Energy Overhaul - Introducing A New System

[LazerusKI]

good effort but I'll have to disagree on this overhaul.

 

1. You're making up solar downtimes and tweaking them to prove a point, not to balance out warframe abilities.(apart from the, oh so dreaded, iron skin) If downtimes were tweaked otherwise, your point might not be as valid.

2. This system can easily be exploited and the fluidity of the game decreased. For example, Saryn will just cast the ulti, clear the room, wait 18sec(if the SD is 3sec) and enter next room to cast it again. Make the downtime longer and whoever uses his ulti will be cut off from using anything else, breaking the fluidity.

3. Higher waves of defense missions are dependant on the current energy system for the players to keep killing enemies that would otherwise drain their ammo.

4. You mentioned no cooldowns and then introduced a downtime variable. That's a form of cooldown if I'm not mistaken.

5. As I stated in the 1st point, you'll still have to make a spreadsheet of balanced downtime durations per warframe ability. Otherwise, devs are better off just overhauling their own way.

6. Additionally from 2nd point, your system is too restrictive. Why do you think Diablo 2 is still played today? Because they didn't restrict the player by built in cooldowns and unchangeable generation of mana.

good post, very good.

finally soemone who understands the problematic with the mentioned system...

uber-camping? why should i shoot my weapon, if i only need to wait? why should i use my skills if they have a huge cooldown? this game is way to fast for a cooldown system.

defense? with cooldown...forget it. if you cant keep up your pod-shielding and uber-nuking, you dont even want to try to reach a 30+ wave.

 

the whole system sounds like an overpowered form of Rejuvanation.

and this artifact is very strong in its current form...i mean...before rhinos nerf you could make him completely immortal.

[Thypari2013]

good effort but I'll have to disagree on this overhaul.

 

1. You're making up solar downtimes and tweaking them to prove a point, not to balance out warframe abilities.(apart from the, oh so dreaded, iron skin) If downtimes were tweaked otherwise, your point might not be as valid.

2. This system can easily be exploited and the fluidity of the game decreased. For example, Saryn will just cast the ulti, clear the room, wait 18sec(if the SD is 3sec) and enter next room to cast it again. Make the downtime longer and whoever uses his ulti will be cut off from using anything else, breaking the fluidity.

3. Higher waves of defense missions are dependant on the current energy system for the players to keep killing enemies that would otherwise drain their ammo.

4. You mentioned no cooldowns and then introduced a downtime variable. That's a form of cooldown if I'm not mistaken.

5. As I stated in the 1st point, you'll still have to make a spreadsheet of balanced downtime durations per warframe ability. Otherwise, devs are better off just overhauling their own way.

6. Additionally from 2nd point, your system is too restrictive. Why do you think Diablo 2 is still played today? Because they didn't restrict the player by built in cooldowns and unchangeable generation of mana.

 

1. downtimes balance abilities. The stronger the ability, the higher the downtime

2. what is the difference to now? Ah right. Saryn casts her ult 2-3 times. Picks up all the Energy Orbs and can keep spamming her abilities as long as someone dies. My system prevents spamming.

3. Waves higher than 50+ are unbalanced right now. Acc. to DE and as a System Designer you can clearly see that the highest reachable wave should not be above 50 and it is only possible because of op abilities. This is one reason for my changes.

4. Yes, you are mistaken. If you have 500 Energy and an ability costs 100, you can use it 5 times without any sort of cooldown.

5. Of course. It is called overhaul for a reason.

6. That's not the reason why D2 is still played today ;)

[TheLastZanerian]

The problem, in my eyes, with the current system is that there is rarely enough energy on hand to use abilities very efficiently. Most of the time I use an ability, it's only because I'd be steamrolled otherwise, not because it's an opportune time to do so or because it's what a B.A. space ninja would do. The energy (and health) orbs are also a bit cheesy and immersion-breaking, which sticks out to me.

 

Although looking at the nitty-gritty of the system the OP of this thread is proposing reveals some issues, the OP's system is precisely eight hundred and nineteen hyperbillillion times better than the current one, which straitjackets space ninjas into cowering in fear or running away due to lack of energy, despite being a maxed and potato'd Frost with 275 max energy, 720 max shield, 460 max health, God knows how much armor, in addition to some of the most horrifyingly efficient weapons available.

 

The remedy is simple: Energy regen. 5-10 per second after a 2-second delay would fix a lot of things. It would also make "useless" abilities not so, as one could conceivably cast them multiple times until the target has been dispatched. That would not only remove an RNG drop that could be ammo or resources, it would make gameplay more fluid and knock out some frame balance issues. Furthermore, it would prevent ability spamming, as there wouldn't be blue orbs littering the battlefield, allowing ults to be spammed. In effect, simple energy regen would kill two birds with one stone, allowing use of powers without fear of energy starvation, while also preventing spamming in the rare instance that there's enough energy on hand to use abilities liberally.

 

Then again, that's just my two cents.

[notionphil]

In your Ember example, if Ember had cast Overheat before the first Fireball, it would have had a drastically different outcome on her solar downtime, correct? 6, 6 x 2, 12 x 2 = 24 sec of downtime...instead of 0 sec.

 

All bc i cast Overheat 1st instead of 3rd in order? And no visual cues? That's rough...

 

That would confuse me as a player. I would need a second bar of solar downtime to have any idea of whether or not I'd totally gimp myself for a half minute by casting fireball again. I could be totally misreading this, but if it works like that, I can't say it would make me enjoy the game more. :( sorry.

[WarG0d]

@OP Your presentatation is top notch but call a spade a spade.

 

tl;dr scrapped energy orbs, and and have every warframe with an energy siphon w/ varying regen rates built-in, and introducing soft cool-downs. Call it what you want but that's what it is.

 

A couple things.

 

This isn't any better than current because as far as the rhino is concerned this grants indefinite Iron skins as long as 8s allotted in between each cast which comes out to being 50% of the time if one wanted to, since the example ability used 8s of active duration and 8s of cooldown.

 

Locking the player into a cooldown. Rhino skin has a damage cap and that 800 damage can be burned through really quickly.

 

Scenario: Player casts Rhino skin and hits the damage cap 2 seconds later, and now he's looking at 8 seconds of downtime or more if they decide to cast it again. Especially if this is a defense mission, where the pods need defending one doesn't have the luxury to wait around.

[XANi]

I like the idea but some things could use tweaking:

 

Name - just call it energy, or power, there is nothing "solar" about it

 

"double downtime every time you use same abilitiy in a row" really punishes low cost abilities compared to most powerful ones, even if downtime on them is lower. I think even constant one ( like in shields ) would work well enougth

 

energy orbs could just do "reset cooldown + boost regen by 50%" and be much rarer drop (no chest drops at all, just from enemies), so in longer fights you could pick them up as a boost, but you will still have to stop spamming abilities so boosted regen would have chance to work

 

Spamming is fine on some abilities, bad on other, "basic" ability should be spammable, ultimate abilities could just have short (10s, maybe longer) cd to prevent spamming. Or just increase cost of more powerful ones after each use + reset timer, so you could use it every 15s for 100 energy or use it 3 times in a row for 100 200 300

[Enlil]

Its a kind of mana you want to use, not so new.. I know a game where healers use mana, And i dont rly like it. sry

[Aumann]

Looks like an excellent idea to me.

 

Would definitely make the game more tactical and require players to think a bit more than just run-cast-shoot.

[LazerusKI]

1. downtimes balance abilities. The stronger the ability, the higher the downtime

2. what is the difference to now? Ah right. Saryn casts her ult 2-3 times. Picks up all the Energy Orbs and can keep spamming her abilities as long as someone dies. My system prevents spamming.

3. Waves higher than 50+ are unbalanced right now. Acc. to DE and as a System Designer you can clearly see that the highest reachable wave should not be above 50 and it is only possible because of op abilities. This is one reason for my changes.

4. Yes, you are mistaken. If you have 500 Energy and an ability costs 100, you can use it 5 times without any sort of cooldown.

5. Of course. It is called overhaul for a reason.

6. That's not the reason why D2 is still played today ;)

 

1) This game is Based on ACTION, not on STRATEGY or RPG. Downtime would never fit, would never be balanced.

2) Your system would be a more powerfull Energy Syphon. Infinite Energy with a few seconds waiting. With your system you can spam even more!

For Example: You dont have a good weapon to kill a boss, what can you do? at the moment you can use your 4 a few times, then you run out of energy because there are no enemys left.

With your system you can hide behind a crate and spam 4 everytime it is ready. most bosses cant reach you, most uber reach through objects.

3) Thats somehow true, but instead of a skillsystem rebalancing, why not improving other skills to fit better with the current Frost/Vauban, Saryn, Trinity Setup? btw, why do you need the Energy from Trinity, if you have infinite orbs?

4) And after that you just need to wait. It takes a while to find enough orbs to refill 500 energy, most of the times i can refill to 50-75 after an uber.

 

There are only a few "mana systems".

The Pot System: No mana, no skills. drink pots to refill or wait for a loooooong time.

The Orb System: Kill, refill, kill more

The Regeneration System: Cast, wait, cast again

The Cooldown System: Time is your Mana

 

Pot System: Would not fit.

Orb system: Thats what we have

Regeneration: Energy Syphon, your System

Cooldown System: Mostly used in Tactical Games

 

This game is completely RNG.

If you are unlucky, you will not find a single Orb in a round. I had this a few times. 3 Orbs in Infested Extermination. Not enough Orbs in defense to protect him...

The system with the "Orbs" is not the best, but it fits to the rest of the game mechanic.

 

Just...dont turn this game into a cheap action-rpg or tactical-shooter >_<

your whole cooldown system would fit into a game like Mass Effect. Cover behind a crate, look out, cast "spell", shoot, cover again. Its a TACTICAL System. Here we just want to "run and shoot" stuff.

 

Its not bad that you made some thougths, but you need to think about the consequences.

 

As i said, Regeneration and Cooldown are more meant for Tactical Shooters or RPGs.

But Warframe is Fast and Action...it wont fit.

 

but i have another idea:

you could implement your system for  a FEW skills. (read here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/64265-skillenergy-overhaul-alternate-way-for-1/ )

Players skip a lot of abilities and sometimes they only equip 1 ability at all

Players spam damage abilities until they have no energy left. Then pick up Energy Orbs from killed enemies and repeat the process indefinitely, making damage abilities superior to utility abilities.

After clearing rooms players with 0 Energy tend to go back to former rooms to pick up Energy Orbs instead of just going into the next room and kill enemies for Orbs. This slows down game play

DESPAWN - Problem solved

There is no tactical decision in when to use abilities or how to chain abilities together

Caster abilities, like Ember’s Fireball, aren’t used often because gunplay is superior

The last part is true, some skills are useless with our Orb-System. Volts Shock, Embers Fireball, Saryns Venom...

so, why not using your solar-system for them?

You would still need to find orbs to fill your energy to the max so that you can use your 4.

Edited June 13, 2013 by LazerusKI

[Ceilous]

when i saw this my mouth became a sailors as i was blown away by this idea. If i could vote more than once i would because this is %&*@ing beautiful

[SchmuseDecke]

First things firs.

Good work and Lot's of effort you put in there.

.... But I have to agree with LazerusKI.

I want this game to be fast and not to be strategie.

Ok it might be you dont get orbs so u have to use your weapons level them up so you can react and the skills are a bonus sometimes you might spam them but thats fine try to reach wave 50 with cooldown .... realy .... I fon't think so ..

and at least we got a frame that can provide energy and we got energy syphon so what more could we ask for ^^.

leave Warframe's energy system how it is ... I Like it that way

[DeadlyNerd]

 

1) This game is Based on ACTION, not on STRATEGY or RPG. Downtime would never fit, would never be balanced.

2) Your system would be a more powerfull Energy Syphon. Infinite Energy with a few seconds waiting. With your system you can spam even more!

For Example: You dont have a good weapon to kill a boss, what can you do? at the moment you can use your 4 a few times, then you run out of energy because there are no enemys left.

With your system you can hide behind a crate and spam 4 everytime it is ready. most bosses cant reach you, most uber reach through objects.

3) Thats somehow true, but instead of a skillsystem rebalancing, why not improving other skills to fit better with the current Frost/Vauban, Saryn, Trinity Setup? btw, why do you need the Energy from Trinity, if you have infinite orbs?

4) And after that you just need to wait. It takes a while to find enough orbs to refill 500 energy, most of the times i can refill to 50-75 after an uber.

 

There are only a few "mana systems".

The Pot System: No mana, no skills. drink pots to refill or wait for a loooooong time.

The Orb System: Kill, refill, kill more

The Regeneration System: Cast, wait, cast again

The Cooldown System: Time is your Mana

 

Pot System: Would not fit.

Orb system: Thats what we have

Regeneration: Energy Syphon, your System

Cooldown System: Mostly used in Tactical Games

 

This game is completely RNG.

If you are unlucky, you will not find a single Orb in a round. I had this a few times. 3 Orbs in Infested Extermination. Not enough Orbs in defense to protect him...

The system with the "Orbs" is not the best, but it fits to the rest of the game mechanic.

 

Just...dont turn this game into a cheap action-rpg or tactical-shooter >_<

your whole cooldown system would fit into a game like Mass Effect. Cover behind a crate, look out, cast "spell", shoot, cover again. Its a TACTICAL System. Here we just want to "run and shoot" stuff.

 

Its not bad that you made some thougths, but you need to think about the consequences.

 

As i said, Regeneration and Cooldown are more meant for Tactical Shooters or RPGs.

But Warframe is Fast and Action...it wont fit.

 

but i have another idea:

you could implement your system for  a FEW skills. (read here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/64265-skillenergy-overhaul-alternate-way-for-1/ )

The last part is true, some skills are useless with our Orb-System. Volts Shock, Embers Fireball, Saryns Venom...

so, why not using your solar-system for them?

You would still need to find orbs to fill your energy to the max so that you can use your 4.

 

Aaaaand he pretty much wrote my exact answer.

A little something I'd add

 

 

4. Yes, you are mistaken. If you have 500 Energy and an ability costs 100, you can use it 5 times without any sort of cooldown.

 

6. That's not the reason why D2 is still played today ;)

 

Actually, I'm not mistaken. Using an ulti with a 3 second solar "downtime"(that's another word for cooldown), is effectively giving it an 18sec cooldown in order to be used optimally.

Actually, that's the reason why D2 was played in the first place. The game is fluid and there is barely any downtime. (hint: mana potions are energy orbs, gee go figure).

 

OP, your answers were not nearly as constructive. Please either remove your suggestion, or learn to cope with constructive criticism.

Edited June 13, 2013 by DeadlyNerd

[Aspari]

Honestly I agree with this because if you're like me and equip Flow and Streamline you're spamming 4 all day.

[LazerusKI]

Honestly I agree with this because if you're like me and equip Flow and Streamline you're spamming 4 all day.

10 slots at all

4 for your skill (lets say you want to use them all)

6 left.

Vitality and Redirection to survive

4 slots left

Flow and Streamline because you want to have energy.

2 slots left

now what? do you wnat to maximize your skill damage with Continuity, Stretch or Focus?

do you wnat to add something usefull like Master Thief or Steel Fibre (as Rhino/Frost)?

 

i would say...energy is not everything.

a lot of energy is worthless if you cant survive or if you cant deal damage with your skills.

[marharth]

People use a lot of skills in a fast paced game. Why is that a problem? I don't really understand why people want to make powers weaker when its one of the most unqiue and interesting parts of warframe.

[TheLastZanerian]

Agreed... we need a system that allows free use of powers, which neither the current system nor the system proposed by the OP of this thread provides. If there were simple energy regen at a rate of 10 per second after a 2-second delay, that would allow free power usage (especially combined with flow and streamline), while preventing insane spamming. The orb system is too unpredictable, and the system the OP proposes incurs too much cooldown. While energy regen would be a cooldown of sorts, it would still be faster than looking for an orb or waiting for your downtime to expire.

[LazerusKI]

energy regen was one of the points why Rhinos Iron Skin was broken.

high energy regen would be the reason why we wont need our weapons anymore.

10 per second? so 10s to launch your uber and clean a room?

4 energy syphons are allready realy OP.

[TheLastZanerian]

4 Siphons are not OP. They make the game somewhat like what it should be. I'm pretty sure the idea of Warframe is that you're a B.A. space ninja with a super-powerful exosuit... needing to find blue orbs dropped by enemies to power said exosuit is kinda inconsistent with that.

 

Another idea I thought of would be gaining a certain amount of energy from each kill... say, 5 per kill with your weapons.

 

Also,  "high energy regen would be the reason why we wont need our weapons anymore."... Energy starvation is the reason I sometimes forget it's Warframe that I'm playing. Also, given the lore on the Tenno, some OP-ness is not entirely bad. If I understand correctly, the Tenno are supposed to be slaughter factories.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Dobravolets

[Walkampf]

This Energy overhaul is an awesome idea.

Might need some tweeks here and there, but the idea in itself is really good.

[--Q--uaint]

Hmm. I liked the OP's idea quite a bit, and still do somewhat like the general idea of it after seeing some of the objections others have posted.

I have a somewhat silly idea: make energy regen like (or maybe even share the pool of) stamina, and replace energy starvation or cooldown with a long cast-time.

So Nova wants to use Molecular Prime? Maybe she has to cast for 5 or even 10 seconds, during which it is possible to interrupt her. High risk, but high reward.

Leave the damage-only abilities mostly as they are: Wanna spam abilities and murder things? You can! Just watch out for the fact that you'll do almost nothing in high level missions. Also, spamming too much will result in running out of energy for a little bit.

Also, cast times would promote teamwork: if you need a 4 to clear the room, you'd best figure out who's doing it and have everyone else protect them or you'll all just die trying to cast.

Finally, this means that low-level missions don't require much, if any, teamwork: spam abilities, attack, whatever, and you can muddle through just fine. But the higher levels would have players who know what they're doing and know how to work together: Sprinting through a level would have to be a serious, coordinated endeavor because casting makes you vulnerable and the enemies WILL kill you if you just try to run by.

So yeah, that's my two cents.

[Ganpot]

4 Siphons are not OP. They make the game somewhat like what it should be. I'm pretty sure the idea of Warframe is that you're a B.A. space ninja with a super-powerful exosuit... needing to find blue orbs dropped by enemies to power said exosuit is kinda inconsistent with that.

 

I agree.  Warframes should all just inherently regenerate 2 energy per second.  Then auras should be changed to not stack on top of each other (that way, groups are forced to actually coordinate and use different artifacts). 

 

Finally, most single-target (#1) abilities should have their energy cost reduced to around 10 energy.  Disregarding their low damage (which will hopefully be fixed during the armor rework), most single-target abilities aren't used because they can't be easily spammed due to their energy cost. 

 

With those reworks, caster warframes could actually be a viable alternative to gun-play. 

[Mazen2013]

Oh wow this thing was still discussed o.o