Our Ability Usage Is Unbalanced: Here's How To Fix It

[Racercowboy]

I fear an AoE cold proc would be counterproductive to any Frost playstyle. He's too slow to encourage melee (where that AoE slow would be most effective) and it would have little purpose next to his globe. Maybe Ice Wave's damage and range could be buffed? Allowing Ice Wave to be about hitting larger numbers of targets harder, while Freeze would be about completely immobilizing a few enemies as now, except now that few would be more than 1.

 

I could see myself actually using Freeze if this were to happen, although I don't know if it's a good idea to buff Icewave's damage (poor Avalanche lol). Hitting a larger number of targets would be enough for damage. I do like playing a melee Frost actually, it's quite fun and effective if done right.

[rockscl]

 

 i agree with your vision, only 1 thing about hydroid´s 1: i wouldnt change it, its very strong already, but it really needs to get fixed in his determination of where to strike, usually when i cast this across a door, the entire skills hits above the ceiling, makes me feel ashamed for the sad show im making in front of all those grineers

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

I could see myself actually using Freeze if this were to happen, although I don't know if it's a good idea to buff Icewave's damage (poor Avalanche lol). Hitting a larger number of targets would be enough for damage. I do like playing a melee Frost actually, it's quite fun and effective if done right.

I've updated the OP with that as the new Freeze.

i agree with your vision, only 1 thing about hydroid´s 1: i wouldnt change it, its very strong already, but it really needs to get fixed in his determination of where to strike, usually when i cast this across a door, the entire skills hits above the ceiling, makes me feel ashamed for the sad show im making in front of all those grineers

Honestly, my range buff was just a way of making sure it hit in the right spot more often. It does need fixing.

[AlphaHorseman]

First of all, your Raid argument is circular logic. If players didn't have such an easy time with normal content, DE wouldn't have needed to increase the levels so much to attempt to challenge 8 players. (Based on the way CC works in this game, it won't matter).

Anyway, you believe that decreasing the viability of options can't add options, or at least that's what I'm getting from this.

I'm going to use extremes to illustrate why that's wrong. I'm not saying you're advocating for them, but they make the point:

Let's say there was a new frame called Ultimate. Its ultimate will be a free ability that does 10,000 Finisher damage to everything on the map. How could anything else be viable at that point? There would be only one choice. But without nerfing that ability, it wouldn't be possible to introduce more viable options, simply because other options already are viable, they're just overshadowed by an ability that's OP. If DE didn't nerf the ability, they could either:

1. accept that those players won't ever be challenged, and that no other frame would be relevant compared to it.

2. buff everything else including the enemies up to that level, which would just be a nerf that took longer to execute.

3. buff everything else except the enemies, which would just make the game easier--classic powercreep.

4. design the enemies to hard-counter abilities, which would leave the other frames, now unable to cast abilities, even more worthless, kill progression, and defeat the purpose of not nerfing Ultimate's ability in the first place.

2, 3, and 4 have all been tried over the time I've been playing this game (often because of the repercussions of the last one tried), and it hasn't taken long to see their flaws. So there's the point: limits to abilities do not limit choice. Instead, the opposite happens. There becomes more options that are relevant. The game would have an accepted challenge level. The enemies wouldn't need to beat us by preventing us from having the items we're supposed to be able to use. Limits are necessary for an engaging experience, because we can only test our limits if we have them.

Hold on, how is it circular? My point was that the only powers that would work well in those situations were the ones that have CC/Utility. I advocated for all powers having CC/Utility, to ensure their scale ability. Nerfing the availability of these powers isn't going to help. Everyone wanted end-game, and although the enemy scaling isn't what we wanted, the puzzles and the like are good additions. But since our next version of end-game is pretty much more of the same thing, but at higher levels, it would be prudent to ensure that the entirety of a WarFrames kit would be useful, hence adding CC/Utility to all powers.

 

And yes, I believe decreasing the viability of options doesn't add options, because it does not. You are literally making a good option bad simply because the other bad options are bad. It's far better to make the bad options actually good than to make the good one bad. Making one option bad does not add anything to the table, it retracts. Actually making the other options good actually does make the other options more appealing.

 

Yeah...I'd never advocate for those extremes, they're...completely pointless and don't make sense.

 

And there is no ability that does that. The reasons why these abilities overshadow the others is because they're actually functionally good abilities. These powers possess traits that make them useful, viable, and scale able throughout content. The other powers within a kit, however, usually do not have traits that allow them to scale through content (i.e. CC/Utility). The difference is that you have a good tool, and you have 3 other tools that aren't good functionally. The solution is not to make the one good tool into a tool that doesn't function as good as before, but to improve those 3 tools that players need to be good, to actually be good.

 

The options become better, rather than the options becoming mandatory tools since the one good option is now nerfed. Giving these powers better mechanics is a far better solution than nerfing down a good power. It may take more work, but having our powers be multifaceted and functional throughout content is the best way to do this. Nerfing down the viability of powers only hinders the expansiveness of the game, and limits players to, rather than having one good option, 4 options that are all equally dysfunctional or in need of improvement.

[Bigbizz44]

I love how you see the occasional, self entitled, player who thinks a system is broken, and then from the "goodness" of their hearts they tell DE the best way to fix THEIR game

But is that not what "feedback" is? players commenting on the balance of the game to let the developers know that there MAY be a problem?

 

and it would be far worse if players did not give their honest opinion on how to fix what may or may not be a problem.  Giving suggestions on how to fix a problem might give the developers inspiration on how to fix the problem.  Complaining about something being a problem just to complain is basically whining, and thus isn't considered feedback.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

Hold on, how is it circular? My point was that the only powers that would work well in those situations were the ones that have CC/Utility. I advocated for all powers having CC/Utility, to ensure their scale ability. Nerfing the availability of these powers isn't going to help. Everyone wanted end-game, and although the enemy scaling isn't what we wanted, the puzzles and the like are good additions. But since our next version of end-game is pretty much more of the same thing, but at higher levels, it would be prudent to ensure that the entirety of a WarFrames kit would be useful, hence adding CC/Utility to all powers.

 

And yes, I believe decreasing the viability of options doesn't add options, because it does not. You are literally making a good option bad simply because the other bad options are bad. It's far better to make the bad options actually good than to make the good one bad. Making one option bad does not add anything to the table, it retracts. Actually making the other options good actually does make the other options more appealing.

 

Yeah...I'd never advocate for those extremes, they're...completely pointless and don't make sense.

 

And there is no ability that does that. The reasons why these abilities overshadow the others is because they're actually functionally good abilities. These powers possess traits that make them useful, viable, and scale able throughout content. The other powers within a kit, however, usually do not have traits that allow them to scale through content (i.e. CC/Utility). The difference is that you have a good tool, and you have 3 other tools that aren't good functionally. The solution is not to make the one good tool into a tool that doesn't function as good as before, but to improve those 3 tools that players need to be good, to actually be good.

 

The options become better, rather than the options becoming mandatory tools since the one good option is now nerfed. Giving these powers better mechanics is a far better solution than nerfing down a good power. It may take more work, but having our powers be multifaceted and functional throughout content is the best way to do this. Nerfing down the viability of powers only hinders the expansiveness of the game, and limits players to, rather than having one good option, 4 options that are all equally dysfunctional or in need of improvement.

You missed the point. I intentionally used an extreme to illustrate a point, because you believe nerfing cannot provide more options.

A few frames have one good tool and two or three bad ones (Nova if you aren't the host comes to mind). But some other frames, like Loki, have good tools that go unused because one or two are just too good/cheap for it to matter. Why bother distracting enemies with Decoy if you can stay invisible for an entire match? That was the point I was illustrating using the extreme example.

[GhostMelody]

I would definitely use Shuriken, Freeze, Ripline, and Decoy more if I could get 10 for the cost of 1 ultimate. Although perhaps there needs to be more energy restrictions. I considered preventing enemies killed by abilities from casting orbs, but I fear the meta will just be moved even more towards CC. Perhaps preventing/decreasing the likelihood of enemies under the effect of abilities in any way from dropping orbs? Even that just nerfs abilities like Decoy or Soul Punch.

lol I doubt this, the same as they are now, it's not the efficiency because all of those have the least cost out of most of those kits

Having them cheaper wouldn't solve your problem, you'd probably use them for a bit and go back to ignoring them all together again

Also efficiency=spam that's why spam builds often use efficiency mods, adding more would = more spam

The only way spam would end is there was a limiter, one of the best limiters being time.

So simply put if they got a cooldown then they won't be as spam-able

------True story------

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

lol I doubt this, the same as they are now, it's not the efficiency because all of those have the least cost out of most of those kits

Having them cheaper wouldn't solve your problem, you'd probably use them for a bit and go back to ignoring them all together again

Also efficiency=spam that's why spam builds often use efficiency mods, adding more would = more spam

The only way spam would end is there was a limiter, one of the best limiters being time.

So simply put if they got a cooldown then they won't be as spam-able

------True story------

Cooldowns severly hamper flexibility. They used to be in the game, and players would just hide while waiting for their ultimates to charge.

Energy needs to be the limiter. Right now, thanks to its easy aquisition it isn't, but that doesn't mean it can't be. In my dream world, energy wouldn't drop randomly. Instead, each enemy killed would add 3-5 energy, but this wouldn't replenish from enemies killed by abilities, nor from enemies killed while under the effects of CC type abilities or while the player is in an invisible/invincible state. That means people can't just use abilities non-stop, as they'd run out of energy unless they got kills.