Selectable Loadouts (Long Post, Appreciate Feedback!)

[securitywyrm]

When I'm running with a team, I don't know what we're going to be doing next. Maybe we'll hit this boss, maybe we'll hit that level, it's up in the air. However if I want to change my equipment for the next mission, it takes a flow-breaking amount of time and a lot of clicking to dig through the arsenal, unequip the mods on my current warframe and weapons, change over to the warframe and weapon I want for this mission, and put them into the correct slots.

 

I'd like to suggest having 'loadouts' which are combinations of warframe, weapon, sentinel and mod selection. Here are some examples, simplified to show what I mean.

 

Loadout 1

Rhino warframe, Vitality and redirection mods.

Branton long gun. Piercing Shot and Ammo Drum

Lato pistol. Trick Mag and Slip Magazine

 

Loadout 2

Mag warframe. Vitality and Fast Deflection mod

Snipetron long gun. Piercing Shot and Point Strike mod

Bronco pistol. Trick Mag and No Return mod.

 

Now among these loadouts, you see some duplicates of mods. Under a loadout system, you don't need to have multiple of the mod, nor do you need to specifically un-equip it from one item to equip it on another. A player could simply select 'loadout 2' and it would immediately equip that combination of equipment and mods. This would require a change to the mod system, in that mods would not be bound to a piece of equipment but rather are in a general pool and assigned to equipment based on the loadout.

 

How it would work

 

When a player has selected their warframe, long gun, sidearm, melee and sentinel, they may click 'save loadout.' This saves the selection. In the arsenal, the user has a drop-down list of their saved loadouts. The user is free to edit their current set of equipment without saving it as a loadout, as a loadout is simply a 'load this set of equipment' button. 

When a player mouses over a mod in their arsenal, it will show what loadouts that mod is attached to, with an optional icon over mods currently assigned to a loadout. If selling or using fusion on a mod would 'break' a certain loadout, an extra warning appears before fusion or selling. 

If a player has upgraded a mod such that the assigned rank of mod is no longer available, a warning icon will be next to that loadout until it is loaded again and a message displayed, such as "Point Strike 3 upgraded to Point Strike 4." If the mod availability has been changed such that a mod in a loadout cannot be loaded due to lack of energy, or a mod is no longer in the inventory (such as being sold or used as fusion food), a warning will display at the time of the fusion/selling that it will 'break' certain loadouts. If there are duplicates of a mod used in a loadout at the same rank, the warning icon only appears on the first one.

 

Benefits to the game

 

1. Players more likely to seek out more warframes and weapons (including cash purchases). The ability to quickly load a specialized piece of equipment when preparing for a mission (such as infestation gear vs Grineer gear) makes purchasing that specialized gear more attractive. 

2. Less time spent in the inventory screen = more time playing = more likely to purchase items.

3. Makes it more fun to level new warframes and weapons thanks to easily changing between 'strong warframe, weak gun' and 'weak warframe, strong gun' layouts. By maintaining variety, it keeps the gain entertaining.

 

Evidence for benefits to the game

1. My evidence for loadouts directly increasing cash shop purchases is from my experience in Planetside 2. For a long time I had a single 'build' for each of the classes. When I discovered the loadouts, I was soon purchasing more equipment, even specialized equipment, because I could easily select it before spawning. I went from just having a generic "Rocket launcher guy" to three builds: An anti-air build, a general lock-on build (for fighting both land and air) and an anti-infantry build. Each loadout has its own armor, grenade, utility item, ability, main gun, sidearm and rocket launcher slot. If not for the loadouts, I would not have purchased all those extra weapons because they wouldn't be practical.

For example: If I am killed by a tank in an area, I can quickly grab my long-ranged anti-tank loadout and spawn at the nearest available point to seek revenge. If I didn't have the loadout, the tank would likely be out of the valley by the time I selected all the equipment specifics.

2. My evidence for how more time in game will affect cash shop purchases is envy. What often drives players to desire a new piece of equipment is seeing someone else use it. More time interacting with other players equals more time seeing potential items to equip.

3. My evidence for increasing the fun is based on one of the rules I frequently see passed around informally: "If you're leveling a new warframe, bring a good gun. If you're leveling a new gun, bring a good warframe." Loadouts allow players to spend some time working on a new gun, then spend some time working on a new warframe, while both obeying this rule and quickly changing between them. If the player then wants to go back to their good gun and good warframe, it's just a button away rather than 2 minutes and 40 clicks. 

 

Difficulties

 

1. Requires an overhaul of the current mod system, which assigns mods to pieces of equipment such that changing equipment makes the mod inaccessible until the equipment is one again equipped.

2. Interaction between loadouts and mods. Mousing over a particular mod for fusion would require the system to see what loadouts that mod is used in, which gets tricky when factoring in duplicate mods.

 

Thank you

 

Thank you very much for reading this. I welcome your feedback; if you think there is something wrong with this idea, please state how you think it can be improved. That the idea does not specifically benefit you is not a problem.

[Bitfly]

Yes. And please include saved colors for each set :p I spend just as much time re-coloring all my gear as I do changing mods back and forth when I switch loadout

[Sontag]

This would be an amazing addition to the game. There have been several time where I kept a specific item in my loadout because it was more all purpose and would keep me from having to reslot everything if i went to a different system or played a tougher mission type.

[Mak_Gohae]

i didnt read any of that but there were loadouts option in this game for a second before it was taken away because the UI wasnt working properly.

Yes, we do really need that because i run different loadout for each faction and, yes, we need for colors as well because taking a picture to look back if you want to go to that color is annoying. And given the fact that they sell color packs which makes you want to try different looks.....this should really be in there.

[xenapan]

I disagree. We need a Remove all mods button. Thats about it.

 

a) not every weapon will have the same space on it. Your examples listed 2 mods per frame. Entirely unrealistic unless they are just starting out.

b) your loadouts obviously do not even remotely use up all the energy a maxed out frame would have. -> how do loadouts deal with upgraded mods? do they "remember" the mod even if it gets upgraded? but what if one frame now has more energy and can support it but the other cant? what if you have upgraded a mod which requires a polarity slot already in use (so it needs to be swapped with another mod in the loadout to make it work) what if the other frame just cant support the new mod?  how do you deal with "States" with all the mods, frames changing all the time? Sure all that "logic" stuff could be done. but after the paragon system gets put in (eventually) each weapon and frame will have their own set of polarities after you have played for a long time. it wont just be 6/10 slots on a frame that have polarity.. it will be all 10 because YOU chose them. and you could choose a different set of polarities on a different frame but with the same loadout. loads and loads of "logic" errors to fix and frankly I dont think its worth the dev team's time. not to mention not everyone will agree with their solution to it. especially which mod gets bumped if you run out of energy? or does the mod get removed from every single loadout its part of after an upgrade?

c) they have better stuff to work on. clan stuff, lore stuff, new weapons (something starting with a G i recall from the last livestream), new frames, probably new tilesets if not new entire maps... hopefully more ninja-y stuff and parkour... and bugfixes.. even IF they wanted loadouts... this isnt exactly a high priority thing as it doesnt really enhance the game. its not part of the gamePLAY. its part of the stuff you do while not really playing the game and frankly not all that important. I'd personally really love a "remove all mods" button just so it would be faster. Maybe a most recently used mods box for the weapon type. That kinda stuff might take em a few hours they might consider working on. but a project as complicated as loadouts? that will almost definitely have to wait (for all the above reasons) You gotta remember these developers are humans. they work on the same 24 hour days as the rest of us and they push out updates every 2 weeks roughly. I'm not sure how much you know about programming but 2 weeks is a VERY FAST release schedule. The big stuff might take 2 or 3 blocks of those at most but this "loadouts" idea would take much longer to implement than 1 block of time.

[Bitfly]

I disagree. We need a Remove all mods button. Thats about it.

I wouldn't use this. No point in taking off warframe abilities or other mods you don't plan to take off

[xenapan]

I wouldn't use this. No point in taking off warframe abilities or other mods you don't plan to take off

Eh. half the time i take off mods just to upgrade them.

[securitywyrm]

In counter to Xenapan's disagreements

Regarding "2 mods per weapon." That specifically said it was just an example to demonstrate mods being shared across loadouts. It said "This is just an example."

Regarding "your loadouts obviously do not even remotely use up all the energy a maxed out frame would have." Again, this was just an EXAMPLE, listing a few mods to show how one mod could be used in multiple frames without having to unequip it from one to put it on the other.

In regards to "do they "remember" the mod even if it gets upgraded?" Please re-read the post. That is covered.

In regards to "but what if one frame now has more energy and can support it but the other cant?" Please re-read the post. That is covered.

 

The answer to the rest of your questions, all 32 of them, is "That was covered in the post."

 

However, your final reason, "This doesn't benefit me personally so I am against it" is pretty funny. Thanks for that.

[Garth_Tremor]

I would also like them to include something like this.

But for the moment I would be happy with asigning each loadout slot with warframe, primary, sec, melee and sentinel (or no sentinel for stealth missions).

[Thingofmyth]

DE could even charge plat for extra load outs (other than 2 or 3 starting load outs) or even increase the load outs by 1 every 2 mastery ranks