New Warframe Suggestion: The Twin Warframes, Apollo And Artemis - Masters Of Weaponry.

[MrHeartless]

Ok, to warn you all as a sort of caveat, this is going to be a fairly lengthy read for the purpose of pitching my idea to DE directly, in hopes that they will take a serious look at its implementation. Additionally, your support as members of the community would also be greatly appreciated.

 

To summarize, my idea for a new set of warframes would be that of Twin Warframes(male + female) "Experts of Weaponry". The idea is to have two frames, one (Apollo, the brother) to be a master at melee combat and dps where as his sister (Artemis) would be a master of all ranged weapons and an expert at gun-kata.

 

Apollo- To add to the excitement of currently existing gameplay mechanics I feel some uniqueness is warranted. Apollo is the son of Zeus if you follow Greek Mythology and while he has nothing to do with battle and fighting in general, his name and that of his sister's do lend themselves to that air of thee Epic. How this is supposed to work is that Apollo would have your standard 3 slots for primary, secondary and melee weapons. However, as he is a master of melee weaponry I believe he should be given the ability to equip a second melee weapon in either his primary or secondary slots. If he equips another weapon in his primary slot for example, that weapon can only be a heavy weapon whereas if it is equipped into his secondary slot, it can be either another dual weapon or a single handed weapon. This ofcourse would have implications as to how which melee weapon is utilised but as the UI for this game is really not optimized at all, I will make a few suggestions on that abit further down.

 

Apollo would have a base health of 200 and a base shield of 50 with base armor of 100 and base energy of 75. The reason is I do not want him to be tanky shield wise as that is easily regenerated. Health on the other hand, not so much. He still needs to have enough base health and armor to take hits to his health directly and not die in 2 hits while not eliminating all the risks associated with close combat.

 

Apollo's first ability would be called either "Melee Maestro" or simply "Prodigy" or even "Warrior's Stance" and would take the form of an active buff that would have different effects depending on what weapon he has equipped: a) If it is a heavy melee weapon it would boost armor pen, attack speed and a small boost to non-charge attacks, b) if it is the traditional dual weapon equipped it would receive a boost to crit chance, crit damage and ignore either full/half armor of the target, c) This is the Flagship bonus in that if you have 2 single handed weapons equipped you will be given the ability to dual wield them, their total damage would be added together and then reduced to 75%(currently unsure as to whether any other bonuses should be given to this application or just left as is, your thoughts are welcomed). The purpose of this ability is to add versatility to a game which is centered mostly around gun-play and abilities and allow those who love all the cool melee weapons to have abit more utility.

 

Apollo's Second Ability: "Void Walker" is your standard gap closer, necessary for any melee focused character. This would operated as a dash or a teleport that can have its distance increased by stretch etc. Basically he will move so swiftly that he phases out of the immediate dimension, hence "walking the void" and will be able to cover distance quickly. Provisions can also be made for subsquent dashes to be chained if timed correctly and reducing the energy costs if executed skillfully. It is debatable whether this should do damage or not but if it does, maybe half of what Excalibur's dash does.

 

Apollo's Third Ability: "Bunker Breaker"(open to suggestions for the name lol), would be a 180 degree arc with about 6m range ahead of him that depletes enemy shields and staggers/stuns them. This would arguably do little to no damage and would just be for utility purposes.

 

Apollo's Ultimate: (not sure what to call it as yet) would be 1000 homing blades, unlike radial javelin that just shoots outward. During the cast time, the blades would surface on the skin of the warframe and by the end of the animation, would shoot out and home in on as many enemies as they can. Bearing in mind he is a Melee DPS focuses Warframe, his Ultimate HAS TO BE devastating. These blades would have a set damage on them, ignore armor and can also hit multiple targets. Of course they won't be 1000 blades as that would probably cause a world of lag for some people.

 

Apollo's Ultimate(Suggestion 2): would be called "Interplanetary Slash" or "Vorpal Slash"  something to that effect. With a Cast time of 2 seconds he will open a portal above him and a huge sword will be summoned, he will then do a sweeping animation with this huge energy/incorporeal entity and it will slash, in half, everything in its very wide and sprawling arc. Able to hit enemies not in the same room etc. I've seen various "energy based" animations in this game and an expansive energy sword seems feasible. Again, your thoughts please.

 

Next we have Artemis and her mechanics, in keeping stride with those of her brother would be similar with regards to her first ability, a multi-purpose buff. She will be a ranger charcter whose strengths will focus primarily on guns, bows and hopefully mini Van Helsing wrist mounted cross-bows :D. I digress, anyways. She is supposed to be a glass cannon DPS with her abilities augmenting gun play and damage. Artemis would have the ability to equip a max of 2 of the same type of ranged weapon into her 3 given slots i.e. 2 primary weapons or 2 secondary weapons, either swapping out the melee, the primary or the secondary slot to accomplish this. Therefore, it would be possible enter a mission with no melee weapon at all at your own risk.

 

Artemis will start at base health 75, base shield 100, base armor 40 and base energy of 125.

 

Artemis' first skill would either be called: "Gunner's Stance" or "Gun-Kata". This ability will give an across the board ammo regen of about 3 rounds every 10-15 seconds and would take the form of an active buff that will change depending on what item you have equipped: a) With a primary weapon equipped you will receive bonuses to reload speed, rate of fire and a chance(undecided) not to consume ammo on your next shot, b) With a secondary weapon equipped you will receive bonuses to crit chance(direct addition not %), crit damage and either ignore half/full armor of target, c) This skill will also allow you to do one of two things- i) you will be able to dual wield 2 one handed secondary ranged weapons simultaneously if available, with the total damage added together and then reduced to 75% of that total, ii) (the fun part) If you do have a melee weapon equipped, you will be granted the ability to dual wield a secondary one handed gun in one hand, and a one handed melee weapon in the other hand. This would enable "gun-kata" mode, your right click zoom will be disabled and replaced with combination attacks that enable firing and melee to be done in one animation. The Damage in this instance will be calculated separately depending on whether the melee weapon or the bullet connects with the target. The benefit would be new combos and animations and more versatility for sticky situations.

 

Artemis' Second Ability: "Battle Ready" would  instantly double magazine size and fire rate of all weapons, add 50% elemental damage of all types for all weapons for 15 seconds at the cost of instantly depleting her shields to 0 with no recharge for atleast 5 seconds.

 

Artemis' Third Ability: "Laser Barrage" unleashes a flurry of lasers from the retractable mounted lasers on her shoulders in a frontal direction, 1m wide, that penetrate and damages enemies in their path. This would count as a channelled attack in that for 3 seconds she would be stationary and vulnerable while spamming lasers infront of her.

 

Artemis's Ultimate: "Arrow Hail"(open to suggestions on the name" but would basically be her either jumping up and spining, while fired arrows in everywhich direction, in a wide circle around her or simply, spinning on her axis while still standing on the floor. The animation would have the arrows sticking into the ground or to the walls so as to simulate the "rain of arrows" effect.
 

It should be noted that no real damage numbers for the skills have been inserted by myself as that would require alot of testing to ensure the correct balance is met. Additionally, I do realise that some of these ideas would require abit of tweaking of existing mechanics to be implemented as suggested but I tried not to stray to far from the current game's mechanics in an effort to make it all the more possible for your guys.

 

I cannot reiterate FEEDBACK enough, I would really appreciate if you guys could comment and keep this thread alive and improve it to the point where the Design Council or even DE themselves gets wind of it and aim to implement it some where down the line. That being said, if they are infact interested, I would be very grateful if I could be told of such interest.

 

Thanks in advance. Remember to upvote if you agree.

 

Edit: The consensus so far with regards to the names seems to be that the Greek Mythology is all played out.(boo) I would like to hear some good suggestions for names though and more comments on proposed mechanics please.

Edited July 5, 2013 by MrHeartless

[RiotKitten]

I read the whole thing. I'm proud of myself.

Anyways, sounds cool.

[MrHeartless]

I read the whole thing. I'm proud of myself.

Anyways, sounds cool.

Lol, many thanks mate, cheers.

[Rudest]

Fun read!

Though they both appear to be fun to play, I particularly liked Artemis!
One day we'll get that gunslinger frame! >.> And all will be well.

I'll throw some more useful thoughts your way when I am less stoned on prescription meds.
:S had my wisdom teeth taken out recently.

Edited July 2, 2013 by Rudest

[MrHeartless]

Fun read!

Though they both appear to be fun to play, I particularly liked Artemis!

One day we'll get that gunslinger frame! >.> And all will be well.

I'll throw some more useful thoughts your way when I am less stoned on prescription meds.

:S had my wisdom teeth taken out recently.

Good idea...or is it? Your stoner ideas may help take it to the next level!

Thanks and dont forget guys, if you agree the idea is good enough, please upvote so the right people can begin to take notice.

[AlienTetris]

I read the majority of it, and it sounds to me like almost a spinoff of Noob and Smoke from Mortal Kombat.

Nice idea though, fun.

[MrHeartless]

I read the majority of it, and it sounds to me like almost a spinoff of Noob and Smoke from Mortal Kombat.

Nice idea though, fun.

I get what you are saying, however while inspired by various cross genre games, MK didnt even come to mind. Go figure. The aim is to deliver something our of the norm as juxtaposed to current Warframes. The twin thing helps with the atmosphere and story as well as added cool factor. Obviously not totally original but unique to Warframe and hella fun to boot.

[LasersGoPewPew]

would be freaking awesome if either of these were in the game.

[MrHeartless]

would be freaking awesome if either of these were in the game.

ikr.

[Seraphiel451]

Awesome ideas...but.

 

Both first abilities, though it would be nice to have a bit more variety, would be a *@##$ to implement....and even worse to balance.  Also, both abilities amount to passive bonuses...those are what mods are for not active skills. If you turned them into active skills and dropped the ability to equip more than what weapons we already have, they'd probably be underpowered for first slot skills.

 

We already have "Void Walker" in several iterations, its a direct copy of Ash's Teleport, let alone giving it damage then its like Slash Dash and Rhino Charge.

 

"Bunker Buster", see Excalibur's Radial Blind for the stagger/blind effect.  As for the shield effect, that's sticky, does it work against bosses?  If not its kinda useless except against Corpus Shield Ospreys or Techs.  If it does, still kind of underpowered for a third slot ability, since most boss shields regen at set intervals or stupidly quickly.

 

The Apollo ultimate is despite what you said, just Radial Javelin with homing abilities.  They're swords, pierce through enemies, not to sure about the armor ignore, but since most ultimates aren't, why give it here?  Also another *@##$ to animate well.  The second ultimate...feels too cartoonish for me though it might work.  Needs more to make it unique mechanic wise,

 

Now Artemis.

 

Her second ability is good, reduce the time and maybe 50% fire rate and you could drop the shield penelty.  This would lose its effectiveness in later levels due to elemental resistances and the need to be pinpoint accurate, but still a decent idea.

 

Her 3rd....oh I want this ability, pain to animate but it fits in with other line abilities nicely.

 

Her ultimate.../sigh.  Just Radial Javelin with a globe instead of a circle.

 

By the way, historically, Apollo and Artemis were both Archers. Both potrayed as hunters, usually only shown with a spear if any melee weapons at all. Thier dichotomy came from thier celestial positions of Apollo the Sun god, and Artemis the Moon Godess.  The man @#&*(, and the eternal virgin.  Fire god, water godess.

 

Artemis is a damn good start, Apollo not so much.  On the other hand, grats on putting your ideas up on the forums...I have yet to get the bugs worked out of my ideas enough to release them in the wild here.  I really want ot see what becomes of these two ideas, I like the premise a lot.

[MrHeartless]

Awesome ideas...but.

Both first abilities, though it would be nice to have a bit more variety, would be a $#*(@ to implement....and even worse to balance. Also, both abilities amount to passive bonuses...those are what mods are for not active skills. If you turned them into active skills and dropped the ability to equip more than what weapons we already have, they'd probably be underpowered for first slot skills.

We already have "Void Walker" in several iterations, its a direct copy of Ash's Teleport, let alone giving it damage then its like Slash Dash and Rhino Charge.

"Bunker Buster", see Excalibur's Radial Blind for the stagger/blind effect. As for the shield effect, that's sticky, does it work against bosses? If not its kinda useless except against Corpus Shield Ospreys or Techs. If it does, still kind of underpowered for a third slot ability, since most boss shields regen at set intervals or stupidly quickly.

The Apollo ultimate is despite what you said, just Radial Javelin with homing abilities. They're swords, pierce through enemies, not to sure about the armor ignore, but since most ultimates aren't, why give it here? Also another $#*(@ to animate well. The second ultimate...feels too cartoonish for me though it might work. Needs more to make it unique mechanic wise,

Now Artemis.

Her second ability is good, reduce the time and maybe 50% fire rate and you could drop the shield penelty. This would lose its effectiveness in later levels due to elemental resistances and the need to be pinpoint accurate, but still a decent idea.

Her 3rd....oh I want this ability, pain to animate but it fits in with other line abilities nicely.

Her ultimate.../sigh. Just Radial Javelin with a globe instead of a circle.

By the way, historically, Apollo and Artemis were both Archers. Both potrayed as hunters, usually only shown with a spear if any melee weapons at all. Thier dichotomy came from thier celestial positions of Apollo the Sun god, and Artemis the Moon Godess. The man @#&*(, and the eternal virgin. Fire god, water godess.

Artemis is a damn good start, Apollo not so much. On the other hand, grats on putting your ideas up on the forums...I have yet to get the bugs worked out of my ideas enough to release them in the wild here. I really want ot see what becomes of these two ideas, I like the premise a lot.

Thank you for taking the time to read it and giving feedback.

Now to address some of your concerns. Yes to animate Apollo's dual wield and Artemis' gun-kata would be a pain in the &#! for all the different weapon combos that would become available. So to eliminate this for Apollo I would propose lumping them into 3 different animation types. As only single handed weapons could be dual wielded you would make some standard animation types, 1 for sword+dagger builds, 1 for sword+sword builds and 1 for dagger+sword builds. So, even if they choose to implement lets say a tonfa, or even to use the Prova, for example, they would just allow it to function as though it were a one handed sword and have dual animations in line with those types of weapons. Tonfas though would most likely be dual weapons already but you get my point. Sets of animations by combination of weapons, rather than individual mechanics for all the various weapon combos. For Artemis this would not be too hard as it would just be a case of aiming all guns with a the left hand and assigning all melee weapons to the right hand. Some work yes, but they would undoubtedly be the two most unique in lore and in playstyle warframes for quite awhile.

Next to their first abilities. These are meant to active all the time as without it they are not really unique in any way, the mechanics around them just aim to offfer abit more outside dual wielding to give the sense that they are both weapon masters as stated. I cant allow them to dual wield weapons and totally neglect two handed combat or the original dual wield weapons. They are meant to be better at using weapons than other warframes and as such the passives are there, the numbers can be tweaked as necessary but Apollo is meant to be the go-to melee man in Warframe and Artemis is meant to the go-to girl for gunz and straight up shooter dps. Without their first ability I feel the "unique" mark will be missed. I have played alot of games where dual wield has been implemented and usually they add the total dmage and reduce it to 75%. If necessary, the mod bonuses from the dualed weapon could be disabled while they are dual wield or maybe half as effective or something. Nevertheless i do not believe that Apollo dual wielding 2 dark swords at(30+30) = 60 and 75% of 60=45 damage as a char that should be melee centered to be OP at all. Again further tweaks could find the perfect balance.

To his dash ability, I'll just say that Excal and Rhino have a variant of it, but the way Apollo is build he NEEDS it to close the gap. Your point on it doing no damage is fine but he actually needs a gap closer in his arsenal to be any good.

Bunker Breaker, the shield zapper skill would work on bosses that allow it and most bosses who do, tend to target the nearest player and that will almost always be Apollo as he would still want to be up close wreaking havoc. As to it being underpowered for regular use, it could also be made to do damage to compensate. Even Rhino has 2 damage abilities in addition to his ultimate so I wouldnt see much harm in that.

I do agree that his ultimate could be reworked but in a flashy as hell game like Warframe, an ethereal sword swipe across the room does not at all feel childish. The other one does appear to be a modified radial javelin but even that is good from a pure DPS standpoint. None of the 2 of these are so outrageous that they could not in fact be implemented though and that is what I was aiming for. It is hard to think of something feasible that is not absolutely OP . Another idea tht comes to mind would be Ethereal(ghost form) giant shurikens(Fuma Shuriken if u watch Naruto) that he summons from the void and throws to all corners of the map.

Now to Artemis, I want there to be a risk to using her 2 skill so I would like it to be an all or nothing skill where you can use it to crank out high dps, emptying your currently equipped weapon and another.

Her Ultimate needs to something that pays homage to the myth and something with arrows does just that, it is generic in the sense that it has been seen and done by other games but again I do not know how far to push it until it becomes something relegated to the realms of fantasies, never to be implemented.

Edited July 2, 2013 by MrHeartless

[MrHeartless]

Bump, comment guys, comment!

[thecolin-]

hey, brilliant ideas! My guess is, it is just not that easy to insert a new frame in the game... They still have bigger problems I think they shouldn't be trying so hard on being innovative. By the way I'm not talking about the process of the frame being released its just the thinking process of the frame being built, that is what worries me. Don't get me wrong I am not against new frames it is just that I want the current frames to work properly and then move on to new frames or equipment. 

i hope i made my self clear

[MrHeartless]

hey, brilliant ideas! My guess is, it is just not that easy to insert a new frame in the game... They still have bigger problems I think they shouldn't be trying so hard on being innovative. By the way I'm not talking about the process of the frame being released its just the thinking process of the frame being built, that is what worries me. Don't get me wrong I am not against new frames it is just that I want the current frames to work properly and then move on to new frames or equipment. 

i hope i made my self clear

Trust me, no1 wants overhauls to the first frames more than I do or some better market organisation, UI improvements or foundry upgrades but in the interim, what keeps people playing is how fun the game is. They will most often be able to overlook afew short comings and the fact that this is beta if they are having a blast with their favourite frame. The inception of the idea at this stage would just give me time to refine and help it to gain traction so by the time they are ready to install a new favourite to the roster, they'll have a polished idea ready to dust off.

[Yungtrooper31]

The more frames the better! I would just like to see each warframe have a male and female skin.. I know that would take so much time, and so much more animations, but Im a guy and when playing a role playing game, or whatever type of game, I hate playing as a girl.. cant stand it.. actually have turned games down because main character was a girl... I know I know.. shallow of me or whatever, but I love embers abilities and  some of the other female frames.. but I dont even really want to go find embers blue prints or whoever because I dont want to play as a girl.. simple as that, my brother is the exact opposite, always picks or makes a female character... and I know it sounds like Im whining... You wouldnt have to change a whole lot.. helmets and color schemes and designs could stay  the same.. just add/ lose the lovely lady lumps.. beef up or shrink the shoulders, I dont know, just think it would be another awesome customization feature.

[WARLOCKE]

Apollo would need a name change since the god Apollo has nothing to do with weapons or warfare.

[MrHeartless]

Apollo would need a name change since the god Apollo has nothing to do with weapons or warfare.

I somehow wanted to have Twin names to suit them but that in itself proved difficult with the apparent dearth of famous twins to actually draw reference from. What name would you suggest though?

[Vangate]

As always it seems disbalancing, all warframes MUST be equal in terms of weaponry, yet they will differ in appearance and abilities, as well as personal treats. This means = no exclusive items/features for a single warframe (they said "Hurry up and buy Excalibur Prime - exclusive only for Founders and for limited time" BS is what this is).

[MrHeartless]

As always it seems disbalancing, all warframes MUST be equal in terms of weaponry, yet they will differ in appearance and abilities, as well as personal treats. This means = no exclusive items/features for a single warframe (they said "Hurry up and buy Excalibur Prime - exclusive only for Founders and for limited time" BS is what this is).

I don't quite understand the point you are trying to make. Are you saying that lore wise all warframes must be equal in terms of weaponry? If so I cant imagine that limitation being a wise choice but could you clarify?

[Seraphiel451]

Twin Gods and Godesses names for the frames.

 

Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu,  Zoroaster god/dess of Good/Evil.

 

Ashwini or Ashvins, Hindu twined gods representing sunrise/sunset.  They are healing gods so may not be exactly appropriate.

 

Yama and Yami, another set of Hindu god/desses, I don't remember their exact powers.

 

My favorite set isn't exactly "twins" but they are twined gods and best of all, one is an archer the other a battle god, Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

[Hafilgar]

I really like your idea! But Artemis seems to overpower Apollo. Guns have much higher DPS than melee weapons in this game. Apollo's skills should probably buff damage by a LARGE portion and he might need a larger base energy pool so he can spam his skills to balance out the damage output of Artemis. And I do believe Apollo should be tankier since his theme is to charge up to enemies

[MrHeartless]

Twin Gods and Godesses names for the frames.

 

Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu,  Zoroaster god/dess of Good/Evil.

 

Ashwini or Ashvins, Hindu twined gods representing sunrise/sunset.  They are healing gods so may not be exactly appropriate.

 

Yama and Yami, another set of Hindu god/desses, I don't remember their exact powers.

 

My favorite set isn't exactly "twins" but they are twined gods and best of all, one is an archer the other a battle god, Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

I like Yama and Yami, not sure If other would like them the to the same extent. Thanks!

[r0ckwolf]

i was thinking about the twin warframe (mellee/gun) thing myself the other day, so i like that a lot! although i don´t like the names, as the greek mythology reference is too strong for my taste, also i would probably imagine other abilities for them.

But overall great thoughts, so you have my +1

[MrHeartless]

I really like your idea! But Artemis seems to overpower Apollo. Guns have much higher DPS than melee weapons in this game. Apollo's skills should probably buff damage by a LARGE portion and he might need a larger base energy pool so he can spam his skills to balance out the damage output of Artemis. And I do believe Apollo should be tankier since his theme is to charge up to enemies

The numbers as I said, would have to be tweaked for balance reasons, the core ideas would remain though, I dont think many persons play melee only so I dont know how effective or ineffective Apollo would be if you get what I mean.

[MrHeartless]

i was thinking about the twin warframe (mellee/gun) thing myself the other day, so i like that a lot! although i don´t like the names, as the greek mythology reference is too strong for my taste, also i would probably imagine other abilities for them.

But overall great thoughts, so you have my +1

Yea it would appear a lot of folks think the Greek names are all played out, something original or just out the norm could be thought up though. I just thought the names would add more flavour into the mix; make them more identifiable.

Edited July 4, 2013 by MrHeartless