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[Concept Help] Game Design - Warframe Balance


Krion112
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Welcome, creators! Today, I hopefully have something special for you: I intend to share my understanding of game-design in the efforts to both help inspire fan creations, while also helping to cultivate more professionally designed fan creations. With better community understanding of game-design comes a better effort on the part of the developers to nurture a better game.

My one disclaimer with this is that what I'm about to explain is not a set of criteria required to make a fan concept; If you are a fan concept creator, you feel free to make what you want for the reasons you want, my purpose here is only to inspire through showing how I've come to understand Warframe's game-design. Take that information with whatever quantity you find you may appreciate. I'm also very much up to dispute about this, so if you have an argument about the placement of a Warframe or otherwise, let me know.

So, let's begin:

Warframe Balance Chart

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This chart may be hard to understand at first glance, so allow me to explain: Most, if not all, Action games have a distinct balance matrix that determines what counters what, in a rock-paper-scissors styled design, however it can vary between soft and hard counter depending upon the way the chart is utilized. This matrix is comprised of 3 parts: Categories, Columns, and Rows.

Categories - Represented by Offense, Defense, Support, Control, Immortal, and Mastery. The overall intended role function of an element.

  • Offense - The Role that rewards Attacking; Natural Philosophy to make change
  • Defense - The Role that rewards Protecting; Natural Philosophy to resist change
  • Support - The Role that rewards Symbiosis; Natural Philosophy to help others to change or make change
  • Control - The Role that rewards Parasitism; Natural Philosophy to manipulate the other roles to gain desired change
  • Immortal - The Role that is always rewarded; Natural Philosophy to be entirely indifferent to change or unaffected by change
  • Mastery - The Role that rewards Unification; Natural Philosophy to use the best method of change for a given circumstance

Each role is locked in endless Balance, but the explanations for each counter would take way too long, especially considering all the nuance and details, so just know the rule is:

  • Offense counters Control
  • Defense counters Offense
  • Support counters Defense
  • Control counters Support
  • Immortal can't be countered
  • Mastery can counter or be countered by any Role

I'll explain this in detail if requested to, though, so if you want justification, let me know.

 

Columns - Represented by Power, Precision, and Flexibility. One of two determining factors of how an element of a game carries out its role. Each role has a variant for each column. (ie, Offense has Steamroll, Engagement, and Harassment). However, the Columns are treated more in degree than as solid positions, as there are weapons that fit between columns, but so far Warframes seem to represent a whole column and not just a degree of one.

  • Power - Close Combat, often area of a effect based; Counters Flexibility by causing more of an immediate effect across more area
    • Pure Power - Shotgun / Tank
    • Power Plasticity - Flamethrower
    • Power Coordination - Grenade Launcher
  • Flexibility - Mid-to-Long range Combat, often damage over time based; Counters Precision by having more freedom of movement or aim
    • Pure Flexibility - Pistol / Scout
    • Flexible Potential - Sub-Machine Gun
    • Flexible Coordination - Assault Rifle
  • Precision - Long range Combat, often the elimination of a high-priority target; Counters Power by eliminating them beyond their range or comprehension
    • Pure Precision - Sniper / Sharpshooter
    • Precise Plasticity - Marksman Rifle
    • Precise Potential - Rocket Launcher

 

Rows - Represented by Aggressive, Passive, Cooperative, Manipulative, Endless, and Adaptive. The Second determining factor of how an element of a game carries out its role. Rows play into some of the soft/hard counter effects, as a Manipulative Defense is capable of overcoming a Cooperative Support, despite Support generally overcoming Defense. Each Row is essentially the effects of one Category having influence on another.

  • Aggressive - Rewards the management of an effect upon the enemy; Ash's Bladestorm requiring to target and then release is an example of Aggressive execution
  • Passive - Rewards allowing an effect to run its course; Vauban's Bastille being able to persist and trap enemies that enter is an example of Passive execution
  • Cooperative - Rewards the use of another element to complete its effect; Banshee's Sonar requiring to be shot to deal extra damage is an example of Cooperative execution
  • Manipulative - Rewards the manipulation of enemy behaviors to gain a desired effect; Nekros's Terrify forcing the enemy ai to run away is an example of Manipulative execution
  • Endless - I'm not sure how this is supposed to function; assuming the Immortal role exists, it must have a row that modifies other categories, but what it's function is I don't know.
  • Adaptive - Rewards the altering between sub-strategies among a category; Equinox's Metamorphosis changing between forms is an example of Adaptive execution

Each Row modifier also retains the balance of the Category counter system, so Aggressive counters Manipulative, Passive counters Aggressive, Cooperative counters Passive, and Manipulative counters Cooperative.

With this matrix in mind, it should make sense of why each Warframe is placed in a particular slot on my balance chart, and allows us to see the gaps of where new Warframes can be made to fit. Keep in mind, the Mod system can be utilized to make Warframes (and weapons, for that matter) overlap slightly in their roles. Hopefully, you fan concept creators can make use of this information to improve the quality of your ideas, so let me know if this helps or tell me where I can elaborate further, or if you have a dispute with the information presented here, let me know. Thanks for reading!

Edited by Krion112
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31 minutes ago, Almighty_Jado said:

Nidus as a support? I can see why you'd put him there, but he ends up with a ridiculous DPS anyways. He might be able to get into the Agressive Immortal category thanks to Undying?

Support does mean more than utilizing an ally; Support is just utilizing the synergy between multiple elements. For example, if two of a Warframe's powers work together, that's support; one makes the other one stronger or easier to pull off.

Not sure if you're a Halo fan, but all of the Alien (ie, Covenant) weapons in the Halo games are Support oriented, including the Energy Sword. The reason the Energy Sword is Support, and not something like a Steamroll Offense, is because it entirely relies upon other weapons for ranged combat; its counterpart, the Human Shotgun, can still at least strike targets beyond its effective range, but the Energy Sword cannot.

Among Nidus's powers are many elements that work in tandem, such as Larva constricting enemies to make them easier targets for Virulence. His Parasitic Link is also straight up an Aggressive Support power if I've ever seen one, because it can be used to target and buff a specific ally, or be made to be-rid of Control-role procs (although, the Control faction, the Sentient, must be expanded before this becomes more apparent).

Nidus's Undying, and for that matter Inaros's Sarcophagus, do indeed make matters a little more complicated, but as it appears to me, these aren't Immortal roles because Nidus's Undying is survival through synergy with his powers, at the expense of no shields, and Inaros's Sarcophagus only helps encourage him to fight on, to steamroll through his enemies with no fear of death. Inaros might be apart of the Offense that is influenced by Immortal, to be an Endless Offense, but I'm not quite sure yet.

But, this does raise an interesting question: If Nidus is not an Aggressive Immortal, then what kind of Warframe would be? Something that constantly manages its immunity to the existence around it, possibly at great cost. Perhaps while not in its state of immunity, it constantly bleeds out, incompatible with the mortal realm in which it finds itself, which draws it to needing to collect the necessary energy to stay manifested. This already sets the stage for an interesting Warframe concept.

I hope this explanation makes sense, but if you're not in agreement, we can discuss in greater detail!

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   Quick question from here in the peanut gallery. While I most certainly will be utilizeing your list to try to iron some of the kinks out of my dear sweet girl Feynman (I'm almost tempted just to directly ask you to help classify her, although you've already done enough work as it is), I gotta ask, have you considered constructing one for weaponry? I've been trying to use Warframe wiki's weapon  as good reference material, but I fear that there isn't enough nuance to the list  to consider outside factors of import.

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Just now, Unus said:

   Quick question from here in the peanut gallery. While I most certainly will be utilizeing your list to try to iron some of the kinks out of my dear sweet girl Feynman (I'm almost tempted just to directly ask you to help classify her, although you've already done enough work as it is), I gotta ask, have you considered constructing one for weaponry? I've been trying to use Warframe wiki's weapon  as good reference material, but I fear that there isn't enough nuance to the list  to consider outside factors of import.

Yep, I'm also sorting out a Weapon Balance presentation, as well as a Unit Balance presentation. Most of the Weapon Balance chart is already complete, it's mostly melee weapons (and the copious amounts of Tenno melee weapons) that needs completion before I can present it. Units are a longer way off.

Just for reference, though, all the rules of balance I've spoken of here applies to Weapon and Unit balance as well, with the exception that Weapons utilize one more criteria for their matrix, but I will be providing the charts once I'm finished with them.

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6 minutes ago, Krion112 said:

Yep, I'm also sorting out a Weapon Balance presentation, as well as a Unit Balance presentation. Most of the Weapon Balance chart is already complete, it's mostly melee weapons (and the copious amounts of Tenno melee weapons) that needs completion before I can present it. Units are a longer way off.

Just for reference, though, all the rules of balance I've spoken of here applies to Weapon and Unit balance as well, with the exception that Weapons utilize one more criteria for their matrix, but I will be providing the charts once I'm finished with them.

   Units as well ye say? Ell, wouldn't mind clappin me eyes on that for me Pitwerk as well then! Might be a little difficult to use in some areas in my permutations area, but, heck, I can bend a bit. Lookin forward to it.

Edited by Unus
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