Update Aspects Of The Game Design To Modern Standards

[Calayne]

1) They also add to the challenge of the game.  True a game should not be based soley around RNG for difficulty but you can handle ammo pickups by either killing enemies, smashing containers, or opening lockers.  The weapons that are fast to run out of ammo are balanced that way otherwise they would be too powerful.

2) The point for having seperate weapon pickups is that it makes certain ammo rarer, such as shotgun or sniper ammo, because they deal so much more damage than a rifle than if they had the same pickups then there would be even less of a reason to not use what are already the strongest weapons in the game.  The Hek is a prime example.  It can easily 1 or 2 shot most mooks in the game and if ammo for it were a lot more common then it would be even more over powered than it is.

Even if you make ammo omni ammo and hand-wave it away then it would have to drop either less often, or provide less ammo per pickup.  That wouldn't really work with your point above because if it dropped as commonly or restored just as much or more ammo the game would be easier than it already is.

3) This is largely untrue.  The more enemies you fight the higher chance ammo will drop simply because you are dropping more enemies.  And if you need ammo that badly you can smash open containers, or open lockers to get either credits or ammo drops from them.  Even when playing a defense mission though the ground quite often ends up littered in ammo pickups, even if its an ammo type that I am using in that mission.

4) They have tried a cooldown system and it didnt work to the pace of gameplay that they wanted so they changed to an energy system.  One benefit of this is that you CAN spam you ultimate, or a lower level ability, as long as you have the energy.  I play an Ash and use my shuriken to very quickly kill a group of 5 enemies standing next to each other a distance away.  I dont think it would be as much fun if I had to go "Use it wait 3 to 5 seconds, use it again..." and repeat.  Plus an energy system doesnt encourage sitting in corners as much as a cooldown system want and the devs dont want to encourage sitting in corners.

Balancing the cooldowns is another problem.  Some skills such as slash dash should have a much longer cooldown than others even if it is a "tier 1" ability.  Others would need much shorter.  Having more or less flat energy costs avoids people complaining that its unfair that this ability takes so long when its tier one compared to other tier one abilities and such.

Also if you get streamline or flow, or both, you will find yourself with more than enough power to spare.  And the thing with that is its a choice.  You get to choose: "Do I want more health or more energy" or stamina, or shields, or a faster shield recharge.  It makes you think and gives you a choice to make.  It avoids having warframes that are all the same because without energy management you would only have health, shields, armor, and stamina.  Boost those and at the same levels most people would be the same.  As it is it gives diversity and choices to the players as to what type of gameplay they want to work towards.

You get to choose if you want to be more power orientated or faster or tankier.  And that is a very good thing that the energy system actually helps.

 

 

Haha, I definitely agree with the comment regarding the advantages of an energy system. Hmm, I don't think I've gotten far enough to appreciate how much I can use my powers yet, but considering that maximum energy increases by rank now, it's definitely a plus. However, I do maintain that it needs some modification of some sort for the lower levels, and for the higher levels, it could still benefit from the changes.

 

Regarding ammunition though, I think the universal ammunition is a good idea, -especially- because some weapons are far more powerful than others. Reducing it to Primary and Secondary ammo drops only actually gives them more control over ammo efficiency. As a tired example, I'll use the Lex and Afuris, polar opposites of play style.

 

+20 round per ammo drop

Lex does 70+ damage per hit unmodded

Afuris does 14+ per hit, unmodded.

The difference is exponential. 

 

Another example:

+20 rounds per rifle drop

Braton does 17+ damage per hit unmodded

Latron does a badass 36+ per hit unmodded.

 

"God created all men equal", said many a dude, "But Godammit, ammo is not equal to all guns".

 

Assuming we do change to the proposed system, and assuming it drops less often than total ammo drops now, which is really basically raining useless glowing boxes:

Lex instead gets 10 bullets,

Afuris gets about 45, bringing their total potential damage closer.

Latron gets 15,

Batron gets 30+ish, with the same logic.

Paris should have more 15 per drop, because of its lower fire-rate and necessity to charge to hit.

 

And this is ignoring that the weapons may potentially miss, and also without considering the exact drop rate yet. The higher the drop rate is, the lower these number will go. Yet, the main idea stays: Ammo drops cannot be absolute. It must be scaled to be fair to all the weapons.

 

As for us being a minority that wants the game to be made easier, this will actually make it harder for me: Going by the suggestion, my Latron and Strun will be getting much less ammo per drop now, and will actually run the risk of running out. At this moment in time, I believe many have stated they've never run out of ammo, and I believe this is one reason why, other than having God-like weapons and modded ammo capacities and artifacts. As a poster had previously said, now, if I play poorly, I will be appropriately "Punished".

 

At the same time, this will make it less likely for people using high fire-rate weapons to run out of ammo while still severely under-performing their high-damage, low-fire-rate counterparts. In a similar vein, now I am more likely to use Primary Ammo Box refills, rather than have it stagnate in my inventory, never to see the light of many stars of Space.

 

Edit: Taking shotguns into consideration, I'd say Boar needs more ammo than Strun, which needs more or about the same ammo than Hek, which leads to Hek having the lowest ammo. I think it's only fair, given their accuracy, fire rate and damage.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Calayne

[stortz]

Your ammo idea is absolutely idiotic, the way it is now encourages you to save ammo/ play tactical. 

 

If you are running out of ammo, just use a shotgun, they never run out.

 

 

The exploration idea is great, I think there should be rare stuff hidden in the levels, encouraging to explore the whole base/ship. 

 

 

AND NO COOLDOWNS, energy system is fine, this isn't a @(*()$ rpg where you just spam abilities to auto-win, you gotta be smart about it.

 

 

 

I call bullS#&$ that you're a real game designer, your ideas aren't smart and they reek of "PLZ MAKE TIS GAME EZ". l2p

 

edit: also:

 

"To give some context, I am a professional game designer. You have very possibly played a game I have worked on. While I post this personally, and not as a part of my team, policy is still to avoid giving away our association on the internet. Sorry!

 

 

HAHA bullS#&$, there is no such rule anywhere, game designers can disclose where they work, it's game design, not the freaking Manhattan Project. This is something a teenager would come up with to make people take them seriously. GG brotha

Edited April 18, 2013 by stortz

[Tsukinoki]

 

I call bullS#&$ that you're a real game designer, your ideas aren't smart and they reek of "PLZ MAKE TIS GAME EZ". l2p

I wouldn't go so far as to insult him, but he seems to think that if it isn't modern it isn't a good game design which simply isnt true.  You DONT need to follow all of the hot/new things in game design to make a solid game and this game is a proving point of that.  They went to energy because it works with system and is fun.  So what if its dated.  It works and is very fun in this type of gameplay.

The current ammo system does punish you for spray and pray tactics, which having universal ammo would make viable tactics.  Ninja are supposed to be accurate.

Let me re-iterate: MODERN does not automatically mean good and Dated does not automatically mean bad.  If that were the case why are old games still a ton of fun to play through?  Take old shooters that people still play because the gameplay is fun and works for that game.

What is new and shiny isn't always what is best.  Cooldowns work in other games, but not highspeed games like warframe.  The abilities are made to make you feel powerful, and you cant deny you feel powerful unleashing your ultimate twice or more on a large enough group of enemies, or from quickly spamming a lower level ability to deal with them.  You add cooldowns and you remove one of the things that makes this game fun and what makes it stand out above other shooters.  It would also make some abilities either near useless or severely overpowered, Loki's invisibility being a big one.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Calayne]

Your ammo idea is absolutely idiotic, the way it is now encourages you to save ammo/ play tactical. 

 

If you are running out of ammo, just use a shotgun, they never run out.

 

 

 

Case in point: Shotguns now never run out of ammo, even though the above comment also mentioned that the way it is now encourages conserving ammunition. I believe we have a paradox amongst weapons.

 

 

I wouldn't go so far as to insult him, but he seems to think that if it isn't modern it isn't a good game design which simply isnt true.  You DONT need to follow all of the hot/new things in game design to make a solid game and this game is a proving point of that.  They went to energy because it works with system and is fun.  So what if its dated.  It works and is very fun in this type of gameplay.

The current ammo system does punish you for spray and pray tactics, which having universal ammo would make viable tactics.  Ninja are supposed to be accurate.

 

I agree that it doesn't have to follow modern mechanics. And admittedly, it is very fun the way it is. However, I think Ninja-ness aside, some weapons are inherently more inaccurate than others, and most people just do with less than 70% or so accuracy. 30% accuracy for Afuris is actually more than ten bullets each clip, possibly in the fifties to hundreds of wasted ammo per game, and it's normally much higher than that. It cannot account for the meager ammo drops, and I believe that before you dump tens of thousands of credits and dozens and dozens of mods into min-maxing the build of high-fire-rate weapons, they're always going to under-perform their high damage competitors while always running out of ammo first. It just won't be fair for those who have lower damage and accuracy.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Calayne

[Babalenong]

extremely agree on making secondary have unlimited ammo, the reason im using lex/bronco is so i wont run out of ammo because of the great ammo economy, meanwhile the afuris blows through ammo real quick and its just not worth blowing the clip out, this will fix the secondary issue we are having currently and i would love to try afuris fully modded

and no, lex and bronco wont be overpowered due to unlimited ammo, without the unlimited ammo their ammo wont run out anyway

[Tsukinoki]

I agree that it doesn't have to follow modern mechanics. And admittedly, it is very fun the way it is. However, I think Ninja-ness aside, some weapons are inherently more inaccurate than others, and most people just do with less than 70% or so accuracy. 30% accuracy for Afuris is actually more than ten bullets each clip, possibly in the fifties to hundreds of wasted ammo per game, and it's normally much higher than that. It cannot account for the meager ammo drops, and I believe that before you dump tens of thousands of credits and dozens and dozens of mods into min-maxing the build of high-fire-rate weapons, they're always going to under-perform their high damage competitors while always running out of ammo first. It just won't be fair for those who have lower damage and accuracy.

At that point its not something so much with the system but with the USER.

I mean, if you cant aim an auto-pistol like the twin vipers and get nearly all of their rounds into your target maybe you should use something else?  I have seen people with the Afuris and twin vipers not run out of ammo because they were smart as to when they used them and how they fired them.  Sure they burn through ammo fast but thats to negate how fast they can deal damage.

You have infinate ammo and mod your twin vipers for electrical damage and reloading.  Corpus are going to be infinately easier because even though you aren't dealing much electrical damage its x4 against corpus.  See the problem with that?  Fast reload + fast fire rate + infinite ammo = broken weapon.

When I first started using my akboltos I actually ran out of ammo a few times.  Why?  I wasnt aiming carfully enough.  And if you dont aim and mod your weapons properly you are going to run out of ammo.  They may have lower damage per bullet but the twin vipers can hit a LOT more often then my akboltos can.  Dealing their damage a LOT faster, meaning their DPS is higher.

[Calayne]

Good point. That's definitely one of the insane advantages of high fire rate weapons, but I believe if you spam a high-damage weapon fast enough, it'll keep up to an extent. And by that logic of adding mods, Lex can benefit from multishot, hornet strike and the same electrical damage mods, among other offensive modifiers that one can add.

 

Hmm, it's true about the accuracy thing, though. But I'd still like to mention that it was an illustration that assuming one gets 70% accuracy, which is quite high, Afuris and so on are still unsustainable for any extended period, contrary to just about any other weapon. The Braton, which is the other example of a low-damage high-rate-of-fire weapon, also suffers from the same problem. So if I like high ROF weapons, what's the problem with using two, I think? 

 

I still would like to point out that the issues presented do not invalidated the recommended solution: Some weapons almost never run out of ammo throughout the mission, barring intense wastage, whereas some weapons still manage to run out of ammo despite careful conservation. I would never condone infinite ammo for a game like this. But I maintain that the ammo drops could be better managed, both to make it easier for low-fire-rate weapons to run out of ammo without careful aim, and to make it harder for high-fire-rate weapons to run out of ammo even with the most careful usage.

 

Edit: By the way, do Afuris or any dual-weapons crit? If not, I think Lex has that advantage for mods with 15% crit rate unmodded, according to the wiki.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Calayne

[Tsukinoki]

I still would like to point out that the issues presented do not invalidated the recommended solution: Some weapons almost never run out of ammo throughout the mission, barring intense wastage, whereas some weapons still manage to run out of ammo despite careful conservation. I would never condone infinite ammo for a game like this. But I maintain that the ammo drops could be better managed, both to make it easier for low-fire-rate weapons to run out of ammo without careful aim, and to make it harder for high-fire-rate weapons to run out of ammo even with the most careful usage.

 

Edit: By the way, do Afuris or any dual-weapons crit? If not, I think Lex has that advantage for mods with 15% crit rate unmodded, according to the wiki.

Dual-weapons do crit, I've gotten plenty of crits with my akboltos.  They may have a lower chance but the faster firing rate makes up for that in the end.

The point with a single universal ammo system is that you get to: Does it restore both rifle and pistol ammo?  Or just what you have currently in your hands or what?  If it restores both you are left with everyone spray-and-praying their way through missions because its impossible to run out of ammo, and if you only restore one its a pain in the &#! to switch back and forth to restore ammo for a specific weapon.

And that is something that the thread doesnt make clear.  If you strip out the pistols have unlimited ammo that requires two ammo drop sources.  Which if Im not mistaken all pistols share pistol ammo (not quite sure about the bronco though).  I maintain that ammo boxes are fairly cheap to buy one every so often and have it equipped as a just in case, as well as to try to bring weapons that complement each other if you are having difficulties.

I have seen successful runs of someone with two automatic weapons without either one running out of ammo, but I have also seen people waste ammo and not make it through with a latron.

Having a single and unified ammo drop chance only serves to reward spray-and-pray and removes the reward for properly modding your weapons and being careful with aiming.

The other thing a change like this will bring to weapons is it will either break some weapons, or buff them to a point that you would be stupid to not use it.  Why give more ammo to afuris when that would make it even a bigger reason to avoid the furis and go to its dual counter part?  And while weapons like the Hek need a balance, decreasing the ammo to the point where it would "balanced" on the scale you presented earlier would be not even getting a full base clip per pickup.  While that would somewhat balance it they should achieve balance between the weapons a different way.

One thing I think that would solve peoples issues here is simply to have some sort of respawning ammo sources while you are fighting a boss, similar to how Jackal currently works.  Really you are only in danger of running out of ammo against some bosses and defense missions if you go beyond waves 20, which is supposed to be difficult.

EDIT: One thing to remember about weapon crits is if you have a +30% crit bonus it is +30% of the weapons BASE crit bonus, not a flat 30% increase.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Calayne]

Dual-weapons do crit, I've gotten plenty of crits with my akboltos.  They may have a lower chance but the faster firing rate makes up for that in the end.

The point with a single universal ammo system is that you get to: Does it restore both rifle and pistol ammo?  Or just what you have currently in your hands or what?  If it restores both you are left with everyone spray-and-praying their way through missions because its impossible to run out of ammo, and if you only restore one its a pain in the &#! to switch back and forth to restore ammo for a specific weapon.

And that is something that the thread doesnt make clear.  If you strip out the pistols have unlimited ammo that requires two ammo drop sources.  Which if Im not mistaken all pistols share pistol ammo (not quite sure about the bronco though).  I maintain that ammo boxes are fairly cheap to buy one every so often and have it equipped as a just in case, as well as to try to bring weapons that complement each other if you are having difficulties.

I have seen successful runs of someone with two automatic weapons without either one running out of ammo, but I have also seen people waste ammo and not make it through with a latron.

Having a single and unified ammo drop chance only serves to reward spray-and-pray and removes the reward for properly modding your weapons and being careful with aiming.

The other thing a change like this will bring to weapons is it will either break some weapons, or buff them to a point that you would be stupid to not use it.  Why give more ammo to afuris when that would make it even a bigger reason to avoid the furis and go to its dual counter part?  And while weapons like the Hek need a balance, decreasing the ammo to the point where it would "balanced" on the scale you presented earlier would be not even getting a full base clip per pickup.  While that would somewhat balance it they should achieve balance between the weapons a different way.

One thing I think that would solve peoples issues here is simply to have some sort of respawning ammo sources while you are fighting a boss, similar to how Jackal currently works.  Really you are only in danger of running out of ammo against some bosses and defense missions if you go beyond waves 20, which is supposed to be difficult.

EDIT: One thing to remember about weapon crits is if you have a +30% crit bonus it is +30% of the weapons BASE crit bonus, not a flat 30% increase.

 

Crits for akimbo weapons?! Sweet. Now I'm totally raring to start farming for the Twin Vipers.

 

Haha, actually, it's a universal ammo drop, one for primary, one for secondary, but not together. I apologise for the ambiguity, though I mentioned it would be ridiculous if it restored -both- the primary and secondary weapons together. Thought having it separate would be best for us, and for the developers. I do, however, have a ridiculously large pile of ammo boxes from daily logins! Been playing for a couple weeks now, and I get one. Every. Day. *Crumples to the floor*

 

It was noted that Bronco uses pistol ammo, as do Afuris, Aboltos, and any secondary weapon, regardless of firing type and rate of fire. Haha, you gotta let me see those guys with the two super-auto weapons, though! Those must be impressive players, no joke. Are their guns modded though? I'm aware that higher level players mentioned that they rarely ever run out of ammo even for furis. I suspect it's because their weapons have become God-like Artifacts of Divine Slaughter. Or GADS, for short.

 

Thanks for the heads up, about the crit chance bonus thing! I actually found out about it after some careful reading, and also cause 30% would really be ridiculous if it were an absolute bonus.

 

I believe that perhaps the quantities could take some tweaking, as I'm no statistics expert, but the idea is there. As for the gentleman who ran out of ammo using a Latron, I'm not sure what the context was, but... Wow. How long did that take?!! I think Auxy has mentioned that for dual wielding weapons, he'd suggest the ammo drops refill only the clip size of a single pistol of that type. I'm compelled to agree, though the exact number itself, like I pointed out, it entirely up to debate.

 

I'd like to hear some ideas if you have any, though. I think this discussion has been pretty fruitful, oppositions and support and all. I wholeheartedly agree with the boss and endless defence ammo-drop/ammo-spawn thing, though. Sometimes, there is just a need to have your full pay-load at the ready.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Calayne

[Tsukinoki]

Crits for akimbo weapons?! Sweet. Now I'm totally raring to start farming for the Twin Vipers.

 

*snip*

 

It was noted that Bronco uses pistol ammo, as do Afuris, Aboltos, and any secondary weapon, regardless of firing type and rate of fire. Haha, you gotta let me see those guys with the two super-auto weapons, though! Those must be impressive players, no joke. Are their guns modded though? I'm aware that higher level players mentioned that they rarely ever run out of ammo even for furis. I suspect it's because their weapons have become God-like Artifacts of Divine Slaughter. Or GADS, for short.

 

*snip*

 

I believe that perhaps the quantities could take some tweaking, as I'm no statistics expert, but the idea is there. As for the gentleman who ran out of ammo using a Latron, I'm not sure what the context was, but... Wow. How long did that take?!! I think Auxy has mentioned that for dual wielding weapons, he'd suggest the ammo drops refill only the clip size of a single pistol of that type. I'm compelled to agree, though the exact number itself, like I pointed out, it entirely up to debate.

 

I'd like to hear some ideas if you have any, though. I think this discussion has been pretty fruitful, oppositions and support and all. I wholeheartedly agree with the boss and endless defence ammo-drop/ammo-spawn thing, though. Sometimes, there is just a need to have your full pay-load at the ready.

That is why Twin Vipers can eat through ammo.  You max out crits + normal damage and empty an entire clip into a grineers head and you are going to find that they go down quickly.  Its balanced out by the speed they chew through ammo.

Properly modded they can be GADS, even when they dont equip a pistol scavenger artifact which doubles ammo drops of that type, and stacks.  But they specced for maximum ammo size + damage and can tear through enemies without using a ton of ammo.  The real secret though is balancing your guns and your power usage.  If you start using some of your basic damaging powers more often you'll see that your ammo stretches a lot further.

And he ran out of ammo against a boss.  As said some weapons are not meant for bosses, especially ones with very fast regenerating shields.  Also my Akboltos have a 39 bullet clip, it is modded for maximum ammo amount to fight the long reload time though, so 20 bullets is just over half a clip for them.  Further more they can burn through 39 bullets quickly quickly even though they are semi-automatic.  Against bosses if I am not careful I can burn through a clip a bit too fast.  You just have to know how to aim your weapon and how to mod it out.

 

If you mod an auto pistol for very high damage you will see why it can burn through ammo so fast and why giving a much higher ammo drop rate isn't balanced.  If you mod them for maximum ammo and maximum clip sizes you'll see that you can maintain fire for a lot longer.  It all depends on the mods that you put into them and how you use the weapons.  I dont think this game should become a spray and pray type of game.

My ideas are simple: keep ammo drops as it is, maybe increase drop rates of certain types but generally keep it as is.  In exchange add ammo spawners to boss rooms, which is where most people run risks of running low on ammo, and make it have ammo drops every 5 waves in defense as well.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Calayne]

Hmm, those are some very fine points, indeed. Yes, perhaps increasing somewhat ammo drops for certain types would certainly help, and ammo-spawns during boss fights would be a very good idea.

[auxy]

Ahh, what a bunch of posts to reply to! Thanks to everyone who posted, even if a few of you are possibly trolls. I see some people still haven't read the thread, and some others are making very silly responses to points ("running out of ammo? use a shotgun!"). I suppose this idea is a bit too high-concept for some folks.

 

Well, I have to leave shortly, but I'll write up a few longer replies when I have time. I'm dubious that anyone will bother to read them. (╹◡╹) This sort of thing is exactly why most developers don't communicate directly with their playerbase regarding changes to their games! Reading and understanding are key, boys and girls.

[Pathyriel]

The only time I run out of ammo is on solo missions... They need to rework the difficulty and ammo supply on solo vs team play. But ammo is rarely a problem.

 

While there is a little frustration seeing tons of shotgun ammo when all I need is riffle, it doesn't bother me that much. I guess universal ammo would be ok if they lowered ammo drop rate. Though, the design council is voting on some mods one of which is a universal ammo converter - so the idea exists at DE already. I've never felt the need to buy an ammo pack, but 1k credits is pretty easy to come by. 

 

Also, almost everything in game is accessible without plat. It's not pay2win, more like pay4convenience.

 

I will say there is little incentive to explore, which bothers me. They just need more stuff. It's a diablo-esque game without any loot.

 

I will also concede that the player movement feels "loose" - it could use some work. I melee slide spin past enemies all the time. I would use a soft lock though.

[Nonentity]

I agree with pretty much everything said.

 

Cribbing wholesale from the way Mass Effect 3 did a lot of these things would not be the worst idea, though I'm sure they could be adjusted to more fit the pace of this game.

[Liminal]

At first I thought "Oh, crap. Text wall." But then I couldn't stop reading because it's very well written.

Many of the things you suggest may come out as attempts to "dumb down" the game, but I can't deny you've supported all of those elements with very valid arguments.

Yes, different ammo types are ridiculous. Yes, the cheaper powers suffer because of the limited energy pool. Yes, power slots should be bound to keys. I'm not really sure about infinite ammo for secondaries though, in this game they are not your fall back option (they are quite powerful).

[Saint_Tan]

There is some good discussion here.  Definitely makes for a healthy Warframe future.

 

RE: the OP…

 

Agree and disagree on your various points:

 

Antiquated design decision – Although that may be the case, that does not make it a ‘bad’ decision.  Retro gaming is huge right now, be it graphics (Minecraft) or play style (lots and lots of iPhone game apps are like Space Invaders – you just keep going until you finally die.)  If they intended to have an older style feel, then there is no reason why the developers should feel forced to follow the ‘now’ crowd.  Bottom line, we are all here playing the game.  (But I guess you enjoyment may vary…)

 

Random Ammo – I haven’t hit a point where this has been even slightly frustrating.  And I like the tactical/strategic decision you are required to make because of this.  Yes, running out of ammo is possible and could lead to a failed mission.  But that’s part of the game.  Maybe because I buy into the fluff: You’ve dropped onto an enemy ship, crafted by an alien race from another star system, who has their own set of differently designed weapons and ammo on board.  Why would/should your Earth made ammo (as an invader) be convenient to find?

 

Separate Ammo Picks Ups – Pretty much same as above. But going with the Ninja fluff: A ninja would economize on what he would take on a mission.  After using his 9 throwing stars, he would just have to rely on what he could find while ‘out in the field’.  He might be forced to use a different weapon after running out of stars/arrows/throwing knives if more were not found.  A one size fits all on ammo is again convenient, but it also removes a lot of the tension of being trapped on an enemy vessel without the ability to call-in for backup.

 

Frequency of Ammo Pick Ups – This I see both sides equally.  However, there should be no unlimited ammo for anything.  Going with the Left 4 Dead analogy, the close combat weapon here is your ‘weapon with unlimited ammo’.  It always works, is always on hand, and is your fall back weapon when all else fails.  It is the default (and we ARE talking space ninjas here).  Unlimited ammo just means the close combat weapons will be relegated to only: players wanting the ‘authentic ninja flavor.’

 

Energy Mechanic – I am enjoying the game as is.  I would probably enjoy it just the same with the ‘cool downs’ described.  Either way, not a deal breaker for me.

 

No Rewards for Exploring – this was dead on – I totally agree.  We have these expansive maps with nooks and crannies all over, but try finding a set of players that want to take the time to check these out.  And why should they?  Rewards can be found, but not to the expectation of most players.  And on a similar note: Sometimes I feel like the only player who wants to take it slow, crouch, stealthfully try to dodge being discovered for as long as possible.  From the drop in, most players are on a frantic rush to get to the finish line.  Point A to point B – as fast as possible.  Some rewards/Easter eggs may alter this.

 

Slots for Power Mods – Agree. ‘Nuff said.

 

Dodgy Player Physics – I did not even notice this.  Here’s why: It’s a Ninja game.  It’s in outer space.  They are wearing super powered Warframes.  Why not have your warrior do cool “Ninja Scroll” style moves?  Why not utilize the notion of outer space with different gravity levels on planets?  Enemy ships would have their artificial gravity set for what THEY are used to.  And that may not perfectly match what our warriors are accustomed to. Why not have your (ninja) Warframe be designed to give you super human abilities for the combat advantage? You are going in solo (or at least only up to 4) against potentially hundreds.  The suits would be designed to get the job done.  Otherwise just launch a nuke at all the ‘non capture’ mission locations.

 

Just my 2 cents. (Keep the change…) Ha ha

[Ghobe]

I'm not really sure about infinite ammo for secondaries though, in this game they are not your fall back option (they are quite powerful).

I think this right here is a powerful point. Assuming you're gearing properly each weapon should have a purpose. Right now my line up: Rifle with high RoF and decent Damage output(good against most enemies), Pistol has natural armor penetration thus making it really good against enemies with naturally high armor(ancients) and shields(most of corpus, heavy units of grineer), and finally my melee weapon has really high fire damage and multi hit, making it ideal for cleaning out large amounts of melee enemies(infested trash). Just like Doc said, the pistol isn't a fallback, it has a place in regular combat even if your primary weapon still has plentiful amounts of ammo available.

 

And something I still don't understand. What makes you think credits are so precious that you refuse to buy ammo boxes? It sounds more like you don't understand how to farm for money in the game. It's kinda like going to WoW and farming animals and never using the AH and then saying that gold is precious. So elaborate on this for me if you will. I'll give you 2 great farm locations: #1 For raw credits is Volstaj, get the blue print and sell it(3500+ credits for a 2-3 minute run, that's 3 ammo boxes! 9 uses!); #2 For large numbers of mods/exp Kappa on Sedna is a great place to go, just keep your eyes peeled.

[PunCrathod]

I find the concept of a game mechanic being old or outdated hilarious. It's like saying you should not make/eat bread becouse it was invented thousands of years ago.

 

Some weapons are meant to be more ammo efficient. This is balanced by their burst dps and other aspects. I won't pretend the current weapons are balanced but the fix would be to tweak the numbers little by little until finding the sweetspot. If you simplify by making everything omni ammo or giving secondary weapons infinite ammo then you wreck havoc on the current balance and every weapon needs to be totally rebalanced adding months to development time. Also if you are running out of ammo then you are propably trying to play in too high level area. Go to a lower leveled area, get some credits and upgrade your mods for better damage and try again.

 

Also about the abilities use energy and no cooldowns. Cooldowns are nothing new and certainly not any more modern than mana/energy. And personally I hate cooldowns. Cooldowns rarely fit into the lore and most of the time are just arbitary limits that are never explained and make no sense other than "this ability was too powerfull so we added a cooldown to nerf it as we could not think of any better way to fix it because we are lazy and can't think for more than 10 seconds at a time". Cooldowns are just another game mechanic just like "mana/energy/stamina". It has its uses but it's not the universal solvent.

 

I do agree on point #5 Currently if you want to find mods you play defence. If you want to find crafting components you rush bosses. If you want credits you either rush easy bosses for blueprints or rush alerts. There is no benefit on exploring that can't be outdone with rushing a specific type of map or just plain old sitting next to the defendable object where enemies just keep spawning and dropping hordes of loot.

 

And the point #7 it probaly is mostly beta-ism. And seeing as most of the dev team is playing this game too it will likely improve on its own.

 

Oh and to all the "professional game designers". Game designing is not what you think it is.

If you feel like "becouse I'm a game designer I can give tips to other game developers on how to make their game" or "This game mechanic is outdated and should not be used" or my favorite "This is a bad design" then you are not professional and propably not even a game designer. What you should feel is "Hmm. This is an intresting design choice. I wounder how it would work on MY game." or "This game mechanic propably won't work on MY game but when I have time I should check if it could be modified to fit in." and my favorite "This is awesome. Why did I not think of this before. I wonder if I could squeeze this in MY game without messing it up.".

If you think that something is not working out on someone elses game you should just say what is not working and why "I run out of ammo a lot becouse there are not enough ammo drops and it's not fun" and let their game designer think what would be the best way to either making running out of ammo fun or make you not run out of ammo becouse they know the inner workings of the game and what they have not yeat implemented that could fix the problem and as such are most qualified to design the fix. It's their job after all. And if they care about their job or the game they are designing they will think hard to solve the problem. And if they can't come up with an answer they start asking for help. First from their fellow developer team members and if they still can't figure it out they may even ask the community.

Whenever I'm designing anything be it a game or a trip to a restourant. The feedback I find most helpfull is "I don't think this works. You should do something about it.". If I can't come up with a solution myself I ask for help. When you start "This isn't working you should do this instead" most of the time you sound like a jerk like the customers at notalwaysright.com. And If you sound like a jerk the developers might overlook a genuine problem that you tried to point out just because they don't like other people to tell them how to do their job.

 

I'm tired of seeing good games fail becouse there are a few loud jerks whining on the forums "you should do this and that" and when the developers finally give in half of the community is like "Why on earth did you do that for. It was just fine." and the whining jerks are like "meh this fix didn't work out like I imagined. Oh well I'll just go play another game"

 

Oh and op.

NOTE: These are problems I don't see as "beta-isms"; the game obviously has many other problems right now, but I expect most of them will be fixed before release. I hope these problems get addressed as well, but since they are more design-related than technical, I am afraid they will be overlooked.

 

If you really were a game designer you would know that fixing "design-related" problems is still the most important thing their game designer is working on during the open beta. The design team is still working on their design to see what works and what doesn't and how to fix the parts that don't and if the working parts could be further improved. The technical stuff is left for the coders. Or did you think the gamedesign crew went on a vacaition. There are some sad cases(especially with AAA game companies) where the design crew is shipped to start a new project when the game enters beta stage and design related problems that arise at that stage never get fixed resulting in a supbar game.
 

 

Sorry for the wall of text and sorry if I offended someone. It's getting late and I'm getting tired and when I'm tired I get grumpy.

[FatRefrigerator]

This sort of thing is exactly why most developers don't communicate directly with their playerbase regarding changes to their games! Reading and understanding are key, boys and girls.

 

It's unfortunate that a few bad apples can ruin it for everyone.On a more serious note, I'm not going to get into whether you're a game designer for real or not, because honestly, you could say that you're Fred Flintstone(and who is to say otherwise, it's the internet), but it shouldn't affect how people interpret what you have to say. I like all of the ideas that you put forth and think that DE should take them all into serious consideration.

[SFkenny]

I think one of the easier solutions to the ammo problem, other than just getting ammo boxes and going into combat with those, would be the ability to use a Waframe power to snatch an enemy weapon out of their hands and use it for a brief period. Probably for Mag or something.

[Drusus]

A few key points in rebuttal to your suppositions auxy, and no, I have not read the lengthy dissertations throughout the thread.  I simply do not have time for that.

 

Firstly, announcing you are a game designer as you have and whether or not anyone has played your games is irrelevant.  No offense, but it brings your claim of this to bring credence to your point of view into scrutiny and sounds far more like grandstanding.  Either your arguments stand on their logical mechanical assertion or they don't.  Your profession could be garbage man and if the logic is sound, that's all that's relevant.

 

Secondly, I think you operate from a position of false superiority and clearly bad assumptions in your initial statements.  Some of your points have validity, but the majority of them were, in my estimation, missing the mark rather widely in terms of understanding the game tone, intent and overall direction.  It's well and fine for you to establish it takes a direction you, personally, do not care for but there is absolutely nothing to substantiate the posture that somehow Warframe's designers were being sub-standard or less than judicious in their selections of some of the critiques you make.  

 

They are not 'antiquated' but deliberate, and to be perfectly blunt, if 'modern standards' are what have been driving the infinite Call of Duty and Halo rehashes along with generating abortive over-hyped monstrosities like Diablo III, which do indeed adhere to the concepts you are espousing, then I for one am thrilled that the DE team are apparently dinosaurs adhering to some aesthetics of experience that do not correspond to your point of view.

 

Quantifying these as 'problems' in all cases is just misguided and shows a fundamental lack of analysis on your part or considerable arrogance, take your pick.

 

In order:

 

For points 1,2 and 3, Ammunition running out is not an error, but a conscious design choice.  Your points about having infinite pistol ammo completely disregards the value, efficiency and risk/reward application of the entire melee system that, quite un-coincidentally, never runs out of ammunition.  This is not a 'problem', this is a feature of implementation and clearly a deliberate aesthetic and gameplay driving choice that encourages players to be conscious of their resources upon entering the mission and scrounging to balance their resources.

 

It further is tailored to encourage the selection of meaningful equipment and consumption in the cases of ammo boxes, a consumable resource, most notably for dealing with high priority and challenge targets, such as bosses.  As a point of concession, the bosses can indeed still use tweaking here, but that very much _is_ a beta issue rather than some fundamental core failing.

 

You are also negating the fact that doing higher rated content solo should be decidedly difficult and your jackal example indicates you very clearly didn't tailor your selection of equipment for the foe you were facing.  If it was the result of an alert, that's bad luck but the side effect of picking a very situation specific weapon (a stealth sniper tool) and facing a situation where it was decidedly weak (an all out assault case, stealth not a factor).  That too is not a 'game flaw', that's a deliberate point of modulation, in my opinion, and something you fail to account for at all in your initial statements.

 

There is no scenario where weapons running out of ammo is a 'game flaw', it's a decided feature and part of the balance, player agency of choice and overall exploration reward construct to drive you to look for resources in flow or leverage stealth, motion and avoidance to your advantage to conserve resources like ammunition and Power for when needed, in addition to maintaining your health.  That is clear in a structured analysis of the mechanics at play.

 

On points 2, 3 & 4 you completely neglect the point of Artifacts as player agency to influence these variables, quite significantly, in lieu of other advantages like raw damage or health regeneration, both for solo play or in team composition.  That's a pretty significant variable to just discount entirely to argue for a massive overhaul of mechanics to suit your personal aesthetic preferences mechanically.  

 

It's also worth noting that the Energy system is expressly so there is no value to just sitting and allowing full regeneration, unless you make the conscious choice to slot for energy regeneration in artifacts; same goes for health.  It rewards active exploration and successful enemy engagement.  rather than simply logging time, and it does indeed drive people to whack open a crate or open a side room, to keep their energy pool up for when they need it.  Again, this is a defining, meaningful, deliberate feature of the implementation and not a mechanical flaw, countering your assertion.

 

I also find it odd that you throughout your analysis ignore the fundamental importance of the VRVI (that's Variable Ratio, Variable Interval for the unitiated, so as not to speak in code) reinforcement schedule all the gathering elements represent to shape and fuel player behaviour.  Everything from modules to resources to ammo is on a VRVI reinforcement to guarantee that sense of reward throughout all actions of acquisition throughout the game, with the only set rewards being focused on mission\target completion, rewarding skilled accomplishment in conjunction with the addictive and enjoyable gambling reward schema.  This, by the way, is something any game designer worth their salt should be recognizing immediately, youthful or experienced.

 

On point 5, you have somewhat of a point, I grant you.  The issue here is that clearly mods outstrip resources and credit finds (discounting the value in ensuring your ammunition stores on a given mission) in terms of player perceived and functional value.  That does indeed need some address on mechanical grounds but even the argument that exploring for more foes to secure more mods should be factored into the value of exploration.  The bigger issue here is simply one of reward to risk scaling, in general, and we already know that DE is examining, modifying and improving this aggressively.  I don't agree with your take on the particulars here, but I concur with you that it needs further expansion; expansion, _in line_ with the tone of the other features already in play in the game.

 

Point 6, to me, seems to be splitting hairs about interface and keymapping.  I see your point about general powers and some expanded down-road flexibility, but to be honest, this reads like a suggestion rather than a mechanical analysis and if we can key map the inputs as we see fit, I don't see your point here.  The Warframes were envisioned as being ability specific, with the array of customization from the modules we slot into our suits and weaponry;  What I find more surprising in your assessment is you didn't touch on, at all, on how the large majority of modulation is in the single channel of damage delivery, which I would have thought a basic analysis would show as a legitimate potential problem, rather than the Warframe power details you expounded upon.  As for your comments being 'forward looking', I don't agree with you.  The Mods system already offers a wealth of customization, tailoring, mechanical impact and meaningful choice despite being fairly single channel along the damage channel of tailoring.

 

Point 7, yes, there are bugs in the motion flow and melee items.  Agreed and this is definitely a beta issue.  Despite this, Warframe, as an open beta offering is already at a significantly higher polish level than a goodly number of released products in the past year (Defiance or Aliens: Colonial Marines leap to mind), despite these annoyances.  Further refinements are indeed necessary but these seem pretty clearly in the realm of bug fix rather than implementation/design issues from where I sit.  The hard lock, your describe, is a mechanical component in direct conflict with the flow and control of motion we have now, appropriate for different game models than this one.  I should also point out, implementation of such a 'feature' would alienate just as many as it would please I suspect, and be a zero sum gain at best, purely affecting preference rather than a mechanical imperative.

 

Lastly, your assertion of the 'pay2win' nature, as I have expounded elsewhere, directly ignores the accepted common definitions of this term amongst any game industry veterans I know and associate with regularly.  There is nothing, I repeat, nothing that is 'pay2win' in Warframe as you can experience a huge component of the content, through entirely free means, without spending a red cent.  Additionally, there is no point where monetary investment gives you a competitive advantage against another player at this time.

 

The only 'egregious and shameless' action in regards to the pay2win of Warframe is your characterization of it as such, in my opinion.

 

I give you top marks for endeavoring to be polite and constructive, from your point of view.  It's commendable that you went to the initial lengths to do so and engage politely over time throughout the thread.

 

However, your 'youth' is showing in your inexperience of assuming that somehow just because something is a current or modern convention it is automatically superior and better.  It also completely disregards the value in deliberate choices or other aesthetic and mechanical conventions applied to tailor a different, unique and entirely marketable and engaging experience unlike everything else doing the 'modern standard'.

 

Again, I give you top marks for your effort at conveying your point of view.  

 

I, however, disagree quite strongly with a considerable scope of your analysis as solving problems that are not there and mistaking your preferences for mechanical failings.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Drusus

[Aggh]

The wall of text on ammo pick ups misses the fact that it's very hard to run out of ammo if you aim properly, loot crates/lockers, and know when to use an ability or melee in order to conserve ammo for when you need it.  The fact that most modern games don't encourage you to conserve your resources has never really sat well with me. 

 

I miss the days of Deus ex, system shock, thief etc. etc. where I'd have to scrounge/save up for ammo and consider whether or not an enemy was worth using up ammo on.  Sure warframe isn't anywhere near that kind of level required resource conservation, but encouraging players to save up things for when they're needed is something that not enough games do now a days.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Aggh

[Drusus]

The wall of text on ammo pick ups misses the fact that it's very hard to run out of ammo if you aim properly, loot crates/lockers, and know when to use an ability or melee in order to conserve ammo for when you need it.  The fact that most modern games don't encourage you to conserve your resources has never really sat well with me.

 

Completely agree.

[dEEkAy2k9]

You got some valid points there and i have to agree with you that the ammo system really needs some revamping.

 

There are a few setups i tried until now, let me just point out the difference of two setups.

 

Setup 1

 

Primary: Shotgun (Strun as i am still Rank 3 and want the Hek)

Secondary: Lex (compensating my close range primary)

Melee: Depending on the Map but mostly my heavy Scindo

 

Setup 2

 

Primary: Gorgon

Secondary: Twin Vipers

Melee: same as Setup 1

 

now here comes the difference.

 

With Setup 1 it is almost impossible to run out of ammo. I do not even have any +max ammo mods or +ammo drop artifacts and still my shotgun never really drops below 80 ammo (outside clip). same goes for the lex, i can shoot and reload as much as i want, i cant get below 150 ammo (outside clip). still everything dies pretty fast and i don't have to pay attention to "not waste ammo".

 

With Setup 2 it is VERY easy to run out of ammo. Twin Vipers just fart out their whole magazine in a second and thats 28 unmodded rounds. mostly those 28 unmodded rounds last for 1 or maybe 2 enemies where's the lex may even kill 3-4 or at best case 6 enemies with her 6 unmodded rounds clip.

The Gorgon itself is pretty good if you pay attention to your ammo since it start of slow and then speeds up but if you have a few enemies in front of you, your 90 unmodded rounds from your clip will just dissappear.

 

Somethings needs to be done with the ammo system. There are some weapons that just chew down your ammo reserves in no time. the twin vipers are very fun but "farting" out my 28 shots in a seconds and only being able to kill maybe 3 enemies best case whereas the lex might kill 6 with 6 shots while still having the same amount of pistol ammo being dropped and the maximum pistol ammo being the same for every setup.

 

Either drop atleast 1 clip per ammo box (in my opinion the best way) or scale it off the maximum clip/maximum ammo size someone has got. Unlimited ammo sounds like a bad idea on sidearms here on warframe since a few sidearms are able to outperform primary weapons.

 

As for the Powersystem, i am still waiting for my trinity to be crafted but yes, there has to be done something too. while it is really funny to dash around with about 175 power (excalibur and flow equipped). it somehow feels not right being able to spam your skills that often if you happen to have a few blue spheres lie around. especially with trinity being aple to regenerate up to 100 energy to each of your team members, it might be a bit unbalanced.

 

something different might be a rage meter. power does not drop randomly nor does it regenerate or have cooldowns but you have to generate power with your attacks. depending on the damage you are doing with your weapons you get rage and each skill costs some rage. this would make combat a bit more active and less ability spamming.

[Aggh]

Lol.  Missed the professional game designer bit.  If you don't have the balls to say what you've worked on while using that to lend credence to your opinion on someone else's work, don't bother bringing it up.  It's an incredibly low class thing to do and anyone can say that and not back it up with facts.

 

For all we know, the OP worked on Deus ex: Invisible war.  In which case I would take his thoughts on ammo drops even less seriously.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Aggh