[Idea] Energy System Change / Ability Cooldowns

[jotofar]

A change to the energy system that we currently use.

As of now, we have a base energy pool that increases with levels to our warframe and increases thanks to a specific mod. We also have different mods to make these abilities last longer, cost less energy, and become more effiecent. However, I believe that the whole idea of regaining energy from picking up blue orbs that enemys drop is a tad lazy way to impliement energy regain.

What I was wondering if we could instead have cooldowns on our abilities, and have a energy pool that slowly regenerate over time. What this does is helps balance the game with some abilities. For example, I play a Rhino Warframe and whenever I am in the thick of it, I just need to pop Iron Skin and I have about ten seconds of invulnerability. Of this ten seconds, I am killing all sorts of enemys with my melee weapons and picking up energy orbs on the go. Inthus, making it so I can cast Iron Skin again without any real downtime due to the fact that enemys drop energy orbs 1/3rd (number pulled from my &#!) of the time.

What adding in a cooldown to Iron Skin does is basically make it so I have to use the ability wisely, rather than just popping it everytime I am confronted with an Anicent, General, Heavy Gunner, or a Boss. What this also does is makes you feel more willing to use your abilities if the energy cost for them recharge over time. If we had a slowly regenerating energy pool, I am sure a lot of people will be using their abilities more often. Not using them only when they see an energy orb to replace the missing energy they just used.

This is just my opinion on the matter, tell me what my fellow Tenno think of this idea.

[RawGritz]

A change to the energy system that we currently use.

As of now, we have a base energy pool that increases with levels to our warframe and increases thanks to a specific mod. We also have different mods to make these abilities last longer, cost less energy, and become more effiecent. However, I believe that the whole idea of regaining energy from picking up blue orbs that enemys drop is a tad lazy way to impliement energy regain.

What I was wondering if we could instead have cooldowns on our abilities, and have a energy pool that slowly regenerate over time. What this does is helps balance the game with some abilities. For example, I play a Rhino Warframe and whenever I am in the thick of it, I just need to pop Iron Skin and I have about ten seconds of invulnerability. Of this ten seconds, I am killing all sorts of enemys with my melee weapons and picking up energy orbs on the go. Inthus, making it so I can cast Iron Skin again without any real downtime due to the fact that enemys drop energy orbs 1/3rd (number pulled from my &#!) of the time.

What adding in a cooldown to Iron Skin does is basically make it so I have to use the ability wisely, rather than just popping it everytime I am confronted with an Anicent, General, Heavy Gunner, or a Boss. What this also does is makes you feel more willing to use your abilities if the energy cost for them recharge over time. If we had a slowly regenerating energy pool, I am sure a lot of people will be using their abilities more often. Not using them only when they see an energy orb to replace the missing energy they just used.

This is just my opinion on the matter, tell me what my fellow Tenno think of this idea.

You sir need to travel to a more difficult sector of space. Try that on Ceres or Pluto.

Edited April 6, 2013 by RawGritz

[jotofar]

You sir need to travel to a more difficult sector of space. Try at on Ceres or Pluto.

I am on Ceres and Pluto. I run solo as a Rhino, and as long as I have my iron skin ability S#&$'s so easy.

[Astral_Waffle]

I am on Ceres and Pluto. I run solo as a Rhino, and as long as I have my iron skin ability S#&$'s so easy.

This is more of a Rhino problem than a problem for other frames. Iron skin is pretty broken imo.

[jotofar]

This is more of a Rhino problem than a problem for other frames. Iron skin is pretty broken imo.

Which is why I suggest a cool down for abilities, and a passive energy pool regeneration. Rather than just pick up pretty blue orbs that I whack out of my enemies with my Scindo. But I don't know. It was a neat idea in my opinion to suggest.

[JKMplayer]

Nice idea, in my opinion they should change the drop rate of the orbs and add a minimal pool regeneration (1 energy per 2 seconds)

[Astral_Waffle]

Which is why I suggest a cool down for abilities, and a passive energy pool regeneration. Rather than just pick up pretty blue orbs that I whack out of my enemies with my Scindo. But I don't know. It was a neat idea in my opinion to suggest.

My point is that your suggestion would needlessly hurt the playability of frames that aren't Rhino. If you were suggesting this for Rhino that's one thing, but many other frames would suffer a lot under this system.

[Quetzhal]

My point is that your suggestion would needlessly hurt the playability of frames that aren't Rhino. If you were suggesting this for Rhino that's one thing, but many other frames would suffer a lot under this system.

Not necessarily. Isn't the point of cooldown to adjust it as necessary for abilities? Some abilities might need cooldowns to balance them slightly; others shouldn't have cooldowns at all.

There is an existing artifact that regenerates energy - Energy Siphon, I think. I don't have it, though. Kind of wish I did. I kind of agree with the OP, but at the same time, I'm not completely sure because I want the game to promote movement more, and a regenerating energy system would effectively encourage you to wait in a corner for it to regenerate after every room. The more I think about it the more I'm kind of on the fence about it. Maybe energy regenerates slowly while you chain kills or something? I don't know.

[jotofar]

My point is that your suggestion would needlessly hurt the playability of frames that aren't Rhino. If you were suggesting this for Rhino that's one thing, but many other frames would suffer a lot under this system.

I made a broad suggestion to the whole system of adding in cool downs I understand that not all frames are a walking rhino (Zing!) with 1k shields and 1k health with an invulnerability. Never did I say all frames should have a 10 second cool down for each and every ability. That would be outrageous. What I am suggesting is that, let's take Ash's smoke cloud ability for example, to have something around a 5 second cool down with a 20~35 energy cost. It seems reasonable considering last time I checked, it's Ash's only escape and 'core' ability when it comes to dishing our insane amount of damage.

Not necessarily. Isn't the point of cooldown to adjust it as necessary for abilities? Some abilities might need cooldowns to balance them slightly; others shouldn't have cooldowns at all.

There is an existing artifact that regenerates energy - Energy Siphon, I think. I don't have it, though. Kind of wish I did. I kind of agree with the OP, but at the same time, I'm not completely sure because I want the game to promote movement more, and a regenerating energy system would effectively encourage you to wait in a corner for it to regenerate after every room. The more I think about it the more I'm kind of on the fence about it. Maybe energy regenerates slowly while you chain kills or something? I don't know.

Hmm, the idea of sitting around in corner and just waiting for your energy to come back seems like a bad way to promote the sway of this game. However you still have to take cover every once and awhile when needing to reload, switch weapons, or just need your shields to recharge. I suppose you can toss in energy regain for each time you kill something of some sort. However like I said before, it'd make some classes crazy OP. As for the Siphon ability, I have no idea. I don't think such a Mod exists.

Edited April 6, 2013 by jotofar

[Kato-san]

What if they just increase the energy pool a bit more and make it so you have a cool down but when you use an ability before the cool down is up it will cost double?

I don't no...