Suggestion: Ability Cooldowns

[securitywyrm]

Current system problem: I play a Rhino. I have no reason to ever use Radial Slam or Rhino Stomp. Why would I possibly use Rhino Stomp (100 energy) when I could use Iron Skin (50 energy) for 15 seconds of invincibility twice? 

 

If folks want to wait outside a door for their cooldown, let them! By the time their cooldown is up and they enter the room, I'll have already cleared the room and be three rooms ahead of them. 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Cooldowns based on kills and damage is best illustrated by Strike Suite Zero.

 

What happens is this:

 

You shoot your "normal" guns, to gain meter, then you unleash your "supers"

 

At this point there are two design philosophies:

 

a. the damage from supers doesn't generate meter

b. the damage from supers does generate meter

 

With a. you have an unreliable super that you have to build like in a fighting game, unleash it once and then need to build it again.

 

With b. you fire missiles, to fire more missiles, to fire more missiles, to fire more missiles....

 

 

Yeah, I think that'd be something the devs would have to decide after implementation - to see which feels & plays better.

 

Though I kind of like the idea of having a properly kitted out caster be able to AoE a group of mobs and have the resultant damage/kills negate a significant portion of the ability's cooldown.

It certainly shouldn't be easy to do, but something to aspire towards while grinding for your gear.

 

An "unlimited power!!!!!!" moment if you will.

Edited May 3, 2013 by TehJumpingJawa

[Zeddypanda]

Nobody seemed to respond to it on the topic where I originally posted it, so I'll mention it again here. It's a repeat topic, so why not give a repeat reply.

 

My apologies if this has been mentioned before, but what if we had two energy bars similar to how we have two health bars?

You would have the standard energy bar as it is now, only refillable by orbs. In addition, a much smaller energy bar would be stacked on top of it. This second energy bar would refill on its own. Power-focused warframes would probably have more and faster refillable energy than, say, Excalibur, which would probably have less.

 

As an example, we could say an average warframe starts with 25 regen energy and 75 regular energy. This would let you use your 25 ability at no actual cost. Excalibur would have 10 regen energy and be able to super jump frequently.

[Ryanshow]

Even if I agreed with your cooldown argument which I don't its still a moot point.

 

Why would I waste mod capacity on useless skills?

 

 

More powerful/useful abilities -> longer cooldown

 

At the moment all abilities are fed from a single energy pool; this discourages the use of less useful abilities as they sap your capacity to use the more powerful abilities.

 

If you had cooldowns (regardless of how the cooldown is implemented), every equipped ability would recharge independently, thus your weak abilities would not lessen your capacity to use your more powerful abilities.

 

As the weaker abilities would have shorter cooldowns, you'd have something to use inbetween your 'ultimates' - just the way DOTA style games work (not that I play them myself.... but I do see the value to their mechanics).

DEAR LORD WAY TO MISS THE POINT.

 

The question was why would I waste mod capacity on less useful skills in the first place?!

 

At least read the question!

Edited May 3, 2013 by Ryanshow

[Tsukinoki]

DEAR LORD WAY TO MISS THE POINT.

 

The question was why would I waste mod capacity on less useful skills in the first place?!

 

At least read the question!

In case anyone is having difficulties understanding the question here it is:

Say excalibur has these CDs: Slash Dash 10 seconds; Super Jump 5 seconds; Radial blind 15 seconds; Radial javelin 30 seconds

Under the current system I only use Slash Dash and Radial Javelin.

How would the proposed CD system make me want to equip the other two abilities?  Especially when I am using my full mod capacity of 30/60 points on the mods I currently have equipped?

[TehJumpingJawa]

In case anyone is having difficulties understanding the question here it is:

Say excalibur has these CDs: Slash Dash 10 seconds; Super Jump 5 seconds; Radial blind 15 seconds; Radial javelin 30 seconds

Under the current system I only use Slash Dash and Radial Javelin.

How would the proposed CD system make me want to equip the other two abilities?  Especially when I am using my full mod capacity of 30/60 points on the mods I currently have equipped?

 

DEAR LORD WAY TO MISS THE POINT.

 

The question was why would I waste mod capacity on less useful skills in the first place?!

 

At least read the question!

 

I did read your question, however my answer only indirectly addressed it.

 

If you look at the reason you don't currently take the weaker abilities, it comes down to one fundamental issue; they are not worth taking.

The tactical flexibility they grant you does not offset their mod space cost, and in-game their energy usage is usually better spent on the more powerful abilities.

 

With a cooldown system the balance of the abilities is altered in 3 ways:

 

1) the weaker abilities are made better because they no-longer diminish your strong abilities

2) the strong abilities are made worse by having *longer cooldowns.

3) the more abilities you have, the more benefit you get from the cooldowns. (as each ability's cooldown is independent)

 

This alteration to the balance of abilities should cause the player to reassess the usefulness of all abilities in relation to other warframe enhancing mods.

 

 

*note in the context of my suggested kill/damage based cooldown system, an ability with a "longer cooldown" means more kills/damage must be dealt before the ability is available for reuse.

Edited May 3, 2013 by TehJumpingJawa

[Tsukinoki]

I did read your question, however my answer only indirectly addressed it.

 

If you look at the reason you don't currently take the weaker abilities, it comes down to one fundamental issue; they are not worth taking.

The tactical flexibility they grant you does not offset their mod space cost, and in-game their energy usage is usually better spent on the more powerful abilities.

 

With a cooldown system the balance of the abilities is altered in 3 ways:

 

1) the weaker abilities are made better because they no-longer diminish your strong abilities

2) the strong abilities are made worse by having *longer cooldowns.

3) the more abilities you have, the more benefit you get from the cooldowns. (as each ability's cooldown is independent)

 

This alteration to the balance of abilities should cause the player to reassess the usefulness of all abilities in relation to other warframe enhancing mods.

 

 

*note in the context of my suggested kill/damage based cooldown system, an ability with a "longer cooldown" means more kills/damage must be dealt before the ability is available for reuse.

To your "balance" of usability and CDs I pose this question:

If you have multiple abilities in CD How does the refilling work?  Does it:

A) Refill all abilities the same amount it would if that ability was the only one on CD, which just leads to people dropping all of their abilities ASAP because they'll all recharge faster that way

or

B) Does the refill you get affect each one percentage wise?  Basically if you have 4 abilities in CD and you kill someone/pick up an orb does it refill all 4 abilities equal to 1/4th of what that kill would fill up if only one ability was on CD?  If that is the case you still wouldn't equip those abilities because they would just make it a longer period of time between using the good abilities.

In the system of where its only time that can refresh the CDs, not pickup or damage, why would I slot in those useless abilities instead of say more shields or health?  Or even more stamina or runspeed?

[TehJumpingJawa]

To your "balance" of usability and CDs I pose this question:

If you have multiple abilities in CD How does the refilling work?  Does it:

A) Refill all abilities the same amount it would if that ability was the only one on CD, which just leads to people dropping all of their abilities ASAP because they'll all recharge faster that way

or

B) Does the refill you get affect each one percentage wise?  Basically if you have 4 abilities in CD and you kill someone/pick up an orb does it refill all 4 abilities equal to 1/4th of what that kill would fill up if only one ability was on CD?  If that is the case you still wouldn't equip those abilities because they would just make it a longer period of time between using the good abilities.

 

 

Definitely A).

And yes, if it was tactically sound to use an ability, using it as soon as possible would be optimal, so the refill you get from any subsequent kills isn't wasted.

However most abilities are highly situational, so firing them off prematurely in sub-optimal conditions just so that they start CD recharge sooner is a rather self-defeating strategy.

 

 

 

In the system of where its only time that can refresh the CDs, not pickup or damage, why would I slot in those useless abilities instead of say more shields or health?  Or even more stamina or runspeed?

 

That would be down to the player's choice; do I want to have more castable abilities? or do I want to be able to run for longer?

 

The important bit is that having more castable abilities would not diminish the effectiveness of the player's other castable abilities (as it does at the moment).

Edited May 3, 2013 by TehJumpingJawa

[Tsukinoki]

Definitely A).

And yes, if it was tactically sound to use an ability, using it as soon as possible would be optimal, so the refill you get from any subsequent kills isn't wasted.

However most abilities are highly situational, so firing them off prematurely in sub-optimal conditions just so that they start CD recharge sooner is a rather self-defeating strategy.

 

 

 

 

That would be down to the player's choice; do I want to have more castable abilities? or do I want to be able to run for longer?

 

The important bit is that having more castable abilities would not diminish the effectiveness of the player's other castable abilities (as it does at the moment).

The problem I see with that then is that it rewards frames with more direct damaging abilties than it does frames with more situational powers.  For excalibur it rewards him popping his slash dash and radial javelin as soon and as often as he can because they are always useful, but then you have more situational powers that aren't used as often, and unlike the current situation you cant build up or save a pool that will allow you cast it more than once if you need it in those situations where its useful, such as using two shield polorizes to buff two seperate team-mates shields, you cant do that under a CD system.

It boils down to rewarding the abilities that are already useful everywhere, while potentially hampering the situational abilities where they might be useful because you cant use them multiple times in a row in a CD system.

As for the second part: the issue isn't having a CD system or anything.  People would use more of their abilities under the current system IF they were more useful.  If you want people to equip and use more abilities then make them worth equipping and using by making them useful enough.  No matter how low of a CD an ability might have, if its a worthless ability you wont equip it.

IMO, if they made abilities more useful and more worth using you would find less players spamming 1 and 4, or whatever 2 abilities they mostly use.  You dont have to replace the system to do that.  And a CD system doesnt address the cause of the problem so it wont go away.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[TehJumpingJawa]

The problem I see with that then is that it rewards frames with more direct damaging abilties than it does frames with more situational powers.  For excalibur it rewards him popping his slash dash and radial javelin as soon and as often as he can because they are always useful, but then you have more situational powers that aren't used as often, and unlike the current situation you cant build up or save a pool that will allow you cast it more than once if you need it in those situations where its useful, such as using two shield polorizes to buff two seperate team-mates shields, you cant do that under a CD system.

It boils down to rewarding the abilities that are already useful everywhere, while potentially hampering the situational abilities where they might be useful because you cant use them multiple times in a row in a CD system.

As for the second part: the issue isn't having a CD system or anything.  People would use more of their abilities under the current system IF they were more useful.  If you want people to equip and use more abilities then make them worth equipping and using by making them useful enough.  No matter how low of a CD an ability might have, if its a worthless ability you wont equip it.

IMO, if they made abilities more useful and more worth using you would find less players spamming 1 and 4, or whatever 2 abilities they mostly use.  You dont have to replace the system to do that.  And a CD system doesnt address the cause of the problem so it wont go away.

 

I see your point, and the tactical limitations imposed by a CD upon the repeated use of certain powers is definitely an issue, and one I cannot suggest a good solution to.

 

I also agree that weak abilities are the root cause of the problem; I suppose the issue is how to go about making them better.

 

Obviously you can directly improve the abilities by making them cheaper to equip, cheaper to cast, and buff their effects.

However I feel that so long as the abilities are all being fed from the same pool, there will always be a tendency, perhaps even an encouragement, to specialise in a single ability.

 

Going back to what I said in post #31:

 

 

1) the weaker abilities are made better because they no-longer diminish your strong abilities

2) the strong abilities are made worse by having *longer cooldowns.

3) the more abilities you have, the more benefit you get from the cooldowns each energy orb.

 

I wonder if a seperate energy pool for each ability would be a good alteration of the current system.

Points 1) & 3) would still be applicable, and would encourage the player to select a more diverse set of abilities.

 

I'd certainly be more inclined to take (and more importantly, make use of!) powers like Mag's Pull & Shield Polarize if I knew it wasn't eating away at my energy reserve for casting Crush.

Edited May 3, 2013 by TehJumpingJawa

[bluehawk1976]

Can I afford a slashdash when i have no other means of escape equipped?

Well,using slashdash a second time in this situation means you spent a third of your energy (that is if you started from 150) or even a higher percentage. Still requires thought. I would have been more understanding to your position on CD if we had energy in the 500 or above. we only have 150 max - not a lot. All those who are against and posted before me expalained our position in detail and I won't repeat.

[Tsukinoki]

Well,using slashdash a second time in this situation means you spent a third of your energy (that is if you started from 150) or even a higher percentage. Still requires thought. I would have been more understanding to your position on CD if we had energy in the 500 or above. we only have 150 max - not a lot. All those who are against and posted before me expalained our position in detail and I won't repeat.

What do you mean 150 max?  You can equip flow and very quickly increase the ammount of energy that you have available.  You can easily double your energy with flow and have it not take up that much of your mod pool.

[bluehawk1976]

What do you mean 150 max?  You can equip flow and very quickly increase the ammount of energy that you have available.  You can easily double your energy with flow and have it not take up that much of your mod pool.

Well, I've only been playing for 2 weekst,so I haven't got flow yet an was not aware of it's benefits. if understood you correctly that will bring me up to 300.

Thanks for the info, will be on the lookout.

[Tsukinoki]

Well, I've only been playing for 2 weekst,so I haven't got flow yet an was not aware of it's benefits. if understood you correctly that will bring me up to 300.

Thanks for the info, will be on the lookout.

Flow is a rare mod but it can increase your energy by 25% per level up to 150% increase.  When you combine that with Streamline, which lowers your energy cost of abilities, you can use a lot more of your abilities a lot more often.

[Ryanshow]

I did read your question, however my answer only indirectly addressed it.

 

If you look at the reason you don't currently take the weaker abilities, it comes down to one fundamental issue; they are not worth taking.

The tactical flexibility they grant you does not offset their mod space cost, and in-game their energy usage is usually better spent on the more powerful abilities.

 

With a cooldown system the balance of the abilities is altered in 3 ways:

 

1) the weaker abilities are made better because they no-longer diminish your strong abilities

2) the strong abilities are made worse by having *longer cooldowns.

3) the more abilities you have, the more benefit you get from the cooldowns. (as each ability's cooldown is independent)

 

This alteration to the balance of abilities should cause the player to reassess the usefulness of all abilities in relation to other warframe enhancing mods.

 

 

*note in the context of my suggested kill/damage based cooldown system, an ability with a "longer cooldown" means more kills/damage must be dealt before the ability is available for reuse.

 

Sweet jesus you still don't get it!

 

Why would I trade 120% shields through 3 levels of redirection for the ability to jump high?

 

It doesn't matter if you'd get more use through a cooldown system. The mod capacity metric limits what you'd even sanely put on a warframe in the first place!

 

If we were talking slash dash vs radial blind yes cooldown would make a difference and encourage the use of both. Arguably the mod space cost would give pause though since you could have 120% more shields instead.

 

But if we are talking super jump, the speed ability on volt, or switch teleport there is next to 0 tactical advantage 90% of the time. So why wouldn't I take 120% more shields instead?

 

[Tsukinoki]

But if we are talking super jump, the speed ability on volt, or switch teleport there is next to 0 tactical advantage 90% of the time. So why wouldn't I take 120% more shields instead?

Dont knock switch teleport, you can decoy across a huge room when surrounded by enemies and then switch with it to give you plenty of breathing room.  But your point is dead on.

Why would I give up 120% shields?  Or whatever the equivalent to the flow mod would be?  Or some of my continuity simply to have an ability like Ash's teleport take up 3 points?

Even with CDs there are plenty of abilities that people just wont use.  And the reason for that?  They just aren't that good.  Even if Ash's teleport had a 2 second CD I still wouldn't use it because is a bad skill.  Nor would I ever use super jump or speed when I can have more health, shields, better power efficiency or more power.

Even if you make all of the useful skills have a painfully long CD the other abilities still wouldn't be taken a majority of the time.

[Azamagon]

Some thoughts (first post btw, woo!):

How about making your abilites ALWAYS available and permanently stuck in their mod slots? Maybe as a compensation, you could add an extra mod slot or two for those who dislike that suggestion (since some use the mod slots for other warframe mods)?

 

Furthermore, you can have spammability AND cooldowns together! You can have, for each ability, little vertical bars that indicate how many times in a row you can use X ability (each ability have different amount of bars of course). If you spam this X ability very fast, you will end up with all bars empty. The bars refill in X amount of time, one at a time in a progressive and slow way, thus spamming CAN be done, but should only be done in emergencies.

Streamline would affect the rechargespeed for all abilities, as would the Energy Siphon artifact. Blue Orbs will reduce recharge-speed. Flow can increase the "bar" height for all abilities. This might even give you an extra bar if it reaches high enough, but if it doesn't, it will at the very least give you a little potential extra "fuel" which makes the next recharge a little faster.

 

The 4 mod slots that are set with your abilities can still be fused up to get greater power, just like now (you just can't remove them from your warframe). Increasing them in power could also, if the power itself isn't upgraded much in damage etc, increase the bar height. So some abilities get stronger, others can be used more often, and some others have both!

 

Furthermore, as someone suggested earlier, if you are out of combat you could sit in that "meditation-position" (similar to when you log in) which will speed up the recharge-timer.

 

Lots of things could be done with this! I both like and dislike the current energy-based system, but a "bar-stored" cooldown-system and abilities which are NON-REMOVABLE the ability mod slots would be easier to balance i think.

 

Anyway, g2g now, might add more thoughts later! :)

[Tsukinoki]

@Azamagon
That doesn't address the problem that some abilities are waste of mod POINTS not just slots.  I could accept your situation if they made ability mods free, but I would hate it if I had to waste points on teleport.  Why should I be forced to waste 3 to 5 mod points on an ability that even if its there I'll never use?

[Azamagon]

@Azamagon

That doesn't address the problem that some abilities are waste of mod POINTS not just slots.  I could accept your situation if they made ability mods free, but I would hate it if I had to waste points on teleport.  Why should I be forced to waste 3 to 5 mod points on an ability that even if its there I'll never use?

Well, the abilities could be free in terms of mod POINTS too! :) That would give you no reason NOT to ever upgrade your abilities.

To counter that, an ability could perhaps cost a bit more credits to upgrade?

 

Also, how about this: Since you are then locked with these 4 mod slots, how about at level 10 your Warframe unlocks another mod slot, and at level 20 another one. That would give you 12 mod slots, where 4 are locked with your abilities, compared to the current 10, but where none are locked for abilities only. Level 30 could be... well, not another mod slot, but you get more credits when using this particular warframe? :)

 

EDIT: If my "bar system" wasn't easy to understand, i guess you can explain it like: Instead of having a common energy pool for all your abilities from which they all draw from, each ability has their OWN energy pool. Taking up a blue orb gives energy to ALL your abilities' energy pools etc! That way, you never "waste" energy on (for example) Radial Blind when you could spend it on 2 Slash Dashes instead! Sure, numbers would have to be retweaked of course, but it gives you a lot more incentive to use ALL your abilities (If the mod slots/points also were resolved as discussed before).

 

Or, another alternative is to buff ALL weaker abilities. I think abilities like Slash Dash and Decoy is a good example of how useful an ability should be. They shouldn't feel like "meh, i'd do better just shooting with my guns". The Abilities should always have that oomph behind them so you want to use them as often as possible. I stand by this even if the "seperate energy per ability" thing was added! No ability should be outright dull to use -_-

Edited May 7, 2013 by Azamagon

[securitywyrm]

Here's my idea of a hybrid cooldown/energy system that would be unique to Warframe.

 

 

TL;DR: Very long cooldowns, energy used as normal, cost of an ability is percentage of cooldown remaining (No restriction on how often you can use ability).

 

Let's start with laying out what the objectives of a cooldown system would be

1. To see higher usage of the full range of warframe abilities. Currently players tend to have one or two abilities they use exclusively per warframe rather than the entire set of abilities. This is wasted content.

2. To keep the current system where a player is able to spam their abilities for as much energy as they have.

3. To be easily balanced by adjusting a simple metric.

4. For the cooldowns to not be 'worth waiting for,' addressing the issue of the previous cooldown system where players would insist on waiting outside a room for their cooldowns.

 

Here is the proposed idea for the hybrid energy cooldown system

1. Abilities each have a rather long visible cooldown timer. This cooldown timer is only relevant to energy cost, not usage limitation.

2. The energy cost of an ability is multiplied by the percentage of cooldown remaining. An ability that is 75% through the cooldown will cost 25% of the normal energy cost. An ability completely off cooldown would be free to use.

3. Using an ability resets the cooldown.

 

Let's use the Excalibur for the example. Here are the cooldowns

Slash Dash: 1 minute (25 energy)

Super Jump: 45 seconds (20 energy)

Radial Blind: 2 minute (75 energy)

Radial Javelin: 4 minutes (100 energy)

 

What the cooldown does is reduce the cost of the ability by a percentage of the cooldown, as in the following examples.

Use the Radial Javelin ability when the cooldown is only at 1/2 (2 minute out of 4) 50 energy instead of 100.

Use the Radial Blind ability when the cooldown is at 3/4 (90 seconds out of 120 seconds): 18 energy instead of 75

Use the Slash Dash ability when the cooldown is fully depleted? Free. 

 

Any use of an ability resets the cooldown.

 

BENEFITS

When an ability has finished cooldown, you have a motivation to use it. This means players will be using abilities that normally "Aren't worth the energy." For example, on my Rhino I currently only use Rhino Charge and Iron Skin. While Rhino Stomp (top power) is 'okay', why would I possibly use something for 100 energy when I could cast 'iron skin' twice and get 30 seconds of invincibility? Under this system, I could still cast a rhino stomp every 4 minutes for free, or I might use it even more frequently when the cooldown is close to being up. There is no need to 'save' abilities because you can still use your energy to do the abilities. This system augments the skills rather than restricts them. Long cooldowns can also be made longer for easy balance.

 

Meeting the objectives

1. Higher usage of under-utilized abilities. If an ability is 'not worth the energy,' a player would still be using the ability when it is available from the cooldown to use for free. This would see the full range of warframe abilities used.

2. Maintains current energy system. This can be viewed as an augmentation to the energy system rather than a replacement.

3. Easily balanced. The easiest way to balance this system is to make adjustments to the length of the cooldowns. A cooldown length of five minutes on a major ability would still be a boost to the existing system.

4. Does not trigger the 'wait outside the room for cooldown' behavior. With very long cooldowns, and cooldown only representing a reduction in energy cost rather than when the ability is available, players might 'wait up for the others' but would be unlikely to say 'wait for my abilities to get off cooldown."

 

REQUIREMENTS

As this is an augmentation to the existing system, it would affect the game balance in a way favoring the players. Difficulty would need to be adjusted upward to compensate for more active ability usage.

[Azamagon]

@securitywyrm:
I would LOVE that system! That sounds unique and very interesting to me :) And as you said, it doesn't require a massive revamp either, as it is just an addition to the current system (rather than my idea, where each ability has its own energy pool, which would probably require more work than yours)

 

But one problem is still remaining, even with your great idea: Even if an ability has the potential to be free of use, if the ability is not good enough (they need retweaking regardless imo), some people don't wanna waste mod points and a mod slot for that ability. But that's a seperate issue that can be solved in other ways.

 

(And slight corrections: Super Jump costs 10 energy and Radial Blinds costs 50 energy. Just fyi!)

[Tsukinoki]

@Azamagon
If the abilities were free in terms of mod points and slots then I wouldn't mind having them equipped.  My thing is that I am using up all 60 points with only 3 abilities: shuriken, smoke screen, and bladestorm; and am using the rest of the points for survivability and energy efficiency and max energy.  Ash has 3 decent to use abilities, even though shuriken is starting to fall behind because of the glaive and planned throwing weapons but they said they are going to rework that ability, and while I am not a full min-maxer I still dont like equipping abilities that I would never use because at that point its just a waste.  To balance it they could just make them much harder to level up, say double the normal mod xp needed.

And I do agree that quite a few abilities need retweaking before people will use them.  Super jump was great before people got wall running and such, but now its not so useful in *most* situations.  Some warframes have more 'useful' abilities than others, such as excalibur, ash or trinity, compared to say volt.  Personally I haven't seen much use of volts shield or speed, mostly just his shock and overload.  If they can make more of the abilities more worthwhile to use while keeping it balanced then we would see more ability usage.

@securitywyrm
I've tried advocating a hybrid system similar to yours but have had it ignored so I hope that yours gets some attention.  It would be fairly easy to implement and keeps the benefits of both systems while avoiding most of the issues.  The biggest thing that it helps avoid is the syndrome of everyone sitting in front of every door before going through until all their CDs refresh.  In a hybrid system they can use their abilities whenever they have the energy and need to, but if they wait they can use it for free.  Gives the player a few more tactical options in combat which is always a good thing.