Push 4 To Win A (Insert Number Here) Look At Nuke Skills

[Hypernaut1]

i think the AoEs are more diverse in game play then some of you give credit for. Its easily to simplify it and say "press 4 to kill", but in my experience the ultimates do play a bit differently from each other enough that it doesnt just feel like a reskinned AoE nuke.

[sorq]

Sigh, the skills are fine the way they are, can we stop screaming for nerfs and instead maybe buff frames that need it?

[Nlim]

i think the AoEs are more diverse in game play then some of you give credit for. Its easily to simplify it and say "press 4 to kill", but in my experience the ultimates do play a bit differently from each other enough that it doesnt just feel like a reskinned AoE nuke.

Volt, Excalibur, Frost, Rhino, Oberon, Mag, Nova and Saryn have very similiar nukes - simply press 4 and things get a lot of damage around you. Sure their are differences mechanicly (mostly the elements or some cc if things surive though) but gameplay wise you press one button and things die around you unless you are in a high level mission (where to their credit their differences are more apperent like Rhinos strong cc or Novas damage amplify). Than you have some "nukes" which are different like Mirage, Ember, speednova, Banshee, (Ash?) and  Nyx but I would argue that their presence gets diminished by the existence of so many nukes. Like yes they are different but since their are so many dominant abilities out their which share a huge part of their identity they feel way less intresting.

I would just like more ultimate abilities which actually feel special to the specific frame - for example Limbos 4 has a nuke as well but it is not the defining part of the ability. I don´t want to say that evry frame I listed should be changed but espascially the first category could use some work to differentiat their ultimates.

[KiteoHatto]

Volt, Excalibur, Frost, Rhino, Oberon, Mag, Nova and Saryn have very similiar nukes - simply press 4 and things get a lot of damage around you. Sure their are differences mechanicly (mostly the elements or some cc if things surive though) but gameplay wise you press one button and things die around you unless you are in a high level mission (where to their credit their differences are more apperent like Rhinos strong cc or Novas damage amplify). Than you have some "nukes" which are different like Mirage, Ember, speednova, Banshee, (Ash?) and  Nyx but I would argue that their presence gets diminished by the existence of so many nukes. Like yes they are different but since their are so many dominant abilities out their which share a huge part of their identity they feel way less intresting.

I would just like more ultimate abilities which actually feel special to the specific frame - for example Limbos 4 has a nuke as well but it is not the defining part of the ability. I don´t want to say that evry frame I listed should be changed but espascially the first category could use some work to differentiat their ultimates.

Instead of asking to change the skills of frames that are fine, how about asking for more frames that are all utility, thats all you are asking really. You want more limbo, loki, trinity, vauban, nekros type frames. IMO limbo is the most annoying frame so far, i hope we don't more frames with such troll potential.

 

PS. The only reason those 1st group frames are able to "press 4 to win" is because of how long it took their players to get the mods and forma them, even then, they all do different type of damage. You need pretty rare mods and then you need to max several of those r20 mods so you could have alternating builds.

 

I don't see why nova and oberon are up there with saryn and the rest of real room wipers. On topic of Saryn, at maxed "4 to win" build the 4 costs a decent chunk of energy if you are not using flow, i go through energy restores really quickly with her, yeah things disentigrate but it costs, even with streamline and fleeting.

 

Nova supports the dps frames, her 4 doesn't kill anything on it's own, it buffs the damage. Oberon is sorta dps but you have to build him that way and completely gimp your heal if your 4 is going to do any sort of damage and have any "range", its more of a panic button cc with a knock down.

 

I don't know if you've played all the frames and maxed them, but you can't really say they are the same just because people who clear mob packs with them make it look so "easy".

Edited November 18, 2014 by kiteohatto

[Altey]

 

Sigh, the skills are fine the way they are, can we stop screaming for nerfs and instead maybe buff frames that need it?

 

[Nlim]

Instead of asking to change the skills of frames that are fine, how about asking for more frames that are all utility, thats all you are asking really. You want more limbo, loki, trinity, vauban, nekros type frames.

 

Not really what I am asking for. It isn´t just a damage vs utility thing but on how it plays out in the game. For example Saryns 1 is only a damage ability but plays completly different to her 4.  Also I am asking because I don´t think that the abilities are fine in this quantity - you may disagree, I listed why I think this way.

 

Also regarding your edit nope. You do not need incredible rare mods to wipe rooms with those abilities - you only need those if you want to keep the damage relevant for higher level missions and even if you did this doesn´t change my point - they get used a lot as a aoe nuke and behave very smiliar for this fashion.

Your Nova claim is just factually wrong, since it often triggers a chain reaction clearing a room (altough I admit I was debating if I should put her in the first or second group, in the end i threw her into both since outside highlevel mission novas 4 plays out quite similiar to all the other nukes).

Your point on Saryn doesn´t change anything my issue isn´t balance here.

And how Oberons ult isn´t an aoe nuke for you is beyond me, yes it does have some secondary function like CC/Health and maybe doesn´t do as much damage as some other wipers but it functions very smiliar.

 

I am not calling them the same beause it looks "easy" (also I am only calling one of their abilities very similiar not the whole frames) but gameplay wise regarding this one ability you mostly just press a button and things die around you - sure you might have different mods like less duration on Saryn to optimise this but in the game all of those frames press one button and enmies in a radius around them die. Their differences mostly only show when the damage isn´t enough to kill all opponents (which usually happens only in fairly high level missions - of course dependent on how heavily optimised the frame is for their nuke) and I find this boring since so many frames have this ability.

[KiteoHatto]

snip

You are asking for a rework of "ultimate" abilities on dps frames to turn them into more defensive frames. The only difference between limbo and frost is that limbo lacks the "nuking" skills, which makes him more of a defense/support than DPS.

 

Why do you want to turn dps frames which were DESIGNED from the ground up to dish out damage into defensive frames ? I don't understand this. If you find their mechanics "boring" then they are just not for your playstyle, simple as that, there is no need to change them. Just like I don't find Limbos and Trinity's mechanics interesting "for me", but im not suggesting that DE "reworks" them to suit my playstyle.

 

When i said Nova is a support dps frame and doesn't belong in the first group I was talking about her 4 ON ITS OWN. It doesn't kill anything on it's own, enemy has to die to trigger the explosion.

[fakeBOSHI]

Nuking abilities are the way the game has progressed. When DE decided that a swarm mechanic for mobs and an infinite scaling on hp and dmg was the way to go, you inevitably force 3 things to happen to warframes;

 

1. MASSIVE AOE: without this how are you going to keep up the fast pace style of the game? If you can't clear waves and waves of cannon fodder. Even low level mobs in sufficient numbers are going to start chipping away at you if you stay long enough.

 

2. Optimized builds: This isn't necessarily a cause and effect thing (people are going to look for optimized builds no matter what the state of the game) but with infinite scaling, why would you ever try to limit your frames even more by having 4 mediocre skills that won't tickle high level enemies instead of having one really powerful skill that would keep you in the game?

 

3. Utility only: When enemies start scaling out to absurd hp and dmg, who has not been thankful for utility frames on their squad that can disarm, stun lock, slow etc.? The fact that enemies come in huge numbers with incredibly high dmg means that 1 stray bullet, goodbye loki, another stray bullet goodbye teammate trying to revive.

 

Nuking "clear the room in 1 button" builds are a product of the way the game has decided to play out. Another problem caused by artificial difficulty. Without these 3 though, you are not gonna survive high levels.

 

LOS as it was implemented was a horrible idea and should never come back for an infinite number of reasons people have said over and over again. Straight nerfing abilities is a cop-out strategy and makes the grind to god-tier 10x longer for noobs. Changes to the way the game plays can't be 1 dimensional and need to encourage players to make use of other tools instead because the rewards are greater than it currently is.  

 

TLDR; If you want to change the way abilities work, you need to change the way the game plays at its core. No more swarms of cannon fodder, no more infinite scaling, focus on parkour/evasion/survivability/stealth mechanics and abilities. Without those in place already, people are going never going to see the upside to "nerf us, leet skill" when nukes are required and to do otherwise is both harder and less rewarding.

[Xeo_Nespydonum]

You can play the way you want. Some like nukes, some like support and some like to go full out run and gun.

 

Just because you hate something doesn't mean it has to be nerfed or removed.

You say it's because I hate the skill; in a way yes.  Although my stance is closer to:  The frames have far more potential in their themes than what was utilized and nukes are rather generic "blanket abilities"  In my post I said; I don't care if some nukes remain. just make it less common.  I don't care how making them less common is done either, say DE makes every warframe have 4 ability slots, but around 8 abilities to pick from and they could add more into their available ability pool to choose from than 8 at a later date. 

[Nlim]

You are asking for a rework of "ultimate" abilities on dps frames to turn them into more defensive frames. The only difference between limbo and frost is that limbo lacks the "nuking" skills, which makes him more of a defense/support than DPS.

 

Why do you want to turn dps frames which were DESIGNED from the ground up to dish out damage into defensive frames ? I don't understand this. If you find their mechanics "boring" then they are just not for your playstyle, simple as that, there is no need to change them. Just like I don't find Limbos and Trinity's mechanics interesting "for me", but im not suggesting that DE "reworks" them to suit my playstyle.

 

When i said Nova is a support dps frame and doesn't belong in the first group I was talking about her 4 ON ITS OWN. It doesn't kill anything on it's own, enemy has to die to trigger the explosion.

 

I never said so, Please show me where I said that they should be more defensive frames? I only made one example with limbo to show that the abilities could even still be aoe nukes but could have more to them - not that evry frame should be like limbo. And like the Saryn example shows you can have an ability which is only about damage but still be more just than an aoe nuke. I even said I am not against aoe nukes in general I just dislike in what quantity frames have this ability which work very similiar. I find it boring how many frames act the same in this regard I don´t nesscarily find the playstyle in itself boring (also I am not suggesting to remove all nukes).

 

The nova point is almost semantics to me. Pressing 4 into evrything dies or pressing 4 and shoot one enemy so that evrything dies isn´t much of a difference in gameplay.

[vaugahn]

TLDR; If you want to change the way abilities work, you need to change the way the game plays at its core. 

 

Not really.

 

Make damage skills percentage-based instead of flat damage. Bam, that solves the infinite scaling problem. Optimized builds aren't a problem that you can solve, or even a problem, so I don't know why that's up there. Enemy scaling needs to be revisited, though as it is now you're hard pressed to find areas where hard CC is absolutely required. That's a whole different can of worms though, 

 

No matter which way you slice it, LoS (when properly applied) is not a "horrible idea". People don't really have any good reasons for not having it other than base reaction to the word nerf, and on many abilities it could promote the skills you mentioned, even with current enemy spawning mechanics. 

[Xeo_Nespydonum]

Not really.

 

Make damage skills percentage-based instead of flat damage. Bam, that solves the infinite scaling problem. Optimized builds aren't a problem that you can solve, or even a problem, so I don't know why that's up there. Enemy scaling needs to be revisited, though as it is now you're hard pressed to find areas where hard CC is absolutely required. That's a whole different can of worms though, 

 

No matter which way you slice it, LoS (when properly applied) is not a "horrible idea". People don't really have any good reasons for not having it other than base reaction to the word nerf, and on many abilities it could promote the skills you mentioned, even with current enemy spawning mechanics. 

LoS is horrible for light weight CC frames when put in a corridor based environment like just about every level in Warframe is.

[dragonkingdx]

Is what i read in your post.

 

You make some good points, but at the same time you failed to adress something important. Well two things actually

 

1.Mods that affect abilitys

2.Chaining Ablitlys

 

1.This is self explanitory I should think. There are a ton of mods out now that you can get that make your abilitys stupid strong. This is a slippery slope though, if you nerf these, you'd invalidiate a lot of work since they are diffacult (read expensive) to get and max. And you could make ablilitys weaker this way, but for some content you need strong skills. T4 missions for example.

 

2.Viver was possable not cause Cali could press four and nuke the entire aera, but because someone thought up a optimal way to synergize 3 number four skills together for the maximum effectiveness (lets just call them ults for simplicity).

 

So trinity fed cali and mag energy, mag removed sheilds from the enemys and replenished the groups so they didnt die, and cali pressed four and nuked the entire aera.  And while its true there were 3 frames exploiting their fours lack of los, they needed to work together to get it acomplished.

 

I personally feel that finding synergys like this is a GOOD thing. It just depends on the application, and that depends on the people and their goals.

Nuking abilities are the way the game has progressed. When DE decided that a swarm mechanic for mobs and an infinite scaling on hp and dmg was the way to go, you inevitably force 3 things to happen to warframes;

 

1. MASSIVE AOE: without this how are you going to keep up the fast pace style of the game? If you can't clear waves and waves of cannon fodder. Even low level mobs in sufficient numbers are going to start chipping away at you if you stay long enough.

 

2. Optimized builds: This isn't necessarily a cause and effect thing (people are going to look for optimized builds no matter what the state of the game) but with infinite scaling, why would you ever try to limit your frames even more by having 4 mediocre skills that won't tickle high level enemies instead of having one really powerful skill that would keep you in the game?

 

3. Utility only: When enemies start scaling out to absurd hp and dmg, who has not been thankful for utility frames on their squad that can disarm, stun lock, slow etc.? The fact that enemies come in huge numbers with incredibly high dmg means that 1 stray bullet, goodbye loki, another stray bullet goodbye teammate trying to revive.

 

Nuking "clear the room in 1 button" builds are a product of the way the game has decided to play out. Another problem caused by artificial difficulty. Without these 3 though, you are not gonna survive high levels.

 

LOS as it was implemented was a horrible idea and should never come back for an infinite number of reasons people have said over and over again. Straight nerfing abilities is a cop-out strategy and makes the grind to god-tier 10x longer for noobs. Changes to the way the game plays can't be 1 dimensional and need to encourage players to make use of other tools instead because the rewards are greater than it currently is.  

 

TLDR; If you want to change the way abilities work, you need to change the way the game plays at its core. No more swarms of cannon fodder, no more infinite scaling, focus on parkour/evasion/survivability/stealth mechanics and abilities. Without those in place already, people are going never going to see the upside to "nerf us, leet skill" when nukes are required and to do otherwise is both harder and less rewarding.

 

To say at first I only mentioned viver because it was a recent issue that involved complaints about how broken it was and how one could easily press 1 button and kill the entire room. I only really got 4-5k rep off of it and that was mainly tword getting a few weaps and a warframe leveled. (as that was what it was good for pre-syndicate) Didn't bother to continue as it was just plain redundant and boring.

 

The problem I see is that people keep bringing up t4 and higher difficulties. In my original post I never said weaken the skills effectiveness in combat. I said weaken it for farther off items so it isnt a map nuke where it would still remain a room nuke. (even a room nuke is pushing it in some perspective but again baby steps)

 

What many dont realize is that a good majority of the levels have enemies under lvl 30, t3 even has some at the beginning. This is actually a problem when it comes to farming resources/looking for mods/hunting for eggs etc. While many do not see that because they are more focused tword the endless missions. Its because moves like that kill so effectively throughout the map with decent range/damage mods on that things become a bit too easy. Which helped allow viver to be used in such a way. In no way am I saying what they did was correct it wasn't. But it was an issue of core game play colliding with skilled game play. They decided to put a change on the skill aspect of the game play before addressing the core issue of how that map was used. However just because they changed everything back and addressed the core issue (the level itself) it doesn't mean that the skill issue that assists things becoming lackluster and easy to do like that should be thrown to the wind. Even if people feel comfortable with that it doesn't take a genius to figure out pressing a button and killing is a crapload easier than using the weapons we carry to do the job.

 

When you get to t4 abilities are not used for their damage (the damage helps but it stops insta killing them so its more of a weaken skill/utility/cc) Your weapons become one of your main sources of damage. (which is lost when enemies are weaker as its a simple button to mass kill) As well as teamwork becomes more of a perspective. You dont exactly see that on weaker missions, what you see is people rushing through the stage (which is fine) spam killing room after room with their skills to make it to the end and get the reward. (less ok IMO) When it comes to endless missions however it takes another gear. Your set with killing things all over with the ease of a button which gets thrown off later with killing far out of your reach. (a reason why line of sight probably came into play during that 15.2 patch as a proposed remedy albeit a horribly implemented one) Its that simplistic call for nuking everything over and over that provides an issue especially when it starts going to the point where your effecting too large of a portion of the map when killing.

 

Not really.

 

Make damage skills percentage-based instead of flat damage. Bam, that solves the infinite scaling problem. Optimized builds aren't a problem that you can solve, or even a problem, so I don't know why that's up there. Enemy scaling needs to be revisited, though as it is now you're hard pressed to find areas where hard CC is absolutely required. That's a whole different can of worms though, 

 

No matter which way you slice it, LoS (when properly applied) is not a "horrible idea". People don't really have any good reasons for not having it other than base reaction to the word nerf, and on many abilities it could promote the skills you mentioned, even with current enemy spawning mechanics. 

I sorta like the idea of % based damage. However on its own you have people complaining that their skills no longer kill. A slight amount of based damage followed by a % of HP would be better

 

LoS is horrible for light weight CC frames when put in a corridor based environment like just about every level in Warframe is.

 

In a corridor based environment you have walls and cover to hide behind as well as there is a limited area where opponents can hide/come from. Those situations dont exactly need CC skills/or really any skill in general. (unless its a healing/support skill) Open rooms/areas are better for those things. After all its crowd control not corridor control. Its meant for giant crowds coming from all over.

Edited November 18, 2014 by dragonkingdx

[CY13ERPUNK]

Not really.

 

Make damage skills percentage-based instead of flat damage. Bam, that solves the infinite scaling problem. Optimized builds aren't a problem that you can solve, or even a problem, so I don't know why that's up there. Enemy scaling needs to be revisited, though as it is now you're hard pressed to find areas where hard CC is absolutely required. That's a whole different can of worms though, 

 

No matter which way you slice it, LoS (when properly applied) is not a "horrible idea". People don't really have any good reasons for not having it other than base reaction to the word nerf, and on many abilities it could promote the skills you mentioned, even with current enemy spawning mechanics. 

 

^^^^^^^^^ this

[Jeigo]

The percent scaling would address enemy defenses how? Flat % damage undermines defense variations among enemies. I'm just keeping the ball rolling since the idea is intriguing.

[dragonkingdx]

The percent scaling would address enemy defenses how? Flat % damage undermines defense variations among enemies. I'm just keeping the ball rolling since the idea is intriguing.

could be % of max hp as that wouldn't have any barring on defense. Though if there would be some defense value in the equation I guess it would be % max hp- enemy defense divided by the tier the enemy belongs to. Then again that could be bad with higher up opponents as their HP is much higher as defense would hardly make a dent in that original number making it a small factor instead of one that would scale more. :S then again could work tier in reverse order t1 enemies divided by 4, t2 by 3, t3 by 2 and t4 by 1. As that may be better grant it I dont have the actual values in front of me so its a bit difficult. And even then scaling would still be a problem

Edited November 18, 2014 by dragonkingdx

[Hypernaut1]

could be % of max hp as that wouldn't have any barring on defense. Though if there would be some defense value in the equation I guess it would be % max hp- enemy defense divided by the tier the enemy belongs to. Then again that could be bad with higher up opponents as their HP is much higher as defense would hardly make a dent in that original number making it a small factor instead of one that would scale more. :S then again could work tier in reverse order t1 enemies divided by 4, t2 by 3, t3 by 2 and t4 by 1. As that may be better grant it I dont have the actual values in front of me so its a bit difficult. And even then scaling would still be a problem

It could be a good variable for some skills.

 

I played an ARPG once where a character had a 30% chance to instantly kill an enemy of any level. Or a skill that instantly halves the life of an enemy. These kind of skills can be fun, but has to be used sparingly.

[Xeo_Nespydonum]

To say at first I only mentioned viver because it was a recent issue that involved complaints about how broken it was and how one could easily press 1 button and kill the entire room. I only really got 4-5k rep off of it and that was mainly tword getting a few weaps and a warframe leveled. (as that was what it was good for pre-syndicate) Didn't bother to continue as it was just plain redundant and boring.

 

The problem I see is that people keep bringing up t4 and higher difficulties. In my original post I never said weaken the skills effectiveness in combat. I said weaken it for farther off items so it isnt a map nuke where it would still remain a room nuke. (even a room nuke is pushing it in some perspective but again baby steps)

 

What many dont realize is that a good majority of the levels have enemies under lvl 30, t3 even has some at the beginning. This is actually a problem when it comes to farming resources/looking for mods/hunting for eggs etc. While many do not see that because they are more focused tword the endless missions. Its because moves like that kill so effectively throughout the map with decent range/damage mods on that things become a bit too easy. Which helped allow viver to be used in such a way. In no way am I saying what they did was correct it wasn't. But it was an issue of core game play colliding with skilled game play. They decided to put a change on the skill aspect of the game play before addressing the core issue of how that map was used. However just because they changed everything back and addressed the core issue (the level itself) it doesn't mean that the skill issue that assists things becoming lackluster and easy to do like that should be thrown to the wind. Even if people feel comfortable with that it doesn't take a genius to figure out pressing a button and killing is a crapload easier than using the weapons we carry to do the job.

 

When you get to t4 abilities are not used for their damage (the damage helps but it stops insta killing them so its more of a weaken skill/utility/cc) Your weapons become one of your main sources of damage. (which is lost when enemies are weaker as its a simple button to mass kill) As well as teamwork becomes more of a perspective. You dont exactly see that on weaker missions, what you see is people rushing through the stage (which is fine) spam killing room after room with their skills to make it to the end and get the reward. (less ok IMO) When it comes to endless missions however it takes another gear. Your set with killing things all over with the ease of a button which gets thrown off later with killing far out of your reach. (a reason why line of sight probably came into play during that 15.2 patch as a proposed remedy albeit a horribly implemented one) Its that simplistic call for nuking everything over and over that provides an issue especially when it starts going to the point where your effecting too large of a portion of the map when killing.

 

I sorta like the idea of % based damage. However on its own you have people complaining that their skills no longer kill. A slight amount of based damage followed by a % of HP would be better

 

 

In a corridor based environment you have walls and cover to hide behind as well as there is a limited area where opponents can hide/come from. Those situations dont exactly need CC skills/or really any skill in general. (unless its a healing/support skill) Open rooms/areas are better for those things. After all its crowd control not corridor control. Its meant for giant crowds coming from all over.

Warframe never has had good cover systems for the players; nor should it.  Before Radial Blind was nerfed; I would be able to hit 2 and not worry about instantly dying 3 seconds later.  Now as soon as I hit 2 another enemy comes around a corner and destroys me. Radial Blind was broken and needed to be changed, LoS was not a good way to go about that because it just encourages spamming it more:  The effect itself needs a change, not the AoE.

[vaugahn]

LoS is horrible for light weight CC frames when put in a corridor based environment like just about every level in Warframe is.

 

Already addressed that. Light cover, like the pipes and boxes found in hallways, should not block skills. Only heavy cover, like tile walls, doors, or thick/solid walls should block skills. 

 

I sorta like the idea of % based damage. However on its own you have people complaining that their skills no longer kill. A slight amount of based damage followed by a % of HP would be better

 

That's somewhat along the lines of what I was thinking. For example, a skill does 200 damage plus 15% base enemy HP. That way you could also control exactly what skills are doing, as it would be very easy to determine how fast or slow a skill should kill an enemy. 

 

The percent scaling would address enemy defenses how? Flat % damage undermines defense variations among enemies. I'm just keeping the ball rolling since the idea is intriguing.

 

There are no defense variations among enemies, other than innate damage type resistances. Those would still exist with percent damage skills. The main reasoning behind percent damage skills is that it would allow the power of the skills relative to enemies to be carefully controlled like I mentioned above, and it would keep damage skills relevant in higher levels. 

[dragonkingdx]

It could be a good variable for some skills.

 

I played an ARPG once where a character had a 30% chance to instantly kill an enemy of any level. Or a skill that instantly halves the life of an enemy. These kind of skills can be fun, but has to be used sparingly.

With those terms uses of that kind of skill would be more faced twords an attack item that has a limited number of uses.  (o.o is surprised we dont have attack/distraction gears, that would be a nice change XD)

 

Warframe never has had good cover systems for the players; nor should it.  Before Radial Blind was nerfed; I would be able to hit 2 and not worry about instantly dying 3 seconds later.  Now as soon as I hit 2 another enemy comes around a corner and destroys me. Radial Blind was broken and needed to be changed, LoS was not a good way to go about that because it just encourages spamming it more:  The effect itself needs a change, not the AoE.

 

I see that as a problem as well. Even with the current systems I can still find cover however its harder to use it properly. (hid behind boxes, in the crack at the edge of a doorway, hell even crouched behind railings)

 

However I dont agree that it shouldn't have it. I think that would be a nice area to improve on. I mean vaulting was already added why not add the ability to stick to some cover and blind fire/peek your head out? (since corpus/grineer actually have these functions when they fight you) It would at least add some thinking to situations so people are more observant of their environment and would lessen needs of using skills to keep the heat off of them.

 

Already addressed that. Light cover, like the pipes and boxes found in hallways, should not block skills. Only heavy cover, like tile walls, doors, or thick/solid walls should block skills. 

 

 

That's somewhat along the lines of what I was thinking. For example, a skill does 200 damage plus 15% base enemy HP. That way you could also control exactly what skills are doing, as it would be very easy to determine how fast or slow a skill should kill an enemy. 

 

 

There are no defense variations among enemies, other than innate damage type resistances. Those would still exist with percent damage skills. The main reasoning behind percent damage skills is that it would allow the power of the skills relative to enemies to be carefully controlled like I mentioned above, and it would keep damage skills relevant in higher levels. 

 

Hmmm 15% may not be bad. But you would have to factor in how power effects the base damage/if it effects % damage. Heck if we are talking percentages was thinking on also putting a % cost on energy for some skills followed with a CD. (grant it that seems a bit too drastic in some senses) Such as skill x costs 20% of maximum energy and has a CD of 10 secs. Though I guess if you go along that line it would only apply to certain skills and would make flow more or less a necessary mod.

Edited November 19, 2014 by dragonkingdx

[Xeo_Nespydonum]

With those terms uses of that kind of skill would be more faced twords an attack item that has a limited number of uses.  (o.o is surprised we dont have attack/distraction gears, that would be a nice change XD)

 

 

I see that as a problem as well. Even with the current systems I can still find cover however its harder to use it properly. (hid behind boxes, in the crack at the edge of a doorway, hell even crouched behind railings)

 

However I dont agree that it shouldn't have it. I think that would be a nice area to improve on. I mean vaulting was already added why not add the ability to stick to some cover and blind fire/peek your head out? (since corpus/grineer actually have these functions when they fight you) It would at least add some thinking to situations so people are more observant of their environment and would lessen needs of using skills to keep the heat off of them.

 

If anything; we should get more linear maps that can take advantage of wall running as a "cover" system.  The trope of cover mechanics in shooters is just kinda boring. 

 

Warframe is meant to be a fast paced game based around being a Tenno; a name derived from "emperor" We're supposed to lay waste to thousands upon thousands of foes, not hide behind boxes like the mooks we're throwing around.  If we take cover it should be behind space magic and soaring aerial maneuvers (oh my god, I spelled maneuvers right without spellcheck)

[dragonkingdx]

If anything; we should get more linear maps that can take advantage of wall running as a "cover" system.  The trope of cover mechanics in shooters is just kinda boring. 

 

Warframe is meant to be a fast paced game based around being a Tenno; a name derived from "emperor" We're supposed to lay waste to thousands upon thousands of foes, not hide behind boxes like the mooks we're throwing around.  If we take cover it should be behind space magic and soaring aerial maneuvers (oh my god, I spelled maneuvers right without spellcheck)

 

Wall running hardly would provide cover :S and its wayyyyyyy too short lived to be of any use even if it was. Cover in the field is meant to be there for quick runs where you see it duck behind for a few secs to recover/reload/take a few opponents out then escape from it and move on. >.> only case where you need to stick and stay behind cover is during stealth missions/when snipers can take you out with a head shot. Your able to keep a fast pace if you use cover right and dont completely stick to it.

[fatpig84]

Warframe never has had good cover systems for the players; nor should it.  Before Radial Blind was nerfed; I would be able to hit 2 and not worry about instantly dying 3 seconds later.  Now as soon as I hit 2 another enemy comes around a corner and destroys me. Radial Blind was broken and needed to be changed, LoS was not a good way to go about that because it just encourages spamming it more:  The effect itself needs a change, not the AoE.

 

Radial blind only needed a range adjustment actually.

[shyguyk]

I feel a cooldown on 4 abilities would do more good than nerfing it outright

[ensignvidiot]

And after grinding hundreds of hours to get my frames to do what i want them to do, i feel the best way to change the system.... is to not

 

You keep saying "nerf" and "balance", but your proposed changes will just make players feel weaker.

 

instead, opt for something that i have mentioned several times before: force teamwork and synergy, both within a warframe's kit and with others

 

to wit:

 

create more Ability Syndergy between the Warframes themselves. I mean, the only Hard-coded Cross-Warframe combo was Bullet-Attractor+Radial Jav 1.0. If they decreased all 1-shot abilities to 80% of their max potential now, but increased the rewards of synergy to twice that, you would have a sufficiently advanced winning mechanic to warframes (For example, blade storm does 80% damage to most enemies. Against enemies that have a Warframe Applied CC effect [such as Blind, Bastile, Silence, Mprime, Stasis, etc] the damage would be increased to 160%).

 

It takes it from 'push 4 to win' to using Tactics and sudo-tactics to clear rooms of enemies. Instead of a 1-step kill process, you break it into 2-4 links in a chain to create the desired effect of Michael Bay's Immodest Orgasm

 

And for the solo players, add something that is solely gun-status effect based, so you can create explosions and whatnot (much like ME3 with Tech and Biotic explosions) on your own.

 

Both of these would add Tactics, as well as creating diversity to the "I Push button, everyone dies" mechanic

 

This is substantially better than slapping a ugly global CD on all abilities, or restricting them all by line of site.

 

The former forces players to play significantly slower. This would stop rushers in their tracks. You may enjoy this side effect, but keep in mind the community is split 50/50 between people who rush and people who smell every rose in a mission.

This makes combat more reliant on guns, which takes the uniqueness warframe brings to the Table. Instead of being a 3rd Person Rpg with shooter elements, it would be inverted. Warframe would be a shooter first, and ability second.

In addition the lives-per-day would need to be reworked. So many more deaths and mission failures would occur because a Trinity/Oberon can heal when they want or need to... and a Frost is unable to snowglobe a pod that is about to die.

 

 

With Total line of sight restriction... how would you handle global abilities?

Could you only be sped up if you can see the Volt?

Do enemies Ignore vortexes outside of Their LoS?

How does Oberon and Trinity heal?

Speaking of trinity, Energy vampire and link would both be toast inside any tile with large amounts of cover.

Are targets within Crush, Sound Quake, Molecular prime, Overload, and Radial Disarm outside of LoS get a free pass?

 

these two changes would indeed cause tenno to stick close together and slowly progress as a single unit through missions...

 

... but do you really want to slow down the pace of this game to a crawl?