Abilities Shouldn't Be Mods

[Detectivetoast]

Abilities should not be mods.

You can max them very quickly and easily, meaning that everytime you get an ability you're basically getting nothing from a mod drop. NOTE: THIS DOES NOT MEAN ABILITIES SHOULD NOW HAVE SERRATION LEVELS OF DIFFICULTY IN LEVELING

The ability polarity takes up a good 40% of the warframe mod slots, yet you will rarely use more than 1-2 abilities per frame, as many, many abilties are useless (eg. Silence, Shield Polarize) These slots would be much better used for something, anything else.

They clog up the drop tables, with most uncommon and rare mod drops being abilities, they make the mods you actually want even rarer for no good reason. I mean when over 1/3 the rare mods are simply abilities, that means that whenever you get a rare mod drop, there's more than a 33% that it will be useless, and that is awful.

 

Ability mods clog up basically everything they're involved in, they should be something separate.

Hell, maybe just make them like equipment, have them level up with usage and mod them, it'd allow for more customization and get them out of the drop tables and out of the way.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Detectivetoast

[Zero.No.Hikari]

I don't know I actually have all my skills Maxed for Excal, Ash and Ember.  Sure some are purely tactical, ever have a pod swarmed by chargers?  I use Radial Blind to stun them as my squad takes them out quickly, it helps when you see a heavy grineer about to stomp it stops then for a good while.  Ash's Teleport is pretty good for catching up to rushers when you aim it right, Along with all of embers skills.  I tend to Shield lock a boss with her first if I solo.  I also don't like seeing Shock all the time instead of the Thunderbolt mod but it's RGN not them.  I actually like how it is an maybe I'm the only but if we took them out of one loot table they'd go into another imagine Farming a boss and not getting systems because that's where the skill equipment now drops, even more annoying right.  Maybe what'd be a compromise is have them on a separate loot table where when a mod drops we have a chance to get a skill card as well, it'd be easier and hey it'd help get a Max Serration even better, win win right?  Forma help with getting rid of Skill tabs I see here a lot of times people using forma to switch two of them into something else and keeping two for the skills they feel they'll need. Try that and I know how you feel about them we all do.

[Detectivetoast]

Anything that seperates abilities from mods for drops and such is needed.

I mean I just did a defense mission got 20+ mod drops, over half were abilities, so over half the mod drops were completely useless. That is not what you could wipe away by saying 'RNG' because it isn't a freak occurance caused by the random number generator. That is something that happens all the time.

When going through the mods to put on my warframe I have to go through 10+ pages of useless ability mods, they take up space and get in the way.

 

They need to be seperated from mods.

[BadAimbot]

Ideally every ability would be worth using. However, making them compete with mods means that a lot of people will throw away interesting abilities because they're not useful enough, especially when you look at how many warframe mods there are.

[Venarge]

The thing is this is meant to be that way. You have the advantage over disadvantage system. What are you willing to sacrifice to get effect XYZ.

Making abilities mods is part of this system. You can have skill X or you can get the extra shields. Your decision. Your idea would actually destroy this system =(

[neKroMancer]

This system (power as mod) is more flexible than the first system (power as unlockable in skill tree) since DE can add other alternative powers in the future. So, I support power as mod.

However, the problem that power mod have been flooding the loot table and dilute the loot table is real and rather severe if we factor future frames and alternative powers into the future loot table. I think specific type of mission should be designated as power-only loot mission. Taking all of them and thrown into the raid/rescue/etc mission reward would be a better choice.

[Taranis49]

The thing is this is meant to be that way. You have the advantage over disadvantage system. What are you willing to sacrifice to get effect XYZ.

Making abilities mods is part of this system. You can have skill X or you can get the extra shields. Your decision. Your idea would actually destroy this system =(

Sounds nice in theory, but not in practice. I'm not even sure you understand what the OP's actually talking about. When you build or buy a frame, you get all of its ability mods anyway. No sacrifice necessary. All of the abilities only go to rank 3, which makes it pathetically easy to fully develop them too, even with common mods of different polarities.

 

Getting duplicates is beyond useless for these reasons (particularly once you've maxed an ability) along with the fact a frame's abilities are only good for that individual frame. My clan jokes about it; we have enough mind control mods to dominate the entire solar system along with enough fireball mods to set the whole thing on fire.

 

It's not about customizing a frame, because all of a frame's abilities come with it as-is, it's about the fact that the abilities water down the mod drop loot tables; which they do. And for no good reason.

[Skeloton]

I don't mind that abilities are mods. However they dominate my mod drops.

 

I wouldn't mind that if they dropped only on planets where you acquire the frame. IE rhino mods only on Venus, Volt mods only on Jupiter, Nyx only on Eris. Of course there's banshee and Vauban that have to be the exception to this..unless they only appear in alerts and Defence missions.

[Tyroki]

Well I'll be. 

I was literally about to make this topic haha.

 

Abilities shouldn't be mods: True.

 

However, that doesn't mean that abilities can't continue to compete with mods. I was thinking about this earlier.

 

A side system for abilities which sets them in stone. You always have access to your abilities, at a 0 rank level. However, then we add a nice shiny slider to the abilities. Abilities gain access to new ranks based entirely on the level of your warframe. Using this shiny slider, you can determine the rank you want the ability to be. However, the system is shared with the mod system points. Leveling your abilities takes away points that can be used for mods. This way we get the following:

 

1) Get abilities out of the damn tables (Every. Single. Effing. Table)

2) Give reason to occasionally use the less wanted and more situational skills, instead of throwing them out like unwanted food.

 

3) Keep a reason for polarizing your Warframe.

 

Potential addition to this is a secondary points system, allowing you to decide which abilities gain new ranks. Eventually, by Warframe level 30, you'll have the ability to max rank all of your abilities regardless, but hey, choice. It's a nice thing to have.

 

Please consider this potential solution to the ability mod problem.

[SpringwoodSlasher]

i think it's good to have them as mods because you have to decide what to take!

 

i just think you should have 1-3 points on a new warframe from the beginning so you can use some abilities right from the start.

[Tyroki]

Well that's the beauty of my solution :3

You still decide what to 'take', so to speak, but you always have access to at least rank 0 abilities without abilities swarming the loot table. They even stay a part of the mod system, but without ruining it.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Tyroki

[Detectivetoast]

That idea works perfectly, it gets abilities out of every area where they cause problems.

[Phoenix86]

Or... they could give the same "fusion level increase of a fusion core to all polarities"

 

common skills = common fusion core lvl 3

uncommon skills = uncommon fusion core lvl 5

rare skills = rare fusion core lvl 3?

 

At least they would be useful when increasing other mods with different polarities!

[Detectivetoast]

That would break the fusion system, I mean look at the number of duplicate abilities you have, you'd be able to max serration and hornet strike if they could fuse like that. And as far as I know they designed it so you aren't supposed to even think of maxing those.

[ra9una]

Yeah, this was a really big problem in terms of polarity's up till U8. You couldn't give up skills for other stuff. But not you can Polarize so that takes care of that. As for drop rates, there's should be a system that makes you only pick up skill mods for your owned frame, thus less skill mods.

[S5alad]

Sounds nice in theory, but not in practice. I'm not even sure you understand what the OP's actually talking about. When you build or buy a frame, you get all of its ability mods anyway. No sacrifice necessary. All of the abilities only go to rank 3, which makes it pathetically easy to fully develop them too, even with common mods of different polarities.

 

Getting duplicates is beyond useless for these reasons (particularly once you've maxed an ability) along with the fact a frame's abilities are only good for that individual frame. My clan jokes about it; we have enough mind control mods to dominate the entire solar system along with enough fireball mods to set the whole thing on fire.

 

It's not about customizing a frame, because all of a frame's abilities come with it as-is, it's about the fact that the abilities water down the mod drop loot tables; which they do. And for no good reason.

This also ties into the platinum market.  When you buy a dragon mod pack, your rare WILL be a skill mod.  It won't be something cool like Flow or Thunderbolt, just a useless skill mod.

[Kiyosuki]

If a fair amount more rare mods are added in the games' future then I'd definitely get behind separating skills from standard mods somehow. It seems like it'd be padding out the RNG a bit too much then.

[Vorpalstryke]

The set up right now is also confusing to beginners. I had trouble with it when I first started trying to figure out the polarities and such and had to explain it to my two friends who don't play the game anymore because they think it's too complicated.

 

How about making frame abilities set permanent slots that you can simply assign points into? No pointless wasted drops from levels or platinum packs and no selling or destroying ability mods by mistake. The mod page will simply list the 4 set abilities above or next to the mod slots and you can assign mod points by left-clicking and take points out simply by right-clicking. Then it's up to you whether you want to assign points to an ability or not. New abilities the developers come up with can be assigned to new permanent slots if they are "discovered" like artifacts and would have to be unequipped for another frame to use it like mods.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Vorpalstryke

[gell]

As mentioned, that's what polarization is for. Just takes one forma per slot.

 

-1 to the OP.

[Tyroki]

Should I make a seperate thread for my idea?

[gell]

Should I make a seperate thread for my idea?

 

You could, but I don't see much value in your proposal. The reason abilities are in the mod system is probably to avoid having things like another set of points, or the confusion of drawing points from the same energy pool even though they are called different things. If you want to not see abilities in the mod pages, select the heading you want. The only change here that I would suggest to DE is to make the sorting checkboxes. You check off the boxes you want to see, and leave the others off, that way you can opt to see all the mods except for the abilities.

 

They work fine as mods to me, though.

[CosyPigeon]

As mentioned, that's what polarization is for. Just takes one forma per slot.

 

-1 to the OP.

 

What's forma got to do with too many useless ability mods clogging up the loot tables?

OP is right, abilities shouldn't be mods, and if they have to be mods, then they need to be obtained in a separate manner than regular mod drops. Currently ability mods take up too much loot table space, and as more frames come out, it will only get worse. Not to mention that many abilities simply can't compete with regular mods when it comes to sticking stuff on your warframe. 

Abilities should be built into the war-frame. Each war-frame should automatically come with all abilities unlocked and ready to go, and the abilities should rank up as the frame does, just like health, shields, and energy pool. 

[GetAtMeMods]

Granted mods have limtless potential to easily add anything to game, it needs to be removed from loot tables.

It is oh-so inefficient to acquire the "new" mods when 52+ mods are going to be junk.