How to Solve the Issues with Nullifiers, "Draco-style" Gameplay, and Overpowered Players Simultaneously

[--Q--uaint]

3 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

it makes it so that you're not just sitting around waiting for the energy to flow in.

But you still are, outside of mods. Mods are nice, but they aren't necessarily available to everyone.

The only real change (outside of mods) is that now you have to press an appropriate ability key every so often in order to keep the energy going. Even energy orbs provide more agency (IMO) than "make sure this bar never fills, and you'll keep getting more of the good stuff."

8 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I think trying to micro-manage player options to this degree is a waste of time

I think the degree of micromanagement is the degree to which it becomes less braindead and more based on action. I think the most agreeable system overall would just be energy on kill, but there are a lot of variables to tweak to get that to a good place... and we don't have the means to playtest a beta version.

11 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I think that modding should be about opening up different options more than simply improving on existing options.

I would argue DE's done a good job of that already (kinda) with Warframe modding. You can choose a finite number of significant improvements to your 'frame, and the number of useful things outweighs the number of concurrently-used items by a lot. Effectively, your modding choices come from what you're willing to leave out of your build.

14 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I think it would be best for guns to generate energy on-hit regardless of damage dealt and scale how much you gain inversely with fire rate.

Would it also factor in travel time? AoE? Punchthrough? There's an awful lot of variables.

16 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I'm still leery of the idea that generation could effectively be limited to movement

Why? Movement is the antithesis of Draco-style play, and also represents one of Warframe's best features. Even if you're just defending a point, rolling is still important since it gives you DR while movement in general scales down enemy accuracy.

19 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Perhaps adding this sort of feature as a conditional Exilus mod series? This way people could tailor it to which type of movement they find themselves using more often instead of being shoehorned into the most effective movement combo.

I think it would be best to have a base level of regen for movement and maneuvers (spending all your time dodging is suddenly useful in the early game!), but I could certainly see the higher levels of benefit being restricted to mods with niche applications following the Drift series as a blueprint.

6 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Personally, I think it is important for the enemies to have some sort of "blanket" shield effect to protect them from AOE wipes (though these shields should admittedly be a lot less prevalent)

They literally already have that, and in a more palatable form, too. Ever killed someone inside an Arctic Eximus's globe without breaking it or going inside?

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

DE just needs to explain the mechanics of how they succeed for it to be acceptable lore-wise imo

Space Magic. Le duh~

Seriously, though, sense and consistency have never been something DE has had too many quibbles about sacrificing.

7 minutes ago, Rheoidegen said:

as well as keeping the replies nice and... Well, reply-ish.

I have to say, I've been tempted to take screenshots of some of the posts I've seen here and put them in a folder named "Basis for Faith in Humanity." It's crazy how reasonable some of the people are here.

[Eglareth]

Thanks OP for this really nice idea. I'm totally with you on that it sounds like being able to fix some of the mentioned problems. I haven't read the entire thread thoroughly so sorry if you answered this:

How exactly would waiting for saturated to be filled by waiting for flux swapping over be more active? As I said, maybe I haven't understood your system, but I don't see an active mechanism to charge your saturated energy. Especially if you can't hunt for energy lying around.

On a second note: What is wrong with "passive" gameplay? Don't get me wrong: If it's not your style, don't do it. It's a perfectly normal phenomenon in games (especially such repetitive games) to try to hack the system simply because you can and because we all have that thought of efficiency deeply implanted in our head. And especially in games: why shouldn't we? If it leads to us playing the game, then even from DE's perspective THAT shouldn't be the problem. A factor that bothers me tons more is endless missions being ended after 5 minutes/waves because of efficiency reasons (but that's another topic).
I also get what you're saying about this being a short kind of fun, I really do. On the other hand I have more than 1300 hours on the game and I guess many people here are at least in a 3-digit area.

I think your ideas have something towards them, but I don't think the implementation of such a system will make the game more fun. Especially for the older players (meaning hours played, but also to some extend meaning age beyond 25, where reflexes begin to decline and one normally has some kind of stressy day) nerfs (and that is what it will be viewed as because i subjectively get some autonomy of decision taken away from me on a grand scale) will not lead to those people having more fun. Simply because they have seen a system with more degrees of freedom and liked it.

On the other hand, I simply propose stretching the experience progression (some weapons should be long-term goals and not through RNG) and making our opponents simply heavier. I still don't understand why we don't have nodes that resemble having played 60 minutes of T4surv - but not after already having spend 60 minutes slaughtering in godmode. Sorties are a first step into that direction. but it's 3 missions a day. And yes, I do know that we'd best think of some sort of loot to "be worth it" (as simply having fun sadly doesn't seem to work anymore). I'd be happy with having a better chance for the better loot. And yes, I do see the horde of players shouting too much pain for too less gain, but seriously: isn't that the point where we have to change? playing for fun instead of playing for the short extrinsic motivator?

Again, thanks for the good discussion here :)

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

34 minutes ago, TheTundraTerror said:

It's also hard to create engaging gameplay when you add mechanics and don't do anything with them. Say... adding the ability to run, jump, and spin around like ninja... and have at least half the missions revolve around games of grab arse. Just saying.

this is actually a good point, i'd love our survivability to be more directly connected to parcouring skills. (i just don't see how its counterarguing our energy economy being broken).

35 minutes ago, TheTundraTerror said:

Again, we are supposed to be gods.

alright, this keeps popping up again and again in discussions like these. please allow me to just quote myself:

"pretty much all fantasy (video game) heroe characters ever are "OP" in their respective universes. that doesn't mean the games in which they are the protagonists "have" to be braindead easy. that line of argument is abolutely ridiculous. in konami's contra two schwarzenegger lookalikes shoot gazillions of giant alien enemies and yet it's considered a hard classic. just one of literally thousands of examples... "

generally lore (or rl) logic ≠ gameplay logic.

i could just as well ask: if we're supposed to be gods why do we die in a fraction of a second in high level missions? the argument doesn't hold up no matter how you look at it.

[DiabolusUrsus]

6 minutes ago, Dawn11715 said:

I actually preffer the way DE tried to counter that problem before with Bursas and Sentients: By Adding resistance to them.

I'd like being strong overall/having easy play with normal enemys but having some harder ones as well, that give some kind of challenge in between, much like moon survival (Yes, you can kill single sentiens easily, but if they form groups, it is an engaging fight).

To be honest I think that alot of bosses should be regular enemys, or better have versions of them, that appear in regular missions.

Imagine eincountering a Terraframe in this huge hangar tile on the orokin asteroid, or an Raptor attacking yo on one of the open Bridges on jupiter.

We've seen mass-produced jackals on eris, why dont we see then in regular missions? It would be awesome!

As I see it, warframes were never meant to be defeated by trashy infantry, alot of them can be build to be close to undefeatable for them, and thats fine for me, thats part of Warframes appeal to me, but on the other hand, having no challenge at all can only result in boredom. with larger foes we could have both: feel powerfull and have a challenge.

The one thing I disagree with here is the Sentients providing an engaging fight.The level of damage they pump out in combination with the mechanics of their resistance make them a particularly lame fight in my opinion... and I would much prefer it if they did less damage, had more health, and gaining certain resistances removed other ones. They're another enemy that you want to keep stunlocked lest you fall victim to their ridiculous DPS.

[--Q--uaint]

5 minutes ago, Dawn11715 said:

mass-produced jackals on eris

Good post. Pretty sure you mean Hyenas, though.

1 minute ago, Eglareth said:

I also get what you're saying about this being a short kind of fun, I really do. On the other hand I have more than 1300 hours on the game and I guess many people here are at least in a 3-digit area.

*raises hand with a poker face*

4 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

I don't think the implementation of such a system will make the game more fun. ... Simply because they have seen a system with more degrees of freedom and liked it.

QFT

5 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

I still don't understand why we don't have nodes that resemble having played 60 minutes of T4surv - but not after already having spend 60 minutes slaughtering in godmode.

So much this.

6 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

And yes, I do know that we'd best think of some sort of loot to "be worth it" (as simply having fun sadly doesn't seem to work anymore). I'd be happy with having a better chance for the better loot. And yes, I do see the horde of players shouting too much pain for too less gain, but seriously: isn't that the point where we have to change? playing for fun instead of playing for the short extrinsic motivator?

IKR. Just make them a good source of "endo" and be done with it. The higher-level players will flock there for endo, affinity, and a decent challenge.

7 minutes ago, Kotsender_Quasimir said:

this is actually a good point, i'd love our survivability to be more directly connected to parcouring skills.

It... is, though. The enemies hit you way less if you are moving quickly.

The only real issue is that DE doesn't wanna make parkour mandatory since that would alienate the casuals. (You know, the ones who play to cool off after work and have all this spare cash.)

9 minutes ago, Kotsender_Quasimir said:

i could just as well ask: if we're supposed to be gods why do we die in a fraction of a second in high level missions? the argument doesn't hold up no matter how you look at it.

Because you're not playing a god of survivability. A properly built Chroma can tank level 500 Bombards without hardly breaking a sweat. And Valkyr is literally invulnerable.

9 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

The level of damage they pump out in combination with the mechanics of their resistance make them a particularly lame fight in my opinion...

It's not the level of damage so much as the manner in which they dispense it. At some point, you just need absurd mitigation to survive being in LoS and that's not fun. Making them reasonable to avoid would make them quite reasonable to fight.

10 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

gaining certain resistances removed other ones

So far as I know, that's how it works. I'll attack with one weapon until it stops working, then switch to another which will work for a while, then go back to the first - it won't be doing full damage, but it also won't be the peanuts it was doing before.

[DiabolusUrsus]

9 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

But you still are, outside of mods. Mods are nice, but they aren't necessarily available to everyone.

How so? In light of our discussion I agree that simply basing the generation on flux regen wouldn't be ideal, but the core idea is that you will gain energy for some powers by playing the game and using your other powers. Or channeling. Or blocking. I wouldn't mind supplementing this with movement-based generation (how about replacing the passive time-based generation with movement...?)

All I'm saying is that I'm not confident in basing the core of our generation off of movement alone.

12 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

The only real change (outside of mods) is that now you have to press an appropriate ability key every so often in order to keep the energy going. Even energy orbs provide more agency (IMO) than "make sure this bar never fills, and you'll keep getting more of the good stuff."

I would agree with this if they dropped conditionally instead of randomly.

13 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I think the degree of micromanagement is the degree to which it becomes less braindead and more based on action. I think the most agreeable system overall would just be energy on kill, but there are a lot of variables to tweak to get that to a good place... and we don't have the means to playtest a beta version.

I meant dictating what a player can and cannot do to generate energy for the sake of controlling how they play. I would rather encourage them to play more actively than try to stamp out every last facet of passive play. I want this to be a quality of life change rather than an all-out-war on passive gameplay.

Furthermore... there's no reason why the devs can't just prototype systems into the wild (we are technically still in beta) and revert changes that are catastrophic.

17 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

I would argue DE's done a good job of that already (kinda) with Warframe modding. You can choose a finite number of significant improvements to your 'frame, and the number of useful things outweighs the number of concurrently-used items by a lot. Effectively, your modding choices come from what you're willing to leave out of your build.

Warframe modding is better than weapon modding, but it's still not that great. Discounting unique mechanics like Inaros has, armor should be something to consider on every frame much the same way Shields and Health should be. As it is, we're more filling out viability templates and less making playstyle choices.

19 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Would it also factor in travel time? AoE? Punchthrough? There's an awful lot of variables.

Travel time? No. AOE? Yes. Punch-through? No - it should only apply to the first instance of "hit."

Again, some will always be better than others. So players should choose whether they want to depend on that weapon or not.

21 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

1. Why? Movement is the antithesis of Draco-style play, and also represents one of Warframe's best features. Even if you're just defending a point, rolling is still important since it gives you DR while movement in general scales down enemy accuracy.

2. I think it would be best to have a base level of regen for movement and maneuvers (spending all your time dodging is suddenly useful in the early game!), but I could certainly see the higher levels of benefit being restricted to mods with niche applications following the Drift series as a blueprint.

3. They literally already have that, and in a more palatable form, too. Ever killed someone inside an Arctic Eximus's globe without breaking it or going inside?

4. Space Magic. Le duh~

5. Seriously, though, sense and consistency have never been something DE has had too many quibbles about sacrificing.

6. I have to say, I've been tempted to take screenshots of some of the posts I've seen here and put them in a folder named "Basis for Faith in Humanity." It's crazy how reasonable some of the people are here.

Okay, getting tired so I'm getting lazy. Will probably save further responses to you (because they have to be so involved) for tomorrow.

1. Please see the response to the first section of quote.

2. Sure, let's just please not limit it to that alone.

3. Forgot about those guys. Scratch that point. Honestly one of the better-designed Eximi imo. Do they still stack the slow though? That should change.

4. Heh.

5. True. I wish they'd be more consistent though.

6. Agreed. I'm really happy with the tone this thread has been able to preserve for the most part.

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

35 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

On a second note: What is wrong with "passive" gameplay? Don't get me wrong: If it's not your style, don't do it. It's a perfectly normal phenomenon in games (especially such repetitive games) to try to hack the system simply because you can and because we all have that thought of efficiency deeply implanted in our head. And especially in games: why shouldn't we? If it leads to us playing the game, then even from DE's perspective THAT shouldn't be the problem.

but it also leads to us to get bored of the game sooner rather than later and makes us play mostly out of habit instead of genuine enjoyment. and the former kind of motivation will fade more quickly than the latter. i think.

35 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

I think your ideas have something towards them, but I don't think the implementation of such a system will make the game more fun. Especially for the older players (meaning hours played, but also to some extend meaning age beyond 25, where reflexes begin to decline and one normally has some kind of stressy day) nerfs (and that is what it will be viewed as because i subjectively get some autonomy of decision taken away from me on a grand scale) will not lead to those people having more fun. Simply because they have seen a system with more degrees of freedom and liked it.

*cough* ok, i'm about to turn 36 this year, in a relationship and got a full time job and i feel the game's too easy. and i have ~2500h (steam) playtime under my belt. so there :P. seriously though: i remember back in the tonkor thread someone even argued the game needs OP stuff so disabled people can enjoy it, too. where to draw the line? also: i think the proposed changes will not neccessarily make the game superhard from start to finish, just make it resemble an actual game more, rather then button happy pasttime.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Kotsender_Quasimir

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

7 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

It... is, though.

i know. notice the "more" in my sentence ;). fact is: backflips and sidesteps are mostly used to get out of banish / look stylish instead of actually dodging stuff, which is kind of a waste of an elaborate parcour system.

[DiabolusUrsus]

12 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

It's not the level of damage so much as the manner in which they dispense it. At some point, you just need absurd mitigation to survive being in LoS and that's not fun. Making them reasonable to avoid would make them quite reasonable to fight.

So far as I know, that's how it works. I'll attack with one weapon until it stops working, then switch to another which will work for a while, then go back to the first - it won't be doing full damage, but it also won't be the peanuts it was doing before.

Dammit, you lured me in. 

Point 1: Agreed. Would prefer to see better-telegraphed attacks in general for "threatening" enemies.

Point 2: Honestly haven't observed this. And I have switched back and forth on weapons plenty of times. Once it's peanuts, it stays peanuts for me.

[Eglareth]

7 minutes ago, Kotsender_Quasimir said:

but it also leads to us to get bored of the game sooner rather than later and makes us play mostly out of habit instead of genuine enjoyment. and the former kind of motivation will fade more quickly than the latter. i think.

*cough* ok, i'm about to turn 36 this year, in a relationship and got a full time job and i feel the game's too easy. so there :P. seriously though: i remember back in the tonkor thread someone even argued the game needs OP stuff so disabled people can enjoy it, too. where to draw the line? also: i think the proposed changes will not neccessarily make the game superhard from start to finish, just make it resemble an actual game more, rather then button happy pasttime.

you're right generally - but the game with a similar grade of repetiveness that keeps players really enjoying it all the time (compared to a story based game, AC for instance) has yet to be invented ;). Imo ALL MMOgames rely on the habit-factor and DE is doing a great job - as far as possible - bolstering the enjoyment with their rate of new content.

That wasn't my primary point there, sorry for being misleading ;) I truly am for inclusion but making the game easier is exactly the opposite. Inclusion means usability, not everybody's a winner. But my main point was the players with 100 or 500+ hours in the game won't take a nerf to their used freedom lightly. In my experience, it's one of the things that enrages players most: getting your avatar restricted (e.g. powers removed or set to something else) so the challenge is still there. The main problem with that tactic is: I have chosen the powers that i use and the developer has to take that control from me for the sakes of more challenge.

[Teshin_Dax]

8 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

 

The past of warframe was quite better .. we had no power Efficiency .. we had energy orbs and we needed to invest 100 energy for the 4th ... But then it rewarded us ..
It was able kill everything directly (radial javelin - once 4th ability)..  1 time cast and they were dead . BUT then you needed to fight with your weapons an lower abilty cost abilities..

We had a good teamplay once.. that was a good system

[DiabolusUrsus]

29 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

How exactly would waiting for saturated to be filled by waiting for flux swapping over be more active? As I said, maybe I haven't understood your system, but I don't see an active mechanism to charge your saturated energy. Especially if you can't hunt for energy lying around.

As per my discussion with ChronoEclipse, I see this shortcoming clearly now. Give me a bit to think on it, and I'll come up with some more solid suggested tweaks to generation. My goal, though, is to have players directly facilitate higher rates of generation (where you're not waiting huge amounts of time or depending on another player) through playing the game in a specific manner based on their loadout (casting, melee, etc.).

In other news, making efficiency less automatically-attractive and opening up options that are applicable to every Warframe would be beneficial.

34 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

On a second note: What is wrong with "passive" gameplay? Don't get me wrong: If it's not your style, don't do it. It's a perfectly normal phenomenon in games (especially such repetitive games) to try to hack the system simply because you can and because we all have that thought of efficiency deeply implanted in our head. And especially in games: why shouldn't we? If it leads to us playing the game, then even from DE's perspective THAT shouldn't be the problem. A factor that bothers me tons more is endless missions being ended after 5 minutes/waves because of efficiency reasons (but that's another topic).

To be perfectly clear, I'm not some anti-passive crusader out for the blood of Draco-farmers. I just see it as a DE-specified problem that should be noted as relevant to and affected by my proposed changes. 

In a broader sense, I find it sad that the game leaves enough to be desired in terms of gameplay that people feel compelled to play in such a passive manner. I understand the mentality that drives it, and I think Warframe would be a much better game if it didn't foster that mentality so easily. For me, Warframe scratches an itch for cool costumes and simple, accessible multiplayer with buddies. I would like to see it become a game that I would play just for the sake of playing, though.

38 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

I also get what you're saying about this being a short kind of fun, I really do. On the other hand I have more than 1300 hours on the game and I guess many people here are at least in a 3-digit area.

2090 hours myself, and still going strong. There's more to the game than the gratuitous cheese for sure, but it's depressing how much of the new content caters directly to gratuitous cheese. The meta, in my opinion, is something that should be there strictly for the people who are interested in that sort of optimization and should never be compulsory for success. To put it simply, I think the meta is getting overbearing in terms of its influence on the rest of the game and I would really prefer it if there were more reason to steer clear of those aspects of gameplay. The rewards that still interest me are all in the meta's scope of influence, and it would be nice if the game itself were more compelling to mitigate that a bit.

42 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

I think your ideas have something towards them, but I don't think the implementation of such a system will make the game more fun. Especially for the older players (meaning hours played, but also to some extend meaning age beyond 25, where reflexes begin to decline and one normally has some kind of stressy day) nerfs (and that is what it will be viewed as because i subjectively get some autonomy of decision taken away from me on a grand scale) will not lead to those people having more fun. Simply because they have seen a system with more degrees of freedom and liked it.

As usual, "fun" is subjective and highly variable. So all of my suggestions are through the lens of what would make the game more "fun" to me. I hope you can understand that I can't really develop original content from any other perspective, though I can appreciate the existence of separate perspectives and I do not presume to present my idea of "fun" as universal or infallible. 

I just can't be bothered to disclaimer everything I write with "this is just my opinion though," because the tacit understanding that an opinion is an opinion shouldn't be too much to ask for. (Not trying to criticize you personally, just that I'm not going to have the whole "my fun" versus "your fun" argument with anyone in this thread.)

46 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

On the other hand, I simply propose stretching the experience progression (some weapons should be long-term goals and not through RNG) and making our opponents simply heavier. I still don't understand why we don't have nodes that resemble having played 60 minutes of T4surv - but not after already having spend 60 minutes slaughtering in godmode. Sorties are a first step into that direction. but it's 3 missions a day. And yes, I do know that we'd best think of some sort of loot to "be worth it" (as simply having fun sadly doesn't seem to work anymore). I'd be happy with having a better chance for the better loot. And yes, I do see the horde of players shouting too much pain for too less gain, but seriously: isn't that the point where we have to change? playing for fun instead of playing for the short extrinsic motivator?

Again, thanks for the good discussion here :)

I should hope my comments on the meta can lead you to infer my position on simply saturating the game with more scaled-up enemies and the value in such changes.

Thank you for furthering the discussion.

[DiabolusUrsus]

6 minutes ago, Eglareth said:

The main problem with that tactic is: I have chosen the powers that i use and the developer has to take that control from me for the sakes of more challenge.

I should hope that enough of them would be reasonable enough to see that Nullifiers already effectively do that... 

[Dawn11715]

37 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Good post. Pretty sure you mean Hyenas, though.

 

Nope, I meant Jackals. Im not reffering to that event, where we faught lots of hyenas, im reffering to the damaged jackels, that are sometimes hanging from the ceiling in the infested corpus tileset. I mean, it could be old hyenas, as they shared the same model as the jackal, and I havent paid attention on them for a long time, so its possible they changed it, but at some point in time, there had been jackals... lots of them.

[(PSN)CrackFoxLegend]

5 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Furthermore, DE has a track record of going the extra (often superfluous) mile when it comes to gameplay improvements. Just look at Damage 2.0, Melee 2.0, Parkour 2.0, etc. They tend to prefer overhauls to simplified fixes, and I'd even go as far as to say that is one of their actual weaknesses: forgoing small and simple changes for delayed overhauls.

Honestly, your entire idea of this making the game better for players is in the eye of the beholder. This kind of change wouldn't scare anyone in the community, it would aggravate them greatly. You said yourself that being overpowered is a huge part of the warframe appeal and I have met tons of players that play no more primarily because of nerfs. Without being op, there isn't much of an appeal since it's not a primarily story or PvP driven game.

I responded to this post because I disagree the most with it. DE changed parkour because the smaller portion of players active on the forums dictated it, such as many other changes made to the game unfortunately. I liked parkour 2.0 for about the first 2 weeks after it was introduced before it became stale to me. I realize that a lot of players used only certain melee's for the extra mobility with 1.0 but really, there isn't as much incentive for me to use a melee weapon at all in a mission anymore. I could utilize any melee before to add some mobility but now trying to slide or jump attack only warrants a short and unsatisfactory swipe.

It's dull and there is no argument otherwise that I can think of. All players want the game to change to the way they want it but it would be nice if they remembered that their "fun" is not the same as everyone else's.

[Dawn11715]

49 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

It's not the level of damage so much as the manner in which they dispense it. At some point, you just need absurd mitigation to survive being in LoS and that's not fun. Making them reasonable to avoid would make them quite reasonable to fight.

^this, i think the aoe on the battelysts projectiles is unnecessary.

[Teshin_Dax]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

Honestly, your entire idea of this making the game better for players is in the eye of the beholder. This kind of change wouldn't scare anyone in the community, it would aggravate them greatly. You said yourself that being overpowered is a huge part of the warframe appeal and I have met tons of players that play no more primarily because of nerfs. Without being op, there isn't much of an appeal since it's not a primarily story or PvP driven game.

I responded to this post because I disagree the most with it. DE changed parkour because the smaller portion of players active on the forums dictated it, such as many other changes made to the game unfortunately. I liked parkour 2.0 for about the first 2 weeks after it was introduced before it became stale to me. I realize that a lot of players used only certain melee's for the extra mobility with 1.0 but really, there isn't as much incentive for me to use a melee weapon at all in a mission anymore. I could utilize any melee before to add some mobility but now trying to slide or jump attack only warrants a short and unsatisfactory swipe.

It's dull and there is no argument otherwise that I can think of. All players want the game to change to the way they want it but it would be nice if they remembered that their "fun" is not the same as everyone else's.

^This , yes mate .. many players of that type arent presented on the Forums .. Why not simply make polls through the ingame message-inbox .. no they count on specific Player elitism forums

[DiabolusUrsus]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

Honestly, your entire idea of this making the game better for players is in the eye of the beholder. This kind of change wouldn't scare anyone in the community, it would aggravate them greatly. You said yourself that being overpowered is a huge part of the warframe appeal and I have met tons of players that play no more primarily because of nerfs. Without being op, there isn't much of an appeal since it's not a primarily story or PvP driven game.

Key points:

1. It should go without saying that this is an opinion, and that you are free to agree or disagree with it without affecting its validity.

2. No, I said that there was an appeal to feeling powerful, which is possible without being overpowered. It's an important distinction, and is absolutely crucial to creating a compelling game of any sort. Where do you see player characters marketed as weak and vulnerable outside of the survival genre?

5 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

I responded to this post because I disagree the most with it. DE changed parkour because the smaller portion of players active on the forums dictated it, such as many other changes made to the game unfortunately. I liked parkour 2.0 for about the first 2 weeks after it was introduced before it became stale to me. I realize that a lot of players used only certain melee's for the extra mobility with 1.0 but really, there isn't as much incentive for me to use a melee weapon at all in a mission anymore. I could utilize any melee before to add some mobility but now trying to slide or jump attack only warrants a short and unsatisfactory swipe.

It's dull and there is no argument otherwise that I can think of. All players want the game to change to the way they want it but it would be nice if they remembered that their "fun" is not the same as everyone else's.

Which is why this is a discussion, not a dictation. I'm going to talk about change I want to see, and you're going to talk about change you want to see. There's nothing wrong about that. Each feedback perspective is going to be inherently self-centered by necessity. I'm not required to care about people who disagree, and neither are you. I'd like to think that I've put a respectable amount of thought into preserving the various aspects and "feels" to the game as much as possible, though.

If, by some modern miracle (again, from my perspective, you understand) this system gets implemented and it's actually pretty good... the playerbase will complain at first because it's different and then settle down because they learn to appreciate its benefits.

If it is, as you say, completely worthless and dull... they will continue to complain until it changes.

You find my suggestion dull, and that's fine. Please understand, though, that you can't prove that any more than I can disprove it... and I'm not somehow being rude for suggesting it.

[--Q--uaint]

6 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

you will gain energy for some powers by playing the game and using your other powers. Or channeling. Or blocking.

Playing the game ≠ using powers. When I'm running a Heat build on my Ignis, I don't really see the need to use Fireball. Ever. I have plenty of energy, but the only time I use it is when I feel like using Fireball rather than accomplishing a specific task. Basing regen on something you wouldn't otherwise be doing isn't necessarily bad, but I am wary of its implications. Movement, by contrast, is something you're almost always doing in WF if you're engaged.

11 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

All I'm saying is that I'm not confident in basing the core of our generation off of movement alone.

That's fair. I don't claim to have the solution, I just like poking holes in other's ideas and sometimes get brain aggro.

12 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I meant dictating what a player can and cannot do to generate energy for the sake of controlling how they play. I would rather encourage them to play more actively than try to stamp out every last facet of passive play. I want this to be a quality of life change rather than an all-out-war on passive gameplay.

Ok, but I think it's reasonable to try to ensure that they're actually doing something in order to get the reward rather than abusing an innocent wall.

My point here is that it changes the state of "sitting around watching the paint dry" to "sitting around scorching the paint with a Fireball every now and again." It's not fundamentally different, just more tedious.
On that note, though, it might be reasonable to give return of flux energy for successful use of powers so that you reward good power use with more opportunity to use powers, and by extension more potential for saturated energy. (though that means having the reward be tied to cast rather than regen, which may or may not change a lot?)

21 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Furthermore... there's no reason why the devs can't just prototype systems into the wild (we are technically still in beta) and revert changes that are catastrophic.

Vivergate would beg to differ. I mean, yes, that's a bad example... but mistakes will be made if they really do just drop changes on something integral like the energy system.

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: I want modding tools, and I want a "preview" server that gives a chunk of the community a way to give informed feedback on systems as they're being developed.

24 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

As it is, we're more filling out viability templates and less making playstyle choices.

I disagree with that. Banshee, for example, can be modded to be a good melee 'frame with just enough survivability and CC to give her enough chance to wreck face with her unparalleled damage output. She can also be used as an extremely squishy support that will wreck everything everywhere so long as she stays alive.

Mirage is also quite viable for melee, there's a few good builds around HoM and Eclipse, and Prism is a factor that might influence your modding choices even if you're not building for it.

There is definitely something to be said for making all mods useful on all 'frames, but then again, how would Redirection work on Inaros?

30 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Travel time? No.

Welp, that just reinforces the advantage Soma P had over Boltor P, and welds the nail to the coffin on basically all the bows. Sure, people will still use them, but they're even further disadvantaged than they would be without these changes.

33 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Again, some will always be better than others. So players should choose whether they want to depend on that weapon or not.

But the whole point of having a diverse arsenal is to have real choices. If you know Soma Prime is always the best choice, any other weapon is just window dressing.

35 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Do they still stack the slow though?

They do.

36 minutes ago, Kotsender_Quasimir said:

fact is: backflips and sidesteps are mostly used to get out of banish / look stylish instead of actually dodging stuff, which is kind of a waste of an elaborate parcour system.

I know I use them on a regular basis, but I guess I'm an outlier?

33 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Once it's peanuts, it stays peanuts for me.

D:
Then again, this is all hazy memory late at night, so maybe I'm just misremembering.

21 minutes ago, WaRsHooTer666 said:

We had a good teamplay once.. that was a good system

*high fives for the good ol' days*

19 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I would like to see it become a game that I would play just for the sake of playing, though.

Here's where I link you to another thread that you should totally check out... tomorrow https://forums.warframe.com/topic/198866-retune-all-the-frames-819-nightfall-and-daybreak/

21 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

There's more to the game than the gratuitous cheese for sure, but it's depressing how much of the new content caters directly to gratuitous cheese. The meta, in my opinion, is something that should be there strictly for the people who are interested in that sort of optimization and should never be compulsory for success. To put it simply, I think the meta is getting overbearing in terms of its influence on the rest of the game and I would really prefer it if there were more reason to steer clear of those aspects of gameplay. The rewards that still interest me are all in the meta's scope of influence, and it would be nice if the game itself were more compelling to mitigate that a bit.

Basically my life. Except for the parts where I'm not playing Warframe.

10 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

DE changed parkour because the smaller portion of players active on the forums dictated it

There was also the fact that a number of the developers really hated coptering...

11 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

I liked parkour 2.0 for about the first 2 weeks after it was introduced before it became stale to me. I realize that a lot of players used only certain melee's for the extra mobility with 1.0 but really, there isn't as much incentive for me to use a melee weapon at all in a mission anymore. I could utilize any melee before to add some mobility but now trying to slide or jump attack only warrants a short and unsatisfactory swipe.

IKR. I want my coptering back, it felt so much better than the movement we have now.

[Bouldershoulder]

I wouldn't like to have to use powers to be able to use other powers. This would be no different from having a mandatory trinity in the squad, and not all powers are that useful/usable to warrant their constant use (eg spectral scream, or undertow. Sorry for the overuse of the word 'use').

 

As for CC, if you don't like CC, the npcs should be fixed first. Their spawn is too frequent, they spawn in too great numbers too close to the player (like right behind one's back, sometimes right in front of the player), they focus fire, which isn't a bad tactics on itself, but considering their numbers, and that there is at max only 8 tenno (on raid), and that they all shoot at the same time, it's either disable them or hide (wich will give the player another 3 seconds before getting swarmed again; acrobatics is of little help when you are being focused by scorches); on high levels, they have too much damage, while tenno's health/shields are too low (corpus tech 80+ lvl does 484 damage per shot against it's own corpus flesh - tested with Trinity's link - at a rate of 12.5/sec). I know I speak obvious here, but this is the main issue with the game, not the overuse of CC (which is only a symptome). Nullifiers were a third leg of trying to fix the symptome.

We abuse map-clearing ultimtes because there is too many npcs to even try to clear them with anything other than tonkor or simulor, and the moment they are cleared - another swarm comes in, bringing more energy orbs for us to slauther them with ults. In such condithions, there will never be a place for sniper rifles in this game (bows are at a somewhat better spot because they all have innate punch-through and their damage is better with those red crits).

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

Just now, Bouldershoulder said:

I wouldn't like to have to use powers to be able to use other powers. This would be no different from having a mandatory trinity in the squad, and not all powers are that useful/usable to warrant their constant use (eg spectral scream, or undertow. Sorry for the overuse of the word 'use').

 

As for CC, if you don't like CC, the npcs should be fixed first. Their spawn is too frequent, they spawn in too great numbers too close to the player (like right behind one's back, sometimes right in front of the player), they focus fire, which isn't a bad tactics on itself, but considering their numbers, and that there is at max only 8 tenno (on raid), and that they all shoot at the same time, it's either disable them or hide (wich will give the player another 3 seconds before getting swarmed again; acrobatics is of little help when you are being focused by scorches); on high levels, they have too much damage, while tenno's health/shields are too low (corpus tech 80+ lvl does 484 damage per shot against it's own corpus flesh - tested with Trinity's link - at a rate of 12.5/sec). I know I speak obvious here, but this is the main issue with the game, not the overuse of CC (which is only a symptome). Nullifiers were a third leg of trying to fix the symptome.

We abuse map-clearing ultimtes because there is too many npcs to even try to clear them with anything other than tonkor or simulor, and the moment they are cleared - another swarm comes in, bringing more energy orbs for us to slauther them with ults. In such condithions, there will never be a place for sniper rifles in this game (bows are at a somewhat better spot because they all have innate punch-through and their damage is better with those red crits).

 

Which is why it's not limited to just powers, and improvements to that suggestion are WIP.

As for CC and ult spam... CC and ult spam came before the ridiculous enemies, and the enemies sprang up in response to the CC and ult spam. It's a problem that feeds itself, which is why insisting that the cycle be cut in one place or another is pointless. Sure, change enemies first, but make sure you change Warframes after or else we'll just be stuck with those same enemies again after a while.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

@DiabolusUrsus I get why people are saying this is too complex. What constitutes as an unsaturated power? What's a saturated power? Is it always 1s and 2s are unsaturated, while 3s and 4s are saturated? Does it vary depending on frame?

Here's a possible modification; let me know what you think:

1-4 can be activated using Flux, or unsaturated powers sort of like normal. However, these powers feel like quick spams, doing little damage, damaging few targets, or providing very short CC etc.

The saturated energy bar surrounds the normal one with a yellow glow, and recharges separately (preferably from a mix of time and killing enemies). Players can hold the power button to saturate the ability, making it more powerful, if they have enough saturated energy. This bar wouldn't be charged with pads, with vampire, or affected by efficiency.

The benefit of this is players can still spam, if they desire, but to get truly powerful abilities they can't. For example, Bastile might be a slowdown if it isn't saturated. MPrime wouldn't cause explosions and would slow less. Avalanche would only cause a momentary freeze and do less damage. Hall of Mirrors would only create one clone. Invisibility would allow players to appear when they attack, momentarily.

On the other hand, some forgettable abilities could be buffed from their current form, when saturated. Psychic Bolts could allow enemies to reveal each other on the minimap. Fireball could guarantee a panic proc for running through the fire patch. And so on.

[DiabolusUrsus]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)WiiConquered said:

@DiabolusUrsus I get why people are saying this is too complex. What constitutes as an unsaturated power? What's a saturated power? Is it always 1s and 2s are unsaturated, while 3s and 4s are saturated? Does it vary depending on frame?

Here's a possible modification; let me know what you think:

1-4 can be activated using Flux, or unsaturated powers sort of like normal. However, these powers feel like quick spams, doing little damage, damaging few targets, or providing very short CC etc.

The saturated energy bar surrounds the normal one with a yellow glow, and recharges separately (preferably from a mix of time and killing enemies). Players can hold the power button to saturate the ability, making it more powerful, if they have enough saturated energy. This bar wouldn't be charged with pads, with vampire, or affected by efficiency.

The benefit of this is players can still spam, if they desire, but to get truly powerful abilities they can't. For example, Bastile might be a slowdown if it isn't saturated. MPrime wouldn't cause explosions and would slow less. Avalanche would only cause a momentary freeze and do less damage. Hall of Mirrors would only create one clone. Invisibility would allow players to appear when they attack, momentarily.

On the other hand, some forgettable abilities could be buffed from their current form, when saturated. Psychic Bolts could allow enemies to reveal each other on the minimap. Fireball could guarantee a panic proc for running through the fire patch. And so on.

It would vary depending on frame, and what makes sense given which powers a Warframe needs immediate access to and which it should save up for.

For example, Loki's invisibility should be an unsaturated ability that can be cast regularly but have its duration dialed back a bit (or, alternatively, be turned into a toggle).

At the same time... Teleport probably shouldn't be a saturated ability on Ash, nor should Wormhole on Nova. Heck, if they wanted DE could even have some frames have only one saturated ability depending. I haven't tried to list out which would be which comprehensively, primarily because I haven't gotten much critique on the idea.

Your system sounds interesting, and definitely something I would support... but.... how would that come into play with powers that are toggled between functions? Like Ivara's 1 or Vauban's 2?

I should probably make it more clear that you don't have to rely on powers to fuel powers, you've got:

Powers

Melee

Movement (credit to Chrono Eclipse)

Firearms (if you mod for it).

Complicated to implement? Yeah, I can see that. Complicated to use and tweak? Nah.

[(PSN)CrackFoxLegend]

21 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

2. No, I said that there was an appeal to feeling powerful, which is possible without being overpowered. It's an important distinction, and is absolutely crucial to creating a compelling game of any sort. Where do you see player characters marketed as weak and vulnerable outside of the survival genre?

I believe the exact words are:

9 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Watching visually impressive abilities wreak havoc on hapless enemies is a huge portion of  the Warframe appeal

And I agree even though I also agree that there should be some challenge to it. Really though, the only challenge you can put into a game is something that challenges your brain. All there is after that is reaction time. Reaction time and tactics make up 100% of game challenge because there are extreme limits put on gross and fine motor skills when it comes to video games. This game is all about tactics, team comp, and reaction time. Reaction time and team comp more so when doing high waves or hour plus survival to be fair. Of course most players take the path of least resistance but it's been said once and it will be said again. It does not affect your gameplay unless you allow it to. Who goes on what mission with you and what they bring with them is entirely up to the host, just like every game ever.

[Kutsus]

This sounds like a really good idea to me, can't even think of any possible issues with it, hope DE sees this.