Balancing weapon and power

[neKroMancer]

Wall of text, beware.

I think one way to balance the gameplay between weapon and power is to tie them together.

I'll use the classic example : Slash dash. While it's extremely effective against all enemies at the moment. Inevitably, new 'endgame' content will likely resulted in slash dash relatively 'nerfed' due to damage cap no longer exceed enemies' durability.

Another thing to consider is - you can mod your weapons in order to improve their usefulness but there's no way to increase your powers' functionality without sacrificing your frame's durability. Thus, powers will always be inferior compared to weapons in endgame. On the contrary, powers are exceedingly powerful during the beginning of the game (asymmetrical growth and progression).

Tying weapon damage to powers will be one alternative to make the dev's job balancing the scale easier. Power damage would be in percentage of melee/charge damage to balance both side of the scale. However, this is likely to drive players toward better weapons (which they're likely to do anyway) which have better charge/melee damage.

Daggers/dual weapons represent a challenge in this but they're not widely used so I'm not familiar with this class of melee weapon. Special effect, which is tied to weapon's unique attribute, could be added for players who prefer dagger/dual wielding while casting direct damage power. Example - burn the target that caught within slash dash radius while using heat dagger. Volt and Ember will be able to cast power with less damage but larger AOE.

I'll use a mock up example (thanks Tykero for the initial idea of making example).

Slash dash - damage multiplier 1.5, range multiplier 5, hit multiplier 3

Skana - melee damage per swing 20, radius 1 meter, hit 1, weight 0.5

Unranked slash dash with unranked skana will create a slash dash which deliver 30 damage to 3 target within 5 meter range and radius of 1 meter.

Unranked Fragor which has 50 damage, radius 2 meter, hit 3, weight 1.0 should hit 9 enemies with 75 damage within 2.5 meter range and 2 meter radius.

Equipped weapon should handle a few aspects of power which does not include 'energy efficiency'. Damage, special elemental attack from mods, power crit chance/damage. etc.

A more complexed skill tree for each power will be needed. Unique attributes could be added through these upgrade node which involve making power more 'efficient' (consume less energy for less damage multiplier or more energy for better damage multiplier, upgrading frame's weight capacity thus increasing range,etc.) which players have to choose between one of these nodes which better fill their niches.

Right now, I've limited access to frames (only firsthand experience with three frames, Volt, Excalibur, and Rhino) so I do not intimately understand other frames' powers. Comments are welcomed.

Edited January 27, 2013 by neKroMancer

[Tykero]

I've got a thread discussing this problem in part, with a few ideas in it as well. I arrived at a similar conclusion as you did, though: abilities need to scale off of something other than just mods.

Tell me what you think:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/5958-on-scalability-diversification-of-player-growth/

[McGuffin]

I definitely agree. The current system is either too simplistic, or hides a lot of information from us. I like the fact that meaningful choices must be made when you're modding your 'frames, but without proper team mechanics and skill combos / chains (or any other supporting mechanic) there's no obvious difference except for the inherent opportunity cost of choosing something over the other.

Could be that everything we see now is the basic, 'ground level' system of skills, mods and stats. It is certainly a great framework for future tweaks and improvements. I believe the age old adage of game design is 'Complexity is always easier to add than remove' :)

And the good part about having the PVE focus is that improvements or changes don't always have to happen on the player's side of things, tweaking the enemies can be viable too.

Long story short, you both make good points and I agree with them :)

[neKroMancer]

Bump for comments and visibility.

[aTaVaX]

you could also make some mod stats multipurpose. Rename shield capacity to power capacity and make it increase both shield cap and the cap for the energy you use for abilities. Regeneration for shields could also regen energy or maybe increase efficiency for use of abilities. The idea being the warframe mods don't make you sacrefice defense for offense, because everyone would just pick the offense that doesn't make you sacrefice defense.