to 'have a cap' so that it wouldn't be abused like it was with Ember's Overheat.

(For those who don't know/remember, old Overheat could go up to and past 100% DR, effectively making her invulnerable.)

 

My only point was to make IS scale (without becoming OP) as all abilities should in some way, to attain 'balance', while sticking to his archetype/what the skill was meant to do. It doesn't 'need' to be flashy, nor does it need additional features. I gave this idea because it needs to be effective/decent at all points of the game.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Frost0513

[taiiat]

Overheat could go up to and past 100% DR

91.6%.