I Want More Importance On What We Do In-Mission Versus Loadout

[Phatose]

There are a lot of topics being widely discussed right now - the mod system, player power, so called band-aid mods, enemy behavior.  It's a wide variety of topics but I believe they all are ultimately about the same basic issue - much of our success in Warframe is determined before the mission actually starts.

 

By this, I mean that if I fail a mission or an objective, the first thing I'm going to think about is how I could have changed my loadout.  Use a different mod, or a different weapon, or get some equipment. 

 

That's not bad in and of itself - most RPGs have a similar emphasis.  And loadout should matter, quite a bit. 

 

But Warframe isn't just an RPG - it's a shooter too.  And in most shooters, if I fail, I'm going to try to figure out why I failed by looking at what I did immediately leading up to my death.  In a typical shooter, the mistake that got me killed was one made a few seconds before I died.  I don't feel that way here.

 

There are certainly occasions where a stupid mistake in-game has gotten me killed.  But even in those occasions, I'm far more likely to try to prevent that in the future by switching my loadout around then simply to try to not make that same mistake next time.  Changing my loadout almost always works.  Changing my behavior only sometimes works.

 

I don't want load-out to be completely irrelevant.  It should be very, very relevant.  I just want what I do in the mission to matter more then it currently does. 

 

There are lots of possible ways to do that.  I'm not going to get into them here, as they tend to get bogged down in the details, and I don't want the overall message - "I want the RPG/Action split of warframe to shift towards the Action spectrum a bit" to be lost in the details.

 

 

TL:DR version:  Warframes RPG components feel much more important to player success then it's Action components, and I'd like it to be closer to 50/50.

Edited July 6, 2014 by Phatose

[5Billion]

I agree completely with what you said.

 

And this is the basis of the argument against the current Mods system.

 

Forgot to equip a mod before the mission starts? Fail.

 

The game didn't feel like updating your loadout before the mission started? Fail.

 

Didn't switch to your top-notch weapon OR the game yet again didn't feel like updating it? Fail.

 

The game is all about RNG for mods to equip, then whether or not you equip those mods determines how well you do in the mission. It's not even about how well of a shooter you are, if you are shooting like a pro with a S#&$ty wep, tough luck. You're dead.

 

I'd like to see what other people think about this, but I agree.

[Phatose]

Changes to the mod system are certainly a common suggestion, and I do believe that the mod system could be tweaked to achieve this.  Make loadout less important, and you make actions more important. 

 

But it's not the only way to do it - for example, enemies designed to require specific behaviors not matter what loadout you have would shift it, as suggested in this thread:  Forget Better Ai - We Need Better Dumb Enemies.  And there are dozen of other ways around to do it without making huge changes to the mod system.

 

But I'd really rather DE just got the central message that I want more emphasis on the action part of their action/rpg, and leave it to them to figure out ways to accomplish that while still keeping it their vision of Warframe. 

Edited July 6, 2014 by Phatose