There Is No Point In Powers Being Mods

[Kitzun]

The mods are supposed to be the way of customizing stuff, be it frames, weapons, sentinels, and perhaps other things later if they are introduced in the game.

 

But the powers/abilities are not about customization, they are exclusive to one frame only, and they are given at their first level when you get the frame.

There is even 4 special polarities in the warframes' slots that can't be anything but the 4 mandatory powers, unless you're ready to sacrifice a great deal of the energy cap by putting another kind of mods into these slots.

 

Basically, the fact they are mods brings nothing to the concept of customization that should be the goal of the mods system.

 

Enhancing the customization side of the power mods by making any power availabe to any frame would probably be a nightmare to balance for the devs, so my take is this:

-each warframe should have X slots (number to be decided) with standard polarities, and none for the powers themselves.

-the powers should not be mods but rather be "immaterialy" integrated inside the frames directly, always available if needed by pressing the 1-4 keys and other ways, and start at 1st level of power when one acquire a frame, through BP crafting ou direct buying.

-another way than mod fusion would obviously be necessary to level them up, wich would open alleys for more diverse rewards than components/mods/blueprints/credits and other specifics ways of acquiring these rewards.

-the power enhancing mods should stay because with the powers being an integral part of the frames they would indeed customize the frames capacities themselves, and not other mods, they wouldn't be "meta-mods" anymore.

 

Please feel free to comment on this actual situation and the change that could be brought to it, if you think it's needed.

[InsaneAction]

They have already said more Ability mods will be coming... So you can pick and choose what 4 you want to use...

[PrincessBabycakes]

Yes there is. I often forgo the powers of a frame in the early levels in favor of using redirection. I like the customizability to do this and I'm sure others do as well. Being able to balance which powers I use if any at all, how strong they are if I choose to use them alongside all my other mods is great. If I don't think fireball is useful on a corpus map I can easily unequip it and gain points to use towards shield or even overheat.

[MoonicusMaximus]

The mods are supposed to be the way of customizing stuff, be it frames, weapons, sentinels, and perhaps other things later if they are introduced in the game.

 

I can customize my frame the way I want. I can remove the useless 25 energy skill and replace it with something like increased health, or shields, or loot radar.

 

What do you even want?

[Korevas]

I can customize my frame the way I want. I can remove the useless 25 energy skill and replace it with something like increased health, or shields, or loot radar.

 

What do you even want?

 

I'm with the op here. Even though customization is good, the situation with the powers right now is not where it could be. Once you have developed your other mods and weapons a bit, you quickly get to the point where almost all of the 25 energy powers and the majority of the others are obsolete and you can't ever justify slotting them, because all the passive mods will perform better.

 

The current way of customization means that you will always perform better in any situation by removing your skills almost completely, which in turn makes the warframes less interesting and impactful and creates more of the same, rather repetitive gameplay.

[Venarge]

The whole mod system is about advantage over disadvantage. What are you willing to sacrifice to get your mod X.

Therefore, it makes perfect sense to add the skills to mods. besides that, this way, they can introduce other skills. So its good the way it is...

[Korevas]

The whole mod system is about advantage over disadvantage. What are you willing to sacrifice to get your mod X.

Therefore, it makes perfect sense to add the skills to mods. besides that, this way, they can introduce other skills. So its good the way it is...

 

You don't seem to get the point. In a system with advantage and disadvantage, when one option is always inferior to another, it might as well not exist. This is what we have right now, and pointing out that it could be improved seems to be a perfectly valid point to me.

[2ply]

I can agree with the OP

 

I can ALSO agree with many other of the posts in regards to "they are adding more so this is why powers are mods"

 

The OP makes a good point though, having these powers intigrated into the warframe and not used as a MOD slot would make sense because its a signature ability.

 

Having the flexibility to NOT max the power up to its highest rank, or to NOT equip it to save the capacity points makes people feel like they have more customization.

 

Lets take these thoughts and elaborate and figure out the best solution.

 

My take on this is...and try to follow me here....

 

that it would be NICE to have the powers taken out of the MOD pool, but still allow for 60 mod capacity. Instead of the signature powers being in the mod pool why not have a SKILL tree JUST FOR the signature powers that allows you to ENCHANCE and alter the powers ability as you level your warframe up to 30...I know they used to have a skill tree type MODDING system but this is totally different.

 

WHEN they introduce NEW powers...add those to the skill tree much like other MMO's do like WOW when they update and change stuff around.

 

THe warframe powers should be something that is permanetly attached to your warframe taking up NO mods capacity, but I would like to see a skill tree that you can advance in as you level up the warframe picking and choosing how you want to customize these warframe powers, think increasing range and duration or damage of the ability or mutators that could slightly alter the reaction.

 

These power enchancements can be done in a skill tree made specially for warframe powers alone...when new warframe powers are made they are added to the "warframe skill tree book" where you are only allowed to pick 4 paths or 4 powers to unlock, think of a vertical skill tree for each warframe power for that warframe, you have to place a point into the first step of that path to unlock the path and at that point it is one of your chosen powers that then is perma-attached to the warframe. From there you are given skill points to enchance those 4 chosen powers based on your warframe level.

 

THen allow players to respec that "warframe signature power skill-tree" at any given time just as they can now with modding.

 

The mod pool can stay just as it is...perhaps add more polarity slots to balance issues out.

Edited April 30, 2013 by 2ply

[RonanFrost]

Doing that, though, you get to "have your cake and eat it too". You're getting ALL of your abilities, and at the same time, keeping all 60 points to spend on making yourself so overpowered that the game is drained of what little challenge it already has.

 

I'd agree that we shouldn't have to hunt around for the mods, but perhaps should receive them as rank rewards, or they be locked to Mastery rank somehow, so that we don't have rank 5 frames rocking only AOE's... but a number of us sac an ability so that we have the mod points for something else. This allows a player to custom tailor his frame to his playstyle, but without breaking the game entirely by giving him all 60 points.

 

As an altered direction in line with what 2ply was saying, doing ability trees, but using shared access to the mod point pool?

 

I'm still not sure I like the idea of a "talent tree" for something so simple, however. Doing so pushes the feel slightly back into the cookie cutter of mmorpg's. I sorely Miss my "talent trees" and going against the grain to do something differently, but at the same time, a large part of the appeal here is that it's NOT that. 

[CubedOobleck]

Well, I actually like the way powers are mods, because you can choose to have less powers and instead equip other more powerful mods it's a different kind of customization. It works well for me because I don't use powers much, nor do I use all the powers of every warframe, sometimes I even like to take my Ash for a run with no powers at all so I can boost it's health shields and speed to top tier (really fun, I advise trying it every now and then). Besides, equipping mods on a wrong polarity only increases the drain by 25% which usually rounds down to only 1, 2 or in the worst cases 3 extra drain.

[Slayblaze]

Well, I actually like the way powers are mods, because you can choose to have less powers and instead equip other more powerful mods it's a different kind of customization.

In a way you're arguing against your own point and proving the op is correct. By sometimes "take my Ash for a run with no powers at all" you are eliminating what makes Ash unique and turning it into a generic frame, the same as any other frame except appearance. At some point in progression you begin to realize that its better to run with less powers and instead equip "other more powerful mods"... well everyone wants to be more powerful so everyone else does the same thing. This equates to less customization, not more. Unless you want to intentionally gimp yourself for giggles, you'll always choose to equip the most useful powerful mods as opposed to those which are less useful.

 

I agree with the op that somehow the frame powers should be moved to their own separate pool or some other revision of the current semi-flawed system. Its not fully flawed since it is workable, so I call it semi-flawed for the reasons already pointed out in this thread.

[CubedOobleck]

Well I can see that skills are signatures of frames, but so are their look, shield, health, armor and speed.

 

I wouldn't choose just any warframe to play without powers, I pick Ash because he is both faster and more resistant than the average, because he feels like a ninja even without skills. But enough of that, I realize almost no one does this and it's kind of out of context anyway.

 

So back on topic: what you say about players gravitating towards more efficient loadouts won't change whether or not powers work like mods. Besides the better loadout changes depending what you want to achieve.

Edited May 1, 2013 by CubedOobleck

[Drasiel]

I have to agree. Right now the supposedly integral powers of our warframes feel, well kinda tacked on. A very take it or leave it situation. Aren't our powers supposed to be one of the defining features of our frames, why are they treated the same as mods? I understand that the restriction of power and give and take is important to controlling a players power creep but making active skills less desirable because you could put in more passives isn't a good idea.

 

How would it sound if I suggested 4 power only slots no polarity with a seperate pool of 15 points for an unpoatoed warframe and 30 for a potatoed warframe. The pool starts at 5 points and gains 5 points every three levels until it reaches 15. Perhaps drop the general mod pool by 10 (unpotatoed, 20 for potatoed) I'm not a fan of that but it might be needed for balancing.

 

This way dedicated spaces for powers mean not feeling like you are wasting a precious passive slot. The addition of new frame specific powers are easily added in, You don't have to worry about people trying to slot in more than 4 powers (I'm assuming the goal is to only have 4 active powers on a frame based on the interface) And separate pools means that you don't have to feel like you're missing out on skills or passives because they have a dedicated pool of their own to pull from.

[Baigan]

They mentioned there will be optional mod powers for the already existing frames. That and if you don't particularly like a power you may not slot it and use the AP for something else (Ash's Shuriken anyone?)