How to achieve game balance while maintaining Warframe's "feel".

[Mr.Lube]

General Intro:

  This has been a very popular point of discussion for the past couple of months, and rightfully so. Currently, high level content consists of enemies that are too powerful to directly fight; as a result we resort to basically "turning the enemies off" with large amounts of CC. This isn't fun, this isn't Warframe. How can I be a super bada** space commando when my enemies can't fight back? We have come to a crossroads where nerfing enemies will make the game too easy, and nerfing Warframes will make the game too difficult. The problem needs to be tackled from the ground up, and from both sides.

We will be taking a look at both ends of the problem; Warframe energy/ability management, and enemy scaling. These two systems go hand in hand with each other, you cannot change one without affecting the other. Therefore, both of my proposed solutions hinge on each other. Let's get started.

 

Warframe Ability Management:

Spoiler

Intro/Goals:

     With this new energy system my goal is to give players an abundance of energy while regulating how much they use at a time. In addition, I plan on making energy less valuable in order to free up space in builds so power efficiency is not always mandatory. If this goes as planned, people won't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for every last dose of energy.

The Solution:

     - Warframes now have energy levels in the high thousands. Around 5,000-10,000 energy per Warframe.

     - Warframes start missions with full energy. (I forgot to add this in the first time, but this is very important)

     - Each ability cast will generate "Overheat". Overheat will have a cap unique to each Warframe, much like energy. Overheat % will be shown by a separate bar, much like energy.

     - Overheat will slowly decline after an amount of time of no ability usage.

     - Overheat cannot be modded. This ensures that overheat does not become the "new energy". (The overheat cap will be generous though.)

     - Once Overheat cap is reached players will still be able to use their abilities, but side effects will ensue. Side effects may include self damage on cast, doubled energy cost, ect.

     - Radial abilities will have their effectiveness spread out across each enemy evenly. This will prevent large AOE abilities from turning every enemy on the map off; and convert them into abilities that give the player a few moments of "breathing room". (This will make more sense once you read the enemy rework.)

     - Energy Orbs no longer exist. Relying on RNG to supply you with a valuable resource is not the way to go. Energy could either generate slowly over time (much like E. Siphon), or energy could be generated dynamically through player action.

 

Conclusion:

     I wanted to get rid of the "naked" feeling of being out of energy, since this game heavily relies on Warframe abilities. I wanted to embrace that concept, but within moderation. Players will still have to monitor their energy, but it won't be the focal point of the game. Spamming abilities is fun, it's one of the main reason people play this game. I didn't want to take that away, but I wanted to regulate it. When using abilities constantly, players will need to take a short break and change their approach (depending on the frame), until the Overheat bar goes down.

 

Enemy Rework:

Spoiler

Intro/Goals:

     Enemy scaling is broke, we all know this. Normal enemies turn into super beings in a matter of minutes and it just makes no sense. Warframe needs to decide what type of enemies it wants. Does it want a moderate amount of strong enemies? Or does it want a massive amount of weak enemies? Right now we have a massive amount of strong enemies and it is too much to handle. I plan on lowering the enemies' individual effectiveness, while improving their effectiveness in groups. This will fit with the theme of "strength in numbers" and make them feel more like an army.

The Solution:

     Disclaimer: Do not assume the values I am using are the same as the current build. This idea will need new damage/health values, this is just the structure.

 - Individual Scaling

     By "individual scaling" I am referring to the individual stats of an enemy. Enemies will scale based off of 3 areas; accuracy/health/protections. This means that damage will not scale. The only areas that will increase with enemy level are accuracy, health, and protections. Let's go into more detail;

(Accuracy) - A level 1 Grineer Lancer will do the same damage per shot that a level 70 Grineer Lancer does. However, a level 1 Grineer Lancer will miss the majority of his shots while the level 70 hits most of his. This makes it seem as if the enemies themselves are improving, rather than just their stats. The amount of damage you take will be based off of how much you get hit.

(Health) - As enemies level up so will their total health pool. This isn't much of a stretch from what we already have, but it will need to scale at a much more gradual rate than it currently does. Keep in mind that health scaling is separate from Protection scaling.

(Protection) - By "protections" I am referring to Armor and Shields. Protection scaling will be based off of % health values. Enemies will have a percentage of their health covered in protections based on enemy level. For instance, a level 30 Corpus Crewman will have 25% of his health covered in protections. On top of this, protections will each have their own effect. Portions of health covered with Armor will receive damage reduction, and portions of health covered in shields will regenerate over time. (Basically, Overwatch).

 

 - Group Scaling

     By "group scaling" I am referring to enemies' ability to work together as a unit. As seen above, most of the proposed changes are direct nerfs to enemies' individual effectiveness. Now it's time to make them feel like an army. Since the amount of damage the player takes will be based off the amount they get hit, enemies will scale in numbers.

(Strength in Numbers) - As enemy level increases, the density and rate of enemy spawns will increase as well.

(Squads) - Enemies will travel in squads during combat. Squad numbers will increase depending on the mission/enemy level.

(Squad Commanders) - All squads will have a commanding unit; Corpus will get a new unit, and Grineer Commanders will no longer be Loki enthusiasts. Squad commanders will give the members of their squad an accuracy buff. On top of this, squad commanders will be able to provide cover and mark targets for death. Marking a target (Tenno) will cause all members of their squad to focus fire on the target.

 

Closing Thoughts:

     The energy management changes should promote a healthy amount of ability spam and ensure that the player very rarely gets that feeling of being on empty. Though somewhat extreme, I believe that the change to radial abilities is for the better, seeing as what we have now gave us Nullifiers. If these changes were implemented Nullifiers would no longer be necessary to keep us in check.

As for the enemy rework; I believe that it will add some more depth and immersion into Warframe's gameplay. Targeting priority targets will become a large factor in a teams success (which means a buff for Snipers). On top of this, Warframe will still have that chaotic "horde" feel with the amount of enemy spawns.

 

 

What do you think? Did I leave anything out? Let me know of any loopholes that need plugging. If you see something you don't agree with, let me know so I can improve my idea. Thanks.

Edited September 9, 2016 by Mr.Lube
Numerous revisions and clarifications.

[TaylorsContraction]

I think this is incomplete or too simplified. Enemies already scale the way you describe but also with damage which you wish to omit. You bring up the point that we can cc enemies to a point where it's as if they straightu even there, but how this will be handled isn't explained well either.

Limiting ability effects based on enemies hit and increasing # of enemies? What about our crazy damage? I'm a bit dense so maybe you can elaborate. As for energy, if you want an overheat mechanic we can just have that without the energy itself. It will achieve the same result you describe. I'm all for introducing a "cool down" mechanic that prevents us from casting abilities over and over, but balancing this isn't an easy task.

[blazinvire]

You could probably fix CC introducing an intuitive diminishing returns; realistically, if someone is using the same attack over and over, you're obviously going to start adapting.  I mean how many times would an Excal be able to use Radial Blind before enemies start keeping an eye on him and shielding their eyes and such?
So, a diminishing return that can be reset if you drastically change you tactics enough, like jumping on them or casting enough different abilities or attacking someone else.

Part of me feels like enemy health shouldn't increase, and it should be that they're just being equipped with stronger gear.  Granted enemies like Grineer might have augmented soldiers who would have more health, but there'd be limit.  But Armour and Shields would probably need a bit of an update to make them more interesting to defeat.

[Mr.Lube]

On 9/3/2016 at 4:00 PM, TaylorsContraction said:

I think this is incomplete or too simplified. Enemies already scale the way you describe but also with damage which you wish to omit. You bring up the point that we can cc enemies to a point where it's as if they straightu even there, but how this will be handled isn't explained well either.

Limiting ability effects based on enemies hit and increasing # of enemies? What about our crazy damage? I'm a bit dense so maybe you can elaborate. As for energy, if you want an overheat mechanic we can just have that without the energy itself. It will achieve the same result you describe. I'm all for introducing a "cool down" mechanic that prevents us from casting abilities over and over, but balancing this isn't an easy task.

I made some revisions so hopefully it clears some of your concerns up.

As for your energy question; There are so many modifiers and gameplay elements that affect energy. If we remove that, we would have to remove a huge chunk of content. With this, energy is still relevant and can be modded for, you just don't have to if you don't want to.

[Mr.Lube]

On 9/3/2016 at 10:14 PM, blazinvire said:

You could probably fix CC introducing an intuitive diminishing returns; realistically, if someone is using the same attack over and over, you're obviously going to start adapting.  I mean how many times would an Excal be able to use Radial Blind before enemies start keeping an eye on him and shielding their eyes and such?
So, a diminishing return that can be reset if you drastically change you tactics enough, like jumping on them or casting enough different abilities or attacking someone else.

Part of me feels like enemy health shouldn't increase, and it should be that they're just being equipped with stronger gear.  Granted enemies like Grineer might have augmented soldiers who would have more health, but there'd be limit.  But Armour and Shields would probably need a bit of an update to make them more interesting to defeat.

I'm on the edge between diminishing returns and my idea. I think both are good but I'm not sure which I like more.

I feel like health kind of needs to increase, or else the gap between really good weapons and not so good weapons would be non-existant. (Which might be a good thing).

[VoidWraith]

So basically, in place of the stamina bar that is removed, it will be re-added, but renamed Overheat. Only difference is that bar limits the usage of purely Warframe abilities instead of actions (rolling and running/sprinting).
In essence, another resource to manage.

[Mr.Lube]

19 minutes ago, VoidWraith said:

So basically, in place of the stamina bar that is removed, it will be re-added, but renamed Overheat. Only difference is that bar limits the usage of purely Warframe abilities instead of actions (rolling and running/sprinting).
In essence, another resource to manage.

On paper, it is another resource to manage. In theory (and I hope in execution) it is essentially a replacement for energy without completely removing energy from the equation. Energy will be moved from the forefront, to the backdrop while Overheat takes it's place as the main "resource" to be managed.

Overheat is basically everything energy did wrong, done right. You never have the need to run around for blue orbs when you are on empty, you never get the situation where you simply cannot access your abilities, and builds can have something other than the mandatory power efficiency mods since Overheat cannot be modded for.

The only reason energy still has a role (albeit a small one) is because there is so much content that would need to be altered or removed with the removal of energy. In this case, the meta will simply evolve.

[blazinvire]

Hmm... Energy Restores, Energy Orbs, Energy Vampire, Zenurik Passive, Magnet procs, Energy Mods like efficiency, corrupted mods, equilibrium, a simaris mod, Rage, some auxiliary effects like syndicate procs and Saryn's spore-popping Lash, Limbo's Rift, and probably some more vague ones that I can't recall right now.
No wonder DE doesn't want to futz with the energy system X.x...

Still useful though, energy could be that background element you can practically forget on any mission other than endless, which will provide DE that limit to endless missions they seem to be struggling with, rather than a weird enemy scaling curve that has strange effects in other game types.
Also kind of feel like it could provide opportunities, if DE feels like ramping up the awesome they could have proper Ultimate abilities that chew up a thousand or so energy for an epic nuke.

[Mardana]

Nerfing Frames sometimes don't make the game that kind of difficult, but nerfing enemies do make the game too easy, I just found out that Scorpions in Uranus are now slow sprinting like Butchers which kind of break my heart. I know they're so annoying, agile, grappling the crap out of players if they are not careful, and of course, speedy sprinting around makes them feel like what they're made of.

The game itself even stated that female Grineer are highly trained and enchanced with cybernetic parts.

[Mr.Lube]

21 minutes ago, blazinvire said:

Hmm... Energy Restores, Energy Orbs, Energy Vampire, Zenurik Passive, Magnet procs, Energy Mods like efficiency, corrupted mods, equilibrium, a simaris mod, Rage, some auxiliary effects like syndicate procs and Saryn's spore-popping Lash, Limbo's Rift, and probably some more vague ones that I can't recall right now.
No wonder DE doesn't want to futz with the energy system X.x...

My thoughts exactly.

 

21 minutes ago, blazinvire said:

 if DE feels like ramping up the awesome they could have proper Ultimate abilities that chew up a thousand or so energy for an epic nuke.

Focus perhaps?

[-CCC-Secret]

One of the few people that actually suggest to fix both. We need more people like you.

Overheat seems like a neat idea. It will probably give roles a better purpose, as casters will have higher Overheat capacity compared to tanks I assume. About increasing energy to the thousands, I really don't like to manage huge numbers, but if you increase cap, you have increase energy gained. I'm also thinking about magnetic procs and how it interacts with Overheat.

As for fixing enemies, I'm not sure where to stand on this.

Great idea, but I feel it's still missing something.

[DSpite]

Why not use our Reactors as part of the mechanic, for the "overheat" thingy? You could basically just eliminate Energy balls altogether.

At full charge, they make better use of power, hence more effective when you fire abilities. For sustained abilities, the higher the reactor charge, the higher the damage output. Right now "damage" is the same regardless of energy pool being on 5000 or 50, as long as the ability is running.

You make the re-charge mechanic for Reactors non linear, meaning that they can recover from low energy to medium energy quite fast, but taper off after that, like Cap recharge in EVE Online.

This allows firing off low energy stuff quite fast, but reduces effectiveness of Ultimate's unless you wait for a higher charge - but can still fire them off anyway if you needed to, they would just be LESS effective - and keeping up sustained abilities makes them gradually less effective. If you are wiping a map running full speed at the start, you will only be injuring things later on as the Reactor cannot pump as much energy into the ability. You would not even need to have a "casting cost" for WoF, it auto-regulates damage based on remaining charge on the Reactor, so people would be switching on-off a lot more to control damage output, rather then "turn on, wipe everything".

The Mods we have that control Max Power and Efficiency basically shift that curve either forward or upwards to some degree, and increase the starting energy pool of the Reactor. You could even have Mods that apply penalties to it, based on another advantage they give.

Edited September 7, 2016 by DSpite

[Mr.Lube]

20 hours ago, secret9005 said:

One of the few people that actually suggest to fix both. We need more people like you.

Thanks.

20 hours ago, secret9005 said:

Overheat seems like a neat idea. It will probably give roles a better purpose, as casters will have higher Overheat capacity compared to tanks I assume.

You are right to assume this.

20 hours ago, secret9005 said:

I really don't like to manage huge numbers, but if you increase cap, you have increase energy gained. I'm also thinking about magnetic procs and how it interacts with Overheat.

The point of bringing Overheat to the forefront and letting energy take a "backseat" is so that you will very rarely have to manage those high numbers. The only time I could think of where you would have to is if you would be running some sort of specialized negative efficiency build (which could actually be done effectively with this system).

20 hours ago, secret9005 said:

Great idea, but I feel it's still missing something.

If you think of what you feel is missing please let me know so I can make an addition or revision.

[blazinvire]

I like the realism behind the enemy reworks, guns not magically getting stronger, the enemies just getting smarter, more accurate and geared up; I really think aiming at realism does help a lot for finding easy inspiration for balanced game mechanics.
Like Energy Orbs make sense from a game standpoint since you can gain energy by using energy to kill things, so it maintains the flow of the game.  But it begs the question, what the crap are Energy Orbs and why are our enemies just walking around with these things?  Why are they in crates too?  The energy orb system is unreliable and difficult to tweak, and tends to encourage bizarre and unhealthy behaviours that enable a more reliable use, like relying almost entirely on Rage or Energy Restores.

The Radial effects I've been thinking about, and it probably makes sense for the 'targeted AoE' effects like Radial Javelin, where Excal would have to actually aim at and fling a javelin at every enemy in the room, so his effectiveness would understandably drop if he suddenly have to hit 40 people instead of 10.  Whereas abilities like Overload that simply blow up the whole area, it doesn't quite make a whole lot of sense.
I don't know if there are range increments on nukes but it could be an option if not already in use, or a slightly more complicated system where enemies take less damage if they have a friend between them and the center of the AoE and such.

[Mr.Lube]

1 hour ago, blazinvire said:

The Radial effects I've been thinking about, and it probably makes sense for the 'targeted AoE' effects like Radial Javelin, where Excal would have to actually aim at and fling a javelin at every enemy in the room, so his effectiveness would understandably drop if he suddenly have to hit 40 people instead of 10.  Whereas abilities like Overload that simply blow up the whole area, it doesn't quite make a whole lot of sense.
I don't know if there are range increments on nukes but it could be an option if not already in use, or a slightly more complicated system where enemies take less damage if they have a friend between them and the center of the AoE and such.

I just think of it as the ability only has to work harder to hit that many enemies, so it wouldn't be as effective as hitting 1. I'm sure someone can come up with a better solution but the main aspect I'm trying to remove is the whole "press one button and everything stops". I feel like wide area CC should give a couple of moments to breathe instead a couple of minutes for a coffee break.

Stopping enemies for long periods of time also staggers and messes up the flow of combat in my opinion. With my proposed enemy rework there will be no need to completely turn enemies off, so removing it won't be much of a downside.

[-CCC-Secret]

@Mr.Lube another question. How does channeling affect Overheat? Does it drain Overheat overtime? Or drains huge Overheat on cast?

If it drains Overheat overtime, frames such as Mesa, Banshee, Excalibur and so on, will have a hard time keeping themselves alive.

Or it can take up a huge chunk of Overheat while it's active. Maybe half of their Overheat capacity or something?

Edited September 8, 2016 by secret9005

[Burnthesteak87]

On 3/9/2016 at 9:31 PM, Mr.Lube said:

What do you think? Did I leave anything out? Let me know of any loopholes that need plugging. Thanks.

Great Post. +1

■ About Enemy Groups I ended up with ideas similar to yours: they should work by team, there must be weak enemies (underlings) easy to wipe out and harder enemies (leaders), working together to make the fight involving more strategy.
I thought about something like "when Leaders dies, underlings get a bonus, when underlings die, leaders gets a bonus" mechanic, to stimulate and challenge the player, avoiding the mob-mess the game is actually.

■ About Energy, your idea is pretty, but I feel the real problem is another: Energy Generation.
Actually you can run low Energy and find none or being full and able to spam.
Energy Orbs RNG dropping randomly from enemies must stop exhisting.
Tennos must have a Flow and Windows of Power mechanic similar to how Syndicate Proxies work: you do something, you get Energy for sure.
This way DE can create a flow into the player's gameplay and the player can aim at getting energy by playing in a specific manner.

This could work like the secondary missions or PVP daily challenges: "Kill X enemies by using Y weapon", "Kill X enemies by headshot", etc.
This can also be translated with "attitude" or "characterial alignment", like:
► if a player would like to equip an Explorer challenge, he can gain energy by exploring hidden areas of the map;
► if the player rathers an Acrobat challenge, he can gain energy through using different Parkour moves;
► if a player wants to play a Stealth challenge, he can gain energy by moving X minutes between enemies without being detected or landing stealth kills..

Edited September 8, 2016 by Burnthesteak87

[Mr.Lube]

7 hours ago, secret9005 said:

@Mr.Lube another question. How does channeling affect Overheat? Does it drain Overheat overtime? Or drains huge Overheat on cast?

If it drains Overheat overtime, frames such as Mesa, Banshee, Excalibur and so on, will have a hard time keeping themselves alive.

Or it can take up a huge chunk of Overheat while it's active. Maybe half of their Overheat capacity or something?

I've been struggling with this idea. Since Overheat cannot be modded for, frames that have channeled abilities as a key part of their kit may suffer.

I think the best solution would be to have them generate overheat on cast and not overtime; then add a similar effect to their energy drain that Hysteria has. Energy drained will increase the longer the ability is active. This would make more sense in this system than the current one seeing as we have thousands of energy. It would also ensure that efficiency mods still have a place in builds, while not being a necessity.

[Mr.Lube]

11 hours ago, Burnthesteak87 said:

Great Post. +1

Thank you! Hopefully it doesn't get buried withing the mass amount of shortsighted "nerf nullifiers" threads.

11 hours ago, Burnthesteak87 said:

 "when Leaders dies, underlings get a bonus, when underlings die, leaders gets a bonus" mechanic, to stimulate and challenge the player, avoiding the mob-mess the game is actually.

This is an interesting concept, I'll think about adding this.

 

11 hours ago, Burnthesteak87 said:

■ About Energy, your idea is pretty, but I feel the real problem is another: Energy Generation.
Actually you can run low Energy and find none or being full and able to spam.
Energy Orbs RNG dropping randomly from enemies must stop exhisting.
Tennos must have a Flow and Windows of Power mechanic similar to how Syndicate Proxies work: you do something, you get Energy for sure.
This way DE can create a flow into the player's gameplay and the player can aim at getting energy by playing in a specific manner.

I agree that energy generation should not be RNG based; on the other hand, Energy Generation should not be much of a problem with the mass amount of energy players will have. Regardless, I agree that it needs to change.

[BlackCoMerc]

On 9/3/2016 at 3:31 PM, Mr.Lube said:

General Intro:

  This has been a very popular point of discussion for the past couple of months, and rightfully so. Currently, high level content consists of enemies that are too powerful to directly fight; as a result we resort to basically "turning the enemies off" with large amounts of CC. This isn't fun, this isn't Warframe. How can I be a super bada** space commando when my enemies can't fight back? We have come to a crossroads where nerfing enemies will make the game too easy, and nerfing Warframes will make the game too difficult. The problem needs to be tackled from the ground up, and from both sides.

We will be taking a look at both ends of the problem; Warframe energy/ability management, and enemy scaling. These two systems go hand in hand with each other, you cannot change one without affecting the other. Therefore, both of my proposed solutions hinge on each other. Let's get started.

 

Warframe Ability Management:

  Hide contents

Intro/Goals:

     With this new energy system my goal is to give players an abundance of energy while regulating how much they use at a time. In addition, I plan on making energy less valuable in order to free up space in builds so power efficiency is not always mandatory. If this goes as planned, people won't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for every last dose of energy.

The Solution:

     - Warframes now have energy levels in the high thousands. Around 5,000-10,000 energy per Warframe.

     - Warframes start missions with full energy. (I forgot to add this in the first time, but this is very important)

     - Each ability cast will generate "Overheat". Overheat will have a cap unique to each Warframe, much like energy. Overheat % will be shown by a separate bar, much like energy.

     - Overheat will slowly decline after an amount of time of no ability usage.

     - Overheat cannot be modded. This ensures that overheat does not become the "new energy". (The overheat cap will be generous though.)

     - Once Overheat cap is reached players will still be able to use their abilities, but side effects will ensue. Side effects may include self damage on cast, doubled energy cost, ect.

     - Radial abilities will have their effectiveness spread out across each enemy evenly. This will prevent large AOE abilities from turning every enemy on the map off; and convert them into abilities that give the player a few moments of "breathing room". (This will make more sense once you read the enemy rework.)

 

Conclusion:

     I wanted to get rid of the "naked" feeling of being out of energy, since this game heavily relies on Warframe abilities. I wanted to embrace that concept, but within moderation. Players will still have to monitor their energy, but it won't be the focal point of the game. Spamming abilities is fun, it's one of the main reason people play this game. I didn't want to take that away, but I wanted to regulate it. When using abilities constantly, players will need to take a short break and change their approach (depending on the frame), until the Overheat bar goes down.

 

Enemy Rework:

  Hide contents

Intro/Goals:

     Enemy scaling is broke, we all know this. Normal enemies turn into super beings in a matter of minutes and it just makes no sense. Warframe needs to decide what type of enemies it wants. Does it want a moderate amount of strong enemies? Or does it want a massive amount of weak enemies? Right now we have a massive amount of strong enemies and it is too much to handle. I plan on lowering the enemies' individual effectiveness, while improving their effectiveness in groups. This will fit with the theme of "strength in numbers" and make them feel more like an army.

The Solution:

     Disclaimer: Do not assume the values I am using are the same as the current build. This idea will need new damage/health values, this is just the structure.

 - Individual Scaling

     By "individual scaling" I am referring to the individual stats of an enemy. Enemies will scale based off of 3 areas; accuracy/health/protections. This means that damage will not scale. The only areas that will increase with enemy level are accuracy, health, and protections. Let's go into more detail;

(Accuracy) - A level 1 Grineer Lancer will do the same damage per shot that a level 70 Grineer Lancer does. However, a level 1 Grineer Lancer will miss the majority of his shots while the level 70 hits most of his. This makes it seem as if the enemies themselves are improving, rather than just their stats. The amount of damage you take will be based off of how much you get hit.

(Health) - As enemies level up so will their total health pool. This isn't much of a stretch from what we already have, but it will need to scale at a much more gradual rate than it currently does. Keep in mind that health scaling is separate from Protection scaling.

(Protection) - By "protections" I am referring to Armor and Shields. Protection scaling will be based off of % health values. Enemies will have a percentage of their health covered in protections based on enemy level. For instance, a level 30 Corpus Crewman will have 25% of his health covered in protections. On top of this, protections will each have their own effect. Portions of health covered with Armor will receive damage reduction, and portions of health covered in shields will regenerate over time. (Basically, Overwatch).

 

 - Group Scaling

     By "group scaling" I am referring to enemies' ability to work together as a unit. As seen above, most of the proposed changes are direct nerfs to enemies' individual effectiveness. Now it's time to make them feel like an army. Since the amount of damage the player takes will be based off the amount they get hit, enemies will scale in numbers.

(Strength in Numbers) - As enemy level increases, the density and rate of enemy spawns will increase as well.

(Squads) - Enemies will travel in squads during combat. Squad numbers will increase depending on the mission/enemy level.

(Squad Commanders) - All squads will have a commanding unit; Corpus will get a new unit, and Grineer Commanders will no longer be Loki enthusiasts. Squad commanders will give the members of their squad an accuracy buff. On top of this, squad commanders will be able to provide cover and mark targets for death. Marking a target (Tenno) will cause all members of their squad to focus fire on the target.

 

Closing Thoughts:

     The energy management changes should promote a healthy amount of ability spam and ensure that the player very rarely gets that feeling of being on empty. Though somewhat extreme, I believe that the change to radial abilities is for the better, seeing as what we have now gave us Nullifiers. If these changes were implemented Nullifiers would no longer be necessary to keep us in check.

As for the enemy rework; I believe that it will add some more depth and immersion into Warframe's gameplay. Targeting priority targets will become a large factor in a teams success (which means a buff for Snipers). On top of this, Warframe will still have that chaotic "horde" feel with the amount of enemy spawns.

 

 

What do you think? Did I leave anything out? Let me know of any loopholes that need plugging. Thanks.

Has the makings of a solid foundation for change!

[Mr.Lube]

On 9/9/2016 at 1:55 PM, BlackCoMerc said:

Has the makings of a solid foundation for change!

I've been getting some comments about it feeling incomplete or too simplified. Is there anything you think I should add/revise?

[BlackCoMerc]

1 hour ago, Mr.Lube said:

I've been getting some comments about it feeling incomplete or too simplified. Is there anything you think I should add/revise?

Not that I can think of. 

I do like the overheat system. Or some similar system to cap power use. I think powers are out of control and are utterly trivializing content. I dont enjoy T1 Fissures at all, for instance. Between our armor, shields and power use they are beyond trivial. 

I think the game in general needs a big stat squish. Hard cap scaling, and adjust player power level to match it. Its going to have to happen sooner or later. May as well get it over now.

[blazinvire]

It's always that constant issue of wanting to feel powerful, and loving the freedom of flinging abilities left and right, but also meeting suitable challenge that can stand up to such an onslaught.  I think if Overheat is properly tweaked -which will be infinitely easier than trying to balance a system based on RNG- you could easily fine-tune how spammable you want different abilities; like Fireball might only bump up the heat a little and for the most part the heat dispersion might keep up so you can Fireball all day long with only a mild moderation.

The main thing I liked about energy was the option of going: "I'm going to make a version of Miasma that costs 2000 energy, explodes into a massive wilted orchard that spews corrosive gas absolutely everywhere and chain reactions on deaths to expand the AoE."
It's powerful as hell, but you'd be lucky to cast it more than a few times in an entire mission.  And then they can also set up situations in which such expenditures could be useful, but not necessary: if they found a way to increase the body count of enemies on the floor without murdering fps, they could have in-mission events where you get flooded -you can challenge yourself to fight them all off normally, or trigger an epic nuke.

Overheat could do something similar, in that it simply blasts your gauge full for awhile, but recovering wouldn't be quite as simple; you'd need a Burnout period where you have some lingering side-effect from going WAY over the top of the overheat gauge.

Focus for the epic stuff might make sense, but I felt Focus really should be something else; like some super saiyan mode where your channeling conduits go supernova and you get some new powers for a short duration.

[Mr.Lube]

19 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

I think the game in general needs a big stat squish. Hard cap scaling, and adjust player power level to match it. Its going to have to happen sooner or later. May as well get it over now.

I agree with this. Both side have become so powerful that combat is no longer a back and forth struggle; instead it's a matter of whoever gets hit first, loses.

I like to think of it as a fight between two One Punch Men. Watching that fight would be extremely boring and uneventful. It would either be over in a matter of seconds, or it would be hours of avoiding combat; none of which should be the model of a game.

[BlackCoMerc]

2 hours ago, Mr.Lube said:

I agree with this. Both side have become so powerful that combat is no longer a back and forth struggle; instead it's a matter of whoever gets hit first, loses.

I like to think of it as a fight between two One Punch Men. Watching that fight would be extremely boring and uneventful. It would either be over in a matter of seconds, or it would be hours of avoiding combat; none of which should be the model of a game.

Well said, sums it up perfectly.