Focus Rework - New Ideas

[V4YR4]

The general consensus currently seems to be that Focus trees are unbalanced and not really worth the investment they require, with the exception of a very small range of passive and active perks.

 

This threads' focus (lol!) will be on new ideas as to how Focus abilities can actually be a useful addition to the game and how the various trees could be reworked.

 

In my opinion, Focus revolves around a few general concepts and I think these are important to keep in mind when considering new ways to put it in the game:

- It is a system for mid-to late game players that have maxed weapons, frames and mods.

- It represents a long term time sink

 

I will start with my two plat. Comment on, and add your own!

 

1. Every Tree should have a group based passive

> This encourages mixing up different trees in group setups. Similar group passives should not stack like aura's do. Group passives are easy to create: damage resistances to specific damage types, energy regen (hi Zenurik), fixed passive armor bonus (to the greater benefit of low-armor frames), damage bonuses to specific damage types, passive health regen, passive shield regen.

 

2. Every Tree should be free form

> Abilities locked behind another tree ability, should be more useful versions of the one that precedes it. This presents the player with a more sensible choice to make: do I rank ability 1 to max for a lower cooldown, or do I get the ability behind it and rank that up for more power and a slightly higher cooldown. It is also more transparent this way and further clarifies that it was never intended to get everything in a tree and activate it all.

 

3. Focus should be about focus

> Or: specialization. The high cooldown period is not a bad thing. The chosen Focus abilities should be a conscious choice that heavily depends on the type of mission you want to play. Therefore, choosing more than a couple of them should be heavily penalized much like they are now. Effectively, by denying players to access multiple Focus abilities, there is room to make the abilities themselves more influential and actually useful. Players should be forced into making the hard choice for one specific, very noticeable perk instead of an array of crappy ones.

 

4. After using Focus, there should be a lingering effect

> Examples: After using Zenurik, you gain 2-3 energy per second for 60 seconds. After using Unairu, you have doubled armor for 60 seconds. After using Madurai, you gain 20% extra damage. Etc. Not this location-based junk we have now, but frame-based so it doesn't require extra effort to make use of and works well in all mission types.

 

5. Focus damaging abilities should scale with enemy levels

> The scaling should be similar across all enemy levels. Therefore, remove raw damage numbers from all abilities and replace them with percentages of total enemy health. This will immediately make most Focus abilities that are damage-based, useful across the entire range of content while never becoming OP at any point. It will also automatically increase the relevance of Focus at higher levels, which is exactly what it is meant for.

Edited December 12, 2015 by V4YR4