Resurfacing "a Complete Rework Of The Foundation Of Warframe."

[(PSN)Hellmans_Fury]

So I recently came across an older topic that has been archived (Here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/137875-a-complete-rework-of-the-foundation-of-warframe/) and the person who came up with this rework idea is genius in my estimation. There's some things he talks about that have sort of been addressed or changed, but definately not a complete overhaul of the Mod card system. The whole topic is quite long, but I definately think it's worth reading if you're interested in a better system than RNGeezus.

 

I for one would very much like to see at least attempts for bringing about a system like the one he describes. And since there would be much opposition by the players who have put hours and a lot of effort into upgrading mods, I think compensating the players who have put that much work into it is possible. And maybe even have a beta for the new system and provide the option to switch to the new system would help.

 

What do you think?

Edited February 24, 2015 by (PS4)Hellmans_Fury

[Phatose]

Never going to happen.  Steve directly addressed that topic on a devstream, and to say the least, was not thrilled nor in agreement with it.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Phatose

[V0LK]

It was brutally destroyed by [DE]Steve on one of Devstreams. So not gonna happen. Sadly.

[(PSN)Hellmans_Fury]

Damn. I guess I should have expected as much, especially if they want to make money. Do you know which Devstream and what time in it he speaks of it? I want to see myself.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

The problems with that system remain just like when Zamboni first proposed it. It's basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater, while doing little to actually affect the problem it's meant in part to fix. ("Who's going to take +stamina over +shields?")

 

Zamboni was right in that bandaid mods are bad and need to be removed/reworked, but his idea there ignores the fact that most of what he suggested is either wholly unnecessary or flat out counterproductive to the goal. Taking situationally useful mods like warm coat out of direct competition with always useful mods like intensify is a good idea, but Zamboni's idea for implementing that wouldn't actually get people to choose warm coat and you'd basically end up removing Warframe's customization now without replacing it with something that offers more options.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Phatose]

Damn. I guess I should have expected as much, especially if they want to make money. Do you know which Devstream and what time in it he speaks of it? I want to see myself.

 

Devstream 32.  Don't have an exact minute though.

[(PSN)Hellmans_Fury]

Only if they wanted Warm coat. The whole idea is tying Mastery Rank to progression, which means that you don't have to focus on shields if you would prefer something else over them, because Mastery and Warframe rank improves the base stats. There is a serious problem with continuously adding more mods to the game. The more mods you add, and with the same amount of slots available, players are going to be more and more frusturated because they can't get what they want out of their play style and warframe because if you want to be good, you HAVE to have power strength, duration,
shields mods etc.

 

I don't want the game to be about how powerful I can make my guns and Warframe. I want it to be about how challenging the enemies and mission types are and having fun playing against them. I don't want to have to wait 35 minutes in a void survival for the game to be a challenge.

Edited February 24, 2015 by (PS4)Hellmans_Fury

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Only if they wanted Warm coat. The whole idea is tying Mastery Rank to progression, which means that you don't have to focus on shields if you would prefer something else over them, because Mastery and Warframe rank improves the base stats. There is a serious problem with continuously adding more mods to the game. The more mods you add, and with the same amount of slots available, players are going to be more and more frusturated because they can't get what they want out of their play style and warframe because if you want to be good, you HAVE to have power strength, duration,

shields mods etc.

 

Who's going to take warm coat over more shields? Who's going to take warm coat over just about any other effect?

Like, Zamboni specifically mentioned shields as something players could choose to enhance further over and above the base improvements granted by rank up. He also mentioned stamina. The problem is, some effects are clearly superior to others. This is the same problem we have right now, but Zamboni's idea doesn't fix this.

 

I mean, right now Warframe rank already improves base stats, and I'd love to see this applied to weapons too, and I wouldn't be averse to giving more stat boosts based on mastery rank, but you can do all that without completely destroying all the good parts of the Warframe mod system.

[(PSN)Hellmans_Fury]

I just find it verry irritiating to have all these utility mods that can't be used because we're forced to mod for damage and survival if you want to be a good player. Why even have those mods for pick up if they don't expect good players to use them?

Edited February 24, 2015 by (PS4)Hellmans_Fury

[Cpl_Facehugger]

We all do. But Zamboni's idea is a huge massively labor intensive enterprise that probably wouldn't even fix the issue.

 

Comparatively, simply giving us a utility slot that can only be filled with utility mods is a much, much simpler thing that takes less man hours to implement and bug check.

[Phatose]

You're not actually forced to mod for damage quite as universally as the playerbase tends to make out.  If you're running a T1 or T2 MD or exterminate - and farming for primes often involves doing those - and then you mod your boltor prime or dread from damage and ignore utility, I'd argue you're actually playing poorly. 

 

That said, it's kind of beside the point.   As the Corporal was saying, Zamboni was selling a massively labor intensive approach.  Nuking the site from orbit, essentially, and there's reason to doubt it would even fix the problem. 

Edited February 24, 2015 by Phatose

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Right. Notionphil, a guy who I don't always agree with but who I respect immensely because he always says intelligent things, put it best. There are much easier ways to achieve the same goal as Zamboni's massive rework.

[(PSN)Hellmans_Fury]

Okay well It sure did seem a lot more exciting than a mod card system. There must be many ways you could improve versatility and specific builds that allows for more utility or mobility or fill in the blank while not having to worry about damage loss or not being able to survive as long. I just came across his idea and it seems much more rewarding and involved. Solutions to the labor intensive part might be providing a blueprint or resource that lets you transfer points for warframes/stances or accesories for weapons so you wouldn't have as much trouble getting as much utility or damage for every weapon/frame you come across. That's just one idea. The fact the [DE]STEVE didn't even consider the player's opinions frustrates me. We can think of many ways to improve upon Zamboni's idea. Just give us a chance DE geez.

[Phatose]

Not Labor intensive for players, labor intensive for DE.  It's nearly asking them to remove warframe and replace it with a completely different game. 

[(PSN)Hellmans_Fury]

Ah I misunderstood. That's why I mentioned beta and trials for it. Just as Zamboni mentioned in his thread, it wouldn't have to be all at once, it could be added onto bit by bit. And if DE really doesn't think it's worth it, at least ask the players with a poll to vote on it. Instead of squashing a hot topic so quickly, I think they should have asked the players what they thought and if the majority agreed then proceed with trials. I read some of the replys to Zamboni's topic and many were in agreement that the mod system needs overhaul.

[Qynchou]

From devstream 32:

 

SKILL TREE vs. MOD SYSTEM

TheGreatZamboni: Abridged points: The current Mod Card system is not a sustainable one. Meaning, you cannot continually release mods and use them as a crutch for content. The Corrupted Mods were already scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of ideas. But to think you can keep the system interesting with a flawed foundation is foolish . . .

Having 300 Warframes and 1000 weapons cannot make up for bad design. Especially when said Warframes and weapons fall victim to the very problem at the core of the game: The Mod Card system. Because the effectiveness of your Warframe and Weapon are not tied to your skill or interaction with said items but to the mods you have equipped, the game becomes one of drops. You play to max Serration, Redirection, Focus, Primed Chamber.

R: What do you think mods offer to the base of the game? And are there any plans to go back and revisit the entire system?

Sheldon: Isn't that what we're doing with different tiers of mods? You'll have a graduated approach to what mods you're using, where the quality will increase. Just from a new player perspective, this is a good thing.

Steve: I think it's laughable to say we have a game about progression, where the progression has no bearing on the outcome. And the idea that mods replace skill in the game is simply untrue. Since the original roleplaying games, there has been an intersection between the value of items you acquire and your ability to use them in the right situations. The variety of builds available in Warframe tells me that there is skill in both play, as well as the design of your build. Through the mod system, you can make any build you want, and the choices offered to players will only grow. There are years of ideas in our backlog, and the time required to make things is all that holds us back. I think a big part of his issue is the required mods, which the new update will address. There are a lot of false assertions in that post.

Rebecca: I think our players are asking for something that will never be in the game, and some people may not like the mod system, but we think we can work with it and make the game fun

Steve: We could do that skill tree with a thousand different options, but the mods are what gives Warframe it’s depth. It’s different than the trees that people expect. We went through this already in U7. The possibilities for energy and slot balance is orders of magnitude higher than any tree system.

Rebecca: I suppose the frustration is what more mods can we make? We get complaints about mods like Handspring and Warm Coat...

Steve: I agree and hear that those are bandaid mods, but those are few and far between. I think there's a lot more interesting things done with mods, like tradeoffs or channeling efficiency.

Scott: If you go to the forums to find your best build for anything, there's often a giant thread of people comparing and contrasting. There are those common mods that you feel like you have to have, though.

Steve: The biggest flaw is the lack of tradeoff for buffing up mods other than increased capacity. The kind of thing we did with corrupted mods or channeling stances is something we could work on over time.

 

Edited February 24, 2015 by Qynchou

[ThePresident777]

That archived OP starts out strong but doesn't get any where near to solving the problem it outlined.  It's making the same mistake that is so common on all gaming forums, hyper focus on the player content.  A game is more than just player content.  AI, for instance will never improve because of Warframe mods.  Of course no one will choose useless mods over useful mods.  But, what makes mods useful are the externalities, i.e., the enemies, missions, environments, etc.  Redirection is more useful than Intruder just like a tank is more useful than a tooth pick on a battle flied.  Making the tank out of card board isn't going to make armies buy more tooth picks, or fight fewer wars..

 

 

The problems with that system remain just like when Zamboni first proposed it. It's basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater, while doing little to actually affect the problem it's meant in part to fix. ("Who's going to take +stamina over +shields?")

 

Zamboni was right in that bandaid mods are bad and need to be removed/reworked, but his idea there ignores the fact that most of what he suggested is either wholly unnecessary or flat out counterproductive to the goal. Taking situationally useful mods like warm coat out of direct competition with always useful mods like intensify is a good idea, but Zamboni's idea for implementing that wouldn't actually get people to choose warm coat and you'd basically end up removing Warframe's customization now without replacing it with something that offers more options.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^++++++111111111111111.....................

[DrBorris]

That thread did not die as most threads do, it was brutally murdered by DE. The whole situation actually gave hope to the community, that DE actually has a plan for Warframe and will stand behind what they do. I will give credit to the GreatZamboni credit for a pretty good idea, but it just is not for Warframe.

[StevesEvilTwin]

ACROTFOW: A complete Rework of the Foundation of Warframe 2.0

 

Yep, it’s back. Nope, I am not theGreatZamboni (a moment of silence, please).

 

So, If you haven’t seen the original one, here it is. clicky

 

Why is this back you say? Well, it’s simple; the problems that Zamboni brought up are still here. The mod system is still a mess, there is a complete lack of build diversity in the game, and there are more and more complaints about grinding and mods every day. Since this is the year of quality, I think I have the right to tell the devs that we need a complete rework of the mod system at its base. (also I’m Steve’s evil twin so…)

 

Unlike theGreatZamboni, who was a radical as the commies back in the day (and the libertarians today), my changes will not be so far-fetched and hopefully won’t reek of personal vendettas. Some of the systems for the rework are already in place.

 

In short, here is a list of all of the problems I will be addressing in this post:

-build diversity

-grind and progression

-mod balance

-scaling

-melee diversification

 

 

First of all, let’s look at build diversity. The universal complaint that players have regarding this area is the amount of “mandatory mods”. Zamboni proposed to remove them all, and completely replace them with a skill tree. I realized that this was counterproductive however, as it completely ruins one of Warframe’s base design ideologies: a loot based dungeon crawler, Diablo in space, essentially. There should be some degree of grinding in the game.

 

The actual problem isn’t mandatory mods themselves. It is perfectly fine to have players’ power progression tied to the mods system, and a feature that makes Warframe relatively unique, provided that players have a way of obtaining the mods in the beginning. The problem is that we have TOO MANY mandatory mods.

 

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Let’s look at Warframes, a usual build for just focusing on one power will require at least: a corrupted mod, a normal power mod, streamline, flow. That’s 4/8 mod slots gone! At the very least you’re going to need 1 other slot for survivability so in reality you only have 3 mods slots to put what you want. If you’re building for multiple powers, then you’re probably not going to have any free mod slots left at all. The so-called “useless” mods will never be able to compete with these essential power mods even if they were buffed to the max. Players won’t use Warm Coat even if it let you keep all of your shields, if they have to sacrifice Streamline for it. In order for DE to get to work bringing the “useless” mods up to par, the power mods have to go. All of them, including corrupted and nightmare mods.

 

I know that the removal of basically half of the Warframe mods will be quite traumatic but honestly, it’s Beta, and DE can always design more nightmare and corrupted mods. The benefit outweighs the initial cost I think.

 

Note that I will not be doing the mod balancing myself, as DE is definitely more qualified than I am to adjust mods to fit their functions. Removing power mods from the equation however, should lay down the framework (and possibility) for a total mod balance overhaul.

 

So where do the power mods go then? A skill tree of course! Zamboni did get something right with his post, and it is that skill trees absolutely fit as a way of customizing Warframes since they are essentially the “character classes” in this game. What he got wrong however was that ALL aspects of a Warframe had to be in the skill tree. The mods do a fine job of that other stuff, we’re only going to put the ability modifications in the skill tree as seen below:

 

 

 

Let’s see how this system will work. The skill tree starts from the top. The boxes each represent one ability attribute that you can boost. The numerical increases listed are based off the base stats and are for each point put into that attribute (ex. 5 points will give you +250% max energy). Cyan boxes indicate things that you have unlocked, while grey boxes require you to put additional points into other attributes before being unlocked. The thick dark grey bars reaching across the connecting lines indicate an ability augment. The golden box is an attribute that can only be unlocked after all attributes have had a certain number of points in them (usually efficiency but could also be passives). The blue numbers indicate the number of points you have to have put into previous boxes in order to unlock that box. (ex. to unlock +damage for slash dash, you need at least one point in +distance ex.2 to unlock surging dash you need 4 points in +distance, 5 points in +damage, and 3 points in + slash width). The x/y/z numbers represent certain thresholds for points in a specific attribute. x represents the current number of points, y represents the number of points needed to unlock the golden box, and z represents the maximum number of points you can put into that attribute.

 

In terms of gameplay, 2 points will unlock at every level up to 60 points when the Warframe is max level. Additional points can also be gained by equipping ability augments, which give enough points to max themselves out. Ability points can be reset at any time, and each loadout slot can have a separate ability setup. Unfortunately, this system cannot be easily transferred over to, as each Warframe will have to have their own unique skill tree since abilities scale off different things. The numerical values will also have to be adjusted, as some Warframes may have more modifiable attributes than others. However, the sum of the y values should always be 60 – the cost required for maxing out the golden attribute. This is specifically to prevent efficiency spamming, as in order to unlock efficiency; players are forced to spread out their skill points evenly, negating the possibility of super powerful 25 energy nukes. Warframe base stats will also have to be adjusted to fit the new system. The current z values are completely arbitrary but should generally be high enough to allow for super-specialization.

 

The stats for Excalibur I used when I made this tree are as follows (base/full/max):

Slash Dash

damage 150/525/1650

distance 30/42/69m

slash width 1.5/3.75/9m

 

Radial Blind

duration 7/21/49 seconds

range 8/28/88m

 

Super Jump

height 3/18/42m

stun range 1.5/3.75/8.25m

stun duration 1/2.5/5 seconds

 

Radial Javelin

damage 1000/2200/7000

range 15/27/60m

status chance 50/80/100%

 

 

Now we will look at what a maxxed out skill tree looks like. This Excalibur build has both augments, so the maximum number of ability points is boosted to 70. The build fulfills the requirements for unlocking efficiency, and as such has it maxxed out. While surging dash is filled out however, the player decided to use some of the points given by furious javelin on boosting radial javelin’s damage. This should give you a general idea of what you can accomplish with this system.

 

 

 

This change will solve a whole slew of problems regarding Warframe powers:

 

1. With the new changes putting Warframe abilities as an innate part of ranking up, devs have removed a large degree of freedom from the players. We can no longer use all of our abilities from the start. We can no longer use a lower-ranked mod for potential benefits in our build. With the skill tree, players can put their first 2 points in any skill they want, meaning that using ults from level 1 is a thing again. Players can also modify different aspects of their powers as they wish, avoiding the potential negatives of having a certain ability attribute be too high.

 

2. Damage powers will be able to scale much further than before, enough so that for all practical purposes damage is sufficient. For example, a fully stacked Slash Dash will now be able to do 1650 damage!

 

3. Ability effectiveness becomes a zero sum game. Before, some abilities would not be affected at all by the negative stat on corrupted mods, allowing players to stack them to ridiculous levels without drawbacks. Now however, as there are only 60 mod points, if a player wishes to stack an ability to the max, they’ll have to sacrifice all of their other abilities. If a player wants efficiency, they can’t specialize much in any powers.

 

4. Power management is changed. By making energy capacity the first mandatory slot and buffing max energy capacity as a whole, players will be more aware of the importance of energy, encouraging them to explore other uses such as channeling. Power spam is also hopefully decreased, as players have to spend all of their ability points evenly in order to gain access to the power efficiency branch, which has also been nerfed just in case.

 

5. Ability augments give more in return. Now, ability augments will be the only way to get additional mod points to spend. You’re supposed to spend them on the ability augments themselves, but you can also spend the points on other abilities for a slight buff. These are only a small bonus, mainly intended for players that need less than full ranks in their augment, as the ridiculous stacking that players should be able to do now means they won’t generally have need for any more power. Keep in mind though, that ability augments should always ONLY give 5 points corresponding to the 5 ranks of the augment, and never EVER be balanced based on the amount of points they give. We saw what happened with auras; do not let history repeat itself.

 

6. Major overhauls to abilities are easier to explain and make. Players just have to look at the new skill tree branch to gain a sense of how the ability works by looking at which aspects of the ability scale. Nerfing or buffing an ability is also as simple as changing the percentage given per point.

 

Remember, remove ability mods, make skill trees for every Warframe, and then balance the remaining Warframe mods so that players would have reason to choose them over just plain stacking survivability.

 

-linebreak-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for weapons. I will be splitting this for guns and melee, as I think they work differently enough to warrant as such.

 

Zamboni was partly right about this as well, there is merit in following an attachment system, just not the way he described it. As I said before, the main threat to build diversity is TOO MANY essential mods. In this case, there are so many mods that boost damage that no amount of utility can make up for the loss from not equipping a damage mod in that spot. Like with the Warframe ability mods, we’re going to remove all of them as well…except for Serration/Hornet Strike (and also crit mods but more on that later).

 

It’s perfectly fine to have player progression tied directly to the mod system, and it’s also one of the unique features of the game. So, I propose that straight damage mods have their current boost increased, but not to the 49x times we have now. While weapons will be much weaker, enemy scaling can be adjusted accordingly. The greater benefit of this is that the difference between fully modded and unmodded weapons is lowered, and that there is now only one scaling factor for weapons, making the job of adjusting enemy scaling much easier for the devs.

 

So, back to the attachment system, I designed this with the idea that Function and Feel of a weapon should be separate and never linked to each other. Function is defined as the factors that affect the effectiveness of a weapon, things like damage, crit, status chance, and add new mechanics. Feel describes all the other aspects of a weapon that don’t make a huge difference to DPS like recoil, accuracy, reload time, magazine size, and fire rate (more on that later). Attachments should affect Feel and Mods should affect Function.

 

Firstly, Shotgun Mods will be merged with rifle mods apart from the unique ones much like Bows and Explosives. There is no reason for another set of mods to clutter the drop tables. There is about as much difference between shotguns and rifles as there are between rifles and continuous weapons, and definitely not enough to justify having their own mod category. This should have been done back when Damage 2.0 came out. As for the ammo issue, I recommend that the devs take a look at one of the hundreds of “Ammo 2.0” threads out there. (Archwing has proven that Ammo is not hard coded into the game). I’ll leave the devs to figure out the issue of Primed Point Blank on their own.

 

A lot of the current so-called “utility” mods will be converted into attachments. Attachments can be added to a weapon for free but have a very limited number of slots(0-4). Each class of weapons (rifle, sniper, shotgun, pistol) should have a different number of attachment slots so as to enforce their functioning with special weapons deviating from the norm (ex. starter weapons all have 8 attachment slots for the lulz). Attachment slots can also be used as a balancing factor.

 

Corrupted and Dual stat mods that affect only Feel will become attachments. Ones that affect only Function will become mods. Ones that affect both will also become mods. Augments will become mods.

 

Here is a loose (devs can change it if they want) list of the new Mods and Attachments.

 

 

Attachments:

Ammo Drum/Trick Mag

Ammo Mutation mods

Eagle Eye/Hawk Eye

Fast Hands/Quickdraw

Hush/Suppress

Magazine Warp/Slip Magazine

Sinister Reach/Ruinous Extension

Speed Trigger/Gunslinger

Stabilizer/Steady Hands

Tainted Mag/Tainted Clip

Terminal Velocity/Lethal Momentum

Vile Precision

 

Mods:

Charged Chamber

Continuous Misery/Perpetual Agony

Critical Delay/Creeping Bullseye

Cryo Rounds/Deep Freeze

Fanged Fusillade/Maim

Firestorm

Hammer Shot

Heavy Caliber/Magnum Force (more on that later)

Hellfire/Heated Charge

High Voltage/Jolt

Hollow Point

Ice Storm

Infected Clip/Pathogen Rounds

Lethal Torrent (more on that later)

Malignant Force/Pistol Pestilence

Metal Auger/Seeker

Piercing Caliber/Bore

Piercing Hit/No Return

Point Strike/Pistol Gambit

Primed Chamber

Rifle Aptitude/Sure Shot

Rime Rounds/Frostbite

Rupture/Concussion Rounds

Sawtooth Clip/Razor Shot

Serration/Hornet Strike

Shred

Split Chamber/Barrel Diffusion (more on that later)

Stormbringer/Convulsion

Stunning Speed

Thermite Rounds/Scorch

Vile Acceleration/Anemic Agility

Vital Sense/Target Cracker

Wildfire

Accelerated Blast

Blaze

Tainted Shell

Thunderbolt

 

 

 

 

As I said before, all damage mods barring the straight damage ones will be changed. Elemental mods and physical mods will instead convert damage. The Faction damage mods will be removed because frankly, they didn’t make sense after Damage 2.0 anyway. What sort of modification are you making to a weapon that specifically allows it to deal damage to all units of a single faction? It’s not targeting their weakness, as we already know that they are weak to different elements. So, they will be removed and I don’t think anyone will care since they don’t cost much anyway. The multi shot mods will be overhauled completely, instead giving a mechanic change that does not affect damage at all. Fire rate mods will stay the same since they already have an innate drawback of burning through more ammo.

 

Crit mods get special treatment. Since removing the damage boost from elementals essentially makes non-crit weapons inferior by having no way to compensate, the crit mods will simply be nerfed. Their mod point cost will be doubled without changing their boost, and they will all become rare mods. Crit weapons will also have significantly less attachment slots than other weapons in their category depending on a case to case basis. (Bows will have only 1 attachment slot, but Snipers will still have the 4 slots that are characteristic of utility weapons to balance the inherent power of bows).

 

Here is a more specific list of the necessary mod changes. I will not be balancing all the mods as that is the devs’ job.

 

 

General:

-all mods can be de-ranked freely

 

Serration/Hornet Strike:

-instead gives damage boost proportionate to the mod power necessary to rank up on the last few ranks (only the pure damage mods will work this way)

-Ex. Serration now gives: +15%, +30%, +45%, +60%, +75%, +90%, 105%, 120%, 240%, 480%, 960%

 

Conversion Mods:

-no more conversion mods can be equipped if the total conversion percentage of all equipped mods reaches 100% (same applies to weaker physical mods on their own i.e. cannot have more than two max rank weaker physical mods at the same time)

-the weaker physical mods are calculated apart from all the other conversion mods as they work off of the remaining physical damage (this means that they have no effect when there is only elemental damage)

-Ex. Burston with 30% Piercing Hit, Cryo Rounds, and Hellfire will have 9 blast, 4.9 slash, 11.2 puncture, and 4.9 impact

-Ex. Burston with Piercing Caliber, Cryo Rounds, and Hellfire on the other hand will have 9 blast, 9 puncture, 6 slash, and 6 impact

-Conversion formula = -X% from all damage, then add X% of all damage to desired damage type

-if you have any questions about the conversion math feel free to ask me below

 

90% Elemental Mods:

-instead converts up to 15% of base damage to the desired elemental type at max (this makes it impossible to have 100% elemental damage on a weapon with base physical unless you equip all 8 elemental mods, so that elemental weapons don’t become redundant)

-elemental combos still work the same

 

Dual Stat Elemental Mods:

-instead converts up to 10% of base damage to the desired element at max (this may look like a nerf, but will actually make it more versatile since you have to have the mod at max rank to get the most out of the other benefit, but you cannot equip more conversion mods if 100% of damage has been converted already)

 

Weaker Physical Damage Mods:

-converts base physical damage (if any) up to 50% at max

-stacking different mods will allow for interesting combinations

-Ex. Burston with Piercing Hit and Sawtooth Clip will have 15 slash, 15 puncture, and 0 impact

 

Stronger Physical Damage Mods:

-also works on elemental mods and is treated the same in calculations

-converts up to 30% at max

-Ex. Ignis with Fanged Fusillade will have 3 slash and 7 heat

-stacks with weaker physical mods

-Ex. Ignis with Fanged Fusillade and Piercing Hit will have 1.5 slash, 1.5 impact, and 7 heat

 

Heavy Caliber and other Corrupted Mods:

-instead become better, non-stackable versions of the normal variant (either mod or attachment) with the drawback

-Ex. Tainted Mag gives 96% magazine size (equivalent to current Tainted Mag + Magazine Warp) and -33% reload speed

 

Status Mods:

-buffed obviously

 

Multishot Mods:

-add an additional reticle on the screen

-bullets are divided in two, dealing half damage, with one firing into where each reticle is pointing

-different ranks have different reticle locations

 

Split Chamber and Barrel Diffusion:

-two reticles

 

Lethal Torrent: 

-cannot be equipped with Barrel Diffusion

-remove fire rate bonus

-three reticles

 

 

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Before we get into melee, we’re going to have to take a step back, and look at the polarity system. With all the changes we’ve made to both Warframe and Gun modding, we’re going to have to re-do the polarity system as well. We’ve removed all Warframe power mods, which means that Warframes no longer have “V” polarity mods. We’ve also moved a good chunk of “-” polarity mods to the free attachments, so we’ll have to fix that as well. Furthermore, the melee changes are going require two completely new mod polarities as well. By re-using the current mod polarities, and adding new ones when needed, I think I’ve arrived at a good balance point where each polarity is equally useful. Here is the complete list:

 

“V” polarity: damage and damage type mods on guns, miscellaneous stat boosts (speed, knockdown recovery etc.) on Warframes

“D” polarity: alters chance based mechanics on guns (crit and proc), defense mods on Warframes

“-” polarity: mechanic changes (Thunderbolt etc. on guns; Quick Thinking etc. on Warframes)

“Y” polarity: abilities and augments

“O” polarity: fusion cores and attachments

“scratch” polarity: “Blade” mods

“R” polarity: “Hilt” mods

 

New polarities (I just came up with random symbols, the devs can draw whatever they want):

“H” polarity: corrupted mods

“X” polarity: dual stat and nightmare mods

 

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So what the hell are Blade and Hilt mods you ask? Well, we’ll get into that right now.

 

This is where I diverge from Zamboni’s plans. He wanted to implement a custom combo system that was apparently from Remember Me, but I think that the Stance system is fine with some polishing (more information on what each hit of the combo does; the removal of hold back/forward combos; some kind of timing indication). There are tonnes of posts about polishing the stances themselves so I won’t go further than that.

 

Instead, my plan will be involve the full integration of the Melee 2.0 system along with Charge attacks into regular melee gameplay.

 

The most important mechanics introduced in Melee 2.0 were the Channeling and Combo system, however the community generally feels that they were poorly implemented and tacked on. The Channeling mods cost too much energy. Why build for crit/status only when channeling if you can build for crit/status on all attacks? The Combo counter doesn’t last long enough. This can be resolved by simply merging the two together. In addition to granting additional damage, all hits while channeling are added to the combo counter permanently for that mission. The counter decay still has to be slower and the amount of hits required to increase the counter still have to be decreased of course, but this should allow players much more leniency when it comes to building their combos. I imagine that on long survival missions, melee will become much more viable than weapons due to the combo counter essentially allowing melee damage to scale to infinity as long as you are channeling.

 

I’m just going to put out some random numbers here to give you an idea of how the combo system could be adjusted:

 

Combo counter takes 20 seconds to start draining (not resetting) at a rate of 10 hits per second. This means that the amount of time it takes for a combo to drain is proportionate to the amount of time it takes to build it.

 

5 hits: 1.5x damage

10 hits: 2x damage

20 hits: 2.5x damage

40 hits: 3x damage

80 hits: 3.5x damage

160 hits: 4x damage

320 hits: 4.5x damage

640 hits: 5x damage

1280 hits: 5.5x damage

(past 1280 the number of hits required becomes linear)

1920 hits: 6x damage

2560 hits: 6.5x damage

3200 hits: 7x damage

ad infinitum

 

 

What does this have to do with mods you say? Well, this integration is basically required for me to be able to group melee mods into only the two categories stated before.

 

People often say that melee mods are too cheap, and even the best builds have tonne of points left over, so I decided to take advantage of that factor. Instead of giving the mods more ranks and adding to more power creep, we will give melee weapons more mod slots. All melee weapons now have 10 mod slots polarized to either the Blade or Hilt polarity. Yes, all of the melee mod slots are polarized (with rare exceptions). This is necessary to both fit all of the mods on, and to allow for a more diverse arsenal of melee weapons. Some melee weapons might have mostly Blade polarities while some might have mostly Hilt polarities, signifying what usage they were intended for. Trying to use a Blade build on a Hilt-polarized weapon will be very difficult as every single mod will cost double due to being placed on the wrong polarity. Forma can still be used to change the polarities, of course.

 

This is again, a very traumatic change, although I think less so than the Warframe changes, as most people don’t have that many forma on their melee weapons.

 

So, we know how Blade and Hilt mods work now, what are they exactly? It’s simple; we have two distinct melee modes, so each gets their own mod category. Blade mods are mods that predominantly affect quick melee, while Hilt mods are mods that affect equipped melee. These two will not be nearly as mutually exclusive as they are now though as I will explain later.

 

Blade mods are most of the current melee mods, and they will only be adjusted slightly, in contrast to the gun mods due to melee’s inherent weaknesses (no damage conversion here):

 

 

Pressure Point:

-no changes

 

Spoiled Strike:

-becomes a better version of Pressure Point in the same way Corrupted rifle mods were treated

 

Elemental Damage mods:

-cost reduced to 9 points and bonus reduced to 60% (this is to compensate the new potential that melee has)

 

Physical Damage mods:

-no changes actually, since they only scale off their respective physical damages

 

Faction Damage mods:

-removed for consistency’s sake

 

Melee Prowess:

-buffed obviously

 

Crit mods:

-no changes

 

Finishing Touch:

-in addition to giving bonus damage, also adds +1, +2, +4, +5 hits to combo counter permanently after performing a Finisher

 

Berserker:

-no change

 

Energy Channel:

-instead applies a multiplier based on the ability cast to the next melee attack

-at max rank: “1” abilities give 2x damage at max rank, “2” gives 3x damage, “3” gives 5x damage, “4” gives 8x damage

 

Glaive Mods:

-no changes

 

Reflex Coil:

-reverted to increasing charge attack speed

 

Killing Blow:

-reverted to increasing charge attack damage

 

Corrupted Charge:

-corrupted version of Killing Blow

-decreases charge speed, increases charge damage

 

 

 

Hilt mods are the mods that affect a weapon in equip mode. This includes melee stances (yeah they cost mod points) and channeling mods.

 

 

Stance Mods:

-costs balanced out a little bit

-multiple stances can be equipped at the same time

 

Life Strike:

-no changes (this is the only mod that will still drain channeling efficiency, and I think it is worth it in comparison)

 

Remaining Channeling Mods:

-changed to “Combo” mods

-gives progressive bonuses based the combo stage (yes, this means they scale to infinity as well, and do not need channeling to work)

 

Enduring Strike:

+15% status chance per combo stage at max rank

 

True Punishment:

+15% crit chance per combo stage at max rank

 

Quickening:

+5% attack speed per combo stage at max rank

 

Second Wind:

+5 stamina per combo stage per kill at max rank

 

Warrior’s Grip:

-removed (why does this mod even exist? parrying stamina costs need to be reworked, not fixed by… this bandaid mod… if it can even be called that)

 

Parry:

-the “Reflect” Warframe mod merged into this one

-stagger chance increased to 100% at max rank

-parrying stamina reduced by 1000% at max rank

 

 

After reading this, you might think that the two modes are still pretty separate, right? Blade is quick melee, and Hilt is equip-melee. Well, I’m not done yet. Remember how I talked about adding back charge attacks? That’s where they come in.

 

Charge attacks scale their damage off of the current combo counter even in quick melee mode, which means that you can channel for the first few enemies of a game, and enjoy the damage bonus for the rest of the match. Not only do charge attacks not cost energy, but they add to the melee counter temporarily like attacks in stance mode. How much they add is up for the devs to decide though.

 

Another mechanic that works in quick melee mode is Finishers. Finishers (stealth, ground, and parry), like charge attacks, always scale their damage off of the combo counter, and add 10 temporary hits by default to boot! This bonus can be boosted even further by equipping the Finishing Touch mod.

 

You might be thinking that this might be an attempt to force people to use Channeling, but remember that Berserker still works perfectly fine, and Energy Channel has actually been buffed to be useful. Quick melee has remained pretty much the same in usage, only slightly nerfed in damage from the elemental mods, but I think that’s more than made up for by the constant free damage boosts from Charge attacks and Finishers.

 

The final mechanic that we need to touch on quickly is Parrying and Blocking. Parrying was a neat idea to begin with, but ultimately falls short due to both being chance based, requiring multiple mods, and being completely useless at higher levels. I’ve fixed the first two completely by cramming all of these mods into one. The third one I think I’ve also remedied enough for people to try using it by giving the combo boost to Finishers. The Blocking cost reduction is also a bandaid, but I think enough for people to start trying it. As for further improving the system, other people have said it far better than I have, and I encourage the devs to read their suggestions. Things like making Parrying timing based, or making Blocking stamina drain based on hits instead of damage are fairly simple, yet make a world of difference to their effectiveness.

 

Some of you might then start worrying about channeling. After all, the channeling mods have all been changed to combo mods, and the only need for channeling is to build up the initial combo count, lifestrike, and parrying right? And the lack of channeling mods means that all weapons will only do 150% damage when channeling right? Based on what you know, yes. But I’m not done yet. If you’ve noticed, you’ll find that I haven’t included all of the current melee mods in the above Blade and Hilt categories. We’ve still got the nightmare and dual stat mods to go through. According to the new Polarities listed above, they should have their own polarity, but that wouldn’t work within the Blade and Hilt dichotomy would it? Indeed, they wouldn’t. That’s why I’m going to keep their names, but make them into new, actually useful channeling mods instead. Their drop tables would have to be changed of course, as they should no longer be luxury items.

 

The dual stat elemental mods would instead be changed into channeling elemental mods. That is, they give elemental damage only while channeling. This elemental damage does not combine with the normal attack elemental damage, meaning that players will be able to use two primary elements on their melee weapons by channeling (screw you Prosecutors!). Focus Energy will lose its electrical damage boost and instead serve the same function that Reflex Coil does now. The picture might have to be changed. As for Rending Strike, I’m not actually quite sure what it should do. The devs can change whatever I end up writing below if they want. Following this format of “channeling = specialized situational attacks” I think the devs could cook up plenty more mods so that Life Strike won’t have to be so lonely.

 

 

Here are the new Hilt mods:

 

 

Virulent Scourge:

-at max rank gives +60% toxin damage while channeling

 

Voltaic Strike:

-at max rank gives +60% electric damage while channeling

 

Volcanic Edge:

-at max rank gives +60% heat damage while channeling

 

Vicious Frost:

-at max rank gives +60% cold damage while channeling

 

Focus Energy:

-at max rank gives +90% channeling cost reduction

 

Rending Strike:

-at max rank gives 60% chance to proc all 3 physical procs based on the weapon’s damage dealt when channeling

 

 

Those of you who are keen will know that there’s still one last subject I’m holding back on: Stances. I said that Stances would instead fit in the Hilt slot and cost energy like all the other mods, and that you would be able to equip multiple stances, but not much else.

 

Stances will offer yet another way of boosting a weapon’s damage, now that they cost mod points. Melee weapons are different from projectile weapons in that they will always involve a lot of physical contact in their usage. It makes sense that melee weapons always deal physical damage of some sort. However, this will not come from the weapon itself, but from the stances. Currently, stances and combos differentiate from each other by offering AoE, guaranteed procs, damage boosts, or mobility. I’m going to add yet another factor that DE can play with when designing stances: damage type.

When using stances, there will be two base damages in play. One is the weapon’s damage distribution after modding (either normal or channeling), hereby labeled Damage 1. The other is the physical damage that comes from the way the weapon is swung in the move set of the stance, dubbed Damage 2. For an example, we will use the Prova and the Sundering Weave stance:

 

For all of the attacks in the first combo, Cresting Surf, it looks like the Tenno is swinging with excessive force, thus it makes sense to give it a Damage 2 of Impact. For all attacks in the Cresting Surf stance, weapons will deal 75% of their damage as Damage 1, and 25% as Damage 2.

 

The first few attacks of Riding Current are the same as Cresting Surf, but the last attack looks particularly forceful. It also happens to deal 200% damage, so we’ll instead make the damage boost pure Impact, resulting in 100% Damage 1, and 100% Damage 2.

 

The last dash in Coming Tide is a stabbing lunge, so it makes sense to give it Puncture damage. It also deals 250% damage, so we get 100% Damage 1 and 150% Damage 2 on that attack.

 

After the 4th attack in Flash Flood, the Tenno swings wildly with their weapon, seemingly cutting through their enemies. Thus, it makes sense for these to have Slash as Damage 2. The four multi-hitting radial swings deal 200% damage, so we make it deal 150% Damage 1, and 50% Damage 2.

The last swing even procs slash, so it makes sense for nearly all of its 250% damage to be Damage 2, resulting in 50% Damage 1 and 200% Damage 2.

 

And that’s all there is too it. With the inherent stance damage types, I think the devs could create a lot more variations on stances, even going for multiple Damage 2 types. For example, right now we pretty much have a slow AoE stance, and a fast mobile stance for most weapons. The combos within the stances are basically also variations thereof. With Damage 2 however, we can make one stance/combo that specializes in Slash and Slash procs, while another deals Impact procs constantly.

 

This is why I brought up the need to equip multiple stances, so that players could get more versatility with different combos, or even just to have fun. The stance combos within each weapon category would have to be adjusted a bit to make sure there’s no overlap, but otherwise I think it could work. If it really isn’t possible, then I guess Stances could go back to the Aura slot.

 

Oh, and all mods (Warframe, Gun, Melee should be able to be downgraded freely.)

 

 

 

 

Suggestions are welcome. “Why don’t you make your own game!” comments are not and will be reported.

[S.T.M.P.D]

I honestly really, really don't want attachement separation for my weapons, thankyaverymuch. I'd rather say, the situational damage mods the devs have discussed, the headshot/sustained fire/whatever mods.

Blade and hilt, though? That's brilliant. Genius, in fact. As a melee afocacionado I want this very badly.

As for skill trees - I dunno. I like them, and I don't like them. I want to be able to do special things with all my abilites. I suppose they'd have to be done very, very well for them to work.

All told, great thread, brilliant ideas, much more approachable than theGreatZambonis overreactive trash. Awesome!

[Phyrak]

I like what I see +100000!

More choice is always better

[Elannor]

:))))))

nope.

in a thousand years. nope.

 

-my opinion. 

Edited February 26, 2015 by Elannor

[geninrising]

Fantastically creative op. Although I think I can say with little to no lack of confidence that many of us are intensely aware of the lack of room for creativity in nearly all weapon and frame builds due to the issue of "necessary modding". I will say however that I feel that the ability augments could be come a restrictive element should the devs release more augments for gear in the future. 

 

Might I ask though on the skill tree issue, you would intend for this to be a per loadout basis right? Thus including a mod loadout and a skill loadout for each one, correct?

[Phatose]

Eh.  Not entirely sure what I think of this, thought my instincts say it's probably trading our current pile of trouble for a different one.

 

Still, word of friendly advice:  If you want the devs to have any chance of seriously considering your feedback, naming it after a thread who's only actual accomplishment was to get Steve to utter profanity on a devstream is majorly unwise, even if you're not named "StevesEvilTwin".

Edited February 26, 2015 by Phatose

[ThePresident777]

It reminds me of Dragon Age 2.  If I wanted to play Dragon Age 2, I'd reinstall it and play it.  But, I don't so I wont.

 

If one plays Nightmare Mode challenges, one uses a different load out than the one used in the void.  Behold the power of externalities to foster choice and variety.

 

Also, there is nothing stopping DE from making spam possible with a skill tree system just like there is nothing stopping DE from getting rid of spam with a mod card system.   The reason why we have spam is because every time DE has done something to lessen it we rebelled.

Edited February 26, 2015 by ThePresident777