Reworking Warframe - Energy, Shields, Armor, And Elements.

[TheGambler_BR]

Hoo, boy, this is going to be a long post. 

 

I will split my thread in two posts. Energy and Shields and Armor and Elements.

 

I will propose, first, a rework to the energy and shield system.

 

We all know Warframe has an "issue" with ultimate spamming. It's a "get out of jail free" card; more often than not used in situations where death would've been certain. And most other abilities are forgotten, because sometimes they just do not offer the same level of utility. Bread-and-butter damage abilities aren't used since their energy cost is seen as a "waste". There are other issues, of course, such as no scaling at higher levels, which further increases the idea of energy waste.

There is also another issue, in my eyes. Energy Siphon is a mandatory artifact; once you acquire it you won't use anything else, ever. Most other artifacts aren't quite as useful, but some do offer significant benefits.

 

So, now that I've explained why I'm proposing such an idea, let's get started!

 

Energy no longer increased per warframe level.

 

This is obviously a big deal. Since you can't stock up anymore, there is slightly more incentive to use the other less useful abilities.

 

Flow would still increase maximum energy, but at a much lower rate (10% per level, instead of the current 25%), and one rank less. At max level, you'd see a 50% increase in maximum energy.

 

Base energy remains unchanged.

 

Now you're thinking "well, this certainly sucks! Why would I ever want to have such a low energy pool?"

I'm getting there, hang on.

 

Warframes now regenerate energy (At a rate of up to 5 energy/s). 

 

(Regeneration increases in speed the longer you've spent without using it. It takes 2 seconds to reach maximum regeneration)

 

This is a big deal as well. With regenerating energy, there is no "energy waste" - you'll eventually regain all of it, and it won't even take too long.

 

This makes the Energy Siphon artifact pointless, which IMO is a good thing. In a game that praises creativity and viability of all, having a near-mandatory item for later stages of the game is very very bad.

Regenerating energy also removes the need for energy drops. Which was silly. 

 

By now you're like "well, so now energy is a mana bar. Woop-de-doo. What do shields have to do with any of this?"

Glad you asked!

 

Regenerating shields stop energy regeneration.

 

Essentially, shields now draw from the energy pool.

 

You would be able to opt to not regenerate shields at all by pressing a key, so you can avoid unintentional energy usage. Would increase Mag's shield polarize usefulness, since it would refill shields for free to teammates.

 

Fast Deflection would stay the same. There would be no increased energy cost, making it an even better mod.

 

[TheGambler_BR]

Now, onto the Armor and Elements.

 

As we know, Warframe has five "true" elements: Fire, Electric, Freeze, Armor Piercing and Poison.

 

Poison is more of a "neutral" element, as nothing resists it - nor is weak to it. It is also currently unattainable when not using Saryn (or the mire, acrid or torid).

 

I will start with my proposed element change.

 

Each Element has an added effect.

 

For example. Fire applies DoT, Shock has a chance to stun targets, Freeze slows targets (as it does already) and deals double vs shield, AP pierces armor (damaging otherwise immune parts, such as a shield lancer's shield or a corpus helmet) but does NOT puncture, and poison is what it is now, ignoring resistances.

Simple, huh?

 

Shock damage and thunderclap's (and similar) stun do not stack. Pick one.

 

"But wouldn't that make weapons totally OP?" I hear you say? Fear not.

 

You can now only have ONE of each elemental mod per weapon, and it CONVERTS damage rather than ADDS.

 

This one changes gameplay by a LOT. It would force mod-switching in a per-level case. It would make soloing the void a much harder task due to enemy variety. It would CONSIDERABLY weaken weaponry as you're removing three damage-increasing mods.

Saryn's poison-adding skill would not overwrite your melee element. It would work just as it does now, adding damage.

 

I propose an increase in effectiveness of damage mods (such as serration) to compensate. Doubling its effect is enough, I think.

 

Enemies appear in random elemental variants

 

Their would show up in their name (Flaming Disruptor Ancient, for example). 

 

Their attacks would apply their effects to your character, scaling whenever possible (fire deals more DoT, freeze slows for longer, shock stuns proc more often, AP ignores base armor value, poison just ignores the player's resistances). 

Elemental variations would be random, pretty rare but get more common at higher levels, and some are more likely in certain factions than others (fire/AP grineer, shock/freeze Corpus, poison infested), but all are possible.

Elemental variations do NOT change elemental resistances. A shock corpus takes the same shock damage as a normal corpus.

 

Enemies' resistance to elements increase as they level, but so does their weaknesses.

 

In short, a level 1 medium grineer lancer takes, say, 33% regular damage, but 150% AP damage, but a level 50 grineer takes 3% regular damage, but 300% AP damage. This offsets the lack of bonus damage from changing elemental mods, and further enhances specialization versus a certain faction. 

 

A new set of mods would add an elemental resistance/weakness and effect to your warframe.

 

Expands on the Retribution mod.

 

Those mods would be mutually exclusive (such as the new weapon elemental mods), and would add an element to warframes, adding a specific resistance, weakness, and an effect when shields are depleted (which kinda synergises with shield-toggling). 

Fire has resistance to itself, weakness to freeze, and once shields are out, applies a small, constant DoT to nearby enemies (similar to Overheat's)

Freeze has resistance to shock and itself, weakness to fire, and slows enemies near the warframe. The slow wears off instantly unless in range.

Shock has resistance to AP and itself, weakness to freeze, and stuns and damages enemies that attack you.

AP has a small resistance against all elemental damage (bar poison and fire), but weakness to AP and fire. When shields are out, multiplies resistances by 2x and weakness by 1.5x.

Poison has no resistances, nor weaknesses. When shields are down, it adds poison damage to all attacks (5% per rank, stackable with saryn's skill).

 

Resistances DO apply to shields.

 

Any feedback is appreciated!

Edited July 7, 2013 by TheGambler_BR

[Anthenator]

Hi, 

I liked how you think about the energy system and the armor system, but there's a few things i wanna comment on.

 

Firstly, as a mag player, your pool of energy is already surprisingly small. Right now, I have 215 max. energy, which means i can spam my 4 two times. Of course i would rather spam my pull 8 times instead, because it is more useful. Thus, I dont think the max energy needs a rework. Maybe some tweaking. 

I agree about the energy regeneration, but there are already artifacts that give you energy regeneration, so its already in the game. 

 

About the armor, the different elements DO have a special ability to each one of them (fire burns, electric shocks etc.) and there ARE mods that give resistance to different elements.

 

I'm not trying to trash your ideas here, but i'm trying to state what's already in the game. Also, I would really love to see the energy regeneration coming into the game, since I CANT FIND ANY ARTIFACT. Argh.

 

Ps. As of now, resistances like armor only apply to health, so I think they should change that to applying to shields too.

[Kyte]

Your change to energy/shields would just encourage people to stop and putz around waiting for their energy/shields to regenerate before moving on.

 

Warframe has far more than 5 elements. There are 4 armor ignoring elements, for example.

 

Random elemental enemy variants sounds massively lame. Nobody likes palette swap enemies.

 

Forcing only one element sounds lame too. One of the cool things of Warframe is that it allows you ridiculous things like a sword that's frozen and on fire at the same time. Or a flamethrower that also freezes.

 

Centering all the damage on a single mod would make it much harder to balance, since you can't adjust individual elements' damage bonuses.

 

People hate having to change their loadouts each time, it'll just encourage people to stick with AP and be done with it.

 

It'd also involve an absolutely massive rehaul of how the system works wrt armor and elements. There's no "resistances", only multipliers (3x Blade for infested, 2x Electric for Corpus, etc) and armor. Hell, they just removed all multipliers that'd reduce damage. This would be a step back.

 

The current elemental system is fine.

Edited July 7, 2013 by Kyte

[Rottae]

This, I would like this!

I think all of these things would only add game-play and variety, and force us to actually BUILD our items instead of just maxing them. Having the chance to actually build for playstyle and not just throw everything on it.

One thing I do not agree on though (the only thing too) is the resistance thingie. I believe that all of the weaknesses and resistances in this game needs to be static or atleast not that jumpy (for example: a lvl 1 Grineer takes 33% regular damage but 150% AP damage, a lvl 100 grineer taes 25% regular damage but 175% AP damage)

This is to not make enemies scale into invulnerability states versus specific weaponry with a specific kind of upgrade 

[Numot]

And then you successfully make all caster style frames effectively worthless. Not to mention hurting one of the big things that makes the game fun, using abilities.

 

Spamming 4 isn't as effective as you think. Higher level monsters have high amounts of resistances, meaning that only 3 ultimates can actually deal any effective damage across all enemy types, and even then they aren't kills against heavies. The only ultimates I ever see casted a lot are miasma, world on fire, and maybe now that's its buffed, rhino stomp.

[Kyte]

This, I would like this!

I think all of these things would only add game-play and variety, and force us to actually BUILD our items instead of just maxing them. Having the chance to actually build for playstyle and not just throw everything on it.

One thing I do not agree on though (the only thing too) is the resistance thingie. I believe that all of the weaknesses and resistances in this game needs to be static or atleast not that jumpy (for example: a lvl 1 Grineer takes 33% regular damage but 150% AP damage, a lvl 100 grineer taes 25% regular damage but 175% AP damage)

This is to not make enemies scale into invulnerability states versus specific weaponry with a specific kind of upgrade 

Right now they have static resistances. It's armor that scales.

Edited July 7, 2013 by Kyte

[Rottae]

@Kyte, Oh sorry about the misunderstanding, i was refering to the post with the resistance thingie. Also armor scaling should be less scaling too. Since  in the end mostly AP damage does something anyway.
 I like the idea of having to choose what kind of damage i want to do, making AP a non-elemental type would be great though but lowering the numbers. This would create customization and playstyle (Fire = Bonus DoT, Cold = some kind of mix of damage and Slow, Electric = Mostly CC, Poison = ... Shouldn't be here) while giving them less balancing issues, because right now, everything is balanced as if everyone is flinging around 3x elementals, AP and Damage mod atleast on their weapons. I would be fine with 6 modcards on any single weapon, it would make me choose my things instead of just putting everything on.

[TheGambler_BR]

@Anthenator

Energy rework is there due to a number of reasons. One is to reduce spammability of ultimates. The other is to remove the necessity to have energy siphon. I do not see a single person not using it at higher levels, simply because it completely overshadows any other artifact we have - even the event rare ones.

 

@Kyte

I know of the recent change in elemental effects. Most elements are reduntant though (such as laser, or poison/armor ignore). And not all elements have effects - fire does no DoT. It's as if being on fire dealt no damage.

One of the problems with warframe is that EVERY endgame loadout consists of the exact same warframe/mod setup, changing only small details. You swap your boltor for a latron prime, or a dread, but you won't see a burston that often, nor a vulkar. Mod selection is also multishot-damage-3 elemental mods-reload speed-fire rate-bread-butter. Combining faction resistances and weaknesses and elements on weapons, you open up the game for more varied builds - once more interesting mods come, surely.

 

@Rottae: 

 

Weapon variety and cooperation would nullify this. In a normal mission, you usually only find one faction to face. In void towers, you (should) need buddies to aid you, since it's the highest-end we have. 

 

@Numot:

 

Which is why I highlighted that powers also need a rework. Ultimates, too. They need scalability, and static damage is NOT the way around it.

Energy regeneration is not a bad thing for casters. It won't trigger the "hoarding" reflexes we have today, since in 8 seconds you've recovered the energy you spent on your first skill. Energy drops could remain, so prolonged fights aren't as much of a hit as they are today.

Values aren't set in stone, either, and there could be MUCH more interesting mods for weapons to support caster frames (such as Energy Siphon becoming a weapon mod that ~siphons~ energies from enemies, giving x energy per y damage dealt).

[Mythrex]

No

[neKroMancer]

Reworking energy has been discussed for more than anyone can count. However, I think the current is forcing player to wait for 100 energy and use ultimate since most frames have ultimate as most damaging power. Lesser powers aren't more powerful than weapons and more situational.

Limiting usage of ultimate without changing the current system seems to be a better solution. Energy system offers faster gameplay and combat which suit the theme of Warframe. Rework it into regenerating mana isn't different from turning all powers into cooldown system. Players will wait in an empty room for shield/mana to fully charged before entering the next room and use ultimate to clear most enemies and kill the survivors. Back to close beta system.

However, I agree with OP that energy system needs change. Frankly, the more I play, the more I think ultimate should be based on a different system. Energy system is fine with 1-3 powers but doesn't suit ultimate since it just encourage spamming which devalue all ultimates. They don't serve the original purpose : an emergency button. The current system encourage using ultimate as a main damaging ability.

Problem is : How to change the ultimate system and make it into emergency button without limiting the number of use too much?

- I think the answer lies in the combat system. A system similar to fighting game looks good to me. Damage dealt/taken should charge 'ultimate meter' which has finite number of charge it can hold. Upgrade the ultimate mod increase the number of charge and other attributes. This encourages players to getting into the fight more and taking/dealing damage in order to charge your ability.

- Certain powers like Iron skin and Snow globe present challenge in this model since they negate damage. However, players should find no trouble dealing damage in such situation (iron skin draws aggro and placing snow globe in strategic position allows players to deal damage without fear of retaliation).

However, DE seems to be struggling with many gameplay issues and they seem to be content with the cutter system. I don't expect any change soon.

[Ardha]

I think the energy system does need a change (I was going to open a topic about this, indeed).

The main problem here is that ultimates are usually much more powerful than other skills, on most frames, and their ability to clear whole rooms from lots and lots of enemies is the main priority for most player (which would then discard previous, low-tier skills).

Even after recent changes on some frames (Mag for example) there's still a discussion going on because spending 75 or even 50 energy seems like a waste when you're so close to a life-saver skill.

 

Energy regen could be the right way to go, but in my opinion it wouldn't fix the main problem, which is the fact that when you reach 50 or 75 points you could still be waiting for 100 in order to use your ultimate.

The issue here is that "both" skills (I mean, in general, the ultimate and the other minor skills) draw energy from the same pool. Separating the two things, for example having a pool for "utility" skills and a separate one for your ultimate, could be a solution.

 

However, what I really think would be the best solution, is a cooldown system.

Every skill would have a different cooldown, like current 25 and 50 energy skills could have a few seconds of cooldown while an ultimate would require much more time.

Aside from the basic, drastic change in casting skills, a cooldown system would have a big impact even on warframes variety: we could actually, finally have casters frames, heavily skill-based which could provide an "alternative to gunplay" (quoted from Vol description).

Short and long cooldowns could put more differences between frames and allow for more customization and playstyles.

 

The one (big) issue I didn't realize about a cooldown system, which I just read in this topic, is that long cooldowns would force (well, it's a choice actually, but who wouldn't do it) players into dead-times, waiting for their ultimate to recharge.

This could be easily avoided by doing what neKroMancer just suggested, having the cooldown recharge only mid-fighting (by damaging enemies or taking damage, for example). Short-cooldown abilities (like current 25 and 50 points) could have a normal, time-based ever recharging cooldown (they would be short enough to not justify staying still outside combat), while ultimates and some high-tier skills could use this different cooldown system.

 

To sum it up, energy system could be replaced by a cooldown system.

Frames could be separated into short-cooldown (casters) and long cooldown ones, creating actual alternative to gunfire.

Low-level, short-cooldown skills (like current 25 or 50 points) could have a normal cooldown system, ever recharging. Ultimates and other very powerful skills could use a system in which cooldown only recharges while damaging enemies/taking damage, or at least by being in combat (in order to avoid voluntary standstills waiting for cooldowns to recharge).

[Tsukinoki]

Making the energy system like you want it would just be a huge step back into what was around during early CBT with a CD system.

All it does is make people wait the time required to fully recharge their energy every single doorway and room.  That slows gameplay down to a crawl.  And that would be a thing most people would see as very bad.  A system like that would be against some of the core concepts of WF.  The reason?  With the current energy system and balls you at least have to be killing things, or even breaking a ton of things, to keep up your abilitiy spam.  In the system you're suggesting you would see every single room be wiped out with a nuke first thing.

Next, it would kill high wave defense missions.  You need to balance things around both the low levels and the higher levels of gameplay as well.  At the higher waves you *need* to be able to cast your ultimate a few times and then collect energy to repeat that later in the same wave.

So all in all I would have to say that I disagree with your energy system.



Now about you different elemental system, especially with your elemental mobs idea:
This would be an annoying system that would only serve to make the game more tedious and less fun.

The main reason?  You are going into an Infested Exterminate level so you equp fire mods on all 3 of your weapons.  You round the first corner and see a "Flaming Disrupter".  You are now completely screwed over by your new system.  Since you dont have ice or anything else you cant only deal relatively tiny, if any, damage at all to that disrupter with ANY of your attacks.

And if you dont equip fire on all three when you're going against Infested you're just sacrificing DPS now.  Another bad thing, and something very few people will agree with.

The second point is what about the missions where a second faction breaks into the current mission?  That's going to make your new elemental system a pain, and make it so that those happenings, which should be exciting and a nice change, are instead something that people dread because it means that suddenly their weapons are going to lose most of their effectiveness.

Now, you can say: you should equip a different element to each of your weapons.
The problem with that?
Then in most missions you're stuck using ONE of your weapons and never touching the others, except to deal with the rare elemental variant of enemies.

This system forces people to gear up for ONE type of enemy and then waste time if they ever want to go up against a different faction.  They can no longer just go "I want to fight Grineer" and then the very next level go "How about some corpus?"  They have to either stick with the same faction or be constantly swapping out mods.

The other thing is that part of the experience in dungeon crawler games like this is being able to burn, freeze, and shock enemies all at the same time and watch the elemental damage numbers pop off of them.

Now, the problem with elemental enemies is that while they sound nice, they are only going to be more problematic and annoying than fun.
You step into a room and have 3 or 4 elemental grineer lancers hit you with Ice, fire and shock.  so you are slowed, suffering dot, and are stunned for a long duration!
How does that sound like fun?
Or think of a shock heavy gunner!
Perma stagger/stun from a long range at high dps.  That makes the rollers sound down right pleasant comparatively.

The other problem with this system is that they would have to rebalance:
-Enemy resistances gained per level
-Enemy health gained per level (because suddenly your dps drops like a rock across the board)

Then they would have to find a way to balance elemental enemies into all that.

Again I have to say no to this idea.

[basilioss]

No

[NotVelvet]

+1 to Tsukinoki. stated all the exact reasons i disagreed with all of this thread...

[TheGambler_BR]

As I said, numbers aren't set in stone. Making energy charge faster through combat is a good thing, for example. Would prevent dead times, as said.

 

Tsukinoki missed the point where I stated enemy elemental variations would NOT gain resistances from elements, and where I said elemental variations would be fairly rare.

But bad luck does happen, and the situation you described (one heavy grineer of each element) could happen.

However, of course stun values wouldn't be high so as to make gameplay horrendously bad. Also, no stagger/knockdown, just a small "freeze". I'm not stupid.

 

What I dislike about this current system is the "slap everything into it and go" mentality we have. It isn't uncommon gaming-wise to have to specify your build to slay one specific type of enemy, and this game fits more a MMO kind of game than dungeon crawler, IMO.

[Tsukinoki]

@TheGambler_BR
True, I did miss the point about elemental enemies not gaining a resistance, which is a tad counter intuitive but whatever, but the point about elemental heavies still stands.

A single heavy gunner with a shock elemental gorgon could easily stunlock players due to the sheer amount of bullets that will hit them and the chance of proccing the stun.  That would definately not be fun.

Further:
What about weapons that deal AP damage currently, such as despair?
That would allow them to have 2 elements at a time and be quite a bit more OP under your system than they are under the current one.  And AP weapons are the biggest weapons right now because of their use against heavier enemies.  Same with AI weapons.
Your elemental system would just make AP/AI weapons FAR more powerful than they are.  Which I dont think is a good thing.

[TheGambler_BR]

@TheGambler_BR

True, I did miss the point about elemental enemies not gaining a resistance, which is a tad counter intuitive but whatever, but the point about elemental heavies still stands.

A single heavy gunner with a shock elemental gorgon could easily stunlock players due to the sheer amount of bullets that will hit them and the chance of proccing the stun.  That would definately not be fun.

Further:

What about weapons that deal AP damage currently, such as despair?

That would allow them to have 2 elements at a time and be quite a bit more OP under your system than they are under the current one.  And AP weapons are the biggest weapons right now because of their use against heavier enemies.  Same with AI weapons.

Your elemental system would just make AP/AI weapons FAR more powerful than they are.  Which I dont think is a good thing.

 

Proc chances would be naturally based on the enemy using it. So an ancient has a much higher chance (almost always) to proc an elemental effect than a heavy gunner (almost never, due to higher fire rate).

Think borderlands mechanics, ish. Slower-firing weapons have higher chances to proc effects than faster-firing weapons.

 

Their innate element would be replaced by any elemental mods. Thus, despair with a, say, 50% fire damage, would deal 50% of its original AP damage and 50% fire damage.

The same would apply to armor ignore (as it is too similar to poison mechanically speaking).