Does shield regeneration need a buff?

[Icymountain]

Let's start with a simple question: Why does such a fast-paced game like Warframe have such slow regenerating shields? With the current regeneration rate of 15+5%max, you'd take 10 whole seconds to fully regenerate a mere 300 shields, not including the 3s it takes for shields to actually start regenerating. This time increases the more shields you have, up to 16 seconds with Frost Prime's 1295 shields, again not including the initial 3s delay. Sure, you have Fast Deflection, but even then it'd still be 8+3 seconds of waiting in cover, and at higher levels you'll almost never have cover for that long.

 

From what I see, the difference between shields and health is that shields are easier to take out due to armor not applying, but because it regenerates, you essentially have an infinite supply of it. Considering the rarity of Health Orbs in general gameplay, it's obvious that the current system encourages you to make use of shields, popping in and out of cover to constantly regenerate your shields and take minimal health damage. However, as mentioned above, enemies swarm at higher levels, meaning any cover you find is quickly compromised and your shields will be constantly down unless you have an appropriate pet with you. 

 

What I propose is that shields still take 3s to start regenerating, but now regenerates at 20% per second, fully regenerating in 5 seconds at all levels. It'd help in making shields more useful at higher levels, rather than a small buffer of health that's never able to regenerate. 

[Eldnacpeek]

3 hours ago, Icymountain said:

What I propose is that shields still take 3s to start regenerating, but now regenerates at 20% per second, fully regenerating in 5 seconds at all levels. It'd help in making shields more useful at higher levels, rather than a small buffer of health that's never able to regenerate.

 

While I agree with your points, there's just a small bit of an issue I see here; I'd honestly rather not have the 3 second delay at all, instead just have shields constantly regenerating but starting up very slowly and meeting the 20% rate of increase at the third second if that works.

One of my biggest gripes with shields is not the regen, but the time it actually takes for the regen to even begin. Warframe is a game where if you're not sneaking around/cloaked (only under circumstances that the alarms are not triggered), you're constantly under fire.

[Lactamid]

I think shield in general could need a little love.

With health you have options, you can either just hope for health orbs, use life strike, equip equilbrium, combine quick thinking + rage + pflow or any combination of this. On top of that you have skills for health regen and armor.

With shields you're less flexible. You have your shields and you can increase them with redirection and vigor. Then you can stack fast deflection for 90% faster recharge and fortitude for another 80% + 20% knockdown resistance.

After this shields pretty much end.

Yeah, you could always equip retribution for a 60% chance to deal....80 damage if your shields are up... with something like a 10% chance of stun... to melee attackers. YEAY!!!!

 

I'd love to see Warframe go with something like the shields used in Borderlands, having mods that affected their usage.

Quick shields - recharges faster (shorter delay)

Hard shields - capped at a number of hits.

Elemental/damage type shields - heavy resistance to said element/damage type.

Regenerative shields - heals you when full.

Leaping shields - shield hp lost has a chance to fill allies shields.

Linking shields - damage resistance increases in proximity of other allies.

Exploding shields - when shields expire they explode dealing damage/procing.

Booster shields - when hit shield-boosters may spawn that increases rechare rates.

Heavy shields - adds "armor" to shields.

Dread shields - enemies in proximity takes damage.

Blood magnetism - Enemies hitting your shields in melee refill your health.

Twin hull shields - splits your shields in two, one outer "buble" shield and one personal shield layer. This makes you a bigger target, but you may shield allies.

etc.

aaaaand these could all end up randomly on a dual stat mod. Like the mods of old used to be. 

[Ryunokage]

Disagree,

Downed shields simply means you need to go evasive, does not mean you need to avoid combat. Also we have multiple ways of replenishing health, life strike, medi-ray, to say nothing of healing abilities or health pads.

Decent players can continue to fight at a distance or swap tactics when their shields go down.

Increasing shield regeneration just enables face tanking and further idiot-proofs warframe.

[Icymountain]

22 minutes ago, Ryunokage said:

Increasing shield regeneration just enables face tanking

How so? Your shields would still go down as usual, nothing I suggested would make you tankier. 

[Wolfnrun]

Even better : Being able to mod you'r shield's with it's own dedicated selection of mod slots! Just an Idea that I thought of... 

[Ryunokage]

23 hours ago, Icymountain said:

How so? Your shields would still go down as usual, nothing I suggested would make you tankier. 

It encourages players to take damage head on, since they know that they'd beable to quickly duck out of fire to regenerate.

Warframe already incorporates an accuracy model where enemy shot grouping is inversely proportional to the velocity of their targets. Given that your argument is to allow a more fast paced mode of gameplay, i would imagine a rapidly moving tenno, weaving through incoming fire, would be far more fast paced then someone ducking in and our of cover to shoot.

[Eldritchsqueaker]

There is a bit of a 'shields are useless' meta from what I've seen. I wouldn't mind something being done to lessen that.

[DSpite]

On 16/08/2016 at 4:51 PM, Icymountain said:

Let's start with a simple question: Why does such a fast-paced game like Warframe have such slow regenerating shields? With the current regeneration rate of 15+5%max, you'd take 10 whole seconds to fully regenerate a mere 300 shields, not including the 3s it takes for shields to actually start regenerating. This time increases the more shields you have, up to 16 seconds with Frost Prime's 1295 shields, again not including the initial 3s delay. Sure, you have Fast Deflection, but even then it'd still be 8+3 seconds of waiting in cover, and at higher levels you'll almost never have cover for that long.

 

From what I see, the difference between shields and health is that shields are easier to take out due to armor not applying, but because it regenerates, you essentially have an infinite supply of it. Considering the rarity of Health Orbs in general gameplay, it's obvious that the current system encourages you to make use of shields, popping in and out of cover to constantly regenerate your shields and take minimal health damage. However, as mentioned above, enemies swarm at higher levels, meaning any cover you find is quickly compromised and your shields will be constantly down unless you have an appropriate pet with you. 

 

What I propose is that shields still take 3s to start regenerating, but now regenerates at 20% per second, fully regenerating in 5 seconds at all levels. It'd help in making shields more useful at higher levels, rather than a small buffer of health that's never able to regenerate. 

"Higher levels" is not a number. If you get your idea of better shields, you will be back here about "even higher numbers" simply because higher enemy scaling equals higher damage scaling which means that the "problem" you describe is just shifted up the scale.

Your idea makes it even harder then it ALREADY is to lose shields on the Star Chart, then about the same after enemies go above 40 because it's NOT linear.

[Icymountain]

54 minutes ago, Ryunokage said:

It encourages players to take damage head on, since they know that they'd beable to quickly duck out of fire to regenerate.

Warframe already incorporates an accuracy model where enemy shot grouping is inversely proportional to the velocity of their targets. Given that your argument is to allow a more fast paced mode of gameplay, i would imagine a rapidly moving tenno, weaving through incoming fire, would be far more fast paced then someone ducking in and our of cover to shoot.

Hmm. You do make a good point. Still, it'd be nice if shields were more useful. 

[Icymountain]

3 minutes ago, DSpite said:

"Higher levels" is not a number. If you get your idea of better shields, you will be back here about "even higher numbers" simply because higher enemy scaling equals higher damage scaling which means that the "problem" you describe is just shifted up the scale.

Your idea makes it even harder then it ALREADY is to lose shields on the Star Chart, then about the same after enemies go above 40 because it's NOT linear.

Did you even read my post properly? I never suggested increasing numbers. 

 

Also, WF is pretty much capped at level 100 right now. 

Edited August 17, 2016 by Icymountain

[DSpite]

Just now, Icymountain said:

Hmm. You do make a good point. Still, it'd be nice if shields were more useful. 

I don't disagree. Still, DE has given us Frames and pets and mods that can instantly restore shields, Shield Restores that can pulse us when we are getting fired on, and even Overshield abilities. It's quite a lot.

Still, eventually, because "scaling", nothing will work. Not even wall running through the entire level. The only way to stay alive would be to be invisible, hanging onto the ceiling, and even that might be doubtful, as DE will just add a Spotter unit.

Just saying, if DE wanted to kill us, they will kill us. What is important is that DE gives us a decent modicum of survival on the Star Chart and enough optional Mechanics so that Sortie levels are still doable, past that, "here be Dragons Sentients".

[Anatolius]

On 8/16/2016 at 3:52 AM, Lactamid said:

I think shield in general could need a little love.

With health you have options, you can either just hope for health orbs, use life strike, equip equilbrium, combine quick thinking + rage + pflow or any combination of this. On top of that you have skills for health regen and armor.

With shields you're less flexible. You have your shields and you can increase them with redirection and vigor. Then you can stack fast deflection for 90% faster recharge and fortitude for another 80% + 20% knockdown resistance.

After this shields pretty much end.

Yeah, you could always equip retribution for a 60% chance to deal....80 damage if your shields are up... with something like a 10% chance of stun... to melee attackers. YEAY!!!!

 

I'd love to see Warframe go with something like the shields used in Borderlands, having mods that affected their usage.

Quick shields - recharges faster (shorter delay)

Hard shields - capped at a number of hits.

Elemental/damage type shields - heavy resistance to said element/damage type.

Regenerative shields - heals you when full.

Leaping shields - shield hp lost has a chance to fill allies shields.

Linking shields - damage resistance increases in proximity of other allies.

Exploding shields - when shields expire they explode dealing damage/procing.

Booster shields - when hit shield-boosters may spawn that increases rechare rates.

Heavy shields - adds "armor" to shields.

Dread shields - enemies in proximity takes damage.

Blood magnetism - Enemies hitting your shields in melee refill your health.

Twin hull shields - splits your shields in two, one outer "buble" shield and one personal shield layer. This makes you a bigger target, but you may shield allies.

etc.

aaaaand these could all end up randomly on a dual stat mod. Like the mods of old used to be. 

This person knows whats up. Some kind of energy one would be nice were you sacrifice a percentage of your shield every second for a bit of energy back.

Basically like rage but for shields and continuous (but you cant have both on, thats too strong).

Ive always wanted retribution to be like Chroma's elemental ice ward: reflect damage, stun, burn, explode, any of those on contact. We all know that getting hit by a melee oriented enemy means all your shields and armor are gone. So id like it to be more precautionary. Like building up a charge ever x seconds and letting out a small aoe burst. Low damage but high proc chance. Or just every time your shield is damaged you get a chance to proc x status on the enemy.