Reasons Why Passive Energy Generation Should Be a Thing

[-QUILL_PETER-]

First things first: Those arguing against this are of the tryhard mentality, which revolves around deliberately and unfairly handicapping the game against themselves for the sake of a challenge. This is not what Warframe was designed around; it never has been and now is not the time to start.

2) All games with powered protaganists have some form of this feature. Whether passive or triggered, they all have some way to reliably feed their need for energy to use their abilities. Even The Old Republic, a game notorious for charging its players just for the ability to sprint, gave players passive energy for their abilities. One has has to ask how DE thinks the removal and subsequent lack of passive energy generation is an improvement on other games do have it.

3) Conclave. Warframes have passive energy generation in Conclave, even though there are energy orbs that spawn regularly in the same place. Considering everything in Conclave is nerfed for fairness, I cant imagine anything that's not considered too powerful or too 'easy' for PvP should be considered too powerful or too 'easy' for PvE.

4) How do they not have passive energy generation? Warframes get their power from the Tenno and the Tenno get their power from an eternal wellspring of energy that is the Void. Where is this limitless energy going that it isn't flowing into the Warframe through the Tenno? We have passive energy generation as our Operator, so is there any logical reason we shouldn't have passive energy generation as our Warframe? 

5) Axing passive energy kills playstyle freedom. What if I don't want to use Suda or Rakta weapons for energy? What if I don't want to rely on Trinity or Harrow for energy? We should be able to play this game Solo without having to worry about energy economy and without having having to fork out thousands of plat for multiple Arcane Energize sets for each of my power guzzling frames.

Possible Solutions:

1) The simplest solution is to just grant Warframes a passive amount of energy per second. More than Conclave, but less than Energy Overflow; maybe 2, 2.5 per second.

2) Make it a mod. And before you say, "Energy Siphon is already a thing", remember Enemy Sense and Enemy Radar are also things. Also Loot Radar, Loot Detector, Thief's Wit, and Animal Instinct. 

Perhaps we could introduce a new mod and primed counterpart for maximum energy capacity, and change Flow/Primed Flow to affect the amount of energy that your Warframe receives over time.

 

That's all I have for now. If I think of anything else while I'm at work I'll edit it in when I get home. In the meantime, tell me what you think (be gentle...)

 

[Shards-of-a-Soul]

Just jumping in to say I agree with all of this. Without Energy Overflow, I'll probably just stick to my Trinity even more than I already do. Hopfully a standardized energy regen replaces EO.

 

That is all.

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

I'm not for or against this, but i will say

I never use Zenurik except for perma-invis loki

Except on the LOR's, I never feel starved of energy (and I suppose the Eximus Sorties - but energy regen would never make up for the leeches anyway)

I feel like for the most part they have the drop rate of EOrbs pretty well balanced.

 

SO I guess while it might be nice to have more energy, I wouldn't  want WF to be exclusively ability spamming - there has to be SOME balance of weapon/ability and some balance of effeciency and WF ability power and energy resources.   

 

 

[Moysa]

other than that, theres normally plenty of energy pickups, and once you get the plans for it, energy pizzas give an absurd amount

[PoisonHD]

This may ease your thoughts :)

[-QUILL_PETER-]

1 minute ago, (Xbox One)Tucker D Dawg said:

there has to be SOME balance of weapon/ability and some balance of effeciency and WF ability power and energy resources.

Does there? I don't normally advocate for anything Sony, but DCUO is a great example of freedom in this area. If you want to be a hardcore weapon user who only uses abilities in a pinch, cool. If you want to be a hybrid who masterfully interweaves weapons with his powers equally, awesome. If want to go empty handed and just be a power throwing maniac, that's totally fine. DCUO has both a passive energy flow as well as a small amount of energy for landed hits, as well as classes that grant large amounts of energy to the team.

[Shards-of-a-Soul]

1 minute ago, Moysa said:

other than that, theres normally plenty of energy pickups, and once you get the plans for it, energy pizzas give an absurd amount

Energy Siphon sucks, energy orbs are random, energy restores are more lazy and boring than Zenurik could every be.

[Shards-of-a-Soul]

1 minute ago, PoisonHD said:

This may ease your thoughts :)

Well thanks, that actually has eased my worry for the Plains.

[-QUILL_PETER-]

22 minutes ago, Bravely_Casual said:

2) Make it a mod. And before you say, "Energy Siphon is already a thing", remember Enemy Sense and Enemy Radar are also things. Also Loot Radar, Loot Detector, Thief's Wit, and Animal Instinct. 

 

3 minutes ago, Moysa said:

other than that, theres normally plenty of energy pickups, and once you get the plans for it, energy pizzas give an absurd amount

Clearly you did not actually read my post.

[Urlan]

If you look at the AMA, they are talking about possibility of a conditional Energy Surge modifier type deal. Energy Surge was an interesting idea, but much like most of Unairu, too weak to justify the cool-down to equip it.

[Lokidus_Prime]

I'm all for passive energy regen too, but i don't think it should be made into a mod - we already have quite a handful of band-aid mods and there are many builds that are pretty tight as it is.

I did have an idea for a potential solution, which is to have passive energy regen on all frames, and to have it scale its regen rate based on mastery rank.  I made a thread about it which you can check out here if you wish.

 

[SenorClipClop]

16 minutes ago, Bravely_Casual said:

Those arguing against this are of the tryhard mentality, which revolves around deliberately and unfairly handicapping the game against themselves for the sake of a challenge. This is not what Warframe was designed around; it never has been and now is not the time to start.

Warframe powers are incredibly potent and change the game entirely in favor of the player, and Energy is the value by which a great deal of our power is doled out. You clearly think it's not enough, and I think your personal desires are obscuring your objectivity here. So let me give you an example of how power and challenge come together in a game outside Warframe.

Dark Souls is thought of as a challenging game not because the enemies are difficult Despite their ability to go to town on the player, most enemies have a small handful of projected moves that a player can predict and exploit with enough familiarity. The challenge in Dark Souls comes from its limitation of the player character: the Chosen Undead is fairly slow, its actions rarely have cancels and it can only swing its weapon a handful of times before needing to rest. If you took the character from Bloodborne (who normally has to deal with much faster enemies) and plopped him into the kingdom of Lordran, the game wold be easy to the point of boring. So even though the Chosen Undead could be designed faster to make the game easier, his/her slowness is not artificial difficulty or set for tryhards. It's the mechanical parameter chosen by the designers of the game, saying to the player "we have designed your character with this X amount of capability in order to present you with the kind of game we wanted to make for you". Working inside these parameters is not articificially handicapping yourself or being a tryhard. Playing Dark Souls solo using only bananas as controllers, now that's artificially handicapping yourself and being a tryhard. Great for a Twitch challenge, but not the experience From Software intends for its playerbase.

Back to Warframe, simply put, asking to keep energy economy the way it is, is not being a tryhard. It's accepting that the designers intend for the average Warframe player to have X amount of energy in a typical mission. This makes Energy valuable and not to be spent frivolously.  These are very soft limitations, as Warframe has multiple tools available to reduce Energy consumption (or increase its production) to suit individual needs.

Asking for more Energy passively means you believe that despite all the tools and upgrades we have, Energy income is somehow unfair or does not match the experience you believe the developers think we should have. What you're essentially asking is either to receive something for free that is designed to be got only with personal consideration, or you want this game to be even easier than it already is.

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

1 hour ago, Bravely_Casual said:

Does there? I don't normally advocate for anything Sony, but DCUO is a great example of freedom in this area. If you want to be a hardcore weapon user who only uses abilities in a pinch, cool. If you want to be a hybrid who masterfully interweaves weapons with his powers equally, awesome. If want to go empty handed and just be a power throwing maniac, that's totally fine. DCUO has both a passive energy flow as well as a small amount of energy for landed hits, as well as classes that grant large amounts of energy to the team.

Yes - and not I'm NOT advocating that all weapons be created equal, nor all WF's be created equal.  I am saying that there has to be SOME limits on energy availability (cost of mfring energy plates, WF effeciency, drop rate of EORBS.. whatever) or it would make ALL weapons meaning less.

 

Lets take it to the extreme - free unlimited energy - imagine a defense where Frost infinitely spams avalanche, ember her accelerant and fire circle, hydroid puddle and corr barrage, and maybe a limbo to freeze everyone.  No weapons ever needed and a boring experience for all.

I'm not saying WF's implementation of orbs vs energy over time is perfect, I just PERSONALLY feel that there is a decent balance and don't see the need for more energy generation mechanics.  If they implemented passive energy regen i'd say reduce orb drop rate (of course that would impact arcane energize players greatly...)  

My game play i'm sure varies from the next person  - but I rarely feel energy starved - generally have enough for AN ability to get me through whatever situation I'm in regardless of if i'm playing a constant drain frame (Ember/Equinox/Ivara etc) a frequent castor (Resonance Banshee, Loki, saryn, frost, etc) or a power hunger energy pig (Nova/Volt etc).  YMMV

 

[el_chanis]

37 minutes ago, (Xbox One)Tucker D Dawg said:

I'm not saying WF's implementation of orbs vs energy over time is perfect, I just PERSONALLY feel that there is a decent balance and don't see the need for more energy generation mechanics.  If they implemented passive energy regen i'd say reduce orb drop rate (of course that would impact arcane energize players greatly...)  

That wouldn't be a bad thing, AT ALL. The fact that Arcane Energize sets remains over 4k of plat EVEN WITH ZENURIK AVIABLE should speak volumes of the kind of need/appreciation the players have for passive energy. The passive energy wouldn't just make absolute sense in the gameplay, but lorewise as well (why the F*** we would depend on blue orbs enemies are carrying on their pockets?). This would alivate a lot of pressure for certain builds, while being a simple QoL changes for the ones balanced around the current energy drop without zenurik or the arcanes.

This used to be a thing, that got removed in parkour 2.0, however the game grew far beyond that balancing since then, and right now feels more like an anoyance than a real balancing measure.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

Why would they take away passive energy regen just to reimplement the same thing elsewhere?

[BasKy]

4 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

Warframe powers are incredibly potent and change the game entirely in favor of the player, and Energy is the value by which a great deal of our power is doled out. You clearly think it's not enough, and I think your personal desires are obscuring your objectivity here. So let me give you an example of how power and challenge come together in a game outside Warframe.

Dark Souls is thought of as a challenging game not because the enemies are difficult Despite their ability to go to town on the player, most enemies have a small handful of projected moves that a player can predict and exploit with enough familiarity. The challenge in Dark Souls comes from its limitation of the player character: the Chosen Undead is fairly slow, its actions rarely have cancels and it can only swing its weapon a handful of times before needing to rest. If you took the character from Bloodborne (who normally has to deal with much faster enemies) and plopped him into the kingdom of Lordran, the game wold be easy to the point of boring. So even though the Chosen Undead could be designed faster to make the game easier, his/her slowness is not artificial difficulty or set for tryhards. It's the mechanical parameter chosen by the designers of the game, saying to the player "we have designed your character with this X amount of capability in order to present you with the kind of game we wanted to make for you". Working inside these parameters is not articificially handicapping yourself or being a tryhard. Playing Dark Souls solo using only bananas as controllers, now that's artificially handicapping yourself and being a tryhard. Great for a Twitch challenge, but not the experience From Software intends for its playerbase.

Back to Warframe, simply put, asking to keep energy economy the way it is, is not being a tryhard. It's accepting that the designers intend for the average Warframe player to have X amount of energy in a typical mission. This makes Energy valuable and not to be spent frivolously.  These are very soft limitations, as Warframe has multiple tools available to reduce Energy consumption (or increase its production) to suit individual needs.

Asking for more Energy passively means you believe that despite all the tools and upgrades we have, Energy income is somehow unfair or does not match the experience you believe the developers think we should have. What you're essentially asking is either to receive something for free that is designed to be got only with personal consideration, or you want this game to be even easier than it already is.

But that's a bit different.
Dark Souls gives you the ability to use Estus to regen your health, and the other blue flask to regen magic. You can also use different items or weapons to regen these stats and also stamina. You need to be a skilled player to be able to go through the area without wasting these tools. In Warframe, we have health orbs and energy orbs, wich are random. I never liked to rely on a random mechanic. I can be a good player and die because no energy orbs appeard.

Dark Souls limits your movement, that's good, you need to watch your step, and it gives you tools for the moments you make mistakes. But Warframe does the oposite. You have a ridiculous movement speed, but no sustain, unless you use mods. Warframe might be fine in the health regen part, but we need a reliably way to regenerate our energy.

I agree with you that you need to limit the player in order to make a fun game, but I don't think energy regen should be that limitation.

[PopGligor]

20 minutes ago, BasKy said:

Dark Souls gives you the ability to use Estus to regen your health, and the other blue flask to regen magic.

Warframe has energy pizzas and they're pretty cheap. I'm not entirely opposed to passive energy regen, but I think it needs to be balanced and it needs to be something the player earns. It needs to involve a trade-off. In the current system, it does, because you have to sacrifice using any of the other focus schools. The trade off would've been much weightier if focus was balanced and you had to only pick one out of five good schools. Hell, when you bring EV trin for unlimited energy, you're sacrificing that squad slot pretty much because you could've used a better support frame in her place. 

For all warframes at zero cost - no. As someone explained above, energy is a power-controlling resource and managing it adds a layer of depth to the game. If you want to reduce that management, make sacrifices elsewhere. You have endless choices - play Harrow. Play Hydroid. Play Nekros. Trinity. Equip Energy Syphon. Spend the resources to craft energy restores. Equip Zenurik while you can. There's more and all of those involve sacrificing something to get the energy. But you can also... sacrifice endless energy for something else.

The only choices in a game that matter are the choices that involve sacrificing something. 

Warframes are already close to gods. Why bother with energy regen when they can just make abilities cost zero energy in the first place? While at it, let's give every warframe 1000 base armor and 1 million base HP. 

[PoisonHD]

1 hour ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Why would they take away passive energy regen just to reimplement the same thing elsewhere?

Because they aren't reworking the focus system to specifically take away Shadow step and Energy Overflow. They are reworking it to more fit with what they had planned for it, which is having an effect on your physical operator.

[DrBorris]

What if energy regen was Warframe specific?

 

Like Volt regens energy by running, Ash gets some energy from finisher kills, ember regens for every enemy on fire, etcetera. This way energy regen could be a point of balance between the Warframes so frames that are casters can have more liberal energy regen but Warframes where energy is the thing keeping them from being broken can have their regen toned down. The "one size fits all" energy system does not mesh very well with the vast assortment of types of Warframes. 

[BasKy]

1 minute ago, QuietBiro said:

Warframe has energy pizzas and they're pretty cheap. I'm not entirely opposed to passive energy regen, but I think it needs to be balanced and it needs to be something the player earns. It needs to involve a trade-off. In the current system, it does, because you have to sacrifice using any of the other focus schools. The trade off would've been much weightier if focus was balanced and you had to only pick one out of five good schools. Hell, when you bring EV trin for unlimited energy, you're sacrificing that squad slot pretty much because you could've used a better support frame in her place. 

For all warframes at zero cost - no. As someone explained above, energy is a power-controlling resource and managing it adds a layer of depth to the game. If you want to reduce that management, make sacrifices elsewhere. You have endless choices - play Harrow. Play Hydroid. Play Nekros. Trinity. Equip Energy Syphon. Spend the resources to craft energy restores. Equip Zenurik while you can. There's more and all of those involve sacrificing something to get the energy. But you can also... sacrifice endless energy for something else.

The only choices in a game that matter are the choices that involve sacrificing something. 

Warframes are already close to gods. Why bother with energy regen when they can just make abilities cost zero energy in the first place? While at it, let's give every warframe 1000 base armor and 1 million base HP. 

You can give a passive energy regen to every/some Warframes. It does not need to be as high as Zenurik, and it does not need to be the same value for every Warframe (actually it shouldn't). And I should be able to not starve energy without Harrow and Trinity, and without relying on RNG.
If you don't want to just "gift" passive energy, then remove energy orbs.

I understand that managing energy adds a layer of depth to the game. I just wish we could manage it without relying on something else. It doesn't mean that we will have infinit energy, I don't want 4 energy per second. Never happend to you that you have 100hp left and no energy, and you play really carefully but end up getting killed because you didn't get orbs? Let the player cast one skill to try and overcome that situation. Or just place some pizzas.
Besides, adding passive energy opens up other mechanics like mods and skills that improves the regen rate.

I never liked the pizza. You build it (low cost as you said), place it and now you AND your squad can spam. It makes most missions easy. You don't sacrifice anything besides mobility but it's not like you just can't stand for a second in this game even if it is fast peaced.
The only tool we have to regenerate energy that I like is Rage, but that one doesn't work on every Warframe.

[Innocent_Chatbot]

12 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

What if energy regen was Warframe specific?

 

Like Volt regens energy by running,

Not sure if coincidence, or inspired by the thread I posted yesterday

[(PSN)Nurolkel]

Since this is happening and it sounds like there should be some type of compromise, why don't we have something like Saryn Energy restoration ability. She has a combo for her one and three, and when you pop the spores with her toxic lash you gain two energy. Make a system that rewards the player energy by doing something as opposed to just a casual energy regen passive. This is to say I wont be opposed to a +2.5 energy per second trait but just another way to get something for doing something.

[-YoRHa-]

Passive energy regeneration should be a thing, like it is in Archwing, not a mod. In Archwing you get 1 energy per second. Having Energy Siphon equipped just bumps the amount of energy you get by the value on the mod and the number of squad members.

If DE does give us passive energy regen, some things may or may not have to get nerfed in return. So that is something to keep in mind.

Edited September 17, 2017 by -YoRHa-

[TaylorsContraction]

I don't feel energy starved if I am cheesing some mission. By cheese I mean, have a pretty dank team with a nekros maybe, or a hydroid. If not those two, then a few DPS / cc frames in missions where enemies drop like candy and so does loot. Generally there isn't much threat because of a meta set up and resources are NOT in short supply.

In all other situations I am ALWAYS energy starved. I play Banshee predominantly and like to keep silence up. Often times I won't even have enough energy for silence let alone sonar when soloing. Even with zenurik which I always run with Banshee I never got into the habit of spamming abilities because of being used to energy starvation. RIP I'm going back into energy starvation soon TM. At least I never developed a habit of spamming.

 

I will admit that energy overflow was TOO much. But energy siphon is too little. I'd be happy if  energy siphon became 1 energy / second. +1 OP, I'll just have to hope my arcane energize will suffice.

[Gurpgork]

9 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

Asking for more Energy passively means you believe that despite all the tools and upgrades we have, Energy income is somehow unfair or does not match the experience you believe the developers think we should have. What you're essentially asking is either to receive something for free that is designed to be got only with personal consideration, or you want this game to be even easier than it already is.

I don't think that the current energy economy is anything near what the developers intended for us to have. If you're new, energy ridiculously scarce. If you're a veteran, energy is basically a nonexistent limitation. There needs to be some middle ground here. I don't think it's supposed to be suffocating for new players or basically meaningless for veterans.

Adding innate energy regeneration could be the gateway to making the energy economy consistent. No, I don't think slapping it on top of what we have is necessarily a good move, but if there was an overhaul to the energy economy that made cheap abilities spammable while forcing you to think twice about using expensive abilities, then innate energy regeneration could be overall a fabulous addition to the game.