Warframe Ability Mods: Coming Changes

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

Personally, I'd prefer to have 13 neutral skills added (6 common, 4 uncommon, 2 rare, and 1 ultimate).  Imagine having abilities that every warframe could use and being able to actually customize your warframe beyond just 4 frame-specific abilities.  Think of these as Tenno abilities that could include things like an exclusive element, portable generators that can be placed with varying effects, single target siphoning (debuff enemy or buff friendly), etc.  Nothing too strong but it would certainly add more variety.

[INNYAA]

GREAT !!

[Suprizebuttseks]

soooo...it's gonna be like closed beta again?
AWESOME!

can we get those lil' jewels again that show how many mods are unlocked in our trees =D

[Kachocalvo]

Personally, I'd prefer to have 13 neutral skills added (6 common, 4 uncommon, 2 rare, and 1 ultimate).  Imagine having abilities that every warframe could use and being able to actually customize your warframe beyond just 4 frame-specific abilities.  Think of these as Tenno abilities that could include things like an exclusive element, portable generators that can be placed with varying effects, single target siphoning (debuff enemy or buff friendly), etc.  Nothing too strong but it would certainly add more variety.

 

In previous devstreams, they have stated that common, non-specific ablilities for warframes are something they are working on and may appear in the future.

[Allenaattori]

What if i want to use rank 0 ability, without ranking it up? Like Trinity Blessing as example.

Probably you'll not be able to keep a power to rank 0 anymore. About Trinity, Blessing at Rank 0 is not even needed since you can recast it.

[castem]

I absolutely love the coming changes.  Not having to deal with ability mod cards (in any form), unlocking/upgrading things through play, more mod space to work with (for me, at least) - I like every single one of these.

 

It even has the added bonus of saving new players some credits & fusion cores, since they no longer need to rank up their ability mods that way.  (And new players need all the credits & cores they can get.)

 

Well done DE.  This is probably the best news I've heard all day.  :)

[(PSN)jwernecke]

How is this going to affect Conclave ratings?  In most frames, a full set of maxed abilities is 100-200 conclave points; are these going to just go away or be added to the warframe's base cost?

 

I ask this because of Tactical Alerts and whether this will make frames easier or nigh-impossible to use in the low-conclave-limit portion of one of them.

Very good point about the conclaves in tac alerts.  I pulled all the abilities for the final run so I could keep my carrier, lex prime, and unranked kama with some shields on Ash....

[ANTiS0Ci4L]

+10 can't wait!

[Basurci]

I mean it's awesome and all that they finally did this but I'm not happy about that u'll get forma back if u formad your ability slot. Why? Well it means i'll have to forma my Rhino again and level him up AGAIN, I don't have that much time to sit and level him up 3 times again from 0 + his abilities, what should I do then?

[Rydian]

Potentially an appealing change (neutral at worst for 2-ability builds, beneficial for 3 and 4), but here's some concerns.

1 - How will the forma polarity swap function factor into this?  If you forma'd only slots that are being removed, will the frame still count as having been forma'd before and allow you to move polarities around?

2 - What if we have maxed ability mods and a normal frame, but have not yet obtained the prime of it?  Let's say I have a set of fully-ranked Saryn ability mods in my inventory with some of them installed in Saryn and the change comes about (they get converted to her internal stats).  Later on I build Saryn Prime (whenever she comes out), will Saryn Prime have all her abilities maxed or will I have to rank hers up through use since the mod value will be internal to the frame?

3 - Will we have to re-rank abilities through using them after using a forma on a frame, or will the fact that we have the skills ranked up stay?

4 - Having to rank up abilities might discourage newer players from using them, as they'll be using the weaker less-duration forms of them at first... but this is a minor concern I guess as the abilities won't be using up any mod space.

[KaynArgyr]

I mean it's awesome and all that they finally did this but I'm not happy about that u'll get forma back if u formad your ability slot. Why? Well it means i'll have to forma my Rhino again and level him up AGAIN, I don't have that much time to sit and level him up 3 times again from 0 + his abilities, what should I do then?

 

You can switch the polarities to slots that aren't the frame abilities dedicated one...

 

It should solve your issue...

[Pham.Nuwen]

So this is fine and all I guess. 

 

But will I now have to re-grind every single frame to get its abilities back to optimum levels? After y'know, couple forma and many hours getting most of my frames just the way I like. 

[Scr4mp]

Are you kidding me? Free abilities and 2 extra mod slots is a nerf?

 

edit: God damn. I thought for once DE found something that people can't cry too much over since it's a general and huge buff in every way imaginable. More mod points freed up, all abilities available at all times, and much less reason to forma  warframes. Guess I was wrong. Warframe forums - you never cease to amaze me.

 

I don't know where you get those 2 additional mod slots from and not everybody is too lazy to forma their warframes. So removing 2 mod slots is a nerf no matter how you look at it! On top of that, even though we will have all abilities available doesn't mean they will be usefull. If I want to max out my nekros desecrate by putting a stretch and overextended on I'm going to make his fear ability useless.

[CinderDragon77]

I love that abilities are being removed from drop tables and as mods altogether, but I seem to agree that this change will really hurt one ability builds and will not be helping diversity in any way, at least giving 10 mod slots+1 aura would not harm any potential builds and will still allow greater diversity in all builds which may help alleviate the problem of only having 1 or two skills be useful while the other skills of a frame are gimped due to corrupted mods and/or start seeing more of the rarely used mods.

Edited October 18, 2014 by CinderDragon77

[Clurichaun]

I think Nekros will be the most affected by these changes, as probably one of the most specialized and heavily formaed frames in the game. I myself have put 5 forma into him to for 1 ability Desecrate build. It's not that i disliked his other abilities its just that to maximise Desecrate while maintaining some level of survivability i found it necessary to remove his other abilities.

 

While it would be good to be able to use his other abilities again, the problem is that maximising Desecrate for range and effeciency, using Overextended and Fleeting Expertise, has a substantial negative effect on his other abilities pretty much rendering them useless. The negative power strength quality of Overextended reduces the damage of Soul Punch, reduces the no. of affected enemies and armor reduction % of Terrify and reduces the no. of copies in Shadows Of The Dead to 2. The negative duration quality of Fleeting Expertise reduces the duration of both Terrify and Shadows Of The Dead. Essentially with this change we'll have a less effective desecrating Nekros with severely hampered other abilities.

 

Despite this i can see why DE are doing making these changes. I think pretty much everyone would at least like to have the option of using any and all of a frames abilities to get the most out of the game and the removal of the ability mods from the drop tables has been long overdue. Hopefully this is just a first step and the devs will take a look at adjusting frames that have one ability that comes at the expense of the others. Nekros was recently highlighted in a community hot topics so maybe he is being looked at (Sayrn also comes to mind).

 

At the end of the day the game will still be fun.

[Yezzik]

So this is fine and all I guess. 

 

But will I now have to re-grind every single frame to get its abilities back to optimum levels? After y'know, couple forma and many hours getting most of my frames just the way I like. 

 

Probably not. Remember, your abilities won't be costing Capacity any more to stick on your frame...

[Ace_Kayo]

"What if I Forma’d/Polarized the 2 slots being removed?

Any Forma spent on Polarizing these 2 slots will be reimbursed."

 

I think I need to clarify what I was saying before. Reimbursed Forma won't help. Reimbursed with polarity tokens will. You guys need to remember this isn't closed beta any more and there are over 20 frames now! This game has been out far too long to be changing things like this without proper reimbursement!

[Pham.Nuwen]

Probably not. Remember, your abilities won't be costing Capacity any more to stick on your frame...

But I mean getting each ability back to max level. Not the frame itself. 

 

Like, the 20+ frames I have, each with 4 fully ranked abilities will now all have to be replayed just so I can have the max ability rank again. 

Edited October 18, 2014 by Bejaaamin

[TsundereHvyCruiser]

Please clarify which 2 slots are being removed. The 2 on the right? the 2 on the bottom?

[SanguineSol]

when I was listening to the idea of removing the abilities from the warframes I was really hyped about it and my mind flooded with possibilities. After digesting and reading what is actually happening many of the familiar builds that I run look like they may have to change. On one side there are frames like Oberon, rhino and Trinity the way I build them there is going to be benefit to these changes as I use 3-4 abilities meaning there is some gain to be had with these frames.

 

On the flip side of things there are frames like Loki, Saryn, Frost and Nekros which I find myself in many situations building exclusively for 1 single ability, to maximise its performance which means I have 9 mod slots to play with when using a frame with only a single ability. Although the variety is obviously at first a brilliant idea and certain frames are going to benefit I do feel that a large amount of builds I enjoy running are going to end up in the -1 mod slot category by reducing the slots from 10 to 8. This in itself isn't a huge deal but the flexibility and possibility that I thought was there in fact isn't with certain builds that gear towards a single ability maximisation.

 

In short I am happy with the idea of removing the abilities from the drops and the movement towards a more passive style progression with the WF abilities, although I think reducing the max available slots from 10 to 8 isn't going to open up the "world" of possibility that I had initially hoped it would and infact it may have the adverse effect entirely with builds with one ability in mind, this has left me slightly confused and frustrated.

 

I will remain open minded to these changes although I do believe the best way to open that "world" of opportunity with the modding system is to just keep the max available mod slots at 10 as reducing down to 8 actually will hinder me personally more than benefit as it initially appeared on the surface. it sure is a bitter sweet scenario.

[Varzy]

Abilities should get a portion of Warframe affinity, along with a direct affinity gain on-use.

[Varzy]

when I was listening to the idea of removing the abilities from the warframes I was really hyped about it and my mind flooded with possibilities. After digesting and reading what is actually happening many of the familiar builds that I run look like they may have to change. On one side there are frames like Oberon, rhino and Trinity the way I build them there is going to be benefit to these changes as I use 3-4 abilities meaning there is some gain to be had with these frames.

 

On the flip side of things there are frames like Loki, Saryn, Frost and Nekros which I find myself in many situations building exclusively for 1 single ability, to maximise its performance which means I have 9 mod slots to play with when using a frame with only a single ability. Although the variety is obviously at first a brilliant idea and certain frames are going to benefit I do feel that a large amount of builds I enjoy running are going to end up in the -1 mod slot category by reducing the slots from 10 to 8. This in itself isn't a huge deal but the flexibility and possibility that I thought was there in fact isn't with certain builds that gear towards a single ability maximisation.

 

In short I am happy with the idea of removing the abilities from the drops and the movement towards a more passive style progression with the WF abilities, although I think reducing the max available slots from 10 to 8 isn't going to open up the "world" of possibility that I had initially hoped it would and infact it may have the adverse effect entirely with builds with one ability in mind, this has left me slightly confused and frustrated.

 

I will remain open minded to these changes although I do believe the best way to open that "world" of opportunity with the modding system is to just keep the max available mod slots at 10 as reducing down to 8 actually will hinder me personally more than benefit as it initially appeared on the surface. it sure is a bitter sweet scenario.

I think that the access to the other 3 abilities, regardless of how they're affected by mods, is largely going to be to your advantage even in a build that really only capitalizes on 1 ability and has one less mod slot.

[Eggs-DE-]

Question-

If you max out the regular version of a prime, will the prime have max ranked abilities.

Ex. Maxed out Ember pre update 15-> Finally get all the Prime parts -> Now have Ember Prime post update 15

 

It wouldn't be a big deal to re-level abilities 1 and 4 but I would really like it if maxing out the abilities stay on your account....cause I use abilities 2 and 3 very little.

[Gurzil]

If I'm reading this correctly (forgive me, as I had a late night, and this coffee is being lazy)

 

We are going to wind up with less slots overall?

 

IF that is the case, then I am totally against this change. In the current system, we have so many mods, that there are way too many sacrifices you must make. This is a big part of why people formad their ability slots, this and to specialize in powers.

 

As is we barely have room for many of the mods in the system.

 

IF we are actually losing slots that we could just polarize to fit things, and are being reimbursed forma.. What about our hours of leveling, the platinum spent on boosters, etc? Going to reimburse that effort? I like the thought of polarity tokens far more than a forma, because it saves me literally days of leveling, and I'm not the only one. In the last week alone I've forma'd several frames, and gone through at least 20 forma, so basically i'm being sent back in time, and getting my forma back, but not the hours/days on my boosters? Again, forgive me if I've read this wrong..

 

DE needs to add something to mastery unlocks, a subset of mod slots. We do tests that require stamina, speed, wall running, etc. So give us slots for these mods as we pass tests. Say I do the MR8 test.. Unlock a slot for me, so I can put Acrobat in there, and not have to sacrifice a build slot for it. I did the MR11 test, maybe give me a slot I can put marathon in, or rush. We do tests for melee and such. Give me a slot for reflex guard, reflection, etc.

 

So then we would have this new system, but also have room to give our frames the speed/stamina/reflexes we need.

 

Just thoughts from a Tenno still half asleep..

 

Pardon em moi.

[WhiteCr0w]

Beautiful, amazing and very welcome change! I absolutely love the way you continue to polish the game and upgrade mechanics to more streamlined, sensible ones. Thank you thank you thank you DE. I'm so very glad the way you're handling this, with reimbursing and equalizing the upgrades and changes players have made to their frames.

 

KEEP BEING AWESOME!