Idea Dump Thread - Fixes/improvements

[Nicocat]

So I was just thinking about Warframe, and I thought it would be nice to have a thread to just kind of spit out all of the thoughts on the game I had.  I'm sure many if not all of these have been brought up before, so this may be just a parroting "Me too!" thread, but I'll feel better getting it out of my system.

 

1)  Infested Ancients

So these are kind of interesting.  I've never seen a class of enemies in a game range the entire gamut from "Meh" to "Nice to fight" to "F*** THESE GUYS".  So let's go over them.

 

Healer Ancients:  The "Meh" guys.  These guys have one good ability, to knock your &#! onto the ground. Now that's fine, but he's supposed to be the HEALER.  His healing pulse... I gotta say, I've never seen it do anything.  And that's both due to a) it's a very, very weak heal that doesn't fire often, and b) enemies usually incinerate so quickly the heal can't help them, especially when fighting in a group.

 

- Proposed change:  A healer is supposed to keep people alive, but that's really hard when other infested have low health and armor and, thus, get bursted down really quickly.  Why not give these guys an armor aura, or a constant, faster heal aura?  It would help get others to prioritize them and would make them a legitimate threat, even if they have weak attacks (this is why Shield Ospreys are evil). 

 

Toxic Ancients:  The "nice to fight" guys.  I like them.  They're tough, they do their job, they're not too strong or too wimpy, easy to figure out what they do and how to counter it.  No updates.

 

Disruptor Ancients:  Sweet unholy Beelzebub's eight lactating $* I hate these guys.  I hate hate hate hate these guys so much.  Bear in mind, I tend to play energy- and shield-heavy Frames (I historically play mages when I can), so getting hit by a long-range, seemingly-seeking Stretch Armstrong hand that drops both instantly to 0 is both maddeningly annoying and more or less an instant death sentence to squishy Frames if literally any other infested are backing him up.

 

- Proposed change:  No surprise I have some ideas for these guys.  Mainly, I don't like the unfairness of dropping someone from full to 0 shields AND energy with one lucky (and, if they sneak up on you, gang up on you or you just slip a bit, very hard to dodge) attack, but I like the energy and shield drain as a whole because, besides mobs of eighty chargers, infested are generally not threatening.  Ideas:

 

--  Make them drain a static amount of energy per hit, say 25.  This would keep them scary for low-energy and low-level Frames, but wouldn't be so terrifying as you level... maybe make them drain more energy as they level (level 1 is 25 energy, level 10 is 50 energy, etc.)

 

-- Make them drain a percentage of energy.  Opposite of above, now they're not overly scary to lowbies ("25% energy drain?  That's one orb!") but still scary to high level people. 

 

-- Make them work kind of like poison headcrabs from HL2.  They hit you and your energy is still zeroed, but it restores itself over time, reasonably quickly.  It keeps the urgency of OH S#&$ A DISRUPTOR HIT ME I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE but isn't damning if, say, you get nailed early on in a high wave in an infested defense, with no energy orbs around anymore, and you really needed that because you're an Ember.

 

For all of the above, I don't mind them dropping shields to 0.  Those come back quickly enough anyway.

 

2)  Enemy Models

Enemy models are pretty samey.  All chargers look the same (all infested of a certain type do, really), all moas look the same, all crewmen look the same, etc.  It gets a bit old killing clones forever (bonus irony:  Grineer, the actual clones, DO have some variety in their armors and heads)

 

Suggestion:  Add a little variation in the models and colors.  Maybe Private Jimmy, a Grineer marine who just wants to love the Tenno, has pink armor.  Perhaps Colonel Fatass earned his nickname for loving doughnuts more than murder and, thus, gets a slightly taller and possibly more portly model to contrast with his BFF, Sergeant Slender, who stands a good 15% shorter than other marines.  Maybe give the infested some color variations ranging from bloody red to sickly green to old-bile yellowish-brown.  Something to spice things up a little.  Should be possible to procedurally adjust some models' values a little while spawning them into the world, though I'll be the first to admit I have utterly no idea how the engine works, so maybe this is dark sorcery as far as it's concerned.

 

3)  XP system

I frankly think the XP system makes it much too easy to grind levels.  Maybe that was the intention, maybe not, but it sure seems too simple.  I believe this is because of the small difference in awarded affinity between low and high level enemies.  I can't find the page on the wiki, but if I remember right, the enemies generally give 1-3 more affinity per level, that is, a level 1 Grineer Lancer is 50 affinity and a level 10 one is 60, to throw out numbers.  Given that, it's very easy to just run through low level missions repeatedly and farm up the enemies, complete it quickly for the bonus XP and then start over and over and over, gaining more affinity per unit of "work" put into it than doing high level missions.

 

Suggestion:  Penalize affinity gains if you're over-levelled.  There's no reason a level 1 and a level 25 Frame should get the same affinity stomping level 1 lancers on Mercury.  Maybe cut the gains as a percentage with a certain cap removing XP gain entirely (5 levels higher?  10?). 

 

This should not be reversed; there shouldn't be a bonus for punching above your weight class, since that would be much too easy to exploit just by running around with high level buddies and getting carried.

 

 

I think that's all I really had for the moment.  Alerts are piling up and I need the dosh, so I'll post this and see who thinks what about it.  Feel free to add your own comments, though note that this is not a whiny circle-jerk of complaining.  If you're going to complain, try to offer some suggestions~