Powers And Energy

[Tyroki]

Personally I'd like to see a number of things happen with powers and energy in general.

 

Holding down, as some have suggested in threads, to maintain damage. Likely at the cost of energy per second. This would only be for certain powers, but it's still far more interesting than some of the current powers.

 

Low energy spam abilities. 25 energy is not low considering how tough it can be to get energy back when energy orbs don't drop. And don't say 'power efficiency'. It's really not as efficient as it says. Flow also only goes so far.

 

I'd also like to see some inherent energy regen on intended caster frames. We shouldn't have to rely on the whole team taking energy siphon to stay useful.

 

We also need a way for damage to scale on powers, in order to compete with weapons are higher level play.

 

Right now, it feels like abilities just completely lose out to weapons after a while. There are a few exceptions, but often times these exceptions aid in weapon use (Hi Sonar! Love you babe <3)

 

Honestly, it's not much to ask. Especially on frames that are made of paper. The banshee can handle it thanks to Sonar, but even then energy usage can be overwhelming sometimes (especially in endless defense). Then take a frame such as Ember and you have to wonder what the devs were smoking.

 

There is no reason as to why abilities should just be some one off, flat cost thing at specifically equal costs across all frames. Is it really so hard to have an ability cost 5? Or 15?

I'd love to see a caster frame (possibly Ember) with a flamethrower ability that the player need only hold down. I'd imagine that such an ability would have an initial cost, and then a lesser cost per second.

 

Just throwing out ideas here.

 

Edit: The elemental frames could also use a little more for dealing with other factions.

 

Edit 2: I'm a fan of caster frames. I love the idea of using abilities to compete with gun and melee weapon users. Right now though, I'm just not seeing it after a certain point :\

Edited June 7, 2013 by Tyroki

[Larspeter]

I have been thinking the same thing. 

Although I'm playing Excal now, I still think this is a good idea. Its not funny when ur ''oom'' and u need to press that panic button slash dash :D

Maybe there could be a mod that grants regen or skills have a base damage per level witch scales with warframe level.

[Tyroki]

Yeah. Energy is a sizeable part of abilities being behind weapons in usefulness after a certain point, in my opinion. Damage is actually second in priority compared to energy.

 

The Energy Siphon artifact is all well and good, but weapons have far more ammo to do far more damage than ability users can get energy to do. A fully modded weapon can absolutely slam an ability user. The only thing some ability users have going for them is AoE damage, but even that tends to come with it's issues or heavy limitations.

 

Right now, this game is a bit like Tabula Rasa was. All about the guns, and abilities are much lesser in scope. Abilities did eff all compared to guns in that game, and someone who focused entirely on abilities couldn't do much after a fairly early point.

 

There is also another problem with powers right now that I can see.

 

Weapons can be full modded out to do a lot of damage, while the warframe can remain heavily defensive.
An Ability user has the problem of having to focus all attention on their abilities for them to be even remotely good overall against higher levels (hi Endless Defense. How's it going?), at the sacrifice of any defenses. Sure they can boost their guns, but now we're moving out of ability focus aren't we. Pity.

 

I've read plenty of times now that the devs wanted abilities to compete with weapons.
As it is right now? That can't happen. It just can't. Ability users are generally far too energy starved to manage, unless every player brings Energy Siphon, and even then it can be too much.

 

I'm talking about pure casters (ones made of paper) here though. The Frost on the other hand can be a casting beast, both aggressively and defensively, and is still tanky as heck.

 

Basically, caster frames (besides Frost -.-:) need help. Well, not Vaub. But that thing is broken.

[Tyroki]

Bumped for justice.

 

Edit: Actually, whose leg do I need to hump to get this moved over to gameplay? This really is more of a gameplay thing.

Edited June 8, 2013 by Tyroki