Update 15 Mutating Warframe Abilities.

[IfritKajiTora]

So I want to talk about this: 

 

When I saw it I though we will be abble to somehow change ability, not change it to other but little changing mechanic. But no : ( we are not.

What I was thinking about is changing abilities little by using Player Rank for example, if we have player rank 15 we are abble to use 15points on every ability.

We are abble to change everything what is on the description:
SLEIGHT OF HAND
Range 40m
Duration 18s
Explosion Damage 125
Explosion Radius 5m

Everything will be powered up in points not in % (all skills will have different +stat)

Range 40m per one point +0.5m
Duration 18s per one point +0.5s
Explosion damage 125 per one point +10
Explosion Radius 5m per one point +0.5m

For example: No one like Frost Freeze ability because it is useless.
When we go to that ability we can per one point give it +0.5meters range per point but it's making ability weaker in everything else.
Standard stats of Freeze ability:
Duration 12s
Range 0m
Cold damage 350
Frozen state end at 300 damage gained

We can mutate this skill to change it at our will. For example use all 15points of our Rank player to Freeze skill by adding range, so it will looks like this.
Freeze
Duration 4.5s  -0.5s per point
Range 7.5m +0.5m per point
Cold damage 200 -10damage per point
Frozen state end at 150 damage gained. -10damage per point

We added range to this skill but it weaked all other things.

For some skills changes will be different for example Iron skin could be changed by using 10 points in one so you need Rank10 player or higher to mutate it.
Mutating Iron skill will results of making it unbrekable liek it was before but it cost 5 energy per seconds. You can turn it OFF and ON in any time you want, just like with Nyx Absorb ability.

I would like to see mutating skill mechanic, so everybody will be abble to change any useless skill to be useful at his will.

[Vargras]

Heavily disagree.

 

Mutators actually sound fun because you're drastically changing how abilities work and opening up new playstyles because of it -- one of the examples given by Steve was Ash's Smokescreen affecting all allies too. Your idea is little more than the same abilities as we currently have, but with different numbers.

[Wurdyburd]

I've played this game long enough to realize how significantly boring the numbers game is. Maximizing for power stats only makes it harder to enjoy the abilities that suffer from your maximization. As you have it, you'll have people maximizing even more, probably in range and strength. While this would help towards the viability of powers in late-game content, it's just... boring.

 

I'm personally very excited to see what comes up in Augments. Changing how the ability works creates a ton of options for the developers, where your proposed system would cause further stagnation.

For example: yes, everyone hates Frost's Freeze ability. Your change would still have everyone hating it, it just happens to be marginally less useless. However, with Augments, we could receive a mutation that causes Freeze to be released in a short-range, cone-AoE burst, dealing less damage, but freezing multiple enemies.

 

Would you rather have that extra range on a single target ability? Or a shorter range, but turn that ability into a shotgun?