A Way To Make Mutually Exclusive Elements Viable.

[CharlesSnippy]

I'm a big fan of trade offs in games. Perhaps it's due to how much I love the idea of two people going into a game and experiencing different things, or maybe it's something I picked up during one of my many Skyrim playthroughs (which, now that I think about it, I played through while schizophrenically putting points into everything because I'm an indecisive bastard) but it's my own personal version of the hard on the Call of Duty fans presumably get when presented with things they've done before *hee hee*. This obsession with gaining one thing while losing another has led me to start playing with only one of each element, which not only makes far more sense, looks cooler, and increases penis size, but also adds a fair bit of uniqueness to my weapon loadouts which is a great way to mix things up a bit.

 

I've suggested mutually exclusive elements before but it's always been justifiably shot down (usually by myself, because I'm one of those A******s who will post five times in his own thread arguing with himself) due to the fact that there is no reason to have it. I believe this is a combination of two factors, the elements are all a little too similar, and the fact that aside from a factions specific weakness, the elements tend to act as damage increasers and F*** all else. My proposed solution to this would be threefold.

 

Step One, broaden the enemy types within each faction until there are opponents weak against each element, and strong against others. This would involve units like a flamethrower toting badass space marine being susceptible to X and either ignoring or receiving less damage from Y, in this equation, Y is fire, and X is "#*($%%@ if I know".

 

Other units could include a jetpack grineer who takes increased damage from fire, a heavily augmented tech grineer who is vulnerable to electricty, a fast bastard who is particularly effected by ice, etc etc.

 

Step Two would be to make the elements more unique. Fire could have a panic inducing effect (on a percentage chance), ice would do what it does already, electricty could spread through metal or snow, or water, or whatever the dopey bastard happens to be standing in and shock his buddies, it could also throw the opponents aim off for a while or something. New elements could be introduced, like acid, which eats away at a percentage of the opponents armour (it could replace armour piercing because in what universe is armour piercing an element).

 

Step Three would be to make elements cumulative. By this, I mean that you could choose to outfit your team of ninjas with a diverse series of elements, ready to get max damage against all who oppose you, or you could all bring freeze damage, and slow enemies to the point where they might as well start going backwards. The enemies resistant or outright immune to cold would be a major threat, and balance what would otherwise be the most overpowered thing in existence. The cumulative effects would be different for each element, and would only apply when it is multiple shooters applying the element, so one guy with a gorgon can't ice the entire room. 

 

Opinions?

[N4G4M4K1]

Very well written topic, I loved reading you argue with yourself and providing commentary.

 

I do believe the elementals as they stand right now are a bit trivial. They do need some diversification, and some of the things you suggested are valid ideas. My one beef is the idea of broadening resistances within the same faction, because one major factor in spec-ing out your weapons prior to a particularly difficult mission is the element that that faction is weak to. It's a justifiable feature too, because one could argue that the technologies (or in case of the infested; biologies) are all created in the same general process and therefore all have the same weakness.

 

I honestly don't even like using elements. I don't like associating my damage with a specific type, because I like my weapons to be viable in any situation. I do use armor penetration, which acts like an element though. There should be more varieties, like you said. Caustic (acid), Antimatter, Explosive, and Plasma are a few that come to mind.

Edited June 15, 2013 by N4G4M4K1

[CharlesSnippy]

Very well written topic, I loved reading you argue with yourself and providing commentary.

 

I do believe the elementals as they stand right now are a bit trivial. They do need some diversification, and some of the things you suggested are valid ideas. My one beef is the idea of broadening resistances within the same faction, because one major factor in spec-ing out your weapons prior to a particularly difficult mission is the element that that faction is weak to. It's a justifiable feature too, because one could argue that the technologies (or in case of the infested; biologies) are all created in the same general process and therefore all have the same weakness.

 

I honestly don't even like using elements. I don't like associating my damage with a specific type, because I like my weapons to be viable in any situation. I do use armor penetration, which acts like an element though. There should be more varieties, like you said. Caustic (acid), Antimatter, Explosive, and Plasma are a few that come to mind.

Thanks. I love writing it, as I feel it breaks from the monotony of just writing stuff down. Broadening the enemy types would be a bit polarising, mostly due to, as you said, being a little punishing to people who want to be prepared for everything. That said, you have three weapons, and each can have it's own element. In addition, not all elements would need to be exclusive. In fact, while discussing this with a friend, I came up with a water element who's sole purpose was to enhance the functionality of electricity and ice.

[TheHeraldXII]

I like this a lot, it seems like a good idea and was amusing to read. You read like an Aussie bloke on a rant. If I could give you +2 I would.

[Reichmar]

I really dislike having to load a gun with crayons and shoot rainbow bullets because it does the most damage. I'm a proponent of every element being viable in its own right, and that the game would encourage players to focus. I made a similar point as to the problem with elements in my recent suggestion post (https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/65280-an-idea-for-additional-enhancement-and-customization-at-higher-difficulty-levels/). 

 

+1 for the idea, Charles.

Edited June 15, 2013 by Reichmar

[SilentCynic]

An entertaining topic, and intriguing suggestions. The system you're proposing sounds very similar to the one used in Borderlands, and it worked fairly well for that game. Granted, I'm not proposing to draw direct comparisons between two very different titles, but it makes for an interesting perspective.

[CharlesSnippy]

I like this a lot, it seems like a good idea and was amusing to read. You read like an Aussie bloke on a rant. If I could give you +2 I would.

I've been watching a frankly unhealthy amount of zero punctuation recently, so I might have picked up a bit of Yahtzee's tone, that and the fact that I am an aussie bloke and I like to rant a lot. Thanks for the +1's everybody. Incidentally, if you're interested, I have a bow rework thread somewhere near the bottom of the first page of the weapon feedback. It's got a video, with Lord Of The Rings in it.

[CharlesSnippy]

I quite liked the Borderlands system. It was neat as you could carry one of almost every element, but had to choose between slag and one of the more traditional elements.

[BloodRiot]

I guess most people like stacking elemental damage because of the damage increase.

 

What I will propose below is probably too much of a game changer to be viable at this point , but i'll say it just as food for thought... or simply how i would prefer it... moot point as it may be. Also, i'm presenting the full idea, which means some features are mentioned for the grand picture even if they differ little from what already is in game.

 

Elemental mods should lose their +elemental damage component, and instead they should only convert the weapon innate damage type to the element in question.

 

Each element should have a primary effect on the enemies such as Ice slowing down targets, Shock have a more damaging effect to shields, Fire more damaging to health and piercing bypassing/ignoring the armor.

 

Each element should have a secondary effect that affects certain enemy types more and affect less another, being neutral to others, such as shock being good vs corpus (they are cybernetic and make good use of shields), and weak agaisnt infested (they use no cybernetics or shields).

 

The level of the elemental mods should reflect the magnitude of the effects, such as Ice slowing more the higher the mod rank is.

 

The element types should be mutually exclusive, but easy to switch pre mission much like the artifact cards are selected.

 

Finally, to compensate for the loss of +elemental damage to the weapons, Another high cost mod damage boosting mod(let's just call it a "Weapon Optimization" Mod for the sake of this description) that will further increase damage beyond Serration/Hornet Strike/etc.

This offers quite some advantages vs the system as it is now with elemental stacking, the most obvious being fewer slots required to achieve same damage output. However the cost of the mod and benefits gained should be similar (balance permiting) to having several elemental mods stacked. Breaking it down... you get similar damage output in one mod as you get wih 4 or five stacked, however the cost to equip and upgrade should also be the same as the 4 or 5 combined.

 

That's the basic idea of how i'd prefer it. Of course someone may very well point out flaws or imbalances... I fully admit i did not work out any sort of math regarding this. Take it mostly as basic concept that, if it was to be implemented, would need careful balancing and testing.

 

Of course this sort of system would shine way better if at higher levels, managing your damage types according to mission and enemies was an almost necessity which at this point doesn't seem like it is.

It helps... but i don't find it a game changer to go into a mission with the right or wrong elemental mods equiped.

 

Cheers.

[CharlesSnippy]

Interesting, as you said, it doesn't seem to be viable at the moment due to how much work would need to go into setting up the new mods and artifact style weapon changes. That said, changing a weapons innate damage to the element could be neat, and I like the idea of adding a second Serration style mod.

[CharlesSnippy]

Shameless bump. Please forgive me.

[Miisha]

Shameless bump. Please forgive me.

You are forgiven honorable Charles

But seriously, cool thread, cool ideas

 

+1

[Paradoxbomb]

 

Step Two would be to make the elements more unique. Fire could have a panic inducing effect (on a percentage chance), ice would do what it does already, electricty could spread through metal or snow, or water, or whatever the dopey bastard happens to be standing in and shock his buddies, it could also throw the opponents aim off for a while or something. New elements could be introduced, like acid, which eats away at a percentage of the opponents armour (it could replace armour piercing because in what universe is armour piercing an element).

 

I find it strange that Ice has a really useful side effect in addition to adding damage, while fire and ice get really substandard effects. I think they should really beef up elemental effects to add a whole new strategic side to choosing which one to take, and making them viable against higher level enemies (the effects will still work regardless of the amount of base damage):

 

-Fire should have DoT that's very effective against infested, very ineffective against the Grineer (due to their armor) and moderately effective against Corpus

-Poison (which they should add as a mod btw) remains more or less the same with it's DoT, however, it functions opposite of fire, being nearly useless against the infested, but very damaging to the Grineer.

-Ice is fine as is in my opinion, both slowing enemies down AND dealing heavy damage to shields. In terms of effectiveness, it should be most effective against Grineer, moderately effective on infested, and least effective on Corpus (they do live on ice worlds afterall).

-Electricity should be buffed to stun enemies even through their shields (at present I find it ironic that it can't stun unshielded enemies, meanwhile half the Corpus forces are shielded) and like ice, it should do double damage to shields. Remains most effective against Corpus, least effective against infested, and about 50% chance to work on the Grineer.

 

I could be wrong about some of those details, but I honestly haven't noticed anything beside ice really effecting enemies unless I use all 3 elements at once. Not only would improving the side effects of elements improve player variety, but it also make elemental enemies all the more dangerous since they can effect you in the same way.

Edited July 5, 2013 by Paradoxbomb

[Vandammit]

No more flaming snowmen.

[MJ12]

There's a reason games with heavy amounts of randomness (such as dungeon crawlers, which Warframe is one, hint hint) don't have mutually exclusive elements. They simply don't work when your acquisition of elements is totally random, when the enemy composition isn't something you can adapt to on a moment's notice, and finally when switching weapons is extremely difficult to do in the heat of battle. If you could swap mods and weapons (and I don't mean 'to your sidearm', I mean multiple primaries/secondaries), maybe. Except I've also played Borderlands 2, with similar elemental systems at higher difficulties (try using your incendiary gun on an enemy with shields, they'll laugh it off), and it's not very fun. It means you end up with four weapons, one of each element, generally SMGs or assault rifles so you can use them effectively at any range.

 

Also, frankly, simultaneously burning and freezing someone to death is fricking amazing and it needs to stay in.

[ValhaHazred]

I do agree with you to an extent MJ12, but the devs might be moving this way on their own. Did you notice that they removed resistances from enemies so now they only have normal damage and weaknesses? And those weaknesses are the same for each faction.

[Anvildude]

Hrm..  This would also come across difficulties on those missions where you start out Corpus, then suddenly,,, "It's the Grineer!".

[SkipSandwich]

what if all elemental mods worked similarly to Thunderbolt? Instead of +% bonus damage of X element, it's a +x% chance per shot to shoot a special type of ammo. You can equip multiple element mods, but the effects do not stack, and the element fired is chosen at random.

 

AP (Armor Piercing) rounds deal +50% Armor Piercing damage. The extra damage can penetrate though a single enemy to damage a second target

 

Incendiary (Fire) rounds deal +15% Fire damage on impact, and burn the target for +15% fire damage a tick for 4 ticks over 12 seconds, each tick damages not only the burning enemy, but also affects other enemies and players in a small AoE around the target.

 

Pulse (Elec) rounds deal +25% Elec damage on impact and shocks the target for 12 seconds, shocked targets take +10% damage a tick for 3 ticks over 12 seconds, each tick of damage causes a brief stun/stagger effect on light grineer and all corpus units. The DoT deals triple (x3) damage to shields.

 

Cryo (Ice) rounds deal +25% Ice damage and slow the target for 12 seconds