Warframe: Great Game--->Kick@$$ Game!

[WhiteWolf0100]

Warframe is a great game, with much to offer. It has fast-paced, action-packed gameplay, parkour, guns, ninjas, and over the top abilities. It's a game I see going far, and becoming very popular. I have already supported DE in their endeavor, and intend to keep doing so. But this game is barely out of closed beta, and still has far to go. But with large updates, hotfixes, and content in general moving at the speed it has, I have no worries that DE will get this game where it needs to be.

Now on to the main topic of this thread. For those who know, this world is based off of Dark Sector; or rather, this game is what Dark Sector was originally intended to be. Thanks to one of my friends, a fellow Warframe user, it came to my attention that Warframe is the original Dark Sector. After watching a video of original concept designs for the game, we see a very familiar "Excalibur" frame running through a grineer ship, and the grineer even look very similar to the ones in game, with almost identical masks and faces. However, unlike our Excalibur, he used different abilities, at one point, hopping on a "Jackal" (the original design it used to look like), and mind controls it. This got me thinking quite heavily. I mulled through idea's of bosses becomeing like rarer heavy units later on, such as fighting jackals or hyenas on corpus missions, or even modified versions on some grineer missions (as with this video, the jackal was under grineer control, and this has already been alluded to in some of the in-game tilesets for the grineer ships). I also got thinking about having a frame that could use any ability, and universalizing the combat system to just be custom frames, as I believe the lore kind of implies. So after some time of mulling things over in my head, I got to talking with my friend (the same one that lead me to the mentioned video), and we got into kind of a debate/arguement over why certain things wouldn't fit, or why they would, or how this would have to overhauled or that, what's balanced and what's not, we finally came to some agreeable concepts. This is what I would like to share with the community, and what hopefully strikes a cord with a large portion of you, or at least that DE can take some new ideas from, so that this isn't just a waste of time.

Please note: While I'm sure some of this has already been said on forums, and I know for sure some has, this is my take on things, and I do not feel like searching the forums just to credit people for things that may have inspired me, or that are similar.

Enemies: So with the new update, enemy levels were increased to add more difficulty to the game. While I believe over all it was needed, I don't feel that it solved the underlying issue, swarm tactics. It happens with far too many games. I'm going to clear this room, only for more enemies to pour in due to the fact that they never stop spawing (unless its extermination of course). Where's the satisfaction in that? Why not have a set number of enemies on the ship, so it's possible to clear it completely, but maybe have a couple drop ships come in for back up later on if you're caught and the ship is on alert. Also, why not make enemies more of a threat by themselves and have less of them. It would be amazing for the to set up an ambush in an area with a few balista, a wall of shield lancers, and maybe a couple of scorpions to pull you into the lancers for stun locking fun. The ai needs to be upped, and be able to be tactical, and not just swarm you till there's too many enemies for you to survive the onslaught. Also, a near 100% hit rate (especially for railgun moas and the like) can be kinda rediculous on the higher difficulties, like lvl 100+ defense missions.

So, to summarize, less swarm/limited number of enemies, no more homing bullets, and better/more tactical ai.

Aesthetics: From what I have heard, this has been kind of a big debate. Some of the alternative helmets look amazing, and alot of us would like to use them, but the stats that come tagged onto them can often ruin the appeal. While ussualy not large numbers, its enough to make one wary. My suggestion is to strip the stats off and have them be purely cosmetic. I'm not saying not to have stat altering items, I have an idea for that as well, but i'll address that in a later section. Also, the addition of alternate arms, legs, and maybe even torsos would be a welcome addition. However, unlike helmets, I would suggest that parts be universal. Now before you go shooting off on the difficulty and no thats stupid, or it breaks a frames lore/style/look, whatever you may be at, let me explain. Obviously we wouldn't want to end up with some heavy bulky frame like the Rhino turning into some lithe figure, or some quick, light frame like the Nyx turning into the Rhino. So with these "universal" skin packs, you would have a certain look (like maybe a more twisted/infested look), tailored to each frame. So on an Ash, this may come out to a more toned, or slightly above medium bulk look, where as on an Ember, it'll still be smaller while retaining the fiery look that defines her. As this takes more time, and thus more money, these items could be sold for more than the frame specific helmets, like 150 plat instead of 75, w/e seems fair, and then also sold as a bundle. This setup will make packs friendlier to users, and not make us have to buy a custom skin for the arms/legs/body of every frame. I would also suggest that each arm be able to be set differently, as some people may want an off center look or something.

Mods/Abilities: Two things that has always bother me about warframe is the fact that I don't have my abilities from the start of a new frame, and that they cost points away from my mods to equip. My suggestion is to sepparate ability slots from mod slots, and make abilities cost nothing, other than the time, mods, and money to level them. I'll include a picture to better show what I'm getting at. (And sorry ahead of time for the paint level copy pasting and moving stuff around)

Basically, you would have 8 mod slots, allowing for a little more customizability. However, 2 would be locked at the start, and require a forma to unlock each. Then you would have 4 ability slots, off to the right and obviously separated, to put the abilities into. Also, I would suggest adding at least 4 new abilities to each warframe. They all have a low cost cast ability that does some decent dmg, a utility skill that stuns/shields/etc., a movement or buff ability, and an ultimate skill to end the horde. Simply add 1 new ability to each of those categories (maybe not the ult, but at least the other 3) so that players have more of a choice with their frames. They'll still be specialized in whatever their role is, but have a little more leeway to be tailored to the player. Take saryn for example, a player may like her 1. Its a decent dmg skill with the unique ability to spread. They may liker her moult to distract enemies or draw attention away from a prisoner being rescued. And what's not to like about melting faces with her ult. But maybe they don't ever use her 3. They hardly use melee, so why bother with it. Well then that skill just sits there, often times, not even equiped. Seems like a waste to me. But maybe they have a new skill that buffs poison resistance for the entire team, or makes a poison burst out from each ally for a light DoT effect. It would be better than having a skill sit there collecting dust cuz it only gets used once every 100 runs. It opens frames up to be a little more versatile while still having their main gameplay idea in place. And lastly for this subject, mods affecting health and shields, and max energy. This can be hard to understand since its not stated that it affects only unranked shield, hp, and energy capacity. In my opinion, these mods are not only confusing, but can provide too large of an early game boost, and too little late game. Instead, make them affect the current ammount of shields, energy, or hp you have, and reduce the amount of % increase the provide. At 10% unranked, and 10 lvls like they are now, thats 110% total boost, a maxed out frost or volt would be getting an additional 495 shields, for a total of 945 shields. With as fast as shields drain, and the new difficulty increase, it wouldn't be too big of a boost, and it would also make frames not instantly tanky when they equiped the mod at a low level. Its consistent throughout all levels. I know low level gameplay isn't the highlight of this game, but adding things like this, along with the ability to use your warframes abilities from the get go would help get more people into the game, and make it a more enjoyable experience.

Warframe Stat Modifications: And now back to the helmet issue. As I said earlier, I don't think non-mod stat effects should go away. Its just one more customization item that can leave people wanting more, and help them fit into classes a little better. I have two ideas on the matter. 1. Systems. Maybe break this one up into 3 subsystems like Life Support,
Defensive, and Offensive. So maybe my Nova is just a bit too squishy for my tastes, even with mods. But I enjoy playing her cuz her abilities are awesome and I like caster types. So I can buy (prefferably for in-game cash so as not to discourage free players and make the game pay to win, or at least, pay to enjoy it how i want) a defensive system that adds shields by a percentage amount of may max shields at my current level, but maybe also reduces run speed (as i'm drawing energy away from cervos and motors to add it to shields, not sure how warframs are actually supposed to work though). So its not like mods where its just a direct buff, but more of a double edged sword. Or offensive, higher energy max at the cost of making skills do less dmg, or higher dmg at the cost of energy efficiency. Life support would be more of a does nothing to begin with, just lets your suit survive in space, etc., but when changed out, may also provide a slow health regen, at the cost of energy max. The other idea, suggested by my friend, and that I also have become quite fond of, is to add sliders for different aspects of our suit. Stock, their all at 100%. But we can tweak them by 5% increments. But, to tweak something up, we have to have spare points to put in, thus something must go down. Have sliders for shields, health, energy max, stamina, run speed, (and maybe general resistances or something). So maybe I want to tweak my energy max up, so i'll put it to the cap of 150%, but reduce my stamina to 50%. Or I'll trade my health for shields, because I prefer the regenrating dmg absorbers over the dmg to my non regenerating, though tankier life source. In this case though, I would suggest having each frame have innate life and energy regeneration rates. Not alot, but a little bit of base so that health and energy orbs arent as much of a necessity, but a nice bonus or helping hand. so for rhino, lower energy regen, but higher hp regen, as it fits his tank role. but with mag, higher energy regen, and lower hp regen to fit her caster role. maybe have it at 3 energy per 2 seconds, and 1 hp per 2 seconds for casters, 2 and 2 for middle types, and 1 and 3 leaning towards hp regen for tanks. It doesn't take the edge off of the game, but it allows us a bit more free use of abilities, and lets us get a bit of healing between fights. Nothing like running around an infested mission with 1 hp, no health orbs to be found, and have a wall of toxics blocking you. Its not enough to counteract and prevent dmg, but enough to give us reprieve. Maybe even have the health regen deactivate during combat if it proves to be too strong during it.

 

Crafting: Recently a system to buy materials was implimented, however, it left us no way to buy resources without platinum, and the costs of materials seems rather high. After some deliberation and back and forth, I feel a system should be put into place, where instead of buying resources for in-game currency like many people would like, a more balanced system would be to allow the exchange of materials. Say I have alot of alloy plate, but I need rubedo. I could exchange maybe 50 alloy plate for 25 rubedo, or 20 rubedo. W/e would be balanced. And you could exchange lesser materials for higher materials, but at and even increased cost, so maybe 1000 circuits for 50 alloy plate. And you could even impliment where like materials have a better exchange rate. pollymer bundles have a better conversion to alloy plate than circuits would, but salvage would have a better conversion to cirucits than other things would. Just an idea, but I believe it would help eliminate some of the grinding frustration, especially for people sitting on like 80k of some resource they dont need, but 50 of something they do.

That's most of what I've got at the moment. Alot of thought and time and arguing went in to all of this. I've tried to put in place ideas that don't uproot the layout or mechanics of the game too much, but that add nice features and friendliness to the game. I'll add anything else I come up with or edits as I rethink things. Anyway, let me know what you guys think, and hopefully this can help spark some new ideas from the community and DE. :) Thanks for reading!

Edited July 24, 2013 by WhiteWolf0100

[DeathByTeaCup]

for the swarm part.. ummm do you like extermination as much as regular maps.. also once your done with killing the units. well it gets old and it shows because the extraction is just in the next door.. i like how they swarm you.. it does not give a bad feeling it gives a feeling of blowing S#&$ up!! and btw if you do move fast enough this is not an issue.. soooo yea just null point!.

 

mods/ abilities well now they have the auras u can start wiht 14 points getting 3 powers almost fully maxed.. the 3 last 1's so again no point with this.. also i like starting with nothing and quickly get really good.. its a great feeling having a starting frame that does not just start with everything! why would anyone want that.. this game is about feeling good with earning new loot.. not to give us all the powers at the very start.. tbh i think warframe powers should have to be found not just given with the warframe. thats what i thought too at first but meh.. its still good!

 

okay so you want a glass cannon.. (nova) to have as much hp as rhino but be slower.. now that sounds like op rhino with the same speed. again nooo!

 

all in all i dont agree with most of this post.. not sure about others tho..

Edited July 24, 2013 by DeathByTeaCup

[Doforcash]

WHOAAAA....LOOK AT ALL THESE LONG SENTENCE.....

 THIS COULD TOOK ME AN ENTIRE ALEART TO READ ALL OF IT......

...1 LIKE FOR THE NAME OF THE POST :D

[WhiteWolf0100]

@DeathByTeaCup: But think about it from more than just your view of "I like never ending swarms of things". That's kind of what defense is for. And when there's an actually stealth implimentation, why would i waste my time being stealthy if 5 more enemies are just going to pop up to replace the one I killed. The solution to a fun AND challenging game is not just beef up the same generic units or swarm you with so many little ones until you just can't fight back. As fun as it is to nuke an entire room with an ult and kill everything except maybe heavy's, and watch my kill counter soar, it gets boring quick, especially when so many other games already do it. The solution is to instead make smart enemies that are a challenge themselves, and not just when there's alot of them. Obviously the weaker enemies will still be weak, and not as much of a threat, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to kill you if you're not careful either.

 

As far as the mods go, alot of people would like to have abilities from the start. Maybe not all of them,  maybe you have to earn them, but having something is better than nothing. Especially in a game that is supposed to be about the abilities and how the frames are good at different situations. I do slightly agree with you on having all the warframe powers from the start though. I don't know about having to be found, as the RNG system of drops can prevent you from getting even the most common power for a very long time, but having to rank the frame up and earn access to them wouldn't be bad. But aura's giving us points isn't really the answer. It's again, unfriendly to new players, and you have to build a game to be able to grow, and support both the casual and harcore crowds, and anything in between. While it's a great game that caters to what we like, it's also a business, and has to be run like one if we want the game to continue.

 

And as far as the glass cannon to tank thing goes, like i said, you have to take away from something to get something, and it gives you the freedom to differ from others and play your favorite frame more like how you would like to. And with it being based off of current shields, hp, whatever, its not much different than the current system, it just adds more smooth growth. nova still has little armor, and lower shields and hp becuase she is a caster. As such, she will never get as much as a rhino with the same modifications as the tankiers have more armor to protect health, and higher hp/shield stats. They also cant get as much energy as caster type frames, for similar reasons. All in all, its still balanced. It would allow for over-all higher shields/hp/energy, but it would help even out the higher level gameplay as well. It could even allow for people to make the game more difficult as they would now have the ability to reduce their stats. nobody said they had to use all of their points.

[Hermaeus_Mora]

I really do like this game, for the sake of the obvious: Space Ninjas!

 

One of the things that bugs me is some of the mods negligable increases, for instance Pistol Gambit. Yes, it increases crit chance, but only the base, so for weapons like the Kunai that only has a 2.5% base, it doesn't increase it much at all. Though it does deal significant armor piercing damage already, I think crit chance mods should be made to actually increase the crit chance by a flat amount, rather than just multiplying the base. It would give low crit chance weapons a bit more of an edge while still giving high crit chance weapons their benefit.

 

Speaking of mods, can there please be a sorting option for duplicate mods? Or at least make it so we can sort them out by Name, Rarity, Rank, that sort of thing so we're not spending hours shuffling though pages of mods just to find the one duplicate that will rank up our current one.

 

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So like, I'm a dummy. There was already the sorting by name, price, whatever at the bottom, where I never looked lol.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Hermaeus_Mora