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

[RavingRoman]

I have a suggestion. Why not use a cooldown for some of the abilities?

Edited August 21, 2016 by RavingRoman

[Bouldershoulder]

3 minutes ago, RavingRoman said:

I have a suggestion. Why not use a cooldown for some of the abilities?

Because the devs don't like cooldowns.

[DiabolusUrsus]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)CrackFoxLegend said:

I believe the exact words are:

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.

So what you're saying is you put words in my mouth and I neglected to be explicit? Obviously, I didn't write "overpowered," either, and my intent should be clear after the last reply.

I would say that this game is currently more about gear checks than tactics, given that most of the most effective tactics require only a rudimentary understanding of the mechanics. I can't agree that they can create a compelling game by using gear-based puzzle-solving. Perhaps that boils down to a fundamental difference in our concepts of fun, but I feel that character choice and weapon choice should affect how you succeed, not if.

[RavingRoman]

10 minutes ago, Bouldershoulder said:

Because the devs don't like cooldowns.

Sure if you just leave it like that. But in exchange, make the abilities affected even more potent. it would give a "by my some time" component in the game and they would be more rewarding to cast if you are able to do it. It can also be a charge kind of mechanic. Think about Rhino's stomp. Let's say, there is a certain amount of time you have to hold 4 to cast. The longer you hold it, the wider the range when you unleash it. That way, you would not just be spamming it. In the meantime, you used iron skin, or your teammates to buy you the time you need to cast it.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

40 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

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?

Didn't think of those. It could be a double-click activation, where pressing the button again during the cast animation causes the change.

40 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

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.

I actually think the opposite. I bet it could be implemented in a few hours (obviously it should be tested for longer). But it steepens an already-difficult learning curve, which is why I suggest making it a universal system for all powers.

[Eglareth]

2 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

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.).

ok, to be honest, I didn't read that conversation after the first answer ;)

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

I'm on your side in the way that the ult shouldn't be godmode, but I frankly like the fanciness of the most ults and warframe imo doesn't have enough action-customization to be wanting to cut the usage of its most spectacular moves. Psychologically, that's almost tautologic: biggest boom gets the most applause - althouh I often enough am on the side of not abusing the frequency of great effects...

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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. 

Yes, but I think the problem isn't the problem. Passive playing might be part of the problem but imo the underlying reason to this might be more in the direction of grinding xp for the fourth time for that four-times-formaed-grenadelauncher after grinding xp for that 3-formaed grenadelauncher from some months ago after grinding... you understand my reasoning I think. And imo that problem in itself isn't solvable in the state this game is in. The game relies solely on people's desire to get the most out of their frames and weapons and staying willing to do that. Trying to end the efficient ways to earn xp is killing that game. A slight change to that might already improve that feeling: why don't we abolish the level 30-frontier and let the weapon/frame level as long as the player wants? you can always use the formae to "unlock" the new stage of experience in the weapon modwise, but having an xp-progression with an open end instead of having it reset 3-5times is not a nice effect. And that change is purely cosmetical.

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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.

I for one play because I want to. But I also see the difference between warframe and (in my case) Planetside 2, where I go online without wanting to get another weapon or upgrade etc but simply because running arount with so many players is fun. But as you mentioned later: that's your view on things... Even though I think we (or most of the folks on this thread) share some concern about a boredom-factor of the game, I don't think that that what you call passive gaming is the problem. Quite on the contrary, I think that taking that option away might become a problem - as has happened with the endless void missions.

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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.

I'm sorry if this is a language barrier on my side, but what would you define as the meta of warframe? If I understand correctly, it encompasses 4-6 instead of 1-2 formae on gear and building to get the last bit of power out of it and synergies etc? So you're saying that you don't get the gear you want without building more for efficiency instead of fun? If so, we have a shared experience :) Although especially in warframe I don't experience it. It's more like I had that problems in many mmos where one isn't taken to a raid/dungeon when she doen't use the fotm-build. And yes, I see such a factor in warframe in sorties where bringing banshee is frowned upon... but normally I - especially with so much time and therefore resources ingame - have so many alternatives here that that doesn't bother me... (but that's me)

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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.)

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.

Yes, I understand that :) But your changes, if implemented, would change the experience for everyone and that means everyone has to live with what you think is better for fun - which is not a bad thing and quite factually, which is what happens all the time. That's why we're here: so that everyone's opinion can be brought to the best solution (which is more a marketing sentence as it is realistic, but let's stick to that ;) )

 I feel critizised - as should you or, to be more precise, your idea. That's what I wanted. I don't feel offended, so no problems there :) I (and many of the other posters here I think) take this discussion as an oportunity to start from your well-thought idea and playing with it either until we find a version we all can live with or until the discussion discovers that the problem is something else (more my point of view ;) ). Either way, I find it very constructive so far.

2 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

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

Nullifiers don't bother me much... yes, they can be unnerving, but as you said (I think): it's a very short change of playstyle and then I'm back to hack'n'slash. The only thing I don't like about them is that rate of fire is the only fast way to get rid of them without going into the globe.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Eglareth
doublequote

[AperoBeltaTwo]

6 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

No. I am limiting the frequency of use of SOME abilities for the sake of balance, not shutting them down completely the way Nullies do. It is a clamp on player output rather than rendering an entire aspect of gameplay irrelevant.

A lot of abilities in the game are useless if you can't use them constantly and whenever you want. Most of the toggleble abilities are like that. If we had like 10 or more abilities per warframe and more variety of gameplay situations in the game, locking some on the more powerful abilities behind a cooldown or mana restriction would make sense. But we have a wave-spawn game with hords of dumb (sorry DE) and seriously imbalanced enemies. You can't fight warhammer with a broomstick.

Edited August 21, 2016 by AperoBeltaTwo

[Shy0]

i've been away for a few months playing other games and have come back just last week to a lot of changes. some are nice, some are not. but to keep things on-topic:

re nullifiers. i don't see much of a problem with nullifiers except for a few minor details. i pick frames and loadouts that can handle nullifier bubbles when i do missions where i expect to see nullifier bubbles. picking the the right tool for the job is as much part of games as build/gear variety. i don't see the relevance of arguments about slow-firing weapons becoming useless; just have a fast-firing one in your loadout that you can switch to or have a teammate on nully-bubble-popping duty. at the same time, those arguing to just run in and melee nullies to death probably don't play a lot of level 70+ content (or they use naramon focus, which is the real cheese), where having your protections off and a whole bunch of enemies that can one-shot KO you hiding in the bubbles means that you usually will go down even if you manage to take the nullifier out. the argument about caster frames becoming useless is not even an argument because caster frames generally don't scale well with high-level enemies so they are useless against every enemy beyond a certain level anyway, not just the nullies, and the bubbles affect every warframe ability, not just the casters'.

i don't like that they spawn with their bubbles fully up, especially with void fissures. as i valkyr and mesa and just generally melee a lot, if a nullifier spawns right on top of me, i'm pretty much dead. on valkyr because i'll get killed by hysteria switching off in the middle of a bunch of enemies. on mesa because i'm squishy, my melee will be bugged _{(this bug hasn't been fixed since mesa release, gj DE)} and my protection abilities will get switched off. if i'm melee-ing in a high-level game and a nully spawns away from me, i can handle that, but if it's right on top of me, see above point.

re "passive" gameplay and "overpowered" abilities. i'd blame a lot of this on the mission types and level design (and the entire game concept tbh). anyone remember archwing defense? best example of bad level design in relation to archwing there ever was, but that's a bit of an outlier. they probably want some variety in mission types, so there will always be some "defend something for x time" missions, and that's ok. the problem comes when the game's concept itself comes into the picture.

this game is a "few vs many pve mobs" type of game, and a lot of the rewards for playing come from being able to do as much damage and kill as many mobs as quickly as possible, because they:

• give xp for levelling up gear
• drop resources and mods and parts
• (and life support for survival)
• will eventually kill you if you give them the time/opportunity to do so
• will eventually cause you to fail the mission if allowed to cap/destroy objectives

there's also the fact that to give the game longevity, many aspects of the game are repetitive and rng-dependent. every time we forma something, it needs re-levelling up (just so we can forma it again). every time we do a void fissure mission or a raid, there's a good chance we don't get what we want. so we end up playing the same missions and fighting the same mobs and dumb AI again and again. after the initial learning phase and novelty wears off, because of the game's design, players will always find the most efficient and effective ways to mow down enemies with the tools provided by the game designers themselves, because we only have so many hours in a day to repeat missions over and over.

and because we're super sick OP space ninjas, we have super sick OP abilities. if we put in the time and effort to mod and repeatedly forma our frames, we have ultra sick OP abilities, and that is what sets warframe apart from all the other multiplayer/co-op shooter grinder games out there. i don't want to be just another footsoldier in a battlefield game. i'd rather be OP and be able to mow down hordes of enemies and have fun doing it. it's a PVE game anyway. why worry about us being OP? it is the lack of interesting and varied content that is the problem.

sure, when you're new, everything is interesting and varied, and i can think of hundreds of ways i could complete a mission with all the frames and weapons i've stockpiled, but when you've done that extermination mission for the 100th time trying to get that one fragor prime part, screw stealth runs for fun. screw trying out new weapons. the frustration is what makes us run mirage + synoid simulor (or ember + WoF at lower levels) and cheesing our way through. nerfing the frames, abilities and/or energy system isn't going to stop us from playing "passively" or using "overpowered" abilities because we will always find the most time-efficient way of getting our rewards. it is the repetitiveness and game design that needs changing.

TL,DR: nullifiers are only a symptom of the problem, though there are minor aspects i don't like. the main problem is boring, repetitive gameplay and players will always find the most efficient and effective ways to mow down enemies simply out of frustration. otherwise, being an OP warframe is funner than being a nobody footsoldier.

p.s. nice effort from thread starter, but i doubt DE will rebalance the entire energy system and all the warframes with it.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Shy0

[Ditto132]

11 minutes ago, Shy0 said:

those arguing to just run in and melee nullies to death probably don't play a lot of level 70+ content (or they use naramon focus, which is the real cheese)

I personally don't like to use melee alot. But I really wonder if people have tried doing a slide attack into the bubble to kill the nullifier with like 3+ Corpus Tech spamming their Supra and Detron at you...

18 minutes ago, Shy0 said:

and because we're super sick OP space ninjas, we have super sick OP abilities. if we put in the time and effort to mod and repeatedly forma our frames, we have ultra sick OP abilities, and that is what sets warframe apart from all the other multiplayer/co-op shooter grinder games out there. i don't want to be just another footsoldier in a battlefield game. i'd rather be OP and be able to mow down hordes of enemies and have fun doing it. it's a PVE game anyway. why worry about us being OP? it is the lack of interesting and varied content that is the problem.

One of the major reasons people enjoy playing role-playing type of games is so that the player feel empowered. Levels and experience points are meant for rewarding progression, to make it easier to get through for those who already experienced the contents before. People have to understand that players who spent lot of time and effort in leveling, forma'ing, obtaining certain mods and bother to figuring out and try out some interesting and powerful builds, are entitled to that "Cheese" that people see. If not, why bother with even having levels, forma for weapons and frames? They earned them.

33 minutes ago, Shy0 said:

but when you've done that extermination mission for the 100th time trying to get that one fragor prime part, screw stealth runs for fun. screw trying out new weapons. the frustration is what makes us run mirage + synoid simulor (or ember + WoF at lower levels) and cheesing our way through.

It is what make new players and players who invested a lot in game different. Veteran players already got enough experience/knowledge to be come as efficient as possible.
Just like in life, when you get used to routines, you would try to be as efficient as possible(in term of time and effort). Most routines are boring anyway, you just want the end result. After getting enough experience/knowledge, it is usually when you start to min/max-ing.

Routine: Travel to work. Goal: Reach office.
Routine: Eat the same lunch. Goal: To get energy.

Want another life example? Here:

 

[Fuemego]

9 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

No. I am limiting the frequency of use of SOME abilities for the sake of balance, not shutting them down completely the way Nullies do. It is a clamp on player output rather than rendering an entire aspect of gameplay irrelevant.

Only two energy bars, only one of which you really need to manage any differently. It's just stamina applied to some abilities and melee channeling/blocking. This would not change the horde shooter nature of the game, and I think it would actually go a long way toward making it more stable.

Adding my change to nullifiers without making my changes to powers (or equivalent changes) may as well remove them from the game.

Why try to shut down feedback on feedback forums? This is a place to talk about change, not resort to a "don't like it, don't play it" non-argument. Obviously I don't dislike the game. I just think it can improve, and would like to do what I can to help facilitate that. 

Hey now, I was just giving feedback on the situation.

[SenorClipClop]

The simplest way to solve the power/energy/overpowered problem would be, I believe, to give every power a cooldown timer. You can only use each power so frequently. The timer would be typically lower for #1s and #2s, so Ember could still spam Fireball everywhere, and ultimates would have a long timer so Saryn's Miasma requires the player to properly set up her poison to make the power really count.

How would players feel about this?

 

(And then something could happen with Nullifiers, I guess.)

[DiabolusUrsus]

4 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

A lot of abilities in the game are useless if you can't use them constantly and whenever you want. Most of the toggleble abilities are like that. If we had like 10 or more abilities per warframe and more variety of gameplay situations in the game, locking some on the more powerful abilities behind a cooldown or mana restriction would make sense. But we have a wave-spawn game with hords of dumb (sorry DE) and seriously imbalanced enemies. You can't fight warhammer with a broomstick.

And that should already be addressed by

a) abilities being placed into "flux" or "saturated" based on how they function rather than where they are in the kit...

b) enemies eventually being adjusted as well. We have OP enemies because we have OP players. When one of those changes the other must.

2 hours ago, Shy0 said:

*snip*

• I agree that nullifiers are a symptom, I think I disagree on the fundamental nature of the ailment.
• I agree that mission types factor into it, but they are not the root cause. Lack of gameplay depth is. I strongly believe that people would be less compelled to loot-grind as efficiently and lazily as possible if they weren't playing just for the loot.
• Your "OP" quibble is addressed in the OP. You can't have gameplay that is fair until you get rid of the "overpowered." I want gameplay that is fair, thus I don't want us to be overpowered. If you don't care about that, that's fine. It would come down to a fundamental difference of opinion that I doubt would be possible to resolve.
• Please note that I would like to do everything possible to preserve the "I am a powerful demigod" feel the game currently has under the proposed system. I just find it unfortunate that people can only seem to imagine "I am a powerful demigod" as "without a shred of moderation."

1 hour ago, Ditto132 said:

One of the major reasons people enjoy playing role-playing type of games is so that the player feel empowered. Levels and experience points are meant for rewarding progression, to make it easier to get through for those who already experienced the contents before. People have to understand that players who spent lot of time and effort in leveling, forma'ing, obtaining certain mods and bother to figuring out and try out some interesting and powerful builds, are entitled to that "Cheese" that people see. If not, why bother with even having levels, forma for weapons and frames? They earned them.

Again, please note that I would like to preserve the feel of player empowerment, and only want to bring that empowerment a degree of sanity that will enable a more colorful game in terms of enemy design.

Also no, players are not entitled to cheese... They feel entitled to cheese. Big difference.

1 hour ago, Fuemego said:

Hey now, I was just giving feedback on the situation.

Don't give me that BS. Your comment was non-constructive, dismissive, and completely pointless.

The point remains: This is a feedback forum, where people talk about the game and how they want it to change. Telling people to just go play a different game instead of offering feedback is antithetical to the purpose of feedback forums.

And no, what you wrote does not in any way, shape, or form qualify as "feedback" following the working definition within the forum guidelines.

[DiabolusUrsus]

21 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

The simplest way to solve the power/energy/overpowered problem would be, I believe, to give every power a cooldown timer. You can only use each power so frequently. The timer would be typically lower for #1s and #2s, so Ember could still spam Fireball everywhere, and ultimates would have a long timer so Saryn's Miasma requires the player to properly set up her poison to make the power really count.

How would players feel about this?

 

(And then something could happen with Nullifiers, I guess.)

This has been suggested multiple times, and the Devs have come down with a decisive "no." 

I agree with them, because how much fun do you have waiting for your Focus active to come off cooldown?

[AperoBeltaTwo]

5 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

And that should already be addressed by

a) abilities being placed into "flux" or "saturated" based on how they function rather than where they are in the kit...

b) enemies eventually being adjusted as well. We have OP enemies because we have OP players. When one of those changes the other must.

This is a PVE game m8. (Conclave is a different game) You are supposed to be overpowered in a game like this. I might be wrong, but me myself honestly don't think that this game needs even less intuitive system with massive nerf-rework of everything and everyone for the sake of an extremely dubious and hypothetical "fun" that would suddenly befall us after all these changes. I just don't see how your system would change anything apart from nerfing stuff and making everything way less fun. It is fun to use abilities. It is fun to lock down rooms. It is fun to disarm everyone in 50m radius. It's just fun m8. Ofc there are some totally brain-dead combinations in the game but when you take random warframes in high-lvl sorties it is fun. It's not more complicated system we need but more fun stuff to do in missions. And no, I'm not talking about raids - they are goddamn awful and non-intuitive, and JV is OVERLY complicated. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

11 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

This has been suggested multiple times, and the Devs have come down with a decisive "no." 

I agree with them, because how much fun do you have waiting for your Focus active to come off cooldown?

Your system wouldn't be much different m8

[DiabolusUrsus]

5 hours ago, Eglareth said:

ok, to be honest, I didn't read that conversation after the first answer ;)

And I didn't assume you did/ expect to you. Just meant that as an informative "here's the conclusion on that point, you can find the details if you want them."

5 hours ago, Eglareth said:

I'm on your side in the way that the ult shouldn't be godmode, but I frankly like the fanciness of the most ults and warframe imo doesn't have enough action-customization to be wanting to cut the usage of its most spectacular moves. Psychologically, that's almost tautologic: biggest boom gets the most applause - althouh I often enough am on the side of not abusing the frequency of great effects...

Yes, but I think the problem isn't the problem. Passive playing might be part of the problem but imo the underlying reason to this might be more in the direction of grinding xp for the fourth time for that four-times-formaed-grenadelauncher after grinding xp for that 3-formaed grenadelauncher from some months ago after grinding... you understand my reasoning I think. And imo that problem in itself isn't solvable in the state this game is in. The game relies solely on people's desire to get the most out of their frames and weapons and staying willing to do that. Trying to end the efficient ways to earn xp is killing that game. A slight change to that might already improve that feeling: why don't we abolish the level 30-frontier and let the weapon/frame level as long as the player wants? you can always use the formae to "unlock" the new stage of experience in the weapon modwise, but having an xp-progression with an open end instead of having it reset 3-5times is not a nice effect. And that change is purely cosmetical.

I for one play because I want to. But I also see the difference between warframe and (in my case) Planetside 2, where I go online without wanting to get another weapon or upgrade etc but simply because running arount with so many players is fun. But as you mentioned later: that's your view on things... Even though I think we (or most of the folks on this thread) share some concern about a boredom-factor of the game, I don't think that that what you call passive gaming is the problem. Quite on the contrary, I think that taking that option away might become a problem - as has happened with the endless void missions.

I agree. The game can't successfully address the issue of relying "solely on people's desire to get the most out of their gear" without fundamental changes. However, the devs have repeatedly attempted to do just that by stamping out farming spots or farming combinations. 

Also, Focus was supposed to be the "progression past the cap," but that system is horrendously minimal and clunky. I've got more to say on Focus, but that's another thread entirely.

6 hours ago, Eglareth said:

I'm sorry if this is a language barrier on my side, but what would you define as the meta of warframe? If I understand correctly, it encompasses 4-6 instead of 1-2 formae on gear and building to get the last bit of power out of it and synergies etc? So you're saying that you don't get the gear you want without building more for efficiency instead of fun? If so, we have a shared experience :) Although especially in warframe I don't experience it. It's more like I had that problems in many mmos where one isn't taken to a raid/dungeon when she doen't use the fotm-build. And yes, I see such a factor in warframe in sorties where bringing banshee is frowned upon... but normally I - especially with so much time and therefore resources ingame - have so many alternatives here that that doesn't bother me... (but that's me)

I simply mean that more of the new game content that gets released is balanced around cheesing to win. Can you play a lot of the game without cheese? Sure. But you'd be hard-pressed to do things like Tac Alerts or Sorties without cheese, and some characters are practically useless without others picking up the slack. I'm not talking about player contempt for gear choice, I'm talking about the "meta" (which is supposed to be the optimal, head-of-the-pack build/strategy) fast becoming "normal" gameplay. 

For example: Min-maxers decide they want to go 6 hours in T4 survival. They do that, then come back requesting balance changes to enable them to go 8 hours. Or they attempt to shoot down balance discussions because nerfing OP gear would prevent them from hitting 6 hours. Yet they forget that they're not entitled to reaching 6 hours any more than they are to reaching 4... because endless was never supposed to be balanced. 

Put another way, the game balance is being defined in terms of the optimal "meta" builds, when it really shouldn't be.

6 hours ago, Eglareth said:

Yes, I understand that :) But your changes, if implemented, would change the experience for everyone and that means everyone has to live with what you think is better for fun - which is not a bad thing and quite factually, which is what happens all the time. That's why we're here: so that everyone's opinion can be brought to the best solution (which is more a marketing sentence as it is realistic, but let's stick to that ;) )

 I feel critizised - as should you or, to be more precise, your idea. That's what I wanted. I don't feel offended, so no problems there :) I (and many of the other posters here I think) take this discussion as an oportunity to start from your well-thought idea and playing with it either until we find a version we all can live with or until the discussion discovers that the problem is something else (more my point of view ;) ). Either way, I find it very constructive so far.

Nullifiers don't bother me much... yes, they can be unnerving, but as you said (I think): it's a very short change of playstyle and then I'm back to hack'n'slash. The only thing I don't like about them is that rate of fire is the only fast way to get rid of them without going into the globe.

And I understand that, but any fundamental change to the game as you say affects everyone. So I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to give extra consideration to people with different opinions when making their own suggestions. I try to do that anyway, but it's a humongous chore.

No matter what changes, somebody will always feel tyrannized.

[achromos]

30 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

The simplest way to solve the power/energy/overpowered problem would be, I believe, to give every power a cooldown timer. You can only use each power so frequently. The timer would be typically lower for #1s and #2s, so Ember could still spam Fireball everywhere, and ultimates would have a long timer so Saryn's Miasma requires the player to properly set up her poison to make the power really count.

How would players feel about this?

 

(And then something could happen with Nullifiers, I guess.)

How would I feel about it?  I'd consider giving Destiny a try and put warframe down until it reverted because the main reason I play warframe is for the freedom and feel of the powers.  Destiny is a shooter with a dash of power and while it can be fun, it's not warframe and I don't play destiny for a reason.  I don't like the Focus system BECAUSE of how restrictive it is and at the end of the day it either turns into a glorified passive, OR a panic button because I know I'm going to die.

 

People are barking up the wrong tree as a whole in my opinion on this 'overpowered player' type deal.    It's more that the AI needs to be smarter.  Not all the AI, but in general we need AI that will flank, hide in bubbles, hit alarms, bring in harder hitting enemies to respond to the strength of the tenno as is right now.  I've seen this game is a Space version of Dynasty Warriors, and that's why I play this game.

I don't play this game to get into 1v1 combat with a Lancer and get exhausted.  I enjoy, I love, I adore being able to mow through ranks and legions of them and I especially adore doing long survivals and getting to the point where if I make a single mistake I will die, but I can still damage them just as much.

 

Anyway, the ONLY faction that has a chance at challenging the tennos power is the corpus, and that's because they have visibly adapted to how we play as a whole.  I remember back in 2013 when corpus basically had nothing, they were paper.  Now they have Nullifiers, Comba, and Scrambus, not to mention Bursa as well as Sapper Osprey, seriously don't leave those things alive for more then a second especially at level 100 or higher. 

What I'm saying is that the Grineer need their OWN versions of those enemy types above and they need to be summoned more often to respond to the use of powers to MAKE people change their playstyle, to make us Demi-Gods respond.  The only thing I say is to make sure that these units always are visible to us, and we can respond skillfully to take them down instead of a instant "All your energy is gone because you cannot watch 4 directions at once and tie your shoes"  The Pinging noise that the Comba and Scrambus need to be louder, and the Grineer need their own aside from the Bombard which is the ONLY enemy they have which stands out to me in their faction as threatening. 

 

I hope TWW gives Grineer their own units that aren't just "Insert Slash Proc, Fire Proc, or Bombard here"

I would love to see the grineer queens actually adapt their forces TO the tenno like the Corpus have over the years.  As it is, the Grineer have just been adding more slash damage, or fire damage (and cats) to their arsenal.

[DiabolusUrsus]

5 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

This is a PVE game m8. (Conclave is a different game) You are supposed to be overpowered in a game like this. I might be wrong, but me myself honestly don't think that this game needs even less intuitive system with massive nerf-rework of everything and everyone for the sake of an extremely dubious and hypothetical "fun" that would suddenly befall us after all these changes. I just don't see how your system would change anything apart from nerfing stuff and making everything way less fun. It is fun to use abilities. It is fun to lock down rooms. It is fun to disarm everyone in 50m radius. It's just fun m8. Ofc there are some totally brain-dead combinations in the game but when you take random warframes in high-lvl sorties it is fun. It's not more complicated system we need but more fun stuff to do in missions. And no, I'm not talking about raids - they are goddamn awful and non-intuitive, and JV is OVERLY complicated. 

"PvE, therefore imbalance is fine" is a terrible argument.

Witcher 2 was a great PvE game where the player could easily feel powerful and have fun while not being overpowered.

Magicka was a great (mostly) PvE game where the player could easily feel powerful and have fun while not being overpowered.

Devil May Cry was a great PvE franchise where the player could easily feel powerful and have fun while not being overpowered.

The compelling gameplay of those games would fall apart if the player character could cause every enemy in a 50m radius to freeze solid continuously at a whim, and such is the case for Warframe.

4 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Your system wouldn't be much different m8

Elaborate.

Because cooldowns prevent recasts while my system does not, which is the core issue the devs took with cooldowns IIRC.

[Marthrym]

Very interesting read.

Basically you advocate that we F!CKING FINALLY get rid of this monstrosity of "All or nothing" moronism the game has been stuck with for so long in favour of nuanced, smart, active, challenging but fair gameplay. +1 doesn't come remotely close to how much I agree and support this.

The only problem is... many have tried before. Starting 2 years ago. With threads so well thought-out and elaborate, and a huge support from the community, that all the devs would have had to do to finally bring balance and challenge to their game would have been to read, understand, and then translate into the game, adding their sauce to it of course. Would have taken time and effort, a few sacrifices here and there, but the result would have been oh so worth it. And yet... nothing. Not even an aknowledgement of the players' worries for almost TWO freaking years. I'm tired man. Tired of waiting, tired of hoping. That's why I don't think your thread will change anything despite of how well it describes all that is wrong with the game. The devs seem too stubborn and stuck in their ways to me. I still fully support it though. The energy system you propose seems really neat, parts of it remind me a bit of others I've seen in a few games I've played in the past.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Marthrym

[DiabolusUrsus]

3 minutes ago, achromos said:

People are barking up the wrong tree as a whole in my opinion on this 'overpowered player' type deal.    It's more that the AI needs to be smarter.  Not all the AI, but in general we need AI that will flank, hide in bubbles, hit alarms, bring in harder hitting enemies to respond to the strength of the tenno as is right now.  I've seen this game is a Space version of Dynasty Warriors, and that's why I play this game.

Question: What is the point of improved enemy tactics, flanking, etc., when the enemy spends most of their time suspended in the air/frozen solid/disarmed/otherwise unable to fight back?

For something like new tactics and attacks to take effect, the enemy has to actually be able to put them to use.

[achromos]

Just now, DiabolusUrsus said:

Question: What is the point of improved enemy tactics, flanking, etc., when the enemy spends most of their time suspended in the air/frozen solid/disarmed/otherwise unable to fight back?

For something like new tactics and attacks to take effect, the enemy has to actually be able to put them to use.

Like i said, they need to bring more Comba, Scrambus, Nullifier type enemies to the fight that can counter these effects if not properly killed before they can help their allies.  that's what I'm suggesting.  More Enemy types. 

[DiabolusUrsus]

13 minutes ago, achromos said:

Like i said, they need to bring more Comba, Scrambus, Nullifier type enemies to the fight that can counter these effects if not properly killed before they can help their allies.  that's what I'm suggesting.  More Enemy types. 

So, because you don't want to give up the freedom of casting your powers whenever you want, you want to introduce more enemies that shut down said powers entirely... without changing the fact that enemies are balanced around us using our powers to shut them down?

That does not sound like an enjoyable experience to me, and it definitely sounds like an illusion of choice.

At least if we couldn't be expected to CC everything continuously, they would need to balance our survivability options around non-constant enemy lock-down.

[Marthrym]

27 minutes ago, achromos said:

Like i said, they need to bring more Comba, Scrambus, Nullifier type enemies to the fight that can counter these effects if not properly killed before they can help their allies.  that's what I'm suggesting.  More Enemy types. 

You realize you're shooting yourself in the foot with this?^^'

You're basically asking that we further break the game and tip the scales even more towards an all or nothing? How about we try something that makes sense instead, hm?^^'

Edited August 21, 2016 by Marthrym

[DiabolusUrsus]

25 minutes ago, Marthrym said:

Very interesting read.

Basically you advocate that we F!CKING FINALLY get rid of this monstrosity of "All or nothing" moronism the game has been stuck with for so long in favour of nuanced, smart, active, challenging but fair gameplay. +1 doesn't come remotely close to how much I agree and support this.

The only problem is... many have tried before. Starting 2 years ago. With threads so well thought-out and elaborate, and a huge support from the community, that all the devs would have had to do to finally bring balance and challenge to their game would have been to read, understand, and then translate into the game, adding their sauce to it of course. Would have taken time and effort, a few sacrifices here and there, but the result would have been oh so worth it. And yet... nothing. Not even an aknowledgement of the players' worries for almost TWO freaking years. I'm tired man. Tired of waiting, tired of hoping. That's why I don't think your thread will change anything despite of how well it describes all that is wrong with the game. The devs seem too stubborn and stuck in their ways to me. I still fully support it though. The energy system you propose seems really neat, parts of it remind me a bit of others I've seen in a few games I've played in the past.

Thanks.

I know full well that it's foolish of me, but I actually have a small sliver of hope: A while back I wrote a huge thread on overhauling Dark Sectors into a proper end-game set apart from simple node-grinding in collaboration with Phaenur. We got a ton of positive comments, and I arrogantly PMed the thread to the devs after it went several pages without a single bit of "no, I don't think that would be a good idea."

The general premise of the concept was emphasizing exploration as the primary goal, using existing mission objectives to affect the environment to allow exploration, and starting enemies out as tough but scaling them more slowly.

Years later, Steve says that their upcoming changes to Dark Sectors will make it more about exploration.

Is it likely that my thread specifically inspired this change? Maybe not... but I want to believe that this shows the devs will take note of well thought-out ideas and take them as inspiration for the general direction of changes.

Do I expect this system to be implemented verbatim? No. I would still like to see something (anything) taking the combat system in a direction like this.

[Fuemego]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

And that should already be addressed by

a) abilities being placed into "flux" or "saturated" based on how they function rather than where they are in the kit...

b) enemies eventually being adjusted as well. We have OP enemies because we have OP players. When one of those changes the other must.

• I agree that nullifiers are a symptom, I think I disagree on the fundamental nature of the ailment.
• I agree that mission types factor into it, but they are not the root cause. Lack of gameplay depth is. I strongly believe that people would be less compelled to loot-grind as efficiently and lazily as possible if they weren't playing just for the loot.
• Your "OP" quibble is addressed in the OP. You can't have gameplay that is fair until you get rid of the "overpowered." I want gameplay that is fair, thus I don't want us to be overpowered. If you don't care about that, that's fine. It would come down to a fundamental difference of opinion that I doubt would be possible to resolve.
• Please note that I would like to do everything possible to preserve the "I am a powerful demigod" feel the game currently has under the proposed system. I just find it unfortunate that people can only seem to imagine "I am a powerful demigod" as "without a shred of moderation."

Again, please note that I would like to preserve the feel of player empowerment, and only want to bring that empowerment a degree of sanity that will enable a more colorful game in terms of enemy design.

Also no, players are not entitled to cheese... They feel entitled to cheese. Big difference.

Don't give me that BS. Your comment was non-constructive, dismissive, and completely pointless.

The point remains: This is a feedback forum, where people talk about the game and how they want it to change. Telling people to just go play a different game instead of offering feedback is antithetical to the purpose of feedback forums.

And no, what you wrote does not in any way, shape, or form qualify as "feedback" following the working definition within the forum guidelines.

I mean, that's your opinion, but I respect it. And in no way, shape or form did I tell anyone to just play a different game. I simply asked a question and I'll go ahead and ask another: What's your definition of "feedback"? Also please don't assume that I'm against the post topic, I actually agree with some parts, but I refuse to retract my earlier replies which I'll ask of anyone in the community. From my understanding though, you seem to be very committed to Warframe as a whole and are suggesting ways to make it better through your own perspective and understanding of the game and how others play as well from your post to your responsive replies.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Fuemego