Change Ideas (Mostly Mod Related)

[Morkanbst]

The rest of my clan and I have been accumulating a list of potential changes to the game.  Here is my dump of the better ones.

 

 

Weapon and warframe XP

Situation: Once you reach level 30, any further xp gains are lost, making it less beneficial to use the item.  Sure it encourages using forma and broadening your horizons to other weapons/frames, however (example scenario) if your weapon is level 30 and you are still working on acquiring and fusing mods for it, and thus don’t have any immediate need to polarize it, it would be nice to still make some sort of progress from the xp gained for it.  This is especially true when it comes to xp login rewards.

 

Solution A (Zilacon’s): Excess xp is stored separately, to be re-applied to the item when forma is used, allowing you to build up levels while you have all of your mods, use forma, and immediately be able to re-attach some (or all, depending on how much xp you accumulated) of your mods.  The xp gain rate can be reduced or treated as over leveling, taking more xp to earn each level past 30.

 

Solution B (my own): Considering the existing mastery system only gains 100 mastery at a time, there is space for lesser gains, making the last 2 zeros less pointless.  Any xp earned for items that are level 30 goes toward your mastery at a rate of 1:100 (eg, you gain 1200 xp from a match so you earn 12 mastery points).  This rate is open to adjustment of course, but it at least gives a point to using maxed guns and characters beyond the inherent strength.

 

 

 

Mod sorting

Situation: With around a dozen unique mods for each item visible in the configure screen alone (god help you if you have a backlog of un-used fusion trash), it can be quite overwhelming to sort through it all when moving mods from one item to another or using forma.  Often times important mods get mixed in with fusion trash and it wouldn’t be the first time if a maxed out mod got accidentally fused.

 

Huge shoutout: TheSteelPhantom’s lock idea; https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/56971-let-me-lock-my-most-valuable-mods-so-they-cant-be-sold-fused-etc/#entry589123

 

Solution A (Zilacon’s): A system of mod folders to sort mods into.  This would let you store sets of mods for certain weapons and warframes together and isolated from everything else.  The potential for a fee for having these folders is available, especially considering the added memory load from a code perspective.

 

Solution B (Zilacon’s): Instead of being limited to 8-10 mod slots for each item, allow more (theoretically unlimited?) mods to be equipped on a weapon, but have an “active” toggle for each mod, and limit the active count to the appropriate 8-10.  This would better isolate used mods from unused, and simplify the matter of mod points being reset by forma; simply deactivate all mods instead of having to unequip them. (This also ties in well to my forma/mod expansion idea, listed later)

 

Solution C (my own): Not quite isolated like the folders, but have a system of tags for mods that allow for mod sets to be defined without being completely separated.  Similar to the equipped marker, have one showing that a mod has been included in a set and have a warning similar to the one for equipped mods when trying to fuse it.  Mechanically, have a mod set interface that lets you create and select mods that are part of a set.  One mod would be (optionally) able to be part of multiple sets, and sets can be easily equipped as a group onto an item (would require sets only accept mods from one type of mod, eg. shotgun mod set, warframe mod set).  This would allow for organized switching from, say, Corpus strong mods with electric damage to infested strong mods with fire damage.

 

 

 

“Maxed out” items

Situation: After weeks (months?) of leveling and mod farming you have finally polarized and filled all of your mod slots with top level mods.  Now what? End game reached, welcome to every other MMO.  Short of endless defense over and over to get on the kill count leaderboard and contributing to a dojo, you have to either start from scratch with new weapons and warframes or have some way to expand the power of your existing ones.

 

Solution A (Zilacon’s w/ expansion by me): There are existing common, uncommon, and rare (bronze, silver, and gold) tier mods.  Add a Legendary (or similar name) tier of combined mods. (Optional element: blueprints for them drop extremely rarely (<1%) from bosses/stalker/void/etc. and they are crafted in the foundry with other mods.)  They would be made from fully upgraded mods and create (optionally polarity-less) mods that combine the effects at similar or equal stats.  For example; fire, ice, and electric damage for each weapon can be combined into an omni-elemental damage mod that has all of the combined mods’ effects.  Similarly, warframe and sentinel shields, shield regen, and possibly health combine into a single life improving mod. Crit chance and crit damage; ability damage, range, energy use, and maybe energy max (possibly break into 2 mods; ability and energy focused); magazine size and reload speed; so on and so forth.  Another optional feature is to have them combined into another series of levelups, returning them to their original unranked stats and requiring re-fusing to get back to their former stats.

 

Solution B (mostly mine, some credit to Zilacon): Instead of making new mods, take it as an opportunity to make more money off of forma.  Once an item is fully polarized (and possibly requiring catalyst/reactors to be installed), a (multiple?) forma can be used to add an extra, un-polarized, mod slot to the item and resetting the level. (catalyst/reactor consumed in the process?)  This allows for, very slowly over time with much forma and many re-levelings, the potential to equip all of the mods, rather than being forced to decide which are more important.  Of course this makes an even greater gap between new players and veterans, but isn’t that half the point of an MMO in the first place?  Level 1: Critical hit bear for 5 damage.  Level 80: hit super soldier for 2000 damage.  There is supposed to be a distinct gap between day 1 and day 100, and constantly having to un-equip all your mods and go back to Mercury for a few hours already mitigates that gap, so pushing the “max level” to the limit (and leaving open a perfect opportunity for new mods and polarizations) will make the seasoned players that much more distinguished without overpowering it too much.

 

 

 

At this time of the night, that’s all I can remember.  I will add more as I remember / we think of them.  Feedback, expansion, and alternatives are encouraged.

 

 

 

[Edit 6/7/13 3:20PM PDT]

 

Lotus

Situation: “You’ve got a large security force heading your way.” Oh, so it’s not a small one… like the last 10 waves?  On one hand Lotus is useless and I would rather have her voice muted, but on the other I still want to hear the bosses.

 

Solution A (Zilacon’s): Have an options setting to disable Lotus’s voice and/or text.  It could be called something about “no backup” or “going alone” or the like.

 

Solution B (most of the forum): Not necessarily exclusive to the prior, add sayings to lotus that are more useful.  If she is able to tell what is going on within the ship/planet already, she can at least warn you about Fusion MOA and Disrupters specifically.  It also wouldn’t hurt for her to be able to distinguish between a ship and a planet when it comes to destabilizing the reactor on a planet surface. (“The ship’s integrity has been compromised.” Wait, what? This is one snowy ship…)

 

 

 

Artifacts

Situation: 8/10 artifacts collected, mystery reward alerts seem to give nothing but the same ones I already have.  It kind of negates the benefit of doing them.

 

Solution: I’ve heard rumor that the idea is in the works, but I’d like to reinforce that there should be multi-tier artifacts.  Much like mods, if you get a second copy of Physique (which, by the way, seems to not be giving proper health bonuses currently) it will rank your Physique to rank 1 and give 10% or so health boost. 2 more copies and you get rank 2 with 15%. Etc.

 

Related: In regards to mystery alerts, it would be nice if it at least distinguished between artifact and otherwise rewards.  At least that way I can know not to worry about it since I’m not going to be getting any new artifacts from them

Edited June 7, 2013 by Morkanbst

[Zilacon]

With the mods combining my idea was basically to bring back the blue mods from the old warframe where you can have 2 stats on 1 mod. Basically if you upgrade Redirection & Fast Deflection to the highest rank you can buy a Mod Reactor (optional name) from the market or by making it from a found blueprint and you can merge specific similar mods together to make one mod.

 

These would merge mods like (Shield Capacity & Shield Regen) (Movement Speed & Stamina Regen / Stamina Max) (Ice / Fire / Electric combinations) (Crit Chance & Crit Damage) (Vitality & Armor) etc

[Morkanbst]

Another suggestion: Make redtext less prejudiced against bacon.