On Scalability, Diversification of Player Growth

[Tykero]

With the current setup for the Warframes, abilities are very linear in their advancement. You pick the Boost ability and blammo, your ability gets better in some specific ways. Pick up all the Boost nodes for one ability and it's now as good as it's ever going to get if you don't put very specific (and rare) mods in your Warframe.

In most cases, this isn't a problem. Most abilities function to expectation without any mods at all when they've been fully boosted (excluding issues caused by the nature of the ability itself). This does, however, vastly over-simplify player growth in regards to what *should* be one of their most defining characteristics!

Additionally, with the current system there is no transparency in regards to what exactly their abilities do. For example, I don't know how far my Slash Dash will travel, how much damage it will do, or how large of an area it will hit until I spend the point on it and use it. I don't know how much it will be improved until I do the same with a boost node.

And finally, when I get all the boost nodes for Slash Dash, I'm pretty much done with improving that ability. It's "maxxed out" and I'm only level, what, 7? Sure I might find a mod later that lets me travel 20% farther, but is that really better than extra shields?

This isn't very interesting, as a player. This sort of asymmetric ability growth also causes a lot of problems for the difficulty of the game. To go back to Slash Dash, when I maxxed it out at a *very* low rank, I had an ability that pretty much one-shot everything in front of me for a measly 25 energy. I had all these other abilities on my Warframe that I slowly unlocked, but I *never* used them! I mean, why would I want to blind a group of enemies when I could just kill them all for half the energy? This problem continued as I ranked up my Warframe, with my "maxxed out" abilities being so far and away more potent than my others that I had little reason to ever use anything else. Sure I could use my "Uber" 100 energy Radial Javelin ability... or I could just Slash Dash and get the same effect for a quarter of the energy! It is true that part of the problem is the abilities themselves, but that issue will not be easily fixed with the current skill growth implementation.

This sort of issue can more or less be seen on every Warframe in some fashion or another.

To review, these are the issues I see with the current system:

1) Uninteresting, linear power growth

2) Lack of transparency in rate of power growth and values

3) Detrimental asymmetric power growh

I propose a divorce of the system for gaining powers and their potency. For example, consider that instead of picking a power node to acquire it and then picking the boost nodes to improve it, you simply picked the power node on your Warframe to acquire the power, and that's it for now.

With this example, let's say each power has some factors that are listed on its tooltip describing its growth. A quick mockup:

Slash Dash

Slash Dash swiftly forces the user forward and violently damages enemies in its path

Hits multiple times.

Damage Modifier: 2.1

Distance Modifier: 1.0

Now, on a new, separate piece of equipment (let's call it a Warframe Focus for the purpose of this post) we have a new node tree to play with. In addition, each different Warframe Focus will have its own base values for each particular ability property. It'll have its own Mod Slots (the current Warframe Mods that deal with changing powers would be altered to be equipped in this equipment piece instead, allowing for new mods to take their place, see below for ideas!), and nodes that improve particular parts of abilities (such as Damage Rating, Distance, Duration, Cost, etc.).

So I have a Warframe Focus that has, among other things, a Damage Rating of 50, Distance Rating of 10, and a Cost Rating of 1.0.

With this Warframe Focus equipped and unranked, my Slash Dash will travel 10 meters, have a cost of 25 energy, and each hit will do 105 damage.

Let's say I rank my Warframe Focus up and pick my first node, a Damage Rating node. It adds 10 points to the Damage Rating of the Focus, bringing it up to 60. My Slash Dash now does 126 damage with each hit.

At the same time, my other abilities improve as well. If Radial Javelin has a Damage Multiplier of 10.0, it would go from dealing 500 damage to 600 damage.

This allows a smooth progression of power as I rank up my equipment. It also allows the player to shape the growth of their abilities to their own specifications, while still retaining a fairly steady and scalar growth. Further, because different kinds of Warframe Foci could exist, one player may be able to choose one with a large damage rating and lots of damage nodes, whereas another might choose one with a low cost rating and choose lots of distance nodes (a Loki or Trinity player would probably find these preferable). As such, players have a better hand in shaping how their Warframe performs on the battlefield. This system also allows for growth of Warframe Abilities in the future without requiring players to dedicate stronger and stronger mods to them. They can just get a new Warframe Focus with better base stats and better scaling nodes, much like one might get a new better weapon. In this way, a system such as this would be able to handle future content updates, without requiring large changes to the Warframe abilities.

As I mentioned briefly above, doing this would also move a lot of the current Warframe Mods to another piece of equipment, opening up room for new types of mods for Warframes that fill gaps that currently exist in the itemization, or just offer new choices for players, such as a mod that increases resistance to hitstun and knockdown (Stability/Poise?), mods that increase maximum Stamina, reduce (or increase) a player's chance to be noticed by enemies, or offer some small amount of Energy, Shields, or Health regeneration in response to certain actions (such as striking an enemy in melee, getting a headshot, or killing an enemy).

Disclaimer:

This system is just an example for how to fix the issues in the current skill scaling implementation. I am not saying this exact thing should be implemented. Additionally, something like this would obviously require a lot of work to implement, from a balance and content creation standpoint. I do, however, think it would be beneficial to the game in the long term to tackle this issues now, rather than down the line when they become an even bigger problem.

That just about wraps it up. Tell me what you think.

[Psyclosarin]

Good writeup, thanks for the effort :)

Honestly with the slash dash I'd like to see the range reduced dramatically. Part of it's OPness is that not only do you one hit kill everything in your path but you practically cross an entire area while doing it. Makes playing with an Excalibur bloody annoying because he's already cleared most of the level and has already hit the elevator.

[Wiawyr]

I'd say play as an Excalibur too and never be outdone, but that doesn't solve the imbalance at all. A few frames have their one "OP" move; slash n dash, overload, iron skin, etc. but then that's really it, and nothing else seems to distinguish them from others like that.

More documentation/visible statistics is always a good idea as well.

[Galestorm]

honestly, will having extra shields ever not be better than anything else? lol I have a volt with what is currently 383 shields thanks to mods and i wouldnt sacrifice it for my abilities, except if i could extend the time of speed boost. I like the abilities but i think the mods are and should be mainly for character stats rather than ability stats, i cant speak for other people but wanted my 2 cents to be noted.

[Tykero]

honestly, will having extra shields ever not be better than anything else? lol I have a volt with what is currently 383 shields thanks to mods and i wouldnt sacrifice it for my abilities, except if i could extend the time of speed boost. I like the abilities but i think the mods are and should be mainly for character stats rather than ability stats, i cant speak for other people but wanted my 2 cents to be noted.

A solution such as the one I proposed would have the benefit of letting you improve your abilities without sacrificing mod slots that could've been used for shields, or other Warframe mods you might be interested in, so that's an improvement, at least.

[MJ12]

I regret that I have but one "I like it" to give for this thread.

[Tykero]

I regret that I have but one "I like it" to give for this thread.

Thanks for your support! :)

[Tykero]

Bump.

[Tykero]

In my haste to post this I clearly didn't think very hard about what forum it belongs in. Reposting in Warframe and Weapons feedback. I'll be deleting this thread in a bit unless a mod notices and merges for me.

Edit: Reposted https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/5958-on-scalability-diversification-of-player-growth/

Edited January 21, 2013 by Tykero