A New Hybrid Energy/cooldown System (Tldr Included)

[securitywyrm]

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 2 minutes for free, or I might use it even more frequently when the cooldown is close to being up.

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 be made longer for 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. Do 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.

[MetalGerbil]

not sure why people have such a massive need for skill usage. or fail to realize how badly it would affect other elements of the game.

 

equipment is a massive part of this game. for better or worse it needs to come first as a combat option, skills second.

 

not to mention that you can get pretty spammy now a days. i can pretty much always use slash dash  when i face a group. get more energy than i need and just spam away the whole mission.

[securitywyrm]

not sure why people have such a massive need for skill usage. or fail to realize how badly it would affect other elements of the game.

 

equipment is a massive part of this game. for better or worse it needs to come first as a combat option, skills second.

 

not to mention that you can get pretty spammy now a days. i can pretty much always use slash dash  when i face a group. get more energy than i need and just spam away the whole mission.

 

But that's an issue, you're only using slash dash. The other three abilities are thus 'under-utilized content.' The 'value' of content creation is basically 'how often does it cost divided by how much it will be seen."

[Synecdoche]

To make it simpler, I'd like to see the seconds of cooldown directly translate to energy cost.

[securitywyrm]

To make it simpler, I'd like to see the seconds of cooldown directly translate to energy cost.

 

That's what the system is.

12 out of 120 seconds left on cooldown? Energy cost is 12/120: .1: Ten percent. 

120 out of 240 seconds left on cooldown? Energy cost is 120/240: .5: Fifty percent.

 

As a balance, the energy costs of abilities could also be increased a bit.

[Onite]

not sure why people have such a massive need for skill usage. or fail to realize how badly it would affect other elements of the game.

 

equipment is a massive part of this game. for better or worse it needs to come first as a combat option, skills second.

 

not to mention that you can get pretty spammy now a days. i can pretty much always use slash dash  when i face a group. get more energy than i need and just spam away the whole mission.

 This has been my arguement forever and people just tell me "NO, THATS YOUR OPINION."

Honestly i think one of the only ways I can see skill spam being justified is if your skills ate your shield energy. That would make it so the more you're outputting, the more vulnerable you are. % cost.  Ultimates use 100% shields.

[securitywyrm]

 This has been my arguement forever and people just tell me "NO, THATS YOUR OPINION."

Honestly i think one of the only ways I can see skill spam being justified is if your skills ate your shield energy. That would make it so the more you're outputting, the more vulnerable you are. % cost.  Ultimates use 100% shields.

 

Then the only skill I'd ever use would be Iron Skin.

[JHarlequin]

 It is better then most ideas that have come around, though I would strongly advise against powers ever being free, but as low as 10 with reduction from streamline would be okay with me.

 

 I also go with the opinion of the fact that I don't really want to use powers more, and in some cases would prefer powers be used much less often.

 

 Some powers are great, and some powers are just annoyances.  Being in a mission with impatient volt's that overload every room gets pretty boring.  Which is why I would prefer your cooldown versus cost system.  Blasting off every minute won't save them very much energy, but it also won't stop them from doing it if they really want to use overload every room.  I don't want the system ruined for people that want to use powers so I am willing to wait for people to either run out of energy or just become better players.

 

 The cooldowns might have to be a bit longer though on some abilities, but at a first attempt your proposal really does allow people to use powers as they like anyway with benefits for actually being a bit more patient with their abilities.

[securitywyrm]

Well under the penciled-in numbers, the effective energy gain for ability cooldowns is like getting 100 energy (4 orbs) a minute, divided across all four abilities. That is assuming that you're hitting every ability the moment it is off cooldown. Double the cooldowns, half the energy effective gain. 

[CloudPies]

Actually this is the perfect counter for Ancient Disruptors. BRING IT ON *@##$ES!!