Conclave: Energy Regen is Too Damn High

[Lemonpartydragon]

Holy wow. Increasing energy regen from .25/s to .75s was bad enough, but 1.0/s? This is ridiculous.

We get access to a surfeit of powers in exchange for doing literally nothing at all. You can stand in a corner for just under two minutes and get a free ult. This allows overabundant use of CC-heavy abilities, damage boosts, mitigation, and the like, and massively detracts from the more skillful parts of Conclave such as aiming and moving.

I suggest 0.35/s. Energy will still be available, but not casually abundant, and we should see players depending more on on their own skills - what the game mode is ostensibly about - and not on wild power spam.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Lemonpartydragon
Added proper Conclave tag.

[bernad2218]

id suggest 0.5

[Nazrethim]

4 hours ago, bernad2218 said:

id suggest 0.5

We have that, well, melee players have if they have Martial Fury. Reversing the energy buff would mean either changing the drawback of Martial Fury to something else (like less block) or reversing it to it's previous sh*tty 20s on hit gimmick.

[rockscl]

play nova

[Nighttide77]

Despair mod that creates an energy drain AOE...when it works...

[Nighttide77]

1 hour ago, rockscl said:

play nova

Or Banshee with Silence.

[Pythadragon]

Anti power powers

• nova 1
• mag 1 (augment)
• nekros 1 (augment)
• loki 4
• limbo 1 (rhino can't do anything with his iron skin if he's banished!)
• banshee 3

Anti power weapons

• Gammacors
• Despair (augment)

Innate energy regen at a usable level is necessary for new players who do not have the skills necessary to control the energy on the map. Powers in general are meant to balance out for skill, and the follow through mod that grants free energy on respawn goes hand in hand with this as well.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Pythadragon

[-InV-igo95862]

We need a cooldown based system for abilities. Look at Limbo - this is what happens with energy system. People just collect 100 energy and go for cheap ultimate kills. There will be no synergy between abilities, no tactics. Only spam of few best.

[Pythadragon]

5 minutes ago, -InV-igo95862 said:

We need a cooldown based system for abilities. Look at Limbo - this is what happens with energy system. People just collect 100 energy and go for cheap ultimate kills. There will be no synergy between abilities, no tactics. Only spam of few best.

Separate issue. But I agree. Cooldown system would also prevent just plain dumb crap like shooting 4 shurikens in 2 seconds or casting mind control on a single target over and over and over again....

Cooldowns would also promote the use of other abilities as not all of them would be available at a given time.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Pythadragon

[SevenLetterKWord]

Remember that The Index Preview, which increased passive energy gain to 1 per second (1.5 during Energy Surge), also changed energy orbs to operate as follows:
"Energy orbs now spawn based on player count. 1 for 2-3 players, 2 for 4-6 and all for 7-8."

 

[Lemonpartydragon]

On 11/16/2016 at 3:00 AM, bernad2218 said:

id suggest 0.5

I personally feel like this is a bit high, but perhaps considering the changes to energy orb spawns, it would be more appropriate.

On 11/16/2016 at 7:19 AM, Nazrethim said:

We have that, well, melee players have if they have Martial Fury. Reversing the energy buff would mean either changing the drawback of Martial Fury to something else (like less block) or reversing it to it's previous sh*tty 20s on hit gimmick.

The drawback of Martial Fury is rather poorly implemented, I think. Reworking Channeling altogether would be a much better alternative, but barring that I feel as though some brief time-on-hit debuff (less than 20s, though) would be more effective.

That said, I currently believe that the implementation of melee post-SotR is bad, and it is a relatively low priority in my considerations.

On 11/16/2016 at 9:34 AM, rockscl said:

play nova

This is not responsive to issues of overall balance.

On 11/16/2016 at 10:49 AM, Nighttide77 said:

Despair mod that creates an energy drain AOE...when it works...

When it works, yeah. But even then, being forced into using a few specific energy-draining abiltiies or weapons just to counter a universally engorged regeneration rate seems... unreasonable. Better that the entire energy regime be more balanced and then these draining abilities function as anti-energy counterplay.

23 hours ago, Pythadragon said:

Anti power powers

• nova 1
• mag 1 (augment)
• nekros 1 (augment)
• loki 4
• limbo 1 (rhino can't do anything with his iron skin if he's banished!)
• banshee 3

Anti power weapons

• Gammacors
• Despair (augment)

Innate energy regen at a usable level is necessary for new players who do not have the skills necessary to control the energy on the map. Powers in general are meant to balance out for skill, and the follow through mod that grants free energy on respawn goes hand in hand with this as well.

I think that using powers to mitigate low skill is a bad balance regime. Consider this: at low values of skill, powers bring match performance closer to some overall mean as you say. Sounds great. However, not all powers are equal - some frames, such as Ember, Ash, Volt, Equinox, or Excalibur (among others) have decidedly more effective powers - either because of outright power, high benefit per unit cost, or attached CC that gives a huge functional increase to efficacy.  As skill increases, energy regeneration does not scale back and dilute the compensation effect of easy access to powers. Thus, as player skill gradually increases with experience and brings their skill-dependent performance closer to the mean of player performance, energy has the effect of overcompensating - something that is vaguely universal in the "average" abilities, but that becomes much more pronounced in frames with high-power abilities. As a result, players who are hovering around average skill, but using a handful of frames with highly-effective powers, will perform much better than they ostensibly should.

I believe it would be better to scale back energy regeneration and push players to build and rely on skill, rather than haplessly spamming powers - particularly those that have mediocre implementation. This is not a perception argument - we are not determining the value of energy differently - but rather a normative one: I think Conclave should be a different way than it is. I very much like the idea of a cooldown system as a possible alternative, as well.

23 hours ago, -InV-igo95862 said:

We need a cooldown based system for abilities. Look at Limbo - this is what happens with energy system. People just collect 100 energy and go for cheap ultimate kills. There will be no synergy between abilities, no tactics. Only spam of few best.

Seems reasonable. Cooldowns elegantly abrogate many problems with potentially "overpowered" abilities.

21 hours ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

Remember that The Index Preview, which increased passive energy gain to 1 per second (1.5 during Energy Surge), also changed energy orbs to operate as follows:
"Energy orbs now spawn based on player count. 1 for 2-3 players, 2 for 4-6 and all for 7-8."

 

Surge (and the other random conditionals for matches) should probably just be removed. They offer little in way of benefit because they disrupt consistency in gameplay, are poorly indicated, and do not seem appropriate to a skill-based game mode when they introduce such egregious imbalances during their activation. The changes to orb spawns are good - they promote more assiduous site control in games with fewer players - but the orbs exist on something of a separate conceptual plane than passive regeneration. Orbs reward careful play - mobility, denial, map presence; regeneration is unconditionally free, and as such should not be so abundant.

[Kontrollo]

I think it's too much at the moment, not sure where the sweet spot is, though.

[SevenLetterKWord]

2 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

However, not all powers are equal - some frames, such as Ember, Ash, Volt, Equinox, or Excalibur (among others) have decidedly more effective powers - either because of outright power, high benefit per unit cost, or attached CC that gives a huge functional increase to efficacy.

If you believe there are frames with overpowered abilities, then you should address those frames on a case-by-case basis.
After all, changing the overall energy system will not resolve relative imbalances in ability strength.

2 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

As skill increases, energy regeneration does not scale back and dilute the compensation effect of easy access to powers. Thus, as player skill gradually increases with experience and brings their skill-dependent performance closer to the mean of player performance, energy has the effect of overcompensating - something that is vaguely universal in the "average" abilities, but that becomes much more pronounced in frames with high-power abilities. As a result, players who are hovering around average skill, but using a handful of frames with highly-effective powers, will perform much better than they ostensibly should.

You are assuming that the utility of abilities remains constant, or perhaps increases, as player skill increases.
In the absence of evidence towards that claim, I assert to the contrary that as player skill increases, the relative utility of abilities decreases.
How often do you see a highly skilled Excalibur player using Exalted Blade?

The value of different abilities will scale differently across skill levels.
It is valid for some abilities to be primarily worthwhile at low skill and for other abilities to be primarily worthwhile at high skill.

2 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

Surge (and the other random conditionals for matches) should probably just be removed. They offer little in way of benefit because they disrupt consistency in gameplay, are poorly indicated, and do not seem appropriate to a skill-based game mode when they introduce such egregious imbalances during their activation.

Energy Surge occurs not only as an independent match modifier, but as a modifier applied to all matches under specific conditions, generally achieved near the end of a match.
In these cases, the onset of Energy Surge is always well telegraphed by a big old "Energy Surge" notification appearing on the top of your HUD.

In general, some inconsistency for the sake of variety is tolerable.
We need not so rigorously apply the philosophy of "No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination".

Problems with match modifiers should be discussed in a new thread.

2 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

The changes to orb spawns are good - they promote more assiduous site control in games with fewer players - but the orbs exist on something of a separate conceptual plane than passive regeneration. Orbs reward careful play - mobility, denial, map presence; regeneration is unconditionally free, and as such should not be so abundant.

The slight shift in energy economy from orbs to passive gain is likely meant to curb snowballing in orb collection.
Especially in this new era of orb scarcity, a player who dominates a match will surely also dominate orbs.
Thus, it is appropriate for all players to receive increased passive energy gain in compensation.

[Lemonpartydragon]

57 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

If you believe there are frames with overpowered abilities, then you should address those frames on a case-by-case basis.
After all, changing the overall energy system will not resolve relative imbalances in ability strength.

You are assuming that the utility of abilities remains constant, or perhaps increases, as player skill increases.
In the absence of evidence towards that claim, I assert to the contrary that as player skill increases, the relative utility of abilities decreases.
How often do you see a highly skilled Excalibur player using Exalted Blade?

The value of different abilities will scale differently across skill levels.
It is valid for some abilities to be primarily worthwhile at low skill and for other abilities to be primarily worthwhile at high skill.

Energy Surge occurs not only as an independent match modifier, but as a modifier applied to all matches under specific conditions, generally achieved near the end of a match.
In these cases, the onset of Energy Surge is always well telegraphed by a big old "Energy Surge" notification appearing on the top of your HUD.

In general, some inconsistency for the sake of variety is tolerable.
We need not so rigorously apply the philosophy of "No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination".

Problems with match modifiers should be discussed in a new thread.

The slight shift in energy economy from orbs to passive gain is likely meant to curb snowballing in orb collection.
Especially in this new era of orb scarcity, a player who dominates a match will surely also dominate orbs.
Thus, it is appropriate for all players to receive increased passive energy gain in compensation.

I do not assume that the utility of abilities remains strictly constant, but for some abilities I would happily assert no significant falloff. Examples close at hand are Slash Dash (which is probably why we don't see much EB), Shock, Spores, Fire Blast, Sonic Boom... the utility of certain abilities, such as Magnetize, may arguably decrease when a player becomes good enough to exercise godlike aim, but the utility of applying hugely debilitating CC or finish off enemies from across a tile through a wall really does not.

We may not need to rigorously apply such austerity, but I certainly think that modifiers should be more systematic and constrained to their own subset of Conclave. Obviously there are issues with this considering the already fractious population, but that is an issue for another thread, as you say.

I think your last statements really capture the quintessence of what I view as a problem. To paraphrase it:

Quote

...in this new era of orb scarcity, a player who dominates a match will surely dominate orbs. Thus it is appropriate to compensate all other players for playing less skillfully and failing to keep control of key resources on the map.

I'm all for shoring up the framework of activities where participants are intrinsically and immutably disadvantaged. Skill, however, is neither intrinsic nor immutable; one may build skill, and one does - but not be being coddled with arbitrary "compensation."

[Witchydragon]

5 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

Surge (and the other random conditionals for matches) should probably just be removed. They offer little in way of benefit because they disrupt consistency in gameplay, are poorly indicated, and do not seem appropriate to a skill-based game mode when they introduce such egregious imbalances during their activation. The changes to orb spawns are good - they promote more assiduous site control in games with fewer players - but the orbs exist on something of a separate conceptual plane than passive regeneration. Orbs reward careful play - mobility, denial, map presence; regeneration is unconditionally free, and as such should not be so abundant.

Energy Surge occurs when the top player gains 20 oro, or at the last minute of the match in order to give players more abilities to use to 'clutch' a victory. However I agree that they do need to be better telegraphed, as I literally have not considered it at all since I've been playing until today because I completely overlooked it as a mechanic.

 

[SevenLetterKWord]

25 minutes ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

I'm all for shoring up the framework of activities where participants are intrinsically and immutably disadvantaged. Skill, however, is neither intrinsic nor immutable; one may build skill, and one does - but not be being coddled with arbitrary "compensation."

As I see it, the compensatory buff to passive energy gain is not arbitrary; it is meant to dampen the otherwise increased effect of snowballing energy orb control.
Dead players cannot collect orbs.

54 minutes ago, Witchydragon said:

Energy Surge occurs when the top player gains 20 oro, or at the last minute of the match in order to give players more abilities to use to 'clutch' a victory.

Not quite.
Energy Surge is triggered when a player annihilates 20 Oro in Annihilation, when a team annihilates 40 Oro in Team Annihilation, when a team captures 4 cephalons in Cephalon Capture, or when a match enters its final two and a half minutes.

54 minutes ago, Witchydragon said:

However I agree that they do need to be better telegraphed, as I literally have not considered it at all since I've been playing until today because I completely overlooked it as a mechanic.

It also makes a sound.

[Witchydragon]

2 minutes ago, SevenLetterKWord said:

Energy Surge is triggered when a player annihilates 20 Oro in Annihilation, when a team annihilates 40 Oro in Team Annihilation, when a team captures 4 cephalons in Cephalon Capture, or when a match enters its final two and a half minutes.

 

To be fair, no one plays Capture the Cephalon consistently, and Team Annihilation is only populated when FFA is empty or full. 

[rockscl]

Even when asking for cooldowns the resulting timer per power would allow players avoid risk and wait to cast all of their 3, and eventually 4 powers at once, just like in every other game with cooldowns where the players are defensive/conservative until they have the tactical advantage of their cooldowns, which is currently impossible in warframe and can also be completely nullified by energy burning mechanics

I suspect this request comes more from the "full energy at start" bug instead the 1 energy per second, because it seems to not be well analyzed to me

Also, games with cooldowns have no cooldown increasing mechanics which would be analogic to energy burning in this case, and other games with energy burning mechanics are not as generous as this game`s energy burning mechanics, in those other games, in the best case you may work consistently in order to dampen the caster`s energy but never with such ease as nova`s 1

All the previous statements arent even considering the alien nature of the mechanic you want to introduce into warframes, warframes have no cooldowns as a basis, if you really think that some power is broken then its that one power that should be balanced before switching basic aspects of the entire game

Edited November 18, 2016 by rockscl

[Nazrethim]

15 hours ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

The drawback of Martial Fury is rather poorly implemented, I think. Reworking Channeling altogether would be a much better alternative, but barring that I feel as though some brief time-on-hit debuff (less than 20s, though) would be more effective

The drawback is the best we've had actually. Reworking Channeling is (or should be) on DE's to-do list. The 'on hit' we had before was pure unmitigated bullsh*T. Slow weapons needed the 20% attack speed to hit consistently, good luck hitting something without that buff, and you need to hit to gain it, so scr*w you. Fast weapons could easily get a hit in and gain the buff, except that fast weapons generally didn't need it in the first place. That's the issue with 'On hit' mechanics on melee weapons. With a gun is easier because you have range and zero animation lock.

Martial Fury is fine as it is now. If energy passive gain were to be cut down, then MF will need it's drawback replaced with something else while remaining a passive effect, the best alternative is -x% Block like RA  in it's first incarnation.

[Lemonpartydragon]

4 hours ago, Nazrethim said:

The drawback is the best we've had actually. Reworking Channeling is (or should be) on DE's to-do list. The 'on hit' we had before was pure unmitigated bullsh*T. Slow weapons needed the 20% attack speed to hit consistently, good luck hitting something without that buff, and you need to hit to gain it, so scr*w you. Fast weapons could easily get a hit in and gain the buff, except that fast weapons generally didn't need it in the first place. That's the issue with 'On hit' mechanics on melee weapons. With a gun is easier because you have range and zero animation lock.

Martial Fury is fine as it is now. If energy passive gain were to be cut down, then MF will need it's drawback replaced with something else while remaining a passive effect, the best alternative is -x% Block like RA  in it's first incarnation.

That gives me a clearer idea of the problem. If that's what it takes, then, I see no major issue; though it is perhaps a bit strange to force the offense/defense tradeoff with MF when melee itself already trades off a lot of potential for both due to the range constraint. Is there anything else that would work with diminished energy that you could think of offhand? I'm not really familiar enough with the nuances of melee to speculate.

[Nazrethim]

6 minutes ago, Lemonpartydragon said:

That gives me a clearer idea of the problem. If that's what it takes, then, I see no major issue; though it is perhaps a bit strange to force the offense/defense tradeoff with MF when melee itself already trades off a lot of potential for both due to the range constraint. Is there anything else that would work with diminished energy that you could think of offhand? I'm not really familiar enough with the nuances of melee to speculate.

The other option would be reducing damage, which would leave several weapons in a bad position. Best case would be if DE reworks Channeling or at least separates it from energy and giving it it's own resource, which would be a welcome change.

[Lemonpartydragon]

1 minute ago, Nazrethim said:

The other option would be reducing damage, which would leave several weapons in a bad position. Best case would be if DE reworks Channeling or at least separates it from energy and giving it it's own resource, which would be a welcome change.

Ah, yeah. I think I recall seeing you talk about giving Channeling a resource or something, and the other option was cooldowns. Both seem better than what we have.

What about, instead of damage/block, Channeling gradually decays eHP at a small rate?

[Nazrethim]

Just now, Lemonpartydragon said:

Ah, yeah. I think I recall seeing you talk about giving Channeling a resource or something, and the other option was cooldowns. Both seem better than what we have.

What about, instead of damage/block, Channeling gradually decays eHP at a small rate?

Would be a hell to balance properly, if it's possible at all. Savy melee players would just channel for fractions of a second to empower strong hits while taking zero ehp damage, while novice players will kill themselves by channeling.

Channeling resource could work in two ways:

A) Stamina, but only for Channeling and Channel Blocking. Recharges at a steady rate, and has a recharge delay between uses. Example:

Spoiler

Max Channeling: 100

Cost per activation: 5

Cost per hit: 5

Recharge rate: 20 per second

Recharge delay: 3s

This numbers give a total of 19 hits in a single activation. Recharge from 0 to 100 would take a total of 8s (3s delay+5s to fully recharge)

Alternatively, instead of cost per hit, cost per second could be added. Activating for fractions of a second would still use 5 stamina.

B) Stamina with no recharge, instead, stamina orbs would spawn in designated locations (or melee players may as well pick ammo boxes to replenish stamina)