Weapon Jamming And Mission-Only Weapon Degradation

[DeathByKnife]

look Im a veteran of this amazing game and a jamming and repair mechanic just never NEVER needs to happen and I will say I am totally narcissistic all my frames are Forma'd Gods 

[gkuoni]

Instead of what most other people are saying, I actually like the idea.

 

But instead of paying resources and credits to clear the weapon, what would work is that you are just not allowed to constantly use that weapon or it will keep jamming. If you don't use the weapon for (x) amount of time it degrades up to the point where it's at perfect health/condition.

[(PSN)obsidiancurse]

The game is a 3rd person shooter (with bells and whistles, granted), how can hindering the players ability to shoot be a good thing? To put it in context, it would be like Nintendo announcing that the new Mario game will penalise players for jumping too much. Excessive jumping cause muscle strain and you have to pay 50 coins to have peach kiss it better before you can jump again. Gameplay wise, it is just counter intuitive to one of the fundamental mechanics.

Also, if you play the "realism" card, you would have to apply the same "logic" to the melee and war frames too, as they are made by the same technology. Blades would become blunt, war frames would degrade/overheat etc. bang goes your fast paced, fun game.

There is already enough tactics involved with weapon selection and modding, this really isn't needed imo. Thanks for throwing the idea out there op but it's a resounding no thanks from me.

[Otenko]

Speaking from an actual gameplay and thematic perspective, this honestly doesn't mesh with the game.

 

The reason it works in Fallout is because Fallout establishes an atmosphere and environment that conveys to you, the player, that we are living in an post-apocalyptic wasteland. One struggles to survive by scrounging up and salvaging wreckage and garbage. The game is telling you to be tactical, resourceful, and careful. From the outset, the atmosphere and setting are depicted more "realistically" in that physics and rules (for the most part, sans that weird bullet time system) are somewhat parallel to ours. The reason the "realistic" mechanic of jammed weapons works is that there's less suspension of disbelief in terms of general activities (you don't run along walls and copter everywhere).

 

As well, the gameplay is much slower and more methodical than Warframe's. You face enemies in much smaller groups or face single enemies. There is more time between enemies to prepare and plan. As well, you can pause, like seriously that helps a lot. Smaller enemy group size and few (if any) prolonged conflicts means that you can afford to do have these jams, because there's always going to be a break in combat that will let you repair weapons.

 

Warframe on the other hand, has more of an arcade gameplay style to it and a fanciful, futuristic atmosphere. The gameplay works by suspending disbelief and letting imaginations run wild, letting the player do as they please. You run along walls, cast your funky powers and do crazy flips, nice right? But arcade-style or fast-paced action games like this are very much built on the concept that they work with successful, reliable mechanics because the fast-paced gameplay might ensure that you'll die otherwise. You'd be surprised how much can change in 3 seconds in this game, especially on a long Survival/Defense mission, which as you said is the only time this mechanic will actually function. It seems that there's always a desired Prime weapon that drops its parts in Void Defense, Survival, or Interception at Rotation C ("good" stuff is never in Rotation A or B right)? As such, it means you're going to need to stay at an integer multiple of 20 minutes/waves. So let's see, 20, 40, 60...Along the way, enemies spawn faster and at higher levels with dramatically increased stats until you are overwhelmed and decide to leave or suffer and die.

 

Warframe highly incentivizes maximizing scores and going as far as possible in endlessly scaling missions. Think about it, all of the rewards that people want are in Endless missions. Excavation drops Tower keys and Cryotic (particularly valuable for the Eyes of Blight event), Survival drops Tower keys and mods (like Life Strike, Ammo Mutations, and such), and Defense likewise drops Tower keys and other crazy crap. Now, what non-endless missions drop Tower keys or even anything as valuable as a Void key? Well, there's Hijack which drops nothing, there's Rescue which drops only Specters that are very expensive for their cost, Hive also drops nothing, Earth Sabotage only (possibly) drops notable items like Forma when you use the highest level anti-toxins (so I've heard), Mobile Defense and Exterminate might be good for exp but not end of mission rewards. Basically, only Endless missions yield anything good (or really anything at all). Gate Crash Sabotage (Orokin Sabotage) offers cache rewards, but on Earth it's only Detonite Injectors which you can get 3 of by doing an Invasion.

 

In making a jamming mechanic that so dramatically runs counter to what the game is geared towards (horde modes/endless missions), you only serve to make the promoted aspect of the game more of a chore to run than it already is.

By the way, I absolutely hate Survival, Defense, and Excavation (I tolerate Interception). I'd rather not run these missions if I have to, but it seems DE has other plans; it's almost as if they're the only mission types in the game. The jamming mechanic would definitely serve to make me hate them more than I already do (and trust me, I do). Then for the people that actually like these missions will probably end up hating them due to such a clumsy mechanic.

 

Here's an analogy since everyone else is making one.  Imagine a mechanic that makes you possibly trip as your stamina gets low. It's random and in no way is guaranteed.  Since you're tired, you are more likely to stumble due to exhaustion, right? When you trip, you stumble over your feet, slowing movement and preventing slides, rolls, wall runs, and spin attacks. The only way to abate trip chance is to restore stamina (this won't occur above 50% stamina but increases in likelihood as you near 0%). So you can still walk and stuff, but you can't do anything physically taxing until you restore up to, and past, the stamina threshold. Then, the chance also increases with time in Defense and Survival missions, since you're not getting time to relax and catch your breath.

 

I think something like that sounds awful (who knows, maybe you'll like it, but I have my doubts). But implementing something that is so disruptive to the pace and predominant game mode(s) is definitely something that won't blow over well, especially since you're transcribing a mechanic from a game with a starkly different tone, setting, and overall general mechanics and pacing.

 

tl;dr If you don't care enough, just skim it. But the prevailing game modes (any endless mission) are what this game is geared towards. Making a mechanic that only serves to make things clunkier in a fast-paced game which prioritizes "high scores" in a sense will only serve to make that game mode suck to play. People like survival and excavation, but this'll just make it stink for them and for the people that hate Survival and Excavation, this'll just make it even more horrible to suffer through. Also, thematically, pacing-wise, and gameplay-wise Fallout is not similar to Warframe. As such, it won't work as well to translate such a mechanic over even if it's supposed to make things "realistic."

Edited January 7, 2015 by Otenko