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Warframe Visual/Style Feedback from an Avid Gamer (Warning: LONG)


Dunsparrow
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What follows are both summary and itemized things that I've been considering since picking this game up. This game is awesome, but it definitely has some rough spots. I am focusing on many of those, but that doesn't mean I dislike the game as a whole. If I didn't love it, I wouldn't be writing this.

Warframes - General

Look and Feel

Each Warframe is somewhat visually distinguishable from the others, but with the low-contrast lighting and subdued colors, many of the colors bleed together or look similar in most environments. No one would confuse Loki with Trinity, but its pretty easy to confuse Ash, Excalibur, Mag and Rhino at a glance.

Suggestion

Give each warframe its own color group (to start).

The pay-to-unlock color pallette is fantastic and I wouldn't change it. However, why not give each Warframe a different piece of the color spectrum by default and a wider selection of that color group when they unlock? For example, Ember could be in yellow-orange, Excalibur in white, Loki in blues, Ash in grays, Rhino in browns, Trinity in greens, etc. On unlocking they could get more saturated and bright/darker colors in that spectrum as well as broadening the spectrum to include the current pallette.

Flavor and Style

Each Warframe has a distinctive style, but that style takes time to develop and one frame is just like another when unranked. I think part of this is that frames have to join a game and play a match to unlock a single skill. To get deeper in the tree and get a "feel" for the frame requires a big time investment. This can be frustrating when just getting started, if you feel you chose the "wrong" frame, but don't want your time to be wasted.

Suggestion

The first time you select a frame should launch a training level where all skills (except ultimate) are temporarily unlocked and their use is shown, in a similar fashion to the rank-up levels.

At the end of this training level, 1 skill point should be awarded, so that the first time players set foot into a game, they are level 1 and have a decent grasp of their frame's capabilities. The Lotus could hint during the level that a greater power is available to advanced players, or somesuch.

Warframe Abilities

The Warframe abilities are the key to the game's interest and fun. Some of these abilities (like Slash Dash and Overload) are incredible and really give a fun and wow factor. Other abilties, like Decoy, are useful but not exactly amazing-looking. To really grab player interest, each Warframe needs a trademark ability that is instantly recognizable and also very powrful.

Excalibur - Slashdash

This ability is perfect and should not be changed. Warframes get this at level 1 and any time you see a streak of blue, you know Excalibur just cut some bad guys to bits. This is just too cool!

Volt - Speed

Right now, Volt begins with Shock. I think it should start with Speed instead. Shock is cool, but Speed gets the player more involved in gameplay and is a more visually striking and iconic ability.

Loki - Invisibility

Decoy is a nice skill, but Invisibility is the most iconic and unique thing about Loki. Loki should begin with Invisibility, and it should be made more noticeable by friendly players (perhaps leaving a trail of colored smoke as he moves).

Rhino - Rhino Charge

Like Slashdash, this is a pretty cool ability. Right now its extremely short range makes it limited in its usefulness. Extending the range and having it require a target and dealing AOE knockback from the target location would set this apart from Slashdash while making it a more interesting ability.

Trinity - Well of Life

Well of Life is a cool and unique ability that makes Trinity highly valuable on boss fights. However, a simple green aura on the target is not very impressive. Trinity should be connected to her target for the duration of the ability with a highly visible green beam and both she and the target should have the green glow. Not only will this make her ability more iconic, but it will signal her teammates to attack the target she's chosen.

Mag - Pull

This is a cool ability, but is not very noticable to friendly players and thus does not distinguish Mag from the crowd. Pull should have 2 functions. On an enemy at range, Pull should work as it does now. On an enemy in melee distance, Pull should be inverse and should fling the enemy away at high speed, dealing heavy damage to it and also knocking down any enemies in the path of the target Mag flings. This would add some fun combos to Mag as you could double tap Pull to grab and then fling enemies, and would be much more visible to friendlies.

Ember - Fireball

Not much needs to change here, except the projectile should be more visible. When playing with Ember, I often see enemies on fire, but I rarely see the Fireball that caused it. Perhaps making it a flamethrower-type animation instead would do the trick.

Ash - Teleport

This is an incredibly useful and fun ability, but it comes so late and has a high cost. Making it cheaper to use and giving it to Ash at the start would be a lot more fun. Let Ash teleport around the facilities, and give him a more visible animation when doing so (perhaps leaving an afterimage of himself at the beginning and end of the teleport). Switch places with Shuriken and amp it up some to perhaps fire multiple Shurikens at once in a spread pattern.

Sound

Many of the sounds in the game do not fit well with what is going on, and some effects either have no sound or the sound is too understated.

The squelching gut noises of enemies being gutted and diced up are awesome. Abilities should be just as cool sounding!

When Rhino charges, we should hear his feet stomping and an impact when he arrives. When Trinity uses Well of Life, we should hear the thrum and whir of her nanites restoring health. When Ember lights enemies on fire, we should hear the crackle and roar of their burning. When Volt shocks someone, we should hear not just the buzz of current, but their rattling teeth and stammering moans.

Summary

These are largely cosmetic changes that will have little bearing on gameplay and no bearing on endgame. Instead, they focus on drawing players into the game and helping them make the best selections in their first warframe (or 2 or 3) that fit their playstyle. Thanks for reading!

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I'm not going to comment on the rest, but I find that turning off the 'Bloom' setting in Graphics Options goes a LONG way towards your 'Look and Feel' feedback. I think the setting in the game is a bit too excessive, and you're lit up like some kind of Holy Ninja. It also makes things much sharper, there's no confusion about who's who after that.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think :) Its a personal preference though.

Edited by McGuffin
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Rhino's charge gets extended when you throw a reactor in it.

It becomes a great closer that compares with Excal's slashdash, I would go as far to say its better, it has a massive width, and knocks down anything relatively close to it, good for bosses, as it can cripple their shields while knocking them down, allowing you to unload a blanket of lead onto their face while they slowly clamber up.

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I'm not going to comment on the rest, but I find that turning off the 'Bloom' setting in Graphics Options goes a LONG way towards your 'Look and Feel' feedback. I think the setting in the game is a bit too excessive, and you're lit up like some kind of Holy Ninja. It also makes things much sharper, there's no confusion about who's who after that.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think :) Its a personal preference though.

The first thing I did after installing the game was turn off bloom. I do the same thing in every game with that toggle.

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Rhino's charge gets extended when you throw a reactor in it.

It becomes a great closer that compares with Excal's slashdash, I would go as far to say its better, it has a massive width, and knocks down anything relatively close to it, good for bosses, as it can cripple their shields while knocking them down, allowing you to unload a blanket of lead onto their face while they slowly clamber up.

Sorry, but Rhino's charge at full is nowhere near as powerful as Slash Dash. The Aoe is shallow and the distance is tiny in comparison, Exclaibur can take out an entire room with 1-2 charges, Rhino only manages a few kills with the same, unless the enemies are literally clumped one on top of one another.

Knock down doesn't compare, I mean, what's better? KD'd enemy or dead enemy?

Edited by Zakalwe
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The AoE is pretty massive, I'll manage hitting enemies behind walls just by zipping by. And you can get quite a few nice kills if they're all standing relatively close to eachother.

If they don't die from that, it takes an astounding one shell from a HEK to finish them off, since most of their health got zapped when I came by.

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The AOE is not pretty massive at all, especialy when you compare how shallow it is to the length of Excalibur's dash.

Rhnio needs enmies to be bunched up very tightly to hit more than a couple at time, whereas Excalibur can dash through loads if they're lined up along a corridor (which happens a lot).

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Nice post OP. I agree with your points about skills. Most of them should definitely have better animations, which are hopefully in the works, and they should definitely have sound effects that set them apart. As far as other sounds though, I have to admit that I've found them to be pretty satisfying. Although I think I would prefer if guns like the Bronco and Strun sounded more powerful. Perhaps the Hek has a more satisfactory shotgun sound effect, but I still need to rank up to get to it.

And definitely check out the bloom toggle. Personal preference like all the others, but I find that the bloom when on tends to oversaturate everything.

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I actually think that Volt's speed should be changed, I mean, Volt is an electric warframe but this ability only helps you if you are coward enough to run away fron your enemies, but it's pretty much useless in combat, it's good that they made it cheaper, but I tink that should be replaced with something more practical like a boost to yoyr melee, that when you hit a target, shocks it violently, I don't know, something more practical and useable, not just some ability that you use when you wanna win the race to the end of the level like Speed actually is......

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