(Suggestion) Warframe Spell And Mod System Rework

[Xrylene]

Ever wished you could switch out abilities you didn't like for ones that suited you better? Perhaps change ability loadouts for different factions or mission types? Do you want to feel like each Warframe has a more unique playstyle, one that interacts with how the game plays, rather than being a couple of spells an an AoE room clear ultimate?

 

Those are the goals of this rework. We know already that DE does have plans to add variant abilities for our Warframes, this is good, but I think it can be done better. I also think that there is room for a somewhat more defined ability set, complete with Warframe specific passives.

 

The idea is simple. Each Warframe has a Primary(1), Defense(2), Utility(3), and Offense(4) ability, with the number corresponding to the slot. For each of these slots, I will be suggesting two abilities to choose from, allowing you to customize your Warframe to your liking. Additionally, each Warframe will have two passive slots, one for an offense passive, and one for a defense passive, like the abilities, each will have two options to choose from.

 

Unlike the current system, these abilities will not be upgraded through the fusion system, at least not directly. Numerical effects, such as damage and duration, will scale with your Warframe's rank, but they can be increased further by mods. Think of the new ability and passive system as being more like selecting an artifact, you can't have more than one, they can't be sold or fused, etc. And, in the future as more abilities are inevitably added, DE might even be able to have them drop as rewards from ? Alerts or bosses or the like.

 

Now, onto what I meant about mods enhancing them. Like the current system, you still use mods to enhance your Warframe. Unlike the current system, you do not have a totally open set of slots to drag and drop mods into. Instead, you have ability modifier slots(V slots) corresponding to each ability, along with a D and bar slot. While this may limit "freedom" when it comes to how you customize the more generic mods, it opens up more actual meaningful choices.

 

This is what the UI might look like: http://imgur.com/nA7D5HC

The letters in the top left of the ability slots are placeholders, and represent Primary, Offense, Defense and Utility for the standard abilities(could easily just be 1, 2, 3, 4), and then Attack and Survival for the passives. As you can see, there are four V slots, each with a line connecting to a corresponding ability. You can use these to add power range, duration, damage, etc to abilities individually rather than as a whole. The single D slot is for a defensive mod of your choice, like Fast Deflection or Steel Fiber, I'd suggest alongside this rework that Vitality and Redirection be removed entirely and replaced with the rank based scaling. The bar slot would be for various utility things, stuff like faster movement rate, radars, stamina increases and the like.

 

Now, to support this I'll have links to sets of Warframes, redesigned with this system in mind. Each set will consist of three Warframes, and will have a theming to their design. As more are completed, they will be linked at the bottom of this post.

 

Harnessing the Elements: Ember, Frost, and Volt: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/29092-suggestion-harnessing-the-elements-reworks-for-ember-frost-and-volt/

Art of War: Excalibur, Rhino, and Saryn:

Stealth Assassins: Ash, Banshee, and Loki:

Battle Support: Mag, Nyx, and Trinity:

Edited April 14, 2013 by Xrylene

[Davoodoo]

I really fear that it will end like wow, you know 1 viable build while rest are useless. While wrong mods will cripple only user, wrong skills will cripple whole team. 

[NoOneCares]

I think the idea's are solid and could make game play allot more fun as well as make the war frames more balanced.

[NoOneCares]

I really fear that it will end like wow, you know 1 viable build while rest are useless. While wrong mods will cripple only user, wrong skills will cripple whole team. 

drink another beer bud.

[Dawnseeker_Ch]

Hm.  Based on what I've seen of both threads, I'd say it "could" work.  Like all things, if its balanced properly it would make the game more solid.  If it's not, then it won't do much in contrast to the work being done.  I'd like to see this get implimented, but only as long as it's done in the right/balanced way.

I don't think you explained what was going on with "I'd suggest alongside this rework that Vitality and Redirection be removed entirely and replaced with the rank based scaling." near the bottom.  Considering the two posts you have made though, I will wait for a bit to find out more.

[LunarWind]

There are some good ideas here, but I'm not sure the complete overhaul is necessary or feasible.

 

I would definitely like to see alternate ability cards for each 'Frame, but we don't necessarily need a "replacement" for each ability "Slot".

Why not allow us to take a set of cheap 20-25 energy abilities instead of 25, 50, 75, 100 as most frames have now?

 

I'm just not sure I like the idea of having fewer mod slots, and ones which must be used for a specific purpose.

If I want to mod all +Stam +Speed and +stamregen with maxed out loot radar / enemy radar, I should be able to.

Sure, it's horrible, but I want the freedom to be inefficient.

 

Likewise, with your suggestion, I want the ability to slot ALL offense or ALL utility abilities.

 

Really all we need is for ability keys (1, 2, 3, 4.) to be connected to the mod-slot on our 'Frame, not to specific abilities that the 'Frames possess'.

So putting Radial Javelins in the top left slot would make it my "1" ability.