Skills Suggestion

[Tyroki]

Okay, so as we all know, eventually Guns > Skills in terms of damage.

There is currently no way around that which can remain balanced, as skills are extremely linear right now. To make your skills last a little longer, you need to turn yourself in to a piece of paper and eventually you will fall off, relying almost entirely on guns. The only skills which last at that point are utility skills.

 

I would like to propose something here. I didn't see it in the forums already, and it's probably been suggested a few times before. Another thread won't hurt if there are others, it just shows the idea may have merit.

 

In another thread, I suggested that skills be made a secondary system still attached to the warframe mod pool. That system would allow skills to be increased in level with a slider.

However, I no longer think such a system would be viable. No matter what, the skills would all still fall off, being completely overtaken by guns.

 

Thus, for damage skills, I would like to propose this:

They be treated as any other weapon.

 

Like sentinels, they would get their own little button to take you to a screen showing all of the skills. Here, skills would have their own mod slots. While they would likely not have many, it would allow damage skills to be modified as weapons do, allowing them to stay viable. This could be limited only to damage skills, or be extended to all skills.

 

Ability mods as they exist now would not drop. Instead, mods to slot in to abilities would drop. This would allow DE to tailor new mods for abilities, allowing a greater degree of customisation, and allowing mods to stay viable alongside guns.

 

I would also like to suggest an energy regen mod limited to any warframe with the Caster descriptor, allowing caster frames to be exactly as they say they are: Casters. Sure, a caster can use guns, but sometimes a player just wants to spam their skills. The less limitations on this style of play, the better, as it opens the game up to more players who enjoy certain things.

 

The current Caster warframes, especially ones whose skills are almost entirely damage oriented, would be able to keep up with the likes of those who rely solely on guns.

 

Mods could be made to allow certain elemental skills to be somewhat more viable against factions that are not automatically weak against their element, or even strong/immune, ala small percentages.

 

Simply put: It would allow abilities to work as weapons do, in their own different and interesting ways.

 

Addition: Mods such as focus, streamline, etc could easily remain as warframe mods for the sake of balancing warframes mod point usage, or changed to be skill mods.

 

Addition 2: Mods could be made for skills, potentially giving them extra components, or allowing them to function somewhat differently. Regardless, there are many potential possibilities.

 

Edit: TLDR, make skills similar to how sentinels work, and allow them to be modded. This way they can compete with weapons for better scaling with the rest of the game.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Tyroki

[Tyroki]

Bumping for prosperity.

[Tyroki]

This is actually a serious thread, not a joke or trolling.

 

I'm legitimately trying to work out how to make skills, especially damaging skills, more useful, and try to keep them in line with weapons at the higher levels.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Tyroki

[Tyroki]

Damn. I was kinda hoping this thread would catch some actual discussion.

I mean, many of us know that skills fall behind weapons and just don't scale in to higher level play.

 

I honestly think that allowing skills to be customised via mods could fix that issue. Sure it could add more mods to the loot tables, but greater customisation is worth that right?