Regenerating Energy

[SgtCapricorn]

 The decision to have Enegry be aquired in the forms of item drops is of course at Digital Extreams disgresion.

However I am here to share a few points  as to why I beleive that Enegry as a resource works better when it naturally recharged over time instead. I am well aware there is an Artifact that lets Enegry recharge, but I am aruging in favor of recharging being the ONLY method of regenerating Enegry (Besides that Trinity ability).

 While I do argue for the sake of Regnerating Energy, I do not have the same stance on Health. I prefer health being a non-regernarting resource for various reasons I won't get into here. The important part is to remeber that Health and Energy should not be treated as equals, because they both serve very very different functions.

 

 1) Additonal mods. Energy Recharge rate mods would be able to be implimented. More varity is always good. This one is a very basic point so I figured I'd sneak it in there first.

 

 2) When playing as certain Warframes I will never ever use most of my abilities. I will almost always opt to save for the best ability. Having Energy as drops runs the risk of a 'dry spell' (if you will) where in you get 0 Energy drops and using that one weak ability has now locked you out of a big ability when you need it. This is a major issue for those of us that are too inclined to 'save it until you need it' play styles.

 

 3) And in direct contrast to that... When too many Energy orbs drop in one area, then often times I will use an expensive ability just because there is exess Energy and I would rather pick it up. Not because it's tactically sound to do so, but because the Energy would be wasted otherwise. This feels wrong and sort of goofy.

 

 4) Another aspect to balance around. It wouldn't be out of the question to have different Warframes have different recharge rates (before mods). Just another dial to tweak.

 

 5) Easer to see Affinity orbs when there are not Enegry orbs cluttering the floor. Another minor point, but a point none the less.

[DAwGi]

I agree, energy should be something  less orbable that can be relied on.  I've gotten into boss situations where everyone ran out of ammo, and teammates kept leaving and others joining, and it ended up being 30 minutes of running up, hitting it once and running away, before the thing finally dropped.  (Pretty sure the boss was bugged)

 

I know the Devs probably won't like to hear this comparison but...  World of Warcraft had quite a few different energy systems, and had some unique ideas on how it could be obtained.  One is the regen(hunters had to switch modes to regen quickly, which halved their dps for a time), another was generating energy based on damage done to enemy, which slowly drained when not in combat (this would be really cool if it was implemented).  Then there was a fast recharging energy that got depleted really quickly.

[Effusion-]

Abilities used to have cooldowns but they were removed because people would just stand around between fights waiting for their abilities to recharge.  Regenerating energy is much the same.

 

Personally I'd like to see abilities with individual energy pools instead of drawing from one big energy pool, and have energy gain come from attacking enemies (less energy from using abilities, more energy per hit from lower RoF weapons and possibly melee).  Abilities could have energy pools exceeding their activation cost to let you store multiple uses in some cases.  This would give some pretty fine control over ability use to the devs while making one's less powerful abilities useful (eg using psychic bolts isn't wasting energy that could be used for chaos instead).

[Necrio]

Gain energy from doing stunts

 

y/y

 

in all seriousness, we at least need more ways to regain energy. Having a mod that converts damage dealt into energy would promote an aggressive playstyle.

[SgtCapricorn]

Damage to enegry would work as well, with all the advantages I have pointed out without the risk of waiting to enter new rooms.

[Sakatchi]

You could have things like shockwave Moas damage your energy regen and deplete your energy pool by x ammount for x seconds. That could be fun.

[Story4]

Cooldowns are better IMO. If you make a high cool-down, but compensate by making abilities more powerful, i think it will add more depth to the gameplay.

 

For example, Loki's decoy is pretty useless in higher levels, getting destroyed in 1 second at the moment. If a 20 CD on decoy was implemented, then the decoy would be invulnerable for 10 seconds, making it better in any situation, not only on lower enemies. If an ally or more allies are in danger, Trinity can use her ultimate which has a 60 seconds CD to resurrect every ally and make them invulnerable for 10 seconds. Ember's fireball will have a bigger AOE and actually hit 4 or 5 infested instead of just one. Ash will be able to teleport more because his ability will have a 5 second CD, making him one of the most flexible warframes.

 

It's just one example of how it can be implemented, but i think that adding cool-downs will be better because:

-every ability will have a purpose. No longer will you just take 1 or 2 abilities because the others are worse or useless. 

-you will have to think when to use you abilities. For example, if you are Rhino and you and your team are attacking a boss, you can't just spam iron skin and get close, it would actually be a better idea to keep it in case any of your team-mates is down, or you could go in close with iron skin and if a team-mate is down use your ultimate to have time to revive him. You won't feel punished either way. The way the game currently is, if you choose to use your ult instead of iron skin you will have -30 seconds of complete invulnerability, making it a pretty poor choice.

-mods could be introduced that, for example, reduce your cool-down, or add a chance that your ability will instantly refresh etc.

-increased warframe individuality. Right now every warframe is unique in it's own way, but increasing the power of every skill will just make them even more different.

[Drasiel]

Abilities used to have cooldowns but they were removed because people would just stand around between fights waiting for their abilities to recharge.  Regenerating energy is much the same.

 

Personally I'd like to see abilities with individual energy pools instead of drawing from one big energy pool, and have energy gain come from attacking enemies (less energy from using abilities, more energy per hit from lower RoF weapons and possibly melee).  Abilities could have energy pools exceeding their activation cost to let you store multiple uses in some cases.  This would give some pretty fine control over ability use to the devs while making one's less powerful abilities useful (eg using psychic bolts isn't wasting energy that could be used for chaos instead).

 

 

I'm actually quite partial to this idea. I'm not sure how you could keep the interface for skills small and still give you the info about your energy level for skills succinctly, but I really like the feel of it on paper.