Update Aspects Of The Game Design To Modern Standards

[Eurhetemec]

After getting a machine pistol and killing things in a level 20ish alert with it at level 0,(and i am not talking about 3 clips to kill either) all I can say is infinite ammo on pistols would unbalance the game.

 

Not to be rude, but this is a good example of how people aren't thinking the OP's suggestions through at all.

 

Obviously, if pistols had infinite ammo, they would need to be rebalanced. That's not even in question. Assuming they'd be as they are now is, well, silly, to say the least.

 

A reasonable criticism of the infinite ammo proposal is that it would be boring, or that it would require pistols to be too weak to justify it.

 

"Pistols are too powerful for that right now!" is not, however, a reasonable or logical criticism, I'm afraid.

 

Personally I'm against infinite ammo for pistols, but to criticise the OP's ideas, one should at least think them through logically, rather than assuming the most unbalanced thing possible was intended. It's like if I said "Everyone should carry a mobile phone at all times", and you were like "OMG EVEN IN THE SHOWER?!". It goes without saying that wasn't meant, just like it goes without saying that changes require rebalancing.

[OxexRaclir]

That was a long read. While I appreciate the effort you put into it I disagree with most of what you're actually proposing. I'll state why and follow up with examples from personal experience.

Ammo

Yeah, running out of ammo is pretty terrible. It happened to me a few times, especially when fighting that boss that drops frost blueprints and the first time I fought Hyena with a group of friends, we actually had to leave one guy kiting it while the rest of us ran around the level scouring for ammo. That was about a week ago. Now? Every boss in the game falls over fairly quickly if I pick the right frame and put on the right mods.

Frankly when I started I had no clue what I was doing. Toxic Ancient? Shoot it in the head! Corpus Boxhead? In the head! Grinner? Quick use uncharged melee attacks! When I stepped back (due to frustration at how S#&$ I was) and asked people how2getgud they explained things like armor piercing and elemental damage and how I should change weapons if I know I'm going to fight infested etc etc. In other words play smart not pray and spray.

Since than (and with a much higher levelled frame and weapon under my belt) everything gets finished with ammo to spare and tons of pickups on the ground.

tl;dr Ammo is fine L2P

Ammo Variety

This really ties in to the last point but after a certain amount of experience actually playing the game players should not be running out of ammo, unless they somehow got from mercury to Pluto while AFK. It's not a bad idea, just unnecessary and falls to preference. Some people prefer the realism that comes from shotguns requiring boxes of pellets and rifles 5.5's and others want one magical techno clip.

Enemy Count vs Clip Count

The same as the other two sections above. Ammo Scarcity is simply not a problem in this game unless you are playing poorly.

Energy

When I first started playing (as a (terrible) Loki) I had 150 energy and that was gone pretty quickly as I shouted obscenities and spammed invisibility and decoy. Now that I have the option to take Max Streamline/Continuity/Flow and energy Siphon I find I usually end games with full energy. Granted somewhere between day 1 and today I learned how to use my abilities to the greatest effect.

Exploration

I usually explore when I'm soloing since I want creds and affinity orbs. Everyone likes free mods.

General Powers

Rebinding and rearranging the orders the frame powers sho win would be cool. Adding general powers is just ridiculous.

Dash is Volt's ability Speed. It's Volt's ability, and frankly you can wave dash faster with Zorens.

Grenade is mimiced by tons of projectile abilities, though I would love to have a nade launcher type weapon or frame ability, maybe when they add in more power for the frames.

Spin Attack - Sprint->Slide->Attack = Spin Attack

Super Jump - Great until you learn how to wall run.

Movement

It is kinda floaty sometimes.

[Aggh]

 

 

ANECDOTES!ヽ(｀Д´#)ﾉ Hehe. Deus Ex: Invisible War is one of my favorite games of all time. I think it deserves a place right alongside the other Deus Ex games in the annals of gaming history. All of the Ion Storm games are underrated IMO, especially Anachronox. Such a cool game!

Invisible wars was a stain on the franchise and the decision to go to a universal ammo system was one of the poorest design decisions ever made.  I don't know how the meaning of the reference was lost to you.

 

 

 

I think you're a little confused on my point about exploration. I actually said that the poor quality of loot available is what discourages exploration, not the other way around.  "The loot is lackluster" is more or less what I said, though not in so few words. Perhaps I should have been more concise? (╹◡╹) Well, that's probably true. Still, I think it's a little unfair of you to say that I "miss the mark, as usual" when you misread me.

 

 

No, it's you who has misunderstood.  I'm talking about how all the possible loot is lackluster because of the lack of truly rare or unique stuff, you, on the other hand, complained about the lackluster quality of what's found in crates in storage lockers.  Again, you're taking a step in the right direction, but still not quite there. 

 

Even if they added mods to lockers, they would be ignored or only the ones on the quickest route would be looted since it would still be nowhere as efficient as running defense missions.  There needs to be truly rare loot before most people will consider going around exploring every part of a map.  Possibly even rare loot that can only be found in storage containers even.

 

 

Same old rag: melee isn't always applicable or appropriate, some weapons run out of ammo after just a few kills, ammo boxes aren't a good long-term solution. (´Д⊂ヽ

Melee is applicable in 99% of situations and against some bosses or with certain frames, is more powerful than any gun could possibly hope to be.  It seems like a lot of your gripe with the ammo system stems from some misunderstanding of basic mechanics.

 

 

Fond of losing half your health to meleeing Toxic Ancients, are you? (´Д⊂ヽ

 

Ammo boxes are 1000 credits. I'm sure they are useful, but I have too many other things to spend my credits on.

 

Don't get too fixated on the idea of unlimited ammo. The point is that the current ammo system is broken, and warrants revision. Unlimited secondary ammo was just one idea that I proposed. Others have also proposed great ideas.

 

 

PARIS is my "main" primary weapon, and I don't have too much trouble with ammo as long as I am careful to make every shot count. I do a lot of punching people with my FURAX too, so that probably helps. (╹◡╹) I'm definitely using more PARIS arrows now, since I'm trying to level up my AFURIS, and it's really exacerbated the problem, since I can't rely on my nearly-useless secondary for anything.

 

I also do a lot of exploring, so I'm still squeaking by on ammo most of the time. I'm just barely squeaking by, though...

 

Toxic ancients are literally the one mob you can't melee (though with certain frames and melee weapons you actually can).  Every single other infested mob can be meleed with normal risk, and the fact that you don't have to worry about them shooting you while you approach makes infested as a faction one of the most viable factions to melee against.  It's incredibly easy to conserve ammo vs infested.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Aggh

[fauxhb]

to respond about toxic ancients: and how many of them are in the map? 5? so you have to shoot like 5 mobs in the entire map, and it's a problem for you?

[Tsukinoki]

@Auxy
One thing you keep saying is that you cant kill things at long range with the viper/twin viper.  And I ask: WHY are you trying to kill things at long rang with an auto pistol to begin with?  Weapons like that are designed for close, to mid range combat at the most, and at mid range you cant expect it to be extremely good.

You mentioned fighting Grineer and getting body shots and wasting clips on them.  Two solutions:
A) Get an AP mod to deal more body damage
B) Learn to aim your bursts into their unarmored heads
You'll see the damage of your weapons climb dramatically and the amount of bullets you use go down if you mod them with the right elements to cater to the enemies you are facing.  For grineer bring Ice and AP, for infested fire and ice, and for corpus ice and electricity.

Using the right mods makes all the difference.

With the right mods at the right range, and aiming for the right points you will see that the current auto-pistols are very powerful weaponry.  You just have to learn how to use them.  With infinite ammo you would need to apply a decently heavy nerf hammer to be able to balance them at all against the slower firing weapon.  And while I am using Akboltos specced out for damage a properly modded and used auto pistol can still easy outdamage me and not run out of ammo at the same time.

To go to another point I brought up about how the energy system should be used as opposed to a cooldown:
Even if it were a more dynamic cd system I would still lose a large reason of why I actually use my low cost abilities.  Take for example shuriken.  I can use my against a boss to quickly drop his shields/stop them from recharging while the rest of my group reloads so that we can have a faster time of dealing with him.  If I had to wait 4 seconds between each one that would make the shuriken absolutely useless in that case.
And then you get to abilities which are either going to be MUCH more powerful than under the energy system or near useless.  Such as Loki's invisibility.  Costs 50 energy and at max level, without mods, makes you invis for 9 seconds.  It is a Loki's way to quickly get out of bad situations or to deal damage quickly and safely.  With a CD system one of these scenarios would occur:
A) It takes too long to recharge meaning that he cant use it as often  and really needs to save it for times when it would work, such as when an ally goes down, instead of using it to sneak among the enemies and deal high damage.
With an energy system he can sneak around the enemies and deal high damage and then he sees an ally goes down, runs over, reapplies his invisibility and revives his ally safely.  With a cooldown system he would either have to risk being gunned down fairly easily or let his friend bleed out.
B) It doesnt take that long to recharge/he can cut the recharge by killing enemies invisible.  The issue with this is that there are loki's with maxed out energy and duration AND an energy siphon artifact.  They can go invisible for large sections of the mission if they want to, even if its a hard thing to spec into, and really relies on luck to get the artifact.  With the CD system it would suddenly become MUCH easier to have a permanently invisible Loki.
You can apply the same thing to Rhino's ironskin.  Either they become even more powerful than they already are/can be with the right mods, or they become MUCH weaker and therefor less desirable to use.

In the end the powers are supposed to make you feel powerful and are supposed to be used often.  Putting it to a cool down system REMOVES that, and also removes actually having to think: "Is this enemy/group worth it or should I save it for something bigger?"  If you want to use your abilities often you can.

Even with CDs you still have a resource to manage TIME.  And by having to manage TIME, especially against bosses, it slows the gameplay down and removes the empowering feeling of using your abilities quickly and in sequence.  Such as an Excalibur slash dashing around the room to weaken/kill a lot of enemies.  He is allowed to spam it until he runs out of energy and it is both effective, and fun.  If he had a cooldown, even a dynamic one, he would lose a lot of usability of this power.  And there are some abilities that just aren't useful/very situational that wouldn't be used anyways, even if they didnt have a "cost".

One of the bigger draws of this game is the ability to use ninja abilities, and to use them frequently if you can manage your energy.  And it should be a choice of more health/shields or more abilities/energy.  The reason for that?  If you can use your abilities properly it does increase your survivability, albeit indirectly.

[Xtorma]

 

Not to be rude, but this is a good example of how people aren't thinking the OP's suggestions through at all. Obviously, if pistols had infinite ammo, they would need to be rebalanced. That's not even in question. Assuming they'd be as they are now is, well, silly, to say the least. A reasonable criticism of the infinite ammo proposal is that it would be boring, or that it would require pistols to be too weak to justify it. "Pistols are too powerful for that right now!" is not, however, a reasonable or logical criticism, I'm afraid. Personally I'm against infinite ammo for pistols, but to criticise the OP's ideas, one should at least think them through logically, rather than assuming the most unbalanced thing possible was intended. It's like if I said "Everyone should carry a mobile phone at all times", and you were like "OMG EVEN IN THE SHOWER?!". It goes without saying that wasn't meant, just like it goes without saying that changes require rebalancing.

 "Pistols are too powerful for that right now!" is not, however, a reasonable or logical criticism, I'm afraid"It is if you like the way pistols are right now. This is all about preference. Pistols do work right now with things as they are. They are balanced(more or less :p) around that. What this is suggesting is to change pistols so that they can fit into an idea and balance them accordingly. No thanks, thats a lot of extra work for no reason other than someone else's preference. I like pistol power as it is now. I do not want my pistol to become some shadow of it's former self just so people don't have to pick up ammo. If I have a machine pistol, I don't want to have to pump some god awful amount of bullets into a mob to kill it. It would be stupid to even have it as opposed to a semi auto pistol, because they would all have to be balanced to do the exact same dps. Method of delivery (fast/slow/auto/semi) and dps is balanced by rate of fire. Rate of fire is balanced by ammo/reload. If you get rid of ammo, you may as well just have one generic pistol everyone uses. Edited April 19, 2013 by Xtorma

[Tsukinoki]

If you get rid of ammo, you may as well just have one generic pistol everyone uses.

This.  This is what would happen.

The pistols are balanced around the ammo drops.  A machine pistol can be insanely damaging if modded right and aimed properly at enemies weak-points.  A semi automatic is more powerful per shot...but its shots dont go out as fast.  If you look at raw DPS you'll find that a fully modded machine pistol can beat an equally modded semi-automatic if you can aim and hit with most/all of the bullets.  Especially when you bring elemental effects into play.

Sure they run out of ammo faster, but if they didnt they would be overpowered.  In order to balance things around infinate ammo you would have to severely lower their DPS making them weaker so that someone with a semi-automatic pistol wouldn't be useless when using their weapons.  Even if you include other factors such as reload times and such that would only be a very weak patch and the auto pistols would still usually outshine their semi-automatic bretheren at that point.

And if you nerf them then you would ruin a fairly successful build: using a powerful pistol to get you through most of the match and switching to a fully automatic rifle when enemies get too close and you need to reload or something similar.  As it is, using pistols through an entire map is actually doable.  And the nerf required in order to balance around infinate ammo would make that strategy unviable.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[Drusus]

Drusus--

I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to read, I can't either. ┐(´∀｀)┌ﾔﾚﾔﾚだぜ

 

Clearly you didn't.  I read your original supposition quite clearly, I said i didn't read the entire thread of responses and the myriad rebuttals pointing out your errors of reasoning.

 

How convenient on your part to ignore the logic that points out, quite clearly, that your points are not as well founded or logical  as you want them to be.

 

Having said that, as other posters have already illustrated, it seems to be your goto strategy of the debate. 

 

And I'll say it again here, without the extra rebuttal to your entirely flawed and self-interested presentation of opinion as analysis, that if the core issue is having a weapon that doesn't run out of ammunition, that is why we have such extended options for levelling and tailoring our melee weapons which we are _intended to use_ throughout the gameplay as our guaranteed fall back and even as a primary offensive tool, instead of our ammunition consuming weaponry.  

 

That is evident in the game design and there is nothing antiquated or broken about it.  You just don't 'get' it or prefer it.

 

Edit: Edited to reduce a point of hositlity in my reply.  While the Op struck a nerve in his tone and assumptions, that's not an excuse for me to be insulting in kind.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Drusus

[Aggh]

This.  This is what would happen.

The pistols are balanced around the ammo drops.  A machine pistol can be insanely damaging if modded right and aimed properly at enemies weak-points.  A semi automatic is more powerful per shot...but its shots dont go out as fast.  If you look at raw DPS you'll find that a fully modded machine pistol can beat an equally modded semi-automatic if you can aim and hit with most/all of the bullets.  Especially when you bring elemental effects into play.

Sure they run out of ammo faster, but if they didnt they would be overpowered.  In order to balance things around infinate ammo you would have to severely lower their DPS making them weaker so that someone with a semi-automatic pistol wouldn't be useless when using their weapons.  Even if you include other factors such as reload times and such that would only be a very weak patch and the auto pistols would still usually outshine their semi-automatic bretheren at that point.

And if you nerf them then you would ruin a fairly successful build: using a powerful pistol to get you through most of the match and switching to a fully automatic rifle when enemies get too close and you need to reload or something similar.  As it is, using pistols through an entire map is actually doable.  And the nerf required in order to balance around infinate ammo would make that strategy unviable.

It'd be more than that.  If secondaries got nerfed because of the addition of unlimited secondary ammunition, it would require a rebalance of pretty much every weapon in the game because of the overall decrease in weapon effectiveness.  Otherwise it would bring the pace of gameplay to a halt since the average ttk on most mobs in the game would sky rocket.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Aggh

[Tsukinoki]

Another point I would like to bring up about the ammo issues you seem to be facing as well as a bit more on the new points you brought up in your edited opening post:

Again, as most people arent having issues with ammo then you need to look at a few things.
Are you using a weapon suited to the mission?  Basically are you trying to bring a paris to fight a boss, such as the hyena, who has a very fast shield recharge and then complaining when you run out of ammo against it?  
Are you bringing weapons that aren't properly modded to the level of the mission you are facing?  
Are you bringing weapons without mods that would allow you to effeciently damage/kill opponents?
Basically you need to bring the right tool to do the job.  A paris might work against mooks, but is definately not a choice for a boss.  And even if ammo was more common, which in your suggest the paris which currently gets 10 ammo per pickup now only gets 4 so that wouldnt be the case, they wouldn't stand a chance against bosses because of fire rate vs the bosses shield recharge.  Bring a weapon with a faster firing rate and an ice mod to more easily handle the shields.
If you aren't modding your weapons properly you will find that you wont be doing enough damage.  I have seen and done, using twin vipers to quickly kill enemies without wasting that much ammo.  How did I do it?  I brought along AP and elemental mods.  If I am fighting Grineer I bring more AP if I am fighting corpus I bring electricity, and against infested I am bringing fire mods.  You dont need more ammo if you learn to use your weapons and learn to mod them appopriately.  Especially now that mods no longer require credits to swap in and out you should be bringing the right mods to deal with the enemies you will be facing.  If you refuse to do that then you shouldnt be complaining that things are hard to kill, its your choice to not bring the right tools.

Since your points 2 and 3 are closely related I'll handle them together:
Why the need to resolve different ammo pickups?
Why the need to move to having universal ammo?
Even if you do make them universal to balance the guns you would either need to lower how much ammo each weapon gets or make the ammo drops much less common.  Otherwise you are simply rewarding people using spray and pray tactics instead of rewarding them for aiming.
The ammo boxes you get from login rewards are very common, and it only costs 1k credits.  There are tons of missions you can go through without risking coming close to running out of ammo and still get much more than 1k.  its a cheap buy and It will make it nearly impossible to run out of ammo.
No weapon should have unlimited ammo.  Especially not with their current balance.  To balance the pistols around infinite ammo you would need to nerf them quite heavily, and nerf ALL of them, including auto pistols.  And the auto pistols would need a much bigger nerf than the semi-automatic pistols too make it viable to use a non automatic pistol.
I can somewhat agree on your point 3a.  But again if you mod your weapons properly you wont be in such a need of ammo.  Enemies drop ammo often enough that even with a boltor or gorgon I rarely find myself risking not having any ammo to fire.  And yes I do use the paris and one shot enemies and conserve my ammo with it and dont have a problem.  The reason snipers have less ammo is because you require less shots to take down the enemies.  The biggest time you would risk running out of ammunition with a sniper is against bosses, and you shouldnt be using the paris or snipertron against bosses anyways.

To cover issue 4:
4a) Flat cooldowns are NOT an option in gameplay such as this.  They would simply slow down gameplay and for the most part decrease how often you can use abilities and remove the ability to use your skills in rapid succession, such as with shuriken, fireball, slash dash.  The advantage to those skills is the ability to spam them and cause some fast damage with them.  By removing that ability you suddenly make them much weaker than they currently are and less desirable to use, not more.
Furthermore you make some warframes core mechanics much weaker, namely Loki.  He requires at higher levels a more spammish approach to stealth and decoy to effectively deal damage to groups of enemies as well as needing to spam it to be able to revive allies should they be bleeding out.  By giving a flat cooldown you are making too many frames abilities weaker and less desirable to use.
4b) Dynamic cooldowns.  This could either be a huge nerf to a lot of abilities.  Or it could be such a large buff that it wouldn't be funny.  Take for example slash dash.  In the current system he can spam it against a group of enemies quickly, but only for a short time before he is out of energy.  Take it so that it recharges faster if he deals enough damage/kills and suddenly you will see one of two things: Suddenly the ability becomes a lot more situational and less used overall, or it becomes so OP that all he ever does is slash dash without anything else for entire matches.  Balancing between those points would be increadibly difficult to do and it would require the DE team to go through and create different dynamic timers for every single ability in the game and then try to balance them against each other.  In one of my previous posts I posted also about loki and rhino's potential issue with this system so go up a few posts and read that as well.
4c) That would just PUNISH players for using a core game mechanic.  Which is NEVER good game design.  At that point ability usage would be too dangerous and situational because its either use an ability or have shields to survive shots from enemies.  You should never punish players for using one of the main game mechanics.
4d) Having energy recharge at x%/second is just a cd under a different name essentially.  Doesnt solve anything and would make some frames WAY to powerful, especially if they focus on using flow mods and streamline.
4e) While that would work in theory I would have to see it in practice.  Basing it off of damage dealt/enemies killed is not always a good mechanic because if you are using a weaker weapont o level it you're probably going to be using your powers a bit more which would cause issues.

I mostly agree with point 5.  EXCEPT I dont want to see modules dropping from containers.  That would stop most rushes, yes, but it would also turn nearly every public game into a full exploration and I actually like both types of missions.

Im skipping point 6 because DE is going to introduce generic skills at some point and they'll deal with it then and I honestly wouldn't mind having 4 slots and having to go: Do I use this generic ability or using by number 2 ability. 

Point 7 is something I have yet to see/encounter.  Melee attacks are fairly reliable if you aim them properly and I think any solution would be jarring and could lead to too many issues.  Such as a soft-lock and two equi-distant enemies on opposite sides of your pointer.  Which one would be hit?  And how often would it hit the one you didnt want to?

Sorry if this is too much of a wall of text.

[Tsukinoki]

It'd be more than that.  If secondaries got nerfed because of the addition of unlimited secondary ammunition, it would require a rebalance of pretty much every weapon in the game because of the overall decrease in weapon effectiveness.  Otherwise it would bring the pace of gameplay to a halt since the average ttk on most mobs in the game would sky rocket.

That is very true.  Things are currently balanced that you have a decently power rifle and pistol and that you need ammo for both.  Decreasing pistol power would be a huge decrease to overall combat effectiveness of the every warframe which is not a good direction to go in at this point.

[Tsukinoki]

@Auxy
One thing I forgot to mention is that you said my friend running out of ammo with the latron showed that it needs to be changed.  He was using the Latron against the hyena.  Couldn't keep its shields down long enough to deal any real damage.

That shows an error with how he was using his weapons, not with the ammo system.  You dont solo bosses like the hyena with slow firing/long reload weapons or you're going to have a bad time.

[Ronyn]

Here are my actual suggestions from below, .......

 

OK. I am a hand to hand combat instructor by trade, occasionally contract commercial writer and commonly an ameture game designer.

Though that ameture part will change as soon as my first compelted product hits the shelves next year!

Here is my response to your well written post.

 

1,2 and 3: The ammo system is based too much on luck. This is flawed.

It should definitely be based on the amount and difficulty of enemies being faced and defeated.

It is also split up between multiple weapon types for no clear reason cosndiering the loadout model warframe uses.

However If ammo for all long guns became one standard ammo type we wouldnt need infinite ammo on the pistols.

A unified verion of this idea is to have two ammo types. Long gun and pistol. Simple as that.

This also doesnt require the amount of pistol rebalancing that infinite pistol ammo would.

 

4: Current energy system is flawed because it makes things too reliant on chance.

You may have a lot, may have a little and is not necessarily proportionate to the amount or difficulty of the enemies in an encounter.

It needs work.

However, putting the abilities on a cooldown system changes the intended freedom of choice of what abilities are used when and how often.

To allow the player to use small ones a lot, at a fast pace or slow onen, to use big ones less often or some combination in between.

Its supposed to allow a player to choose whether they rely more on gunplay,abilities, melee or some combination of the above.

Warframes fast paced combat model is based on momentum so waiting for energy to replenich or cooldowns to be done is the worng direction.

As a game designer the job is largely to create the proper mechanics to facilitate the desired gameplay goal.

 

The most logical suggestion that would do that is the one about making energy replenish for fighting and/or otherwise being involved in combat.

This retains the freedom and brings the return of power more in line with the effectiveness of combat.

This is actually the most like the rationale you used for your solutions regarding ammo.

As in-Consolidate the resource and make it proportional to the fight youre in.

 

Variable cooldowns might acheive a similar result if cooldowns lower based on combat actions but thats really just a more substantial chane to the system than required. A simple fix to how energy is aquired is the most expediant answer.

 

5: Agreed. Add to that more barriers of various kinds to promote grouping.

 

6: Whether we ever get general use abilities or not keybind options and more free mapping of abilities are a must. 

 

7: General movement issues like unresponsiveness or getting stuck on things should be smoothed out. I beleive we can all agree on that. 

 

7: Soft lock for melee? Doesnt seem like the desired direction or even helpful for the current model.

If people are having trouple hitting targets with melee it is either due to their poor aim or a colision/lag issue.

The actual targeting system itself is neither limited, innefectual or for that matter antiquated.

It is free aim and in the control of the players.

 

Soft lock solves weaknesses related to the action games third person camera where one has no direct aim/targeting from the right stick to direct precise target vector. Warframe has that presicion so solft lock is not required.

Its only purpose would be to lesson the aim requirement for ease of use. Unfortunately that could lead to a certain amount of the game aiming where you may not intent to.

That said, certain special moves may be added a later date that may or may not be helped by some minor target vector correction.

 

Really, what melee needs is to expand in how it can effect enemies.

Using the current big/popular melee games as examples (DMC.GOW,Ninja Gaiden)-melee needs to offer the full array of ways to stun, stagger, juggle, counter, knockdown, knockback and off course damage enemies. Warframe is well beyond other shooters in this capacity but has yet to approach a melee focused game like those I mentioned.

DE appears to be struggling with finding the way to acheive this given their shooter like camera. Ironic consdiering what I mentioned above eh?

Theyre are ways to overcome this of course. It will require some aditional research, imagination and even innovation.

There are some shooter style games that have added depth to their melee system like Dark Messiah, Condemned and even DEs own Darkness 2. Hopefully DE will find good things to add sooner rather than later.

 

8: For clarities sake-Warframe has a certain pay for power aspect not a pay to win aspect.

"Winning" is only defined by completing missions in warframe, since that can be done without the "potatoes" or more powerful weapons its not a logical term. However, money can definitely increase ones power at an accelerated rate. Without payingf or such things it is a large time invested to get them. Hence-Pay for power is the accurate term. The only question is whether or not its within reasonable amounts or not.

Love or hate it lets just make sure we are talking about the right thing.  

[RawGritz]

A lot of the OP's suggestions would eliminate a huge portion of the game, and that's actually thinking before you pull the trigger or use an ability. 

 

Infinite ammo and cooldowns get rid of the need to plot a course to obtain your munitions--be they blue orbs or ammo. To me it's fun using my parkour to get around an ancient to obtain that ammo cache over there behind him. It REALLY sounds like you just want to run and gun and set timers for your cooldown." DING! Time to spam my powers"

 

If you run out of ammo... Get off your butt and move those knees, my "NINJA!" I really feel you have not mastered the parkour. Getting around in this game is super fun. I would never want to limit this... Searching and looting in the heat of a battle is fun and challenging stuff to me.

 

When it doubt... Flip out!

Edited April 19, 2013 by RawGritz

[auxy]

Yay, more replies! (ﾟ∀ﾟ)ｂ

 

Well, I'm glad I prompted more discussion. I see some people just aren't going to agree, and that's fine, really. (╹◡╹)

 

I might do some more individual replies tonight, but I spent ten minutes shy of four hours on my huge post last night and really, I think most of what needs to be said has been said. Thanks for all your valuable feedback everyone, I look forward to seeing you in-game! (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

[Ronyn]

 

I might do some more individual replies tonight,

I beleive you and I might still have an interesting back and forth on this stuff...

:)

[Damoklesz]

1-3.

Right now in my opinion there is a great ammo mechanic going on in this game, it would be a shame if they listened to these complaints and made it practicly infinite or did some other nonsense... The only suggession I agree with is the possibility of consolidating the different ammo types with one condition: total ammo drop amount is reduced to 1/3, so you'd effectively find around the same amount of useful ammo as you do now.

 

IMO it is a great thing that ammo is scarce, and you have to try to conserve it by using your sidearm/melee whenever you can. It is worth noting that certain main weapons and sidearms eat their ammo reserve much faster then others, which theoreticly gives space to tactial decisionmaking when it comes to choosing your loadout. In practice, the weapons still need some balancing.

 

4.

The energy mechanic is mostly fine, all of these suggestions would be terrible. There is a big issue with damage based power play, but that's the fault of the modding system, and not the energy system. We need weapon mods for energy leech, maybe for energy gained per shot or per kill. Maybe warframe mods with energy recharge or energy cost reduction.

 

5.

You're a f*cking space assassing, you're supposed to be rushing! Instead of these nonsese suggestions, make a time limit for every mission! That would make it interesting.

Seriously though, what the heck are you exploring? It's the same couple dozen frigging room every time!

 

6. Yeah, there are no general active skills , I really don't miss anything like that. The controls are working perfectly for this game, but I understand that it might be a problem for you considering you want to turn this game into a f2p mass effect or whatever. Personaly like the idea of having to choose between different skillsets, and not playing with same generic crap every time.

 

7.

The way movement and melee works in this game can certainly feel weird in the first couple of hours, and it is a little different from everything else (this is something you obviously have a problem with). I love the idea of parkour based tps gameplay, and maybe the game should support that a little bit more (maybe some limited autotargeting during acrobatic moves). As it is now, the only reason to do wall running and thing like that is to move around faster on maps, but when there is action, you want to be able to hit things. I don't want any general locking though, melee or otherwise, if you want that, go play xbox.

[Liminal]

snip

The energy leech mod is not a bad idea, but a time limit for missions would be ridiculous. I don't like playing Crazy Taxi: Space Ninjas, and I'm pretty sure many others would hate that too. It's bad enough that we have escort missions.

And regarding #6, you don't have a problem with it so screw everyone else? Great thinking! (either that or you didn't understand his suggestion)

[MJ12]

I do love how people are going "I like this game so THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT". Newsflash! I like this game too! I like this game tons! If I didn't I wouldn't have spent nearly 200 hours in it.

 

This does not mean there is nothing wrong with the game, far from it. It just means that the good massively outweighs the bad. Damoklesz and Mak_Gohae are the prime offenders here in terms of not realizing a game can be great and flawed simultaneously.

[Cauldrath]

I definitely agree on changing ammo drops to either be universal primary ammo or only the type of weapon you have. Defense missions start getting really cluttered after a few waves and there isn't anything you can do about all the ammo types you can't pick up. Some sort of item decay mechanic could also solve this, but probably not as elegantly. I could see having the different ammo types if there was a way to switch to a different type of gun in the middle of the mission, but, as is, there is no point. If people really like the explosion of multi-colored boxes that much, the different colors could represent larger or smaller ammo gains.

I don't like the idea of infinite pistol ammo, because then, depending on whether your primary has enough ammo to last the mission by itself, the pistol winds up as only a desperation weapon you use when you can't use your primary, or the primary becomes your emergency-only weapon if you can't use it constantly. As is, your choice in weapons allows you to use one to complement the other and you use whichever has the better properties for the given situation, whatever that may be, instead of severely pigeonholing your weapon choice at any given time. I do think Warframe could do this a bit better, as weapon switching is kind of slow and seems laggy sometimes, but this change would likely be a step backwards.

As for energy, there are 3 systems being discussed here and each has its own advantages:

1) Current energy system: makes powers a finite resource based on progression through the level, rather than time. Encouraging progression generally is more fun than encouraging time spent, as time spent waiting isn't time spent playing. Energy has the disadvantage that is can encourage hoarding it for emergencies. Because a lot of powers in Warframe are more effective at getting you out of bad situations instead of setting up good situations, this causes an issue where players will just hoard energy and then only use it to negate them messing up.

2) Shared cooldowns (Mass Effect 2/3 style): Shared cooldowns enforce more of an opportunity cost on using a given ability and ensures that abilities are more spaced out in their usage. Has an issue (same as the current energy system) that if one ability is significantly better than the others, it will be used to the exclusion of the others.

3) Individual cooldowns (Mass Effect 1 and most other games with cooldowns): Individual cooldowns have the advantage of encouraging a variety of abilities being used, as using one doesn't prevent the use of others. Most games have the problem that these abilities are usually best used in a single optimal combo, which actually transforms the set of abilities into a single ability you just use all at once.

Looking at this list, it also suggests a forth option:

4) Individual energy: Encourages using a variety of abilities, but can reduce depth if those abilities are too comboable. Also encourages action over waiting, like shared energy, but also encourages hoarding energy.

I think part of why the individual cooldown system felt so appropriate for the Mass Effect series is because abilities tended to be more utility-based, rather than direct damage like a lot of Warframe ults are (which are generally the most cost-effective powers right now). The exception was tech and biotic combos, which were another way of encouraging power variety.

Obviously there are pros and cons to each method, but right now the large problem is that the powers are not balanced (4 Shocks is not as good as 1 Overload) and the current system is probably the most vulnerable to balance problems. Switching to shared cooldowns just means Volts will spam Overload every time it comes off cooldown (which sounds terrible) and Shock still won't see more use, and switching to individual cooldowns means Ember will spam every ability in a massive fiery combo every time her cooldowns are up.

Maybe a combination would give the best results, like Volt having Shock, Speed, and Electric Shield on a shared cooldown with Overload using energy, and Ember has Fireball and Flame Burst on a shared cooldown, with Overheat on an individual cooldown and World on Fire running on energy?

EDIT: apparently using a bunch of less thans in a row breaks everything

Edited April 19, 2013 by Cauldrath

[Insanityman]

 

 

1) To resolve the problems with random ammo pickups, implement some or all of the following:

   a) Make certain things 100% ammo drop (e.g. supply containers)

   b) Make ammo pickups worth 1-2 magazines' worth of ammunition (or four shots, whichever is more)

   c) Increase frequency with which enemies drop ammo

   d) Add a module which reduces ammo consumption (chance to not consume ammo)

 

2) To resolve separate ammo pickups, implement some or all of the following:

   a) Consolidate all ammo pickups into one

   b) Consolidate primary ammo pickups and make secondary unlimited

   c) Consolidate primary ammo pickups only

   d) Obviate the concept of maximum carried ammo entirely

 

3) To resolve the issue where enemy count has nothing to do with ammo count: (some or all)

   a) Increase frequency with which enemies drop ammo

   b) Add ammo-refilling stations to heavy-combat objectives (defend, bosses)

   c) Award consumable ammo boxes more frequently

 

4) To resolve the issues with the energy mechanic: (some or all)

   a) Completely remove the energy mechanic; replace with flat cooldowns

   b) Completely remove the energy mechanic; replace with dynamic cooldowns (or a mixture)

   c) Completely remove the energy mechanic; replace with shield consumption

   d) Make energy recharge at n%/sec rate

   e) Make energy return by defeating enemies, or a unique condition each frame

   f) Tweak power energy costs along with option d and/or e

 

5) To incentivize exploration and reduce the incidence of 'rush' gameplay

   a) Add module drop chance to lockers

   b) Increase credit drops from lockers

   c) Increase enemy spawn frequency outside the "main" mission area

   d) Add more and semi-randomized "secret" areas

   e) Add specific, nonrandom uncommon or rare material drops to lockers off the path

   f) Add mini-bosses

 

6) This is really a "solution looking for a problem", so it speaks for itself. (╹◡╹)

 

7) This is more directly a problem that needs fixing than something suboptimal.

The edited original post starts below:

 

AAAAND lots more info.

You bring up some good points, and have done some serious thought on the subjects. This kind of enthusiasm is greatly appreciated.  That said I don't agree with all of your solutions, but some I like.

 

1, 2 and 3) Consolidation of the ammo pool seems to defeat what I thought was an intended design be DE to casually force players into diversifying their weapon choices.  Carrying a Braton and Dual Vipers is a recipe to run dry. Similarly, carring a Paris and a Lex is asking to only break the bosses shields and then reload, netting a total of 0 hp damage.  Equip what you need for the task at hand. Most missions can be handled with whatever you are comfortable with, bosses are a little more discerning.  Your example with Jackal makes me think you bit off a little more than you should have with an underleveled frame, underleveled Furax and a unintuitive selection of firearms.  Trying to farm a  boss with Jackal's kung fu skills, level a lowbie frame, low rank melee weapon and weapons with bullet retention problems might have been a tall order.  I also realise you could have been public and had the misfortune of not having anyone join. I've been there; mid rank Strun and ill modded Lex vs Hyena was a bad experience lol.  I think balancing the weapons a little based on their penchant for spraying (or not) could do a better job of dealing with the ammo situation.  Eg; give Gorgons a higher ammo pool than say a Latron. Also, the Lex has no business carrying as many rounds as Dual Vipers.  Your option 1d isn't an altogether bad option, it's just not enough on it's own.  

 

This issue also seems to present itself more in solo play than team play.  As a team, you can have someone dive into the wall 'o' enemies and go flailing away with a Scindo or Gram, cleave a few, and save some ammo before ducking out and getting replaced.  If everyone takes a turn in the melee, everyone's ammo efficiency goes way up.  Think of it the same way you deal with the bosses that have insane recharge times on their shields: you don't unload all at once and get caught reloading as a team, you stagger your reloads or have someone with a Mk1 or a Gorgon tick away slowly to suppress the shield regen mechanic.

 

 

4) Disclaimer: the energy system vs cooldowns debate is a bit of a sore spot for me. I love the energy system here with a passion. The freedom it gives me to just pump out fireballs or chain switch teleport Ancients into stupid places so they can't attack us is amazing.  Bailing out a friendly with a ST, decoy, ST combo won't likely be available with a cooldown system. For this, option F is the only one that gets my vote.  Also, I'm intimately familiar with a cooldown system, having played ME3's MP a lot.  For so much of that game, it just became a spam power every time its off cooldown, and hide between Recon Mine (or snap freeze) casts. Got kinda booring.

 

5) YES. maybe a point g) add consumables to lockers in very rare instances. "Here, have a sniper ammo box, because we see that you don't possess a Snipetron OR a Paris. /trollface".

 

Good post, keep it up :D

[Insanityman]

Sorry about double post, I promise ill get around to learning how the multi quote button works.

 

 

5.

You're a f*cking space assassing, you're supposed to be rushing! Instead of these nonsese suggestions, make a time limit for every mission! That would make it interesting.

Seriously though, what the heck are you exploring? It's the same couple dozen frigging room every time!

 

We aren't just assassins. We are spies, thieves, opportunists and saboteurs.  It might not exist in game yet, but seeing how things are developing, I wouldn't be surprised (and I would be ecstatic to see) lore documents, tidbits of information, backstory trinkets and other plot devices hidden in the explorable portions of the maps.  A good ninja takes every opportunity to learn what they can from every mission.  Information is our most powerful weapon, used correctly.  Patience should be rewarded, as should efficiency, each in their own way.

[Serephenne]

I feel like a lot of people confuse personal experience with universal experience.

 

When considering what changes we think will improve the game, we should first think on what the intended goals for player experience are in Warframe.  The game is generally about planning and customization before missions, and a combination of objective-related combat and exploration during missions.  To propose a change in the game's mechanics is to evaluate how they relate to these experiences.  Some people seem to think the ammo and energy systems are outdated or inherently broken, but this really speaks more about personal playstyle than a flaw in the game itself since there is no indication that the majority of players are having a serious problem with their current implementation.

 

The current system lends to a sense of resource scarcity that promotes the game's theme in missions.  Limited resources are an alternative to a time limit; they encourage players to progress towards mission completion or face an impending consequence.  Consequences, including negative ones, are a normal part of almost every gaming experience unless they are completely unfair to the player.  I define unfair consequences as outcomes that cannot be mitigated by rational player decisions or that do not proceed player choices in sensible ways.  The current ammo and energy system does not guarantee you will receive the resources you need exactly when you need them because there is an element of chance, and this often leads to players using most of their ammo before completing a mission.

 

Due to the high frequency of enemy encounters, this would likely be a common occurrence, but the game gives players the tools to mitigate this problem on their own.  Players are told upfront what faction they will be fighting and the type of objective they will be completing.  This allows them to customize their loadouts accordingly and reasonably plan for the current mission.  The Lotus are fickle and sometimes players find themselves with new objectives, and occasionally more than one faction may appear in the same mission, but the variation keeps things fresh and has little negative impact. Players are also given the melee system, which is not tied to any resources and can be consciously chosen in combat to save ammunition.

 

The only concern I have with the current system is that it does not really promote the exploration aspect of the game.  The majority of the mechanics promote completion, which directly contradicts exploration.  I think the main issues regarding this are already stated in the opening post; hidden areas and navigating using the advanced movement techniques don't always feel rewarding or reliable.  Changing the types of items that drop from lockers and perhaps having more of the ones on direct routes locked might encourage more players to take paths other than just straight to the objective.  Other mission types that don't initially begin with a set waypoint will put players in the mindset to look everywhere; what if you had to literally find artifacts instead of being told their exact locations?  DE should put some focus on the game's exploration aspect because it currently feels disconnected from the overall player experience. 

 

When suggesting changes to the system, it is important to be aware that every mechanic is related in some way.  A game is a collective of different systems and it is important to remember that changing even a small detail of a mechanic can have a potentially damaging impact on other aspects of the game.  Many of the suggestions listed simply attempt to remove already functioning systems. What Warframe presents is fairly solid and what it needs are improved and balanced mechanics instead of new ones that are vastly different but not necessarily better.  I'm sure DE is working on these things in this phase of the game, and we cannot predict the direction they are taking until they tell us themselves.

[auxy]

Ronyn, on 19 Apr 2013 - 1:58 PM, said:

I beleive you and I might still have an interesting back and forth on this stuff...

:)

Hehe, maybe so. Thanks for your posts! I don't honestly have a lot to say; you covered your points pretty well and I don't really disagree.

Many people have shot down the idea of unlimited pistol ammo and while I still think it *could* be balanced, I am led to agree with others that it might be difficult to balance and more involved. It's a bigger change than the "two ammo type" system, for sure.

I really just don't like the energy system at all. I don't like having a 'bar' to deal with; it's fiddly and unnecessary -- the only advantage to it is if I'm supposed to be able to run out, and I don't think that was the purpose, because the game is too fast-paced. Honsetly, both the current ammo and energy systems feel (to me) like placeholders. Both systems are so generic and basic, so old-school, that it seems like almost no thought went into them at all. If someone came up to me and said "you have thirty seconds to design a shooter game", I probably still wouldn't come up with these mechanics. So, maybe they're "beta-isms". (╹◡╹)

You're right of course that 'soft-lock' systems in action games are usually there to help alleviate wonky camera issues in third-person games without precise aiming, but I still think it would be helpful here. It definitely isn't required, though, as you said. It was really more of a quality-of-life or 'convenience' option. I LOVE your ideas about adding more types of melee attacks, although I wonder about the implementation of inputs for such a thing. Devil May Cry uses the lock-on button to set player movement relative to the target, and that movement informs a lot of the actions the character makes, allowing the player to select an entirely different set of moves vis-a-vis unlocked play, but this game has no such mechanic. Maybe the sprint button could be an "awesome" button ala Saint's Row? Yay for Dark Messiah reference! I love that game!

I already covered this once, but for clarity's sake -- when I say "pay2win" I'm not being so literal as to mean actually "winning" -- I'm referring to all of the shameless mechanisms in play to make impatient or less disciplined players spend money on the game when they really don't (or shouldn't) have to. "pay 2 power" or "pay 2 convenience" or "pay 2 time efficiency" are all basically the same thing as "pay 2 win" in this context.

I want to say real fast; I noted "(to me)" earlier and I want to go over that again because there's something critical I think I haven't said before, or at least haven't emphasized. All of these proposals and suggestions should have a big, giant, flashing "THIS IS WHAT I THINK", or "IN MY OPINION" sign over them. Some have pointed out that my tone seems high-and-mighty or excessively self-aggrandizing; that wasn't my intention at all. I DO think these suggestions are a better way; I do think the way things are done now (relative to these suggestions) is bad. However, that's still only my opinion! It's okay to disagree, and I'm very glad for the dissenting posters we've had. You can't stir discussion without some agitation!

(long post snipped here)

I was wondering when you'd get around to posting! (╹◡╹) I know we don't see eye-to-eye on these issues, but I'm grateful for your feedback anyway. I agree that "improved and balanced mechanics" are needed, but I still would like to see some of the current ones go.

If I had to pick one thing about the game I'd change, it would actually be the excision of the power mechanic. I really want to use my powers more, but I just can't justify it! In the current system, there's just not enough of an advantage to the powers to make them useful beyond specific circumstances. There are a lot of ways to fix this, but doing a system of dynamic cooldowns (preferably a hybrid of shared/discrete cooldowns) would be optimal, I think.

Thanks again for everyone's feedback, but I really want to play the games too, so I'm going to snip this here. Toodles~! (ﾟ∀ﾟ)ｂ

[Story4]

I ain't gonna rant, but the cooldown and the ammo ideeas i also posted and got downvoted alot... Really pisses me off.

 

Anyway i hope it gets implemented, at least this post got upvoted.