How to achieve game balance while maintaining Warframe's "feel".

[Mr.Lube]

General Intro:

  This has been a very popular point of discussion for the past couple of months, and rightfully so. Currently, high level content consists of enemies that are too powerful to directly fight; as a result we resort to basically "turning the enemies off" with large amounts of CC. This isn't fun, this isn't Warframe. How can I be a super bada** space commando when my enemies can't fight back? We have come to a crossroads where nerfing enemies will make the game too easy, and nerfing Warframes will make the game too difficult. The problem needs to be tackled from the ground up, and from both sides.

We will be taking a look at both ends of the problem; Warframe energy/ability management, and enemy scaling. These two systems go hand in hand with each other, you cannot change one without affecting the other. Therefore, both of my proposed solutions hinge on each other. Let's get started.

 

Warframe Ability Management:

Spoiler

Intro/Goals:

     With this new energy system my goal is to give players an abundance of energy while regulating how much they use at a time. In addition, I plan on making energy less valuable in order to free up space in builds so power efficiency is not always mandatory. If this goes as planned, people won't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for every last dose of energy.

The Solution:

     - Warframes now have energy levels in the high thousands. Around 5,000-10,000 energy per Warframe.

     - Warframes start missions with full energy. (I forgot to add this in the first time, but this is very important)

     - Each ability cast will generate "Overheat". Overheat will have a cap unique to each Warframe, much like energy. Overheat % will be shown by a separate bar, much like energy.

     - Overheat will slowly decline after an amount of time of no ability usage.

     - Overheat cannot be modded. This ensures that overheat does not become the "new energy". (The overheat cap will be generous though.)

     - Once Overheat cap is reached players will still be able to use their abilities, but side effects will ensue. Side effects may include self damage on cast, doubled energy cost, ect.

     - Radial abilities will have their effectiveness spread out across each enemy evenly. This will prevent large AOE abilities from turning every enemy on the map off; and convert them into abilities that give the player a few moments of "breathing room". (This will make more sense once you read the enemy rework.)

     - Energy Orbs no longer exist. Relying on RNG to supply you with a valuable resource is not the way to go. Energy could either generate slowly over time (much like E. Siphon), or energy could be generated dynamically through player action.

 

Conclusion:

     I wanted to get rid of the "naked" feeling of being out of energy, since this game heavily relies on Warframe abilities. I wanted to embrace that concept, but within moderation. Players will still have to monitor their energy, but it won't be the focal point of the game. Spamming abilities is fun, it's one of the main reason people play this game. I didn't want to take that away, but I wanted to regulate it. When using abilities constantly, players will need to take a short break and change their approach (depending on the frame), until the Overheat bar goes down.

 

Enemy Rework:

Spoiler

Intro/Goals:

     Enemy scaling is broke, we all know this. Normal enemies turn into super beings in a matter of minutes and it just makes no sense. Warframe needs to decide what type of enemies it wants. Does it want a moderate amount of strong enemies? Or does it want a massive amount of weak enemies? Right now we have a massive amount of strong enemies and it is too much to handle. I plan on lowering the enemies' individual effectiveness, while improving their effectiveness in groups. This will fit with the theme of "strength in numbers" and make them feel more like an army.

The Solution:

     Disclaimer: Do not assume the values I am using are the same as the current build. This idea will need new damage/health values, this is just the structure.

 - Individual Scaling

     By "individual scaling" I am referring to the individual stats of an enemy. Enemies will scale based off of 3 areas; accuracy/health/protections. This means that damage will not scale. The only areas that will increase with enemy level are accuracy, health, and protections. Let's go into more detail;

(Accuracy) - A level 1 Grineer Lancer will do the same damage per shot that a level 70 Grineer Lancer does. However, a level 1 Grineer Lancer will miss the majority of his shots while the level 70 hits most of his. This makes it seem as if the enemies themselves are improving, rather than just their stats. The amount of damage you take will be based off of how much you get hit.

(Health) - As enemies level up so will their total health pool. This isn't much of a stretch from what we already have, but it will need to scale at a much more gradual rate than it currently does. Keep in mind that health scaling is separate from Protection scaling.

(Protection) - By "protections" I am referring to Armor and Shields. Protection scaling will be based off of % health values. Enemies will have a percentage of their health covered in protections based on enemy level. For instance, a level 30 Corpus Crewman will have 25% of his health covered in protections. On top of this, protections will each have their own effect. Portions of health covered with Armor will receive damage reduction, and portions of health covered in shields will regenerate over time. (Basically, Overwatch).

 

 - Group Scaling

     By "group scaling" I am referring to enemies' ability to work together as a unit. As seen above, most of the proposed changes are direct nerfs to enemies' individual effectiveness. Now it's time to make them feel like an army. Since the amount of damage the player takes will be based off the amount they get hit, enemies will scale in numbers.

(Strength in Numbers) - As enemy level increases, the density and rate of enemy spawns will increase as well.

(Squads) - Enemies will travel in squads during combat. Squad numbers will increase depending on the mission/enemy level.

(Squad Commanders) - All squads will have a commanding unit; Corpus will get a new unit, and Grineer Commanders will no longer be Loki enthusiasts. Squad commanders will give the members of their squad an accuracy buff. On top of this, squad commanders will be able to provide cover and mark targets for death. Marking a target (Tenno) will cause all members of their squad to focus fire on the target.

 

Closing Thoughts:

     The energy management changes should promote a healthy amount of ability spam and ensure that the player very rarely gets that feeling of being on empty. Though somewhat extreme, I believe that the change to radial abilities is for the better, seeing as what we have now gave us Nullifiers. If these changes were implemented Nullifiers would no longer be necessary to keep us in check.

As for the enemy rework; I believe that it will add some more depth and immersion into Warframe's gameplay. Targeting priority targets will become a large factor in a teams success (which means a buff for Snipers). On top of this, Warframe will still have that chaotic "horde" feel with the amount of enemy spawns.

What do you think? Did I leave anything out? Let me know of any loopholes that need plugging. If you see something you don't agree with, let me know so I can improve my idea. Thanks.

 

 

[Trichouette]

So basically you want to add cooldown without adding cooldown, hidden behind a second "ressource bar"

Not really fond of the idea.

 

I still think short cooldown instead of energy would be way better to balance the game while keeping the spamming to a reasonable level and without killing the pace of the game.

But whenever I say "cooldown" players imagine something like "let's give between 20 to 60 sec cooldown to each ability"

 

Regarding the enemy scaling you probably forgot that the enemies are pretty much not attacking you and therefore having more enemies doesn't mean it gets harder.

However I agree on the "an enemy lvl 70 should deal as much as an enemy lvl 1", that would make waaaay more sense considering how pitiful our resistance is (unless we're playing a tankframe)

[maddragonmaster]

i  think it sounds quiet interesting. maybe include a unite that improves damage in a way. not sure how the infested would work but i think something special would work for them. maybe turn the ancients into their commanders sort of to speak organize their attacks. like drawn our attention with chargers, leapers, and runners on one side and send volatile infested guys on the other side. if ancients don't work then maybe improve the brood mother to the point it is their commander. or make a special new infested guy for this role

[Mr.Lube]

Just now, maddragonmaster said:

i  think it sounds quiet interesting. maybe include a unite that improves damage in a way. not sure how the infested would work but i think something special would work for them. maybe turn the ancients into their commanders sort of to speak organize their attacks. like drawn our attention with chargers, leapers, and runners on one side and send volatile infested guys on the other side. if ancients don't work then maybe improve the brood mother to the point it is their commander. or make a special new infested guy for this role

First off thanks for the feedback! I've been struggling with what to do with the Infested since they are basically just re-purposed versions of the Grineer and Corpus. I've been playing with the idea that the Infested would carry over some elements of the unit they infected. For example; Chargers would have some armor properties since they are infected lancers and the infected MOA's could maybe have some shields.

This is just an idea though.

[Iccotak]

Warframe needs enemies that get smarter. Not simply better stats.
Agree with this post.
Your energy idea would be a good solution for overly energy dependent frames.
But I have to agree with @Trichouette Keep the mechanic simple. Just use Overheat. 
Plus it would make more sense in the world. The Operators are the source of the Warframes' energy. Why should we have to depend on enemy energy drops?

[ShadowStalker]

1 hour ago, Mr.Lube said:

    - Once Overheat cap is reached players will still be able to use their abilities, but side effects will ensue. Side effects may include self damage on cast, doubled energy cost, ect.

LMAO yep ye 

No

[GrayArchon]

I don't know how I feel about the energy/ability rework. That's definitely a more complicated topic, I think.

However, I LOVE the idea of enemy commander units. Basically everything you've said, granting accuracy buff, deploying cover, targetting enemies. Having high-priority targets besides "heavy gunners and bombards are BAD" would be great. I think this ties into what Steve's doing with Damage 3.0 since it's more focused on enemy rework now.

[Trichouette]

18 minutes ago, Iccotak said:

The Operators are the source of the Warframes' energy. Why should we have to depend on enemy energy drops?

I'm still wondering why we have to rely on RNG energy loot (or <Insert one of the dozens way to obtain energy that are ruining the game>) to use our abilities while our operator can shoot lazerbeam as he pleases.

19 minutes ago, Iccotak said:

Warframe needs enemies that get smarter. Not simply better stats.

Honestly, I think the "more enemy spawn at higher level" thing wouldn't be that bad to increase difficulty if they weren't just prevented from attacking (and if they didn't kill us in 3 bullets)

Aswell as "they are better prepared and use better their abilities". Anything but what we have now would be better, relying on "they're tougher and deal more damage" doesn't make sense when they start to kill you in 2 bullets...

21 minutes ago, Iccotak said:

But I have to agree with @Trichouette Keep the mechanic simple. Just use Overheat. 

A while ago, a player suggested having 4 different energy bar, one for each ability.

While the idea is awful to implement, the goal was to allow players to use underperforming abilities more often instead of only focusing on one or two.

THIS is the reason I believe short cooldowns would do great in this game. You could be using some less useful abilities without impairing the use of the ones you built your frame for.

Meanwhile an overheat mechanic means that people will work even more toward using one and only ability...

[Mr.Lube]

1 hour ago, Trichouette said:

So basically you want to add cooldown without adding cooldown, hidden behind a second "ressource bar"

Not really fond of the idea.

 

I still think short cooldown instead of energy would be way better to balance the game while keeping the spamming to a reasonable level and without killing the pace of the game.

But whenever I say "cooldown" players imagine something like "let's give between 20 to 60 sec cooldown to each ability"

 

Regarding the enemy scaling you probably forgot that the enemies are pretty much not attacking you and therefore having more enemies doesn't mean it gets harder.

However I agree on the "an enemy lvl 70 should deal as much as an enemy lvl 1", that would make waaaay more sense considering how pitiful our resistance is (unless we're playing a tankframe)

Cooldowns will never be in this game no matter how beneficial they will be. The devs and majority of the playerbase shiver at the very mention of the idea. My Overheat idea is somewhat of a middle ground. It doesn't completely restrict players from using they're abilities, but if they spam it over and over there will be concequences (self damage/doubled energy cost).

Regarding your comment about how the enemies aren't attacking us; I assume you are talking about how they are constantly CC'd and therefore cannot attack. If so, I have suggested a solution to this in the OP. Radial CC abilities will have they're effectiveness spread across each enemy evenly. So there is no more "press one button and everything stops". Radial CC will become abilities used to give you a bit of breathing room.

[Mr.Lube]

38 minutes ago, Iccotak said:

Warframe needs enemies that get smarter. Not simply better stats.
Agree with this post.
Your energy idea would be a good solution for overly energy dependent frames.
But I have to agree with @Trichouette Keep the mechanic simple. Just use Overheat. 
Plus it would make more sense in the world. The Operators are the source of the Warframes' energy. Why should we have to depend on enemy energy drops?

I agree that just using overheat would be ideal, however it is not practical to remove energy. Replacing energy would make things better, but there is too much in-game content that revolves around energy. My idea (hopefully) would let energy take a back seat to overheat. Since overheat cannot be modded for it won't dominate builds the same way energy does. However for some frames; possibly those with channeled abilities, modding with energy efficiency will still be beneficial.

I just want to add more variety and depth into the gameplay.

[Mr.Lube]

26 minutes ago, GrayArchon said:

I don't know how I feel about the energy/ability rework. That's definitely a more complicated topic, I think.

However, I LOVE the idea of enemy commander units. Basically everything you've said, granting accuracy buff, deploying cover, targetting enemies. Having high-priority targets besides "heavy gunners and bombards are BAD" would be great. I think this ties into what Steve's doing with Damage 3.0 since it's more focused on enemy rework now.

Thank you for the feedback!

[Trichouette]

3 minutes ago, Mr.Lube said:

Regarding your comment about how the enemies aren't attacking us; I assume you are talking about how they are constantly CC'd and therefore cannot attack. If so, I have suggested a solution to this in the OP. Radial CC abilities will have they're effectiveness spread across each enemy evenly. So there is no more "press one button and everything stops". Radial CC will become abilities used to give you a bit of breathing room.

Not at all, I am talking about this :

Not all enemies actually attack you, and for that reason, more enemies doesn't make the game harder.

3 minutes ago, Mr.Lube said:

Cooldowns will never be in this game no matter how beneficial they will be. The devs and majority of the playerbase shiver at the very mention of the idea. My Overheat idea is somewhat of a middle ground. It doesn't completely restrict players from using they're abilities, but if they spam it over and over there will be concequences (self damage/doubled energy cost).

First of all, most players HATE self damage. And devs understood that with the tonkor rework.

And I still don't understand why players hate cooldowns. What you're suggesting is exactly like cooldowns, but they only trigger when you spam (which is something we pretty much do all the time) and they impair ALL your abilities, while cooldowns only prevent you from using the one ability you have in cooldown.

[Potato]

I'm not a big fan of the getting rid of energy orbs. I feel like a solution for the lack of energy would be simply to slightly boost the energy orb drop chance  and also drastically increase health orb spawn (be honest, unless you're using Nekros you will never find these.) 

Also, you are saying that you do not want enemies to scale in damage as their levels increase. This would heavily decrease the amount of tank/support frames being used, don't you think? Now that they all do the same amount of damage, why have a frame that is MEANT to keep you alive while enemy damage gets very high? Even with your accuracy implementation, it just cannot work as efficiently.

But I do feel your idea is very good and well thought out. It's just that it is a very big change, and I'm not sure how players will feel getting rid of a system that they've adjusted to for years.

[Volinus7]

Wait there's no "Warframe's abilities are broken" topic? Lol

Summoning type abilities with long duration will step up to higher tier with this overheat model. Time frame disparities between each survivability kit of each frame still need to be balanced. 

More importantly, how to prioritize them? What should have shorter/longer duration related to one another? also the heat generation that affects cast frequency too.

iframe, invisibility, decoy, ehp buff, shield summon, companion summon, hard cc, soft cc, channeling def, healing, etc... Their effectiveness on each enemies aren't equal for example CCs are useless against Nullifiers while other active defs can facetank the bubble from outside, does this means CC should be longer? Or because CCs can affect more enemies at the same time they should be shorter???

Should ability immunity/diminishing return be removed from all enemies equally to cut down factors and streamline the system?

Map designs also need to be redesigned to accommodate cooldown and covering.

 

This game never has pacing standard, creating new one is a giant overhaul.

Yes, farmville enthusiasts will go against it because grinding speed and kill/time will be reduced.

 

Ps. It'd be pointless if 4man squad can take turn and do perpetual CC as usual because overheat is not long enough to make gaps between 4 people...

Modding/Arcane/Focus for perpetual energy will also be affected, naramon too...

 

Bottomline, there will be people say "go play Destiny, CoD, BF, blablabla", I'm sure.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Volinus7

[Mr.Lube]

13 minutes ago, Trichouette said:

Not at all, I am talking about this :

 

^That's just lazy game design and bugs. We can't revolve game balance around a mechanic that doesn't work. Let's assume that enemies work properly for my suggested changes, because in all fairness, they should.

 

15 minutes ago, Trichouette said:

First of all, most players HATE self damage. And devs understood that with the tonkor rework.

And I still don't understand why players hate cooldowns. What you're suggesting is exactly like cooldowns, but they only trigger when you spam (which is something we pretty much do all the time) and they impair ALL your abilities, while cooldowns only prevent you from using the one ability you have in cooldown.

As for this, self damage was just an option, not a set solution. I feel like it would work thematically since its like you are actually Overheating your Warframe but it's not set in stone. Doubled energy cost was another option and one I think would work nicely. 

Don't get hung up on cooldowns. They are never going to happen, as unfortunate as that is.

[Trichouette]

Just now, Mr.Lube said:

^That's just lazy game design and bugs. We can't revolve game balance around a mechanic that doesn't work. Let's assume that enemies work properly for my suggested changes, because in all fairness, they should.

That's not a bug, and you just called devs lazy. (jeez I would get banned for this)

With the current state of the game, if all enemies were to attack you, you wouldn't last long because of their insane damage.

1 minute ago, Mr.Lube said:

Don't get hung up on cooldowns. They are never going to happen, as unfortunate as that is.

And yet, just like sortie token system I won't stop explaining why these points are suited and could be great addition to the game.

I'm just so sick of having to play around a limited build and only relying on the same abilities all the time while being forced of not using some other (i'm looking at you worthless tesla grenade...)

[Mr.Lube]

17 minutes ago, Potato said:

I'm not a big fan of the getting rid of energy orbs. I feel like a solution for the lack of energy would be simply to slightly boost the energy orb drop chance  and also drastically increase health orb spawn (be honest, unless you're using Nekros you will never find these.) 

Also, you are saying that you do not want enemies to scale in damage as their levels increase. This would heavily decrease the amount of tank/support frames being used, don't you think? Now that they all do the same amount of damage, why have a frame that is MEANT to keep you alive while enemy damage gets very high? Even with your accuracy implementation, it just cannot work as efficiently.

But I do feel your idea is very good and well thought out. It's just that it is a very big change, and I'm not sure how players will feel getting rid of a system that they've adjusted to for years.

I feel as if the majority of the player base feels that putting a valuable resource (energy orbs) in the hands of RNG is a bad idea.

As enemy spawns increase, the more collective damage there is. There will definitely still be a place for tank frames.

[maddragonmaster]

9 minutes ago, Mr.Lube said:

I feel as if the majority of the player base feels that putting a valuable resource (energy orbs) in the hands of RNG is a bad idea.

As enemy spawns increase, the more collective damage there is. There will definitely still be a place for tank frames.

in other word level 1-10 enemies would feel like fighting nothing but just freshly recruited grineer and corpus while level 70-100+ would be highly trained experts that would very rarely miss shots. so that damage that 1 grineer soldier does would be multiplied by how many grineers that are surround you. 

[Mr.Lube]

4 minutes ago, maddragonmaster said:

in other word level 1-10 enemies would feel like fighting nothing but just freshly recruited grineer and corpus while level 70-100+ would be highly trained experts that would very rarely miss shots. so that damage that 1 grineer soldier does would be multiplied by how many grineers that are surround you. 

In a nut shell.

[Trichouette]

9 minutes ago, maddragonmaster said:

so that damage that 1 grineer soldier does would be multiplied by how many grineers that are surround you. 

Unless that among the 20 enemies around you, around 5 of them are actually trying to kill you.

[maddragonmaster]

not sure if this would be interesting or annoying but what if the grineer & corpus could sort of adjust what type of damage they do or deal, for example maybe have a guy with a portable weapon kit thing on its back that he drops that allows each unite to give its weapons a additional weapon damage & status effect. for example grineer lancer swapping out for incendiary ammunition.

[Mr.Lube]

8 hours ago, Trichouette said:

Unless that among the 20 enemies around you, around 5 of them are actually trying to kill you.

This is a bug. Just because there is a problem with the game internally doesn't mean that we should leave things the way they are.

[Krion112]

All I can say is, as usual, Warframe's game balance problems are the lack of respect for its Orthogonal balance, and if you don't know what that is, either think of games like Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Halo, Team Fortress, Starcraft, Command & Conquer, or google "Orthogonal Unit Differentiation", you'll probable find heavily detailed presentations on the concept. For a short descriptions, its a game-design style centered around the idea that everything is made with equal purpose; Rock-Paper-Scissors is a prime example, as you can never be expected to use Rock to beat Paper.

Those games are dictated by an Orthogonal Balance Matrix, which utilizes a sort of taxonomy to determine the counter-play systems at work. Bungie talked about this being the core design behind Halo, with the weapon balance being described as 'Shotgun-Pistol-Sniper'. To change the terminology to universally apply to all game aspects, I like to call it 'Power-Flexibility-Precision'. The other metric of this Matrix are the roles, 'Offense-Defense-Support-Control-Mastery'.

Everything in the game is balanced around this in Warframe; the issue with Warframe is the balance is broken by several other systems, including Linear Progression systems like Mandatory Mods and Enemy Scaling, and the incorrect application of an Enhanced Mobility that is wholly designed around gaining momentum, when it should have been a means for achieving more maneuverability. Ultimately, not respecting this core balance leads to the following problems: Node Ghost-Towns, the concept of 'Mastery Fodder', Equipment Favoritism, Lack of Satisfaction from the standard game-play, confusion in trying to balance the game (ie, adding enemies that have questionable counter-play, such as Nullifiers), and many more.

You want to achieve game balance, the solution is to remove the Linear systems like scaling progression, and redesign surrounding systems like mods, Focus, and mobility.

 

12 hours ago, Mr.Lube said:

I wanted to get rid of the "naked" feeling of being out of energy, since this game heavily relies on Warframe abilities...

The game only relies heavily on certain Warframe abilities, because of certain Linear enemy scaling systems. Even you admitted changing one would affect the other; I don't think an energy economy rework is at all viable, not if the way enemies are going to scale is going to change, as you propose.

Likewise, Abilities should be satisfactory to use; casually casting them will only continue to detract their value.

 

12 hours ago, Mr.Lube said:

Enemy Rework: [Enemy Rework Details]

The typical requests. Make enemies 'smarter', make them work 'together', etc. No, that doesn't make for satisfying game-play, at least not wholly. Let's take Quake; it has an entire system built around the fact that it's enemies don't work well together, in the form of 'Monster Infighting', and it can be an invaluable strategy to use. If Quake didn't have that, it'd definitely be less deep of a game.

I mean, yes, you are on the right track, but I don't think your solutions will address the issues in a proper fashion. We need counter-play, the potential for emergent game-play.

[Fallen_Echo]

9 hours ago, Trichouette said:

 

And I still don't understand why players hate cooldowns. What you're suggesting is exactly like cooldowns, but they only trigger when you spam (which is something we pretty much do all the time) and they impair ALL your abilities, while cooldowns only prevent you from using the one ability you have in cooldown.

Because it can kill us. Just look at limbo who revolves around quick rift shifting, if you add in just 0.5 sec cooldown to his rift shifting that will kill him or valkyr who thanks to her immortality can get out of any trouble but with this high level content just murders her. Defense missions depending on frost can get screwed up especially if he cant put on those bubbles fast enough, a spy missions state could be depending on that 1 second when ivara recasts prowl.

I can continue on which frames will suffer the most from adding in any kind of cooldown but i believe these are enough. I played with enough mmo games to know just half second cooldown on the wrong ability can screw up a whole raid.

[Heckzu]

If DE were to actually balance the game, the best way would probably do it in a similar fashion to Conclave:

• Limited damage and health scaling
• Balancing weapons around having either damage or utility
• Limiting energy regain and efficiency

And then, of course, the enemy AIs need to stop being so stupid.