Ultimates As Panic Button Rework: Revising The Energy System

[MJ12]

Okay, as I stated a while ago, ultimates were really useful panic buttons because of their invulnerability. But because some people whined a lot about invulnerability frames (not naming names, you know who you are) that was changed. And now it sucks. For most Warframes, either you use Ults as an opening alpha strike and kill everything or you don't use them at all, because you die when you try to use them in a bad situation.

 

My proposal is to rework it so that they're high-cost and viable to be used multiple times but not 'spammable' due to a relative dearth of energy pickups.

 

To do so, you need to:

 

1. Lower the cost of all other skills (stuff like Fireball/Shock should cost 10 energy at most, with most 75 energy powers costing like 30 energy now), Ultimates keep their original costs.

 

2. Ultimates have their invulnerability frames back.

 

3. Ultimates drain their base cost as well as something like ~50% of your remaining energy. They're panic buttons, not spammables. This energy drain gives them increased benefits such as additional damage + radius, increased duration, armor piercing damage, and so on. Casting an Ultimate at base level is fairly weak now for its payoff, but an Ultimate with 500 energy stored up will wreck everything and even heavily wound bosses.

 

5. Energy orbs now give 10 energy per pickup. You now need 10 energy orbs to recast your Ultimate, which is something like 15 casts of Ability 1.

 

This ratio would be viable independently of any sort of energy system rework (god knows the game needs one) as well, and also would allow Ultimates to be ridiculously awesome room-clearers under ideal circumstances without trivializing the game, because it's unlikely that you'd get the 20 or 30 energy orbs you need to recast at that level back.

 

Thoughts?

[BinoAl]

Energy would need a bigger nerf than that; I regularly play in teams where everyone brought along energy siphons. That's 4 energy per second, or an ult every 25 seconds

[Zhoyzu]

there is no need for invincibility. if you use the ability in a panic thats your problem. Most are intended for crowd control not for being an idiot and getting killed and then hitting ult so you don't die. TBH invincibility is pretty gay. there has to be some punishment for being reckless and not thinking.   playing smarter is more effective then invincibility for a few seconds.

[Vyaldyn]

I'm all for tweaking the energy system in favor of the cheaper, often utility abilities. However, I feel like the costs for most 1-3 abilities are fine, but ultimates should cost 150 energy, which is the amount half of the frames have at rank 30 by default (225 being the other half). They're ultimate abilities, they should cost something. 100 is nothing when you have 450 energy with a maxed out flow and most enemies you catch in your ultimate drop an energy orb!

 

The percentual energy cost could be there, but nowhere near as high as 50% in my opinion. With 450 energy, 50% is huge. This kind of change would, however, require most ultimates to obliterate anything below level ~90 that's not a boss, though.

 

Energy would need a bigger nerf than that; I regularly play in teams where everyone brought along energy siphons. That's 4 energy per second, or an ult every 25 seconds

 

 

Energy siphon gives an energy every 2 seconds; 4 of them stack into 2 energy per second.

[theammostore]

But ultimates are designed to be murder sprees...using it as a panic button isn't really a big...part...of..it....I just got Ash, and I can say that Bladestorm is anything but a panic button. It's a 'imma go banana nut butters on this next room, because I know there's a lot of guys in there." Same with WoF for Ember. It's a way to make a dynamic entry, and if someone's spamming it, that's their problem. Ask them to stop, get a friend and tell him 'hey, cool down with the Overload.' Yanno? Something like that. Simply making them into panic buttons isn't good, because then it's just a get out of jail free card, and I don't think we want that.

 

Keep them as they are, but MAYBE change around energy. I'm not seeing an issue with it at all.

[Quazar123]

I think the energy system is great as it is and the issues with people spaming #4s is just a matter of higher level frames/players being in lower level area then they are geared for i am able to spam many of my #4 abilities but thats what you have to do once it takes 3 or 4 of them to kill one mob
(high level endless defense)

[MJ12]

there is no need for invincibility. if you use the ability in a panic thats your problem. Most are intended for crowd control not for being an idiot and getting killed and then hitting ult so you don't die. TBH invincibility is pretty #$$. there has to be some punishment for being reckless and not thinking.   playing smarter is more effective then invincibility for a few seconds.

 

If Ultimates don't have invulnerability frames they should instantly cast or disable every enemy which can attack you. Either way, being locked into taking unavoidable damage is terrible. And right now that's exactly what Ultimates do. Invulnerability frames on ultimates were the best idea DE implemented (a few months before you joined) and now that it's gone we're back to the same old same old grind of everyone just spamming them endlessly because there's absolutely zero reason to keep one saved up for a bad situation.

 

When ults had invulnerability frames, they allowed more aggressive play as long as you had an ult remaining. This is a good thing. Warframe is at its best when people play aggressively. Now, they're only useful as 'spam'. Furthermore, there is some punishment for being reckless and not thinking even with invulnerability frames on ults.

 

It's "you've wasted an ultimate on a situation you could have avoided."

 

 

But ultimates are designed to be murder sprees...using it as a panic button isn't really a big...part...of..it....I just got Ash, and I can say that Bladestorm is anything but a panic button. It's a 'imma go banana nut butters on this next room, because I know there's a lot of guys in there." Same with WoF for Ember. It's a way to make a dynamic entry, and if someone's spamming it, that's their problem. Ask them to stop, get a friend and tell him 'hey, cool down with the Overload.' Yanno? Something like that. Simply making them into panic buttons isn't good, because then it's just a get out of jail free card, and I don't think we want that.

 

Keep them as they are, but MAYBE change around energy. I'm not seeing an issue with it at all.

 

Actually that's exactly what I want. They should be combination nukes/get out of jail free cards that aren't easily recharged. Because that way whenever you see a juicy concentration of enemies you should go "Can I take them without using my ultimate?" and if the answer is yes you might not want to use your ultimate because there might be a worse situation later which you really need that ult for.

 

I don't mind how they were set up (they really need their invulnerability frames back because the lack of invulnerability right now is just super-lame and makes their sole use endless spam because they make you incredibly vulnerable in a long cast animation, preventing you from doing anything really interesting with them like keeping them in reserve or whatever) but a lot of people don't like the idea of being able to nuke room after room with chained Ults so this is a compromise change.

Edited June 18, 2013 by MJ12

[LasersGoPewPew]

any ult that has a channeling time should atleast give a damage shield similar to iron skin so you can live long enough to cast the ult, that would be a nice alternative to invulnerability no?

[Liminal]

I really like the idea of buffing ultimates by increasing their energy costs and at the same time making them non spammable.

On one hand it's not that great to use them every 3 seconds, but on the other hand it sucks that sometimes you need to use more than one in a row to kill high level trash mobs.

[fatpig84]

Try using Excalibur radial javelins at higher levels.

Good luck :D

[theammostore]

Actually that's exactly what I want. They should be combination nukes/get out of jail free cards that aren't easily recharged. Because that way whenever you see a juicy concentration of enemies you should go "Can I take them without using my ultimate?" and if the answer is yes you might not want to use your ultimate because there might be a worse situation later which you really need that ult for.

 

I don't mind how they were set up (they really need their invulnerability frames back because the lack of invulnerability right now is just super-lame and makes their sole use endless spam because they make you incredibly vulnerable in a long cast animation, preventing you from doing anything really interesting with them like keeping them in reserve or whatever) but a lot of people don't like the idea of being able to nuke room after room with chained Ults so this is a compromise change.

Eehhh, I dunno. I can agree on the invulnerability frames bit, or at least a damage reduction for some of the longer, less mobile ones, but I don't like the idea of a 'get out of jail free' button. Maybe some of them are that, I'll admit, but I'd much rather they don't be. I'd rather they be a massive crowd control murder disaster spree than anything else. Like, what I said before, kill everything and make a dynamic entry. Clear out half the room and then dive into the rest. That's what I like about them, and that's how I think they should stay.

 

But if we're changing something, give them damage reduction or invul for the cast if nothing else. Like, WoF, the casting should be invul or reduced damage, not the actual running around on fire bit. Same for Blessing and others like that. I'll go into more specific examples of what I feel we could do to each ability other than reworking energy later. Imma go to sleep.

 

*reserved for examples*

[LazerusKI]

most of the Ubers are useless at higher levels, because they are affected by armor-rating.

there is no need for a nerf (energy cost)

also there is no need for them to drain additional 50% of your energy. you cant even call them "Uber" sometimes.

They are just "strong abilitys" that have the possible chance of clearing a room.

Slash Dash, Rhino Stomp, Ember-Firewall, Chaos, Bastille...they are also realy strong and most of the tiem they are the better "panic button".

so please stop talking about our Ubers like they were from LoL

 

there is no need for invincibility. if you use the ability in a panic thats your problem. Most are intended for crowd control not for being an idiot and getting killed and then hitting ult so you don't die. TBH invincibility is pretty #$$. there has to be some punishment for being reckless and not thinking.   playing smarter is more effective then invincibility for a few seconds.

I think the energy system is great as it is and the issues with people spaming #4s is just a matter of higher level frames/players being in lower level area then they are geared for i am able to spam many of my #4 abilities but thats what you have to do once it takes 3 or 4 of them to kill one mob
(high level endless defense)

 

^^

this

for example: you dont even want to bring Mags Crush into high-level missions or high-wave defense

Edited June 18, 2013 by LazerusKI

[DeonXela]

I don't use "4" abilities because they aren't generally useful for anything level 15+.
I use a Volt and a Frost primarily and all of their abilities are fine without needing something to clear a room.
If I'm surrounded, that's mostly my fault, I'm not going to panic and press 4 to kill everything so I don't die. For Volt I'm going to press 2 (Speed) and run, for Frost I'm gonna press 3 (Snowglobe) and stand there while my shields recharge.
But really, this is why you have revives, you will make mistakes, you will die.

Offense should NOT be your best defense in a game like this.
Think about that before someone makes another 4 thread.

[Klazik]

Energy would need a bigger nerf than that; I regularly play in teams where everyone brought along energy siphons. That's 4 energy per second, or an ult every 25 seconds

Just for info; energy siphon gives 1 energy every 2 seconds, so 4 times that would only yield 2 energy per second and not 4.

[Zhoyzu]

If Ultimates don't have invulnerability frames they should instantly cast or disable every enemy which can attack you. Either way, being locked into taking unavoidable damage is terrible. And right now that's exactly what Ultimates do. Invulnerability frames on ultimates were the best idea DE implemented (a few months before you joined) and now that it's gone we're back to the same old same old grind of everyone just spamming them endlessly because there's absolutely zero reason to keep one saved up for a bad situation.

 

When ults had invulnerability frames, they allowed more aggressive play as long as you had an ult remaining. This is a good thing. Warframe is at its best when people play aggressively. Now, they're only useful as 'spam'. Furthermore, there is some punishment for being reckless and not thinking even with invulnerability frames on ults.

 

It's "you've wasted an ultimate on a situation you could have avoided."

 

 

the join date on my profile is incorrect for the record. and most ults as you say dont require invincibility as they have a secondary effect for most of the duration.

 

Frost: freezes and snow globes so you cant be damaged.

 

Banshee: staggers for the duration of the power, granted large open areas are disadvantageous  

 

Volt: stuns enemies for duration of effect

 

Rhino: incapacitates  enemies within effect radius

 

 

realistically your argument is flawed. and there still remains to be no need for any invulnerability. as i said before playing smarter (aka using your brain) voids the need for invulnerability. IMO iron skin should be rhinos ult and link should be trinities ult but id keep the energy costs similar, at least for link on trinity.