Rework Or Eliminate Health/energy Orbs: Make Difficulty More Consistent

[MJ12]

As everyone knows, energy orbs randomly drop. Health orbs also randomly drop, but only from containers. Now, I'm aware randomness inherently adds some degree of excitement, otherwise gambling wouldn't be so popular and Vegas would be a ghost town with nobody except sex workers and comed-okay maybe Vegas wasn't the best example. But randomness when it comes to game difficulty is bad for both balance (if you're facerolling things, is it because you're too good? Or is it because something is OP? Or is it because you got lucky with stuff dropping?) as well as a consistent experience. Consistency is pretty important.

Now, there are a few ways to fix this problem. I'll list them and the pros and cons as best I'm able.

1. Pseudorandom Drops: The game gives you an increasing likelihood of energy/health drops if you're low on one resource and haven't gotten one in a while. The worse you do, the more energy/health drops.

Pros: Still looks random (people are awful at pattern recognition of true randomness), provides equivalent end result to regenerating health/energy without actually making it seem like this is one of those '~casual~ games' like cowadooty (did you know that Half Life 2 uses this exact system?)

Cons: May require total rework of drop system logic. May still look unfair, creating the illusion of inconsistent difficulty. Because few people will know about this (it's not intuitive), balancing the variables under the hood will be difficult.

2. No Drops: Health and Energy don't drop. Period. You start with full energy and health and need to use consumables to replenish them.

Pros: Maximizes tension, total consistency, resource management.

Cons: Will emphasize ability imbalances even worse, eliminates use of 'ability spam', Rejuvenation/Energy Siphon become more or less necessary. Will almost certainly require a drastic energy max buff. Will make early game extremely difficult due to weak shields + no health pickups. Will make ice levels an exercise in frustration.

3. Regain By Kills: Regenerate health and energy via killing things. Can be as simple as flat regeneration per kill or a system designed to incentivize 'stylish' combat like slide-kills and whatnot.

Pros: Emphasizes aggressive combat and movement, heavily disincentivizes turtling behind cover, can be used to emphasize desired combat styles, removes 'hoarder' problem, as you will consistently be gaining energy in combat (and thus will want to use it, to minimize waste), keeps resource management (ideally you want to be energy-neutral, using about as much energy as you get).

Cons: May exacerbate 'rusher' problem, allows for combat regeneration (which has to be balanced), may make game too easy at high skill levels. What about things killed by powers? Do you regenerate energy while under the effects of a power/while killing things with powers? If yes, this may make Ultimates ridiculously overpowered.

4. Partial Regeneration: Health and energy partially regenerate. For example, after you use any power you may regenerate up to its cost or 25 energy, whichever is lower, and your health is divided into, say, 4-5 'segments' so you'll always regenerate up to the end of a segment (so you'll regenerate to 25% health if your health is at 1-25%, 50% if it's at 26-50%, and so on). Will probably have to be supplemented either with the current system 'as-is' or one of the other systems.

Pros: Keeps the resource management system intact, simple, intuitive. Minimizes frustration of having theoretically 'unwinnable' situations. Relatively consistent combat balance.

Cons: Will drastically bias game towards frames with good cheap abilities (Ash's Smoke Bomb, Excalibur's Slash Dash, Saryn and Loki's Decoy).

5. Full Regeneration: Health and energy fully regenerate to max.

Pros: Simplest system, familiar to anyone who's played modern FPSes/TPSes, easiest to balance encounters around in a game with random spawns (as you can assume everyone will be going into every fight with full health, shields, and energy), eliminates 'hoarding'

Cons: May alienate certain members of the playerbase, reduces resource management.

[CaligoIllioneus]

Or: it is fine like it is.

Levels are procedurally generated. Sometimes you find a certain mission harder, sometimes its easier.

The same can happen with the quantity of mobs spawned and where they spawn.

Sometimes you're starving in energy and you need to manage your resources really well, another time you find lots of orbs and you can spam AoE skills.

I don't think this is really a bad thing.

[MJ12]

Or: it is fine like it is.

Levels are procedurally generated. Sometimes you find a certain mission harder, sometimes its easier.

The same can happen with the quantity of mobs spawned and where they spawn.

Sometimes you're starving in energy and you need to manage your resources really well, another time you find lots of orbs and you can spam AoE skills.

I don't think this is really a bad thing.

Procedural generation should give you more or less the same difficulty for the same setup. If I have "X tileset, Grineer, lv 20, difficulty 4" it should be more or less the same difficulty. Now, but you say this might be boring.

Actually it's kind of the opposite, because it lets you plan things instead of just taking every mission as it goes. It also, and this is very important, makes ability use more consistent. Given that abilities are the primary differentiators of Warframes, this means Warframes will have their differences brought to the forefront, instead of as subtleties. This increases longevity because it alters the gaming experience depending on what Warframe you have.

And most critically it makes a lot of the back-end stuff easier. Are people complaining because the game's actually too easy, or are they just getting lucky with drops? Is this mission actually too hard or did that poster just get really unlucky on health orbs?

Having difficulty that can be extraordinarily inconsistent, with no rhyme or reason, is a bad thing. Inconsistency is not the same thing as variety. And note that I'm not saying 'make all levels scripted and &*$$genous', I'm saying "make the randomness in enemy spawns and level layout, not in how often you can use your abilities and how much damage you can expect to 'safely' take."

[FrostWolf]

... There isn't really anything wrong with it the way it is.

Energy being as plentiful isn't as much of a deal... and seeing that screwing with it could effectively ruin alot of people's higher defense level stratgies.

IE people save those orbs from the earlier waves to stockpile for the mass surges later.

Health drops are alright as is... Honestly enemies rarely dropping health is something i'd consider but the way it is right now atleast makes you priotize healing.

[HellGrind]

Or: it is fine like it is.

Levels are procedurally generated. Sometimes you find a certain mission harder, sometimes its easier.

The same can happen with the quantity of mobs spawned and where they spawn.

Sometimes you're starving in energy and you need to manage your resources really well, another time you find lots of orbs and you can spam AoE skills.

I don't think this is really a bad thing.

This. You're overthinking OP.

[HellGrind]

Having difficulty that can be extraordinarily inconsistent, with no rhyme or reason, is a bad thing. Inconsistency is not the same thing as variety. And note that I'm not saying 'make all levels scripted and &*$$genous', I'm saying "make the randomness in enemy spawns and level layout, not in how often you can use your abilities and how much damage you can expect to 'safely' take."

Then what's the point in further modding health/energy if you know how much you can 'safely' take. This DOES take variety out of the game. The fact that sometimes levels you normally breeze through gives you a challenge makes grinding in particular (which in case you hadn't noticed is now a big part of the way this game works) far more interesting than calculating how many speedruns you can get out of an hour.

[ReiganCross]

Preposterous! You want to remove this game abundance of balls! What this game needs are MORE balls! We need a Ball Frame that can fart balls into more balls! Energy Balls, Health Balls, Afinity Balls, we need more of those balls! We lost balls when our weapons and armor were no longer decorated with those things you call mods, but are in truth only balls. Let us lose no further balls!

[Ascension]

Agree with the post that says more orbs or dont reduce them ;) opps looks like that every single post other than OP ~ clearly not a good idea.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Ascension

[MJ12]

Then what's the point in further modding health/energy if you know how much you can 'safely' take. This DOES take variety out of the game. The fact that sometimes levels you normally breeze through gives you a challenge makes grinding in particular (which in case you hadn't noticed is now a big part of the way this game works) far more interesting than calculating how many speedruns you can get out of an hour.

Maybe you'd do it because you want to do X mission where you know it's going to be more difficult and you need more power/more energy? Which would be the point? Maybe you'd do it because you want to be able to use powers more often before having to recharge? There is no loss of variety. The enemy spawns are still going to be random, so dependent on which enemies spawn and how you'll still get your 'challenge' in levels you 'normally breeze through'. It's just that you can use your powers more reliably (I'm not saying that you'll be able to use them more often, that'd be dependent on where you want powers->gunplay to lie, just more reliably).

Anyways with the system as it stands it's theoretically possible that you can get no drops, which means you never want to use powers, which means you end up losing variety from the game because everyone hoards their energy for a rainy day and never uses it. This 'hoarder' mentality in games actually is problematic because it means the cool toys the devs make which are supposed to be a core pillar of the gameplay become rare "oh sh*t" buttons instead.

You want to encourage people to spend energy more, and the best way to do that is to tell people 'you will get more, guaranteed'.

Oh, and also, as a bonus, if you make energy refills not dependent on energy orbs, bossfights become approximately infinitely more interesting because, unlike regular enemies, bosses don't die that often,meaning you don't get much energy when fighting them which means either:

1. You hoard all your energy waiting for the boss, or

2. You don't use powers against the boss. Neither of these are conducive to good gameplay.

Agree with the post that says more orbs or dont reduce them ;) opps looks like that every single post other than OP ~ clearly not a good idea.

Did you actually read the OP? Because the OP isn't saying anything about "less orbs". It's saying "the system as it stands seems like a placeholder from the 1990s".

Edited April 3, 2013 by MJ12

[Ascension]

Did you actually read the OP? Because the OP isn't saying anything about "less orbs". It's saying "the system as it stands seems like a placeholder from the 1990s".

The title says "Rework Or Eliminate Health/energy Orbs: Make Difficulty More Consistent"

How else do i interpret that rework or eliminate, besides less or no orbs?

Also look at suggestion no.2 thats what im opposing to. How does that not mean less or no orb at all?

Did you actually read ur own post?

Edited April 3, 2013 by Ascension

[MJ12]

The title says "Rework Or Eliminate Health/energy Orbs: Make Difficulty More Consistent"

How else do i interpret that rework or eliminate, besides less or no orbs?

Also look at suggestion no.2 thats what im opposing to. How does that not mean less or no orb at all?

How else would you interpret it? It means "change the method you gain and spend energy ingame". That's all it means. It doesn't mean "nerf the amount of abilities you can use". Stop trying to read into a post something that never actually existed and the post actively works to say it doesn't do because the point isn't "make the game harder by making it hard to use abilities", the point was always "make energy gain somewhat more consistent [with #2 as the sole exception]".

Did you actually read ur own post?

Yes, I did. And I'm certain I understand it infinitely better than you do. Notice one suggestion out of five was 'eliminate energy and health pickups period' and the huge list of cons there means that I don't think it's a great idea.

Edited April 3, 2013 by MJ12

[Ascension]

Did you actually read the OP? Because the OP isn't saying anything about "less orbs". It's saying "the system as it stands seems like a placeholder from the 1990s".

How else would you interpret it? It means "change the method you gain and spend energy ingame". That's all it means. It doesn't mean "nerf the amount of abilities you can use". Stop trying to read into a post something that never actually existed and the post actively works to say it doesn't do because the point isn't "make the game harder by making it hard to use abilities", the point was always "make energy gain somewhat more consistent [with #2 as the sole exception]".

Yes, I did. And I'm certain I understand it infinitely better than you do. Notice one suggestion out of five was 'eliminate energy and health pickups period' and the huge list of cons there means that I don't think it's a great idea.

Wow so now i get blamed... cool, look at ur earlier post where u said "Did you actually read the OP? Because the OP isn't saying anything about "less orbs". It's saying "the system as it stands seems like a placeholder from the 1990s"."

ROFL u even Italic the "anything" about less orbs.

Than in a later post u said with #2 as a sole exception, isnt that already contradicting urself seeing that there IS a suggestion to remove/eliminate orbs completely.

I don't see how "anything" to you doesnt include ur own post of #2 suggestion. or are u eating ur own words?

As long as 1 thing there that suggests reducing or eliminating orbs, doesnt that already invalid ur "doesnt say anything" about removing orbs, and also validify my opposing to that in my earlier post, where u denied that I was doing a valid opposition with the reason ; you are not suggesting "anything" about reducing or elimination orbs despite suggestion #2 stating otherwise.

With all that you still understand it infinitely better than I do? really? lol doesn't seem that way. As a mature person we should acknowledge mistakes and apologize and not try to argue your way across unreasonably and contradict your own post....

I also do not think that suggestion #2 is a great idea, thus the reason for my opposition, if you actually think that way too, shouldn't it leave it out or take it out of ur suggestion? Because if that suggestion is adapted for whatever reasons, don't you think that you are actually one of the reasons for it?

Personally, myself I do not suggest things that are any less than great ideas, I don't expect others to follow that standard, however suggestion is bad idea now... is a different story.

I do not intend to embarass you or argue with you in anyway, just want to state that my opposition is valid in regard to suggestion #2.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Ascension

[Quetzhal]

I'll have to agree with the OP, here - I was actually considering a topic about this myself. The way the system is set up right now, I'm inclined to never actually use any of my abilities because I'm always saving them up 'just in case' - which means that on some missions, I'll end up using my abilities once or twice, and on most I won't use my abilities at all. It's rare for me to actually use up all my energy.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with this. I wouldn't mind - much - if the system were to remain the way it is, but I'm slowly getting accustomed to using my powers more often. I dislike randomness in general, though. That kind of thing means that it's possible, though (extremely) unlikely, for some unsuspecting player to never encounter health or energy drops, tutorial aside. It's why I also have qualms with the blueprint grinding (I haven't started trying - it's the principle of the matter), but that's probably for another topic.

Consider, however, that most players will be coming in from a system wherein they are essentially provided infinite amounts of energy/mana through regeneration. Most of these players will automatically start hoarding their powers for emergency situations, which means that a core mechanic of the game ends up getting ignored. If the other mechanics aren't enough to hold the player, then that's one potential buyer lost.

It's not like difficulty can't vary on its own without random health/energy drops. There are plenty of things that could be done to vary difficulty, even within the same map. Randomised environmental disadvantages (I don't know, toxic air or something), randomised debuffs (triggered by a trap or something, maybe a type of poison that you need to find an antidote to lest you're left with 50% of your normal health), randomised don't-use-fire-ammunition-or-your-face-will explode debuffs and why am I not putting this in a different topic darnit brain

Or the normal random health/energy drops could be reserved for special types of maps (or just a more difficult version of each map), for which rewards are increased as opposed to whatever other system is adopted, assuming that new system gives your health and energy more easily.

Basically what I'm saying is that there's nothing wrong with the current system; it's just that there could be a better system in place. And polishing the game to be everything it could be will maximise its profit, and the playerbase, which allows for more resources to be put into the game. Etc.

[Inez]

War isn't predictable. Tenno must be ready for anything.

[Ferriwind]

I agree with the OP also. I use my abilities only when there are too many enemies or when facing a boss since the majority of my energy comes from random energy drops.

For health, it's a little more tricky because the damage you take in missions is most certainly 90% shields, give or take a few percentage. Health is just a little more padding for survivability. Health orbs dropping from containers and lockers just make the game more noob friendly, imo.

However, an active regen from killing/attacking enemies would be worse. The weaker squad members would get outplayed.. by their teammates.

A constant regen feels like the best alternative to health orbs. We already have Energy Siphon and Rejuvenate, which are great to have but not at all game breaking.

[Quetzhal]

War isn't predictable. Tenno must be ready for anything.

...I completely agree, but this doesn't have anything to do with energy/health orbs. War generally doesn't have health and energy explode out of enemies when you slaughter them, nor does it involve you breaking open containers trying to find health.

The unpredictability of war can be replicated in a dozen more interesting ways than randomising health/energy drops.

[__Kanade__]

It's fine as it is, not every locker and canister will have hp/energy orbs, I seem to find more of them are empty or drop other things at higher difficulty missions. But it's just me since the game is RNG heavy.

[tylerj714]

I completely agree with OP. I'm of the mind that the abilities are what differentiate every warframe and they should be used frequently. I find myself rarely using abilities because who knows when I'll find the orbs to replenish my energy for when I really need it next? If the abilities need to be nerfed/modified/have cooldowns applied in accordance with this, I'm okay with it, but I feel like abilities should be used frequently and without fear of wondering when you'll be able to use them next based on how lucky you get.

[Ronyn]

How much I use my powers should be based on how I play not how often I happened to find orbs.

A system where youe arn enbergy based on actually playing is the ideal solution and easier to balance.

Bigger crazier fight with more badguys...more energy. Just when I need it!

Smaller easier fight with less bad guys...less energy. Dont need it anyway!

Right now thats often backwards. not cool.

As for this potentially promoiting rushing. meh.

Honestly the only reasonable things that will deter rushing have to do with locked doors or enemies we would be too afraid to face alone.

[Ronyn]

War isn't predictable. Tenno must be ready for anything.

LOL. War isnt fun either.

[NalkorRN]

How much I use my powers should be based on how I play not how often I happened to find orbs.

A system where youe arn enbergy based on actually playing is the ideal solution and easier to balance.

Bigger crazier fight with more badguys...more energy. Just when I need it!

Smaller easier fight with less bad guys...less energy. Dont need it anyway!

Right now thats often backwards. not cool.

As for this potentially promoiting rushing. meh.

Honestly the only reasonable things that will deter rushing have to do with locked doors or enemies we would be too afraid to face alone.

If it was based on how you played and not how often you find energy orbs, can you try to imagine a Loki with Invis 3 and maxxed continuity/streamline/flow? Same for Rhino with Ironskin 3? Each would be effectively invincible in their own right due to power #2 for them.

[Ronyn]

If it was based on how you played and not how often you find energy orbs, can you try to imagine a Loki with Invis 3 and maxxed continuity/streamline/flow? Same for Rhino with Ironskin 3? Each would be effectively invincible in their own right due to power #2 for them.

2 things.

1-Right now they sometimes get lucky with orbs during those activities anyway.

2-Did we decide that you get power back for kills done while using a power?

If so at what rate?

Edited April 4, 2013 by Ronyn