Spearguns - General Gameplay Design thoughts and suggestions

[Colyeses]

It's kind of becoming scattered with everyone coming up with individual tweaks and improvements here and there, but I do feel I need to put this in a separate topic.

I want to talk about the gameplay design between the two Spearguns currently in the game: The Grineer Javlok, and the Corpus Ferrox. I enjoy both of these weapons as they're very much my style, but I do think there's room for a little bit of improvement. Most importantly, in terms of their secondary fire.

I love sniper-type weapons, and the first Warframe primary gun I took a liking to is the Corpus heavyweight laser cannon, the Opticor. When the Javlok rolled around, I was pleasantly surprised at its ability to inflict disturbing amounts of single target damage with great precision, and the Ferrox likewise filled me with anticipation due to its natural crit tendencies. (Although I was somewhat disappointed that it fires off small bolts, rather than actual laserbeams, but that's purely a visual thing)

Probably more exciting is the new turn that's taken with the Ferrox' alternate fire: Rather than delivering an immediate blast, the Ferrox exerts persistent effects on the battlefield, essentially allowing it to fight alongside you even when you don't have it on you. This, I feel, is a much needed improvement over the Javlok, whose downtime only serves as a heavy drawback to its alternate fire. Sure, the Javlok's ability gives it good AoE damage, but at the cost of losing your primary for so long, it's not worth all that much.

The Ferrox on the other hand, can be deposited somewhere to stall and soften enemies near its landing spot, setting them up for easy clear with AoE secondaries like the Staticor, or even just leaving the Ferrox to do damage by itself. It gives a lot more purpose to the secondary fire of the Ferrox and gives players much more of a reason to use it.

On that note, I think DE can get a lot more out of these two weapons, or even the weapon class in general. I think it is a good idea to give every speargun going forward a persistent effect upon being tossed, something that augments the weapon's abilities outside their roles as discount sniper rifles. An infested speargun, for example, could release spores within an area around it, that makes every enemy that dies in that area spawn a maggot that serves the Tenno. Simaris or Suda could reverse engineer a Shield Osprey's generator to build a speargun that restores nearby allied shields.

And I think the Javlok should be retrofitted with a thumper head that sends shockwaves to periodically knock down nearby enemies.

Aside from these persistent effects becoming a general theme of spearguns, I do think it is important that players are given the opportunity to mod the weapons for their personal choice of combat. As interesting as the Ferrox' alternate fire is, its reach is not big enough yet to make a solid impact, the area of effect is just too small. I personally think there should be Speargun-unique mods that increase the efficiency of the secondary fire, including AoE size and effect power (This would take different shapes per speargun. It could increase pulse rate for Javlok, pull strength for Ferrox, maggot health and attack power for Infested Speargun, and overshield limit for Cephalon Speargun). These mods should probably also come with their own innate duration boosters, so players that build for the alternate fire aren't forced to re-toss the spear every twenty seconds.

I like the weapon style and concept, but I also think there's plenty of room for improvement, and I wanted to share my own ideas and suggestions. Let me know what you think!

[GordoFreeman]

Very interesting and constructive post. For an infested version of a speargun i think it should be some kind of mutalist version, infestation taking over a speargun; and id love to see the infestation taking over the javlok just to see a mix between grineer and infested (even if the mutalist is more akin to the corpus because alad work)

I agree that with some specific changes the speargun category can be a very interesting  one

[Xekrin]

19 minutes ago, Colyeses said:

The Ferrox on the other hand

Here is my idea for ferrox in particular and how to make it more unique as a thrown alt-fire spear gun, especially since its of corpus origin.

 

[Tsunero]

I want a gun that shoots spears not a spear that shoots bullets or whatever...

[Othergrunty]

38 minutes ago, Momo93 said:

I want a gun that shoots spears not a spear that shoots bullets or whatever...

So like the stake thrower in Painkiller? Or the harpoon gun from Fallout4.

 

[Kalvorax]

41 minutes ago, Momo93 said:

I want a gun that shoots spears not a spear that shoots bullets or whatever...

isnt the closest thing that burst rifle from equinox pack?

[Tsunero]

Just now, Othergrunty said:

So like the stake thrower in Painkiller? Or the harpoon gun from Fallout4.

 

Yes! I have fond memories with the stake thrower x).

[GordoFreeman]

42 minutes ago, Momo93 said:

I want a gun that shoots spears not a spear that shoots bullets or whatever...

I want a rocket chainsaw launcher :/

[Tsunero]

1 minute ago, xcynderx said:

isnt the closest thing that burst rifle from equinox pack?

Harpak is quite far from it, it shoots small bolts in a burst fashion and it's secondary mode is a harpoon which can pull in enemies. The whole weapon is just so underwhelming. Almost all stats are trash on it and the secondary mode barely pulls in anything and doesn't even work on most enemies because they just ignore it.

[Tsunero]

2 minutes ago, GordoFreeman said:

I want a rocket chainsaw launcher :/

Closest thing would be Miter with the exploding mod but that is pvp only sadly :(.

[Kalvorax]

2 minutes ago, Momo93 said:

Harpak is quite far from it, it shoots small bolts in a burst fashion and it's secondary mode is a harpoon which can pull in enemies. The whole weapon is just so underwhelming. Almost all stats are trash on it and the secondary mode barely pulls in anything and doesn't even work on most enemies because they just ignore it.

ah, ok...and that was why i couldnt remember it..it was true master fodder lol

[Colyeses]

What is it with derailing lately? Made a topic on Hex forums to talk about Dross and people start talking about Brutecrown Bluff, now I want to talk about Spearguns and people start talking about harpoon guns!