Energy System Vs Cooldown System

[Ardha]

I'm relatively new here, and I heard pre-OB Warframe had a cooldown system for skills, which was changed into the current energy system. However, I don't think this is the best solution yet, and I'd rather find a smart cooldown system a better option.

It will be a pretty long wall of text, but I'll try to highlight key points and have a TL;DR version. Although I'd appreciate you reading the whole text of course.

Here are my thoughts on the subject.

 

Energy system and its problems:

 

1) Skills draw energy from a single, shared pool

This is the first issue on the list, because I feel it's the most important one. Currently, there are a lot of discussions about rebalancing frames' abilities, mostly because "it's not worth to use it".

It is true, indeed, that using 75 energy for a skill, when you're just one orb away from your ultimate, might seem like a waste. Moreover, even low-cost skills suffer from this, because players will eventually decide to just stock up on energy and wait for a stronger skill. Just take a look at Mag's topics, Ember's ones, Saryn's contagion etc, we all know this is a big issue.

Although this could be objected just by listing some overall useful frames (I mean, frames whose every single skill is worth its cost), the issue with balancing and designing skills still remains, both from a developer's and a player's point of view. Devs will have a much harder time implementing useful, wortwhile skills, and players will still discard some of them because "the next one is more useful", which is detrimental to both sides.

This problem has its source in the fact that the energy pool is shared by all four skills.

 

2) Stacking energy allows spamming

I'll start by saying that I love Ember. Unless you get into high level missions, you can just hit World on Fire and start running like a madman killing stuff just by being close to them. If you kill enough, you might get enough orbs (see point 3) and then put the world on fire again. Fun, but potentially repetitive.

The real issue here though, is difficulty: being able to spam an Ultimate over and over again can either make a joke out of a room full of enemies or become an expensive and automated way of surviving a wave. Kind of dull either way.

 

3) Energy is replenished by pickups

This might be a controversial point, but I really dislike this. Especially on heavy skill-relying frames, you are constantly on the lookout for energy orbs, sometimes minding drops more than enemies.

But the worst part is that drops are, obviously, RNG based. Sometime you get a lot, sometimes you get nothing.

Let's take a defense mission as example: a wave might be super easy because the previous one dropped a lot of orbs, so you and your team can spam skills like there's no tomorrow, while the next one might be super hard because just a few orbs dropped and you can't rely on your skills.

I know that "you need to learn how to conserve your energy, it's part of the game's tactics". But shouldn't a player feel encouraged to use his skills, without fear of the mighty RNG?

The point here is balance. An RNG-based use of skills is not balanced, but rather subject to luck. Which might be fine, but I think the gameplay should be more focused on balance and player's skills rather than "a good crop" (of orbs).

 

4) All frames have the same energy mechanic

Not a very strong point, and it could be fixed just by rebalancing energy costs for single skills, but I think it would be an improvement to have some more variety in the way of using energy, and thus skills. I'll expand this point later on.

 

 

Now, assuming we are considering a cooldown system based on cooldowns on each single ability (more precisely: using a skill puts that single skill on cooldown, while others can still be used), these are the main improvements I see with such a system:

 

1) Players will be encouraged to use their skills

This means both "use skills whenever they get the chance", and I'm not thinking in a carefree way, but as an addition to a more varied gameplay, and more importantly "use every skill at their disposal".

No more discussions about a skill not-so-useful, not worth its cost or not even worth equipping. There's no downside on using your currently-25-energy-cost skill because it will not delay your ultimate (although details are discussed later), and using a currently-75-energy-cost skill will not be a consolation prize for not being able to wait another orb. Every skill is truly usable with no downside.

 

2) Added variety to the game

Not a completely separate point, but using more skills also means an increase to warframe's builds and ways of playing. It's not only more freedom to the player during a mission, but also new possibilities and experiences: talking about the previously mentioned frames, Saryn's melee build would make more sense, without sacrificing more "needed" skills, Mag's supportive role would be more dominant since she no longer needs to chose between improving shields or controlling a large crowd, Ember skills would become a bit more strategical (not unlike Tesla) and worth their time.

 

3) No more RNG and scouting

Just like point 3) in the previous discussion. We are now completely focused on enemies, not their drops, and skills can be used based on our performance (read further) rather than luck.

 

4) Finally, frames specialization

Although this can be fixed even with the current energy system, a cooldown one is better suited for this.

Volt's description refers to him as a "caster", yet he's just as weapon-reliant as any other frame. Shock was buffed just a few weeks ago but it's still not a real selling point as a caster frame.

Yet, this can be achieved just by giving some frames really short-cooldowns (like a few seconds), and other not-casting types longer cooldowns (tens of seconds).

Please note that this is in no way a caster-reference in terms of generic fantasy games (like mmorpg classes). It just means that frames will not only have differences in skills themselves, but even on how much they can be used.

The reason why this works better with a cooldown system rather than our current energy-based one (we could just make spammable skills cost 10 energy), is that replenishment could become a key factor in gameplay. Think about an Ember whose cooldowns will expire more quickly the more flesh she burns, or a Volt being able to halve his cooldown by absorbing electical power from a Corpus ship's terminal.

 

That said, there's one big, important point against cooldown that was probably the one reason for switching to an energy-based system: dead times.

If a skill has a long cooldown, players will just wait, standing still, untill the cooldown expires before entering the next room. This will slow down missions and is contrary to every aspect of Warframe's fast paced gameplay.

As far as I know, this is the main point against cooldown and the most common opinion about it.

 

However, fixing this one problem is very easy, and does not involve energy.

Here's what I propose as possible solutions:

 

1) Tiles check

This is my currently favourite one. Game's locations are already divided into "tiles". Let the game run a check on this: if there are still enemies to be dispatched, the tile is marked as "active". If no enemies are present, the tile is marked as "cleared".

The solution is very simple: cooldowns recharge only while the player is on an "active" tile. Cleared ones don't count. This means that in order to use your skills again, you must be progressing through the mission, and cannot just wait outside the next room.

 

2) Being in a fight

What point 1) doesn't address is that currently, in order to use a skill, you must either explore a bit or kill an enemy (that means getting an energy orb). Solution 1) allows players to recharge cooldowns just by staying in an enemy-occupied tile, even if it's just one enemy.

This is not a problem in my opinion, because we already do these short stops in order to recharge shields (and if cooldowns are not too long, it won't be a problem at all), but in case anyone's bothered: cooldowns only progress while damaging/taking damage.

In other words, skills recharge only by fighting. Fair enough to me, and no dead times.

The only problem I see in this is that if "damage", on this regard, is not shared between allies, that the whole mission might become a big rush to who damages the most enemies (and thus is able to use more skills).

But since weapon/frame experience is already shared, I don't see why cooldown-recharges can't be shared too.

 

3) To each his own

This is still in need of much thought, but might become the most intriguing idea if developed right: every frame has a different "cooldown recharge" method. This is problematic, because balancing such a system would take a lot of time and effort, but even just splitting frames into generic "classes" could help.

For example, tanky frames (like Rhino) could have their cooldown speed up while taking damage, and progressing very slowly otherwise (to the point which waiting outside a room would just take too long). Caster frames might specialize even more on their faction, like Volt gaining cooldown bonuses while infiltrating Corpus ship's electrical supply, Ember while burning infested or staying in flames (this is a funny one but it could make sense and has a risk/reward to it, lit yourself on fire in order to use use more fire), Excalibur, as the name implies, by using melee attacks, or maybe just by firing guns since he's somewhat of a beginner type.

 

As I said, I did not put much thought into this, and it would require a completely separated topic. However, this can be done, and on top of that this could still use the "cleared" and "active" tiles system I mentioned earlier.

I'm just throwing this as a possible future (very future) feature in order to increase frame variety and specialize them even more.

 

As a final note, cooldowns could also be splitted into two categories: regular skills and Ultimates.

In order to avoid skill spamming, the first three abilities don't have each a separate cooldown, but all share a single one. This means that after using a skill, you have to wait to use any of the others. This is a bit of a compromise, because it goes slightly against what I said before about the need to use skills freely, but with the right balancing and times it could work out. It completely avoid skills spamming and it allows players to use whichever skills fits the situation without repercussions and cost-comparisons.

Again, having the Ultimate on a separate cooldown means that there are no more comparison (the current 75 vs 100), and its cooldown could be long enough to avoid spamming while leaving the other three previous skills with relatively short delay.

 

Much balacing can be thrown in here: using the Ultimate might further delay cooldowns on other skills, or put cooldown recharge in pause (so that using an Ultimate will not feel totally costless). Regular skills cooldowns could even be normal cooldowns (I mean, without the "tile check" mentioned above), being short enough to not cause dead times, while Ultimates could recharge only while fighting (or while on an "active" tile), thus avoiding dead times once again.

As you can see, there are many ways to avoid downsides and still keep all the advantages that a cooldown system gives.

 

 

To sum it up (aka TL;DR), I'm suggesting to abandon the current energy-based system and return to a cooldown-based one.

Energy-system is basically RNG based, distracts from actual fights and more importantly allows spamming Ultimates and breaks balance between skills (making some less used or even not used at all).

Having each skill with its own cooldown would make players use them all, adding variety to the gameplay, allowing for more balanced, complete (and used) skillset, and if implemented correctly, even a more rewarding system (if cooldown recharge rates are based on battle performance).

In order to avoid the old problem of "waiting for cooldown to expire" we could simply have our cooldowns only progress while in a fight (an "active" tile) and stop if no enemies are around (a "cleared" tile).

[AnIratePenguin]

+1 

Could not agree more.

[Seeryxlas]

[Venarge]

[Ardha]

A little feedback would be much appreciated.

I read some discussions about this before, and the only mentioned downside of cooldown was players standing still, waiting for skills to recharge.

The second half of my post addresses this issue in a very easy way.

If there are no other downsides (I can't see them) only advantages remains from a cooldown system.

Plus, it could be very easily implemented.

[Kyte]

All good points. A simple idea which you didn't mention, however, is that killing an enemy will advance all cooldowns by X seconds. The more you kill, the faster you can reuse your powers. Simple and elegant want to encourage fighting.

[DecapitatingJim]

Just something I'd like to mention about the cooldowns you suggested:

Having it on an active tile only, brings the same problem as waiting, just leave 1 enemy alive and let him keep damaging you, making sure it's a fairly weak enemy, it's still gonna kill the pace of the game. 

 

Secondly the problem with the having to take damage to get skills is, say you use all your skills to clear out a room of very strong enemies, then you run into a room with the same amount of enemies at the same strength, then what? You'd be completely annihilated unless you stand at the door of the room taking pot-shots at the enemies, which will also kill the pace.

As for noticing enemies and not drops, it still wouldn't make a difference because you haven't factored in ammo, mods and resource drops, energy orbs is just another thing to look for.

 

Another thing to add about being hit to recharge - this makes high level defense completely impossible, because enemies eventually get to the stage they can and will one shot you, regardless of your shield and armor. 

 

Lastly (And this is just my own opinion) having skills on cooldown wouldn't make me use the more useless skills more, I don't use them, not because I don't have the energy, I very rarely run out of energy, I don't use them because they are useless, and having them on cooldown would honestly just make me take them out of my Frame and Forma the slots. The only reason I keep them in is because they look cool and I sometimes use them for the visual when there's an abundance of energy orbs.

 

 

 

I personally like the current system, yes it's easy to exploit but it makes the game very fast paced and fun, and it means you have to be extra careful on the squishy frames and you have to manage your energy on the missions that have little energy drops, makes the game more interesting!

Edited July 26, 2013 by DecapitatingJim

[Venarge]

A little feedback would be much appreciated.

I read some discussions about this before, and the only mentioned downside of cooldown was players standing still, waiting for skills to recharge.

The second half of my post addresses this issue in a very easy way.

If there are no other downsides (I can't see them) only advantages remains from a cooldown system.

Plus, it could be very easily implemented.

What makes me curious is why have you read existing threads but still made your own. I mean. Do we really need another thread about a topic that has been discussed for 234523523452 times. Your idea has flaws like decapitating already explains. So nope, we dont need a cooldown system.

[RealityMachina]

All good points. A simple idea which you didn't mention, however, is that killing an enemy will advance all cooldowns by X seconds. The more you kill, the faster you can reuse your powers. Simple and elegant want to encourage fighting.

This.

 

I mean, really, that's all that I think is needed. Less relying on RNG on giving you energy, more relying on how good you can murder the enemy. (Though a limitation that you get more energy if you kill enemies through basic powers/melee than if you killed enemies through ultimates would be helpful to reduce ultimate spam.)

[ValhaHazred]

Before this thread becomes 4chan (too late already :P) I'll say +1! Amuch better post than most energy-sux-cooldowns-rock threads.

I personally support a system of cooldowns in which they are miserably long, unless you are killing things. Killing would speed up the cooldown timer by fractions of a second, and the more you kill the bigger the fraction per kill (allies kills should count too or it would get crazy competitive).

I'd say a base cooldown of 5 seconds/ 30 seconds/ 1 min / 2 min would work. If you kept the momentum in a high level defence all of you could keep your timers going fast enough to just constantly blast Ults though.

I have no idea if it's balanced but I like the idea!

[DecapitatingJim]

The problem with having to kill to get energy, it would involve having to re-balance, as most frames can get so many kills with their powers (Nova, Saryn, Vauban, to name a few) it would still allow them to spam.

It would also make frames like Nyx a hell of a lot less amusing and fun to play.

[whitejackale]

There are many different ways in which the current ability system can be fixed. A cooldown based system is definitely the way in which it should work.

[whitejackale]

Before this thread becomes 4chan (too late already :P) I'll say +1! Amuch better post than most energy-sux-cooldowns-rock threads.

I personally support a system of cooldowns in which they are miserably long, unless you are killing things. Killing would speed up the cooldown timer by fractions of a second, and the more you kill the bigger the fraction per kill (allies kills should count too or it would get crazy competitive).

I'd say a base cooldown of 5 seconds/ 30 seconds/ 1 min / 2 min would work. If you kept the momentum in a high level defence all of you could keep your timers going fast enough to just constantly blast Ults though.

I have no idea if it's balanced but I like the idea!

There needs to be a limit on how much you can lower cooldowns every second.. For example, if one person does 10k damage in 1 second, and another does 100k damage in one second, they should both have their cooldowns lowered by one second. This would mean that you could at most lower cooldowns by 50% if you are dealing continuous damage.

[Ardha]

All good points. A simple idea which you didn't mention, however, is that killing an enemy will advance all cooldowns by X seconds. The more you kill, the faster you can reuse your powers. Simple and elegant want to encourage fighting.

Yes, I talked about damaging enemies but it could also be kill-counts, even shared by teammates if that helps avoiding the kill-rush.

 

Just something I'd like to mention about the cooldowns you suggested:

Having it on an active tile only, brings the same problem as waiting, just leave 1 enemy alive and let him keep damaging you, making sure it's a fairly weak enemy, it's still gonna kill the pace of the game. 

 

Secondly the problem with the having to take damage to get skills is, say you use all your skills to clear out a room of very strong enemies, then you run into a room with the same amount of enemies at the same strength, then what? You'd be completely annihilated unless you stand at the door of the room taking pot-shots at the enemies, which will also kill the pace.

As for noticing enemies and not drops, it still wouldn't make a difference because you haven't factored in ammo, mods and resource drops, energy orbs is just another thing to look for.

 

Another thing to add about being hit to recharge - this makes high level defense completely impossible, because enemies eventually get to the stage they can and will one shot you, regardless of your shield and armor. 

 

Lastly (And this is just my own opinion) having skills on cooldown wouldn't make me use the more useless skills more, I don't use them, not because I don't have the energy, I very rarely run out of energy, I don't use them because they are useless, and having them on cooldown would honestly just make me take them out of my Frame and Forma the slots. The only reason I keep them in is because they look cool and I sometimes use them for the visual when there's an abundance of energy orbs.

 

 

 

I personally like the current system, yes it's easy to exploit but it makes the game very fast paced and fun, and it means you have to be extra careful on the squishy frames and you have to manage your energy on the missions that have little energy drops, makes the game more interesting!

I still think that these flaws are already present in the current system: you let one enemy alive to let the cryopod recharge, and you wait behind cover to get your shields back up.

Plus, I'm not maniacally looking for ammo unless I'm using a very bad ammo-efficent gun, yet 'm scouting with great concern for orbs whenever I'm running with Ember.

All other points still remains.

Especially the one on unused skills: you would only use them because they look cool... and you could do it without messing with your energy reserve with a cooldown system. The game is about being fun, and being able to use "cool" abilities is part of it. Only limiting it to "needed" abilities is dull in my opinion.

 

What makes me curious is why have you read existing threads but still made your own. I mean. Do we really need another thread about a topic that has been discussed for 234523523452 times. Your idea has flaws like decapitating already explains. So nope, we dont need a cooldown system.

Thanks for sharing, I didn't know you run the place here.

I made the topic because i thought these were good points. To be shared. Because this is a forum, and it's meant to be used this way.

If the idea is flawed, users will just point out what I didn't see. I'm not here to impose anything, just sharing ideas.

[ValhaHazred]

The problem with having to kill to get energy, it would involve having to re-balance, as most frames can get so many kills with their powers (Nova, Saryn, Vauban, to name a few) it would still allow them to spam.

It would also make frames like Nyx a hell of a lot less amusing and fun to play.

True. I hadn't taken non-damage frames playing solo into acount.

I think the main balancer here is enemies = ammunition. The more you have to fight the more you want to use your powers to get as many at a time as possible.

Untimately I'm just spitballin' I think the Energy pool system works well enough for it's intended purpose. I don't think mine is necissarily superior but you never know what will inspire someone to think of the definitive system.

[Seeryxlas]

btw, with the kills-get-energy thing, how exactly is Loki gonna do in energy gain compared to the other warframes? the fact that some skills are less damage based and more CC based makes it harder for them to gain energy compared to other warframes.

(yes yes, get a pew pew gun but that's besides the point)

 

A reasonable choice would be only having the 4th skill have a cd, while the others still rely on the energy based system. the 4th should be the super powerful move with limitations, while the other skills be still spammable.(could have streamline reduce the 4th's cd time since it doesn't cost energy no more)

[Venarge]

 Because this is a forum, and it's meant to be used this way.

I forgot that forums are used to create threads about the same topic over and over and over and over again.

Sorry for that.

[Kyte]

The problem with having to kill to get energy, it would involve having to re-balance, as most frames can get so many kills with their powers (Nova, Saryn, Vauban, to name a few) it would still allow them to spam.

It would also make frames like Nyx a hell of a lot less amusing and fun to play.

One of the ideas tossed around was to have ally kills also reduce the cooldown. And nothing excludes frame-specific skills. Like, Nyx could get cooldown if any Chaos'd enemy dies, or if a Mind Controlled enemy successfully heals you/damages enemies.

[whitejackale]

I forgot that forums are used to create threads about the same topic over and over and over and over again.

Sorry for that.

I check out this section of the forums quite frequently, and I have to say that I do not see this topic "over and over and over and over again." You sir/madam are a liar. 

[Kyte]

btw, with the kills-get-energy thing, how exactly is Loki gonna do in energy gain compared to the other warframes? the fact that some skills are less damage based and more CC based makes it harder for them to gain energy compared to other warframes.

(yes yes, get a pew pew gun but that's besides the point)

 

A reasonable choice would be only having the 4th skill have a cd, while the others still rely on the energy based system. the 4th should be the super powerful move with limitations, while the other skills be still spammable.(could have streamline reduce the 4th's cd time since it doesn't cost energy no more)

I don't like your reasonable choice but your concern is 100% valid, so let's think ideas!

 

Decoys could get cooldown from how much damage they draw. Same with Iron Skin.

Invisibility, Smokescreen, Speed, Roar and the like could get cooldown from kills/damage dealt during the buff's duration.

Wormhole could get cooldown from allies transported.

Switch Tele could get cooldown from damage done to the teleported enemy.

Radial Disarm and other CC skills could get cooldown from how many enemies die under its effect.

Super Jump and Teleport could get cooldown from meters travelled or something like that.

Pull could get cooldown from meters the enemy travels.

Etc.

 

And of course regular kills would reduce all cooldowns by some (smaller) amount.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Kyte

[DecapitatingJim]

Yes, I talked about damaging enemies but it could also be kill-counts, even shared by teammates if that helps avoiding the kill-rush.

 

I still think that these flaws are already present in the current system: you let one enemy alive to let the cryopod recharge, and you wait behind cover to get your shields back up.

Plus, I'm not maniacally looking for ammo unless I'm using a very bad ammo-efficent gun, yet 'm scouting with great concern for orbs whenever I'm running with Ember.

All other points still remains.

Especially the one on unused skills: you would only use them because they look cool... and you could do it without messing with your energy reserve with a cooldown system. The game is about being fun, and being able to use "cool" abilities is part of it. Only limiting it to "needed" abilities is dull in my opinion.

 

Yes you let the cryopod recharge by letting one enemy live, but how many mission types have a cryopod? 2 so far, with your idea it could spread to every mission, and yes but shield recharge is automatic as long as you're not being hit, and is also very fast.

 

Next, what about the people that are using ammo draining guns? I personally use a Braton and on longer maps I have to watch everything for ammo. 

As for Ember, yes she needs a lot of energy but if you upgrade her energy reserve you can be sitting with umpteen hundreds energy, and as an Ember player myself, all I do is build up a bit of a stockpile in the early part of the mission by looting, then let loose on the rest of the map and very rarely have to look for energy orbs again.

 

And as I said, I don't use those powers because there is no point, but you said it would encourage more people to use them, but I disagree, and from my own personal experience and from friends I know that play, if it was moved to cooldown we wouldn't even have those equipped because we would have to make room for other mods, we leave them in because we can use our other, better skills, to compensate for what we lack in shield, life and such, moving it to cooldown wouldn't encourage people to use the useless skills.

 

The energy system is fine, it's fun, it keeps the pace of the game up, and if you're good with energy you'll never have a problem.

Also on a side note, it would make disruptors a joke, they're biggest threat is the ability to take all your energy.

 

One of the ideas tossed around was to have ally kills also reduce the cooldown. And nothing excludes frame-specific skills. Like, Nyx could get cooldown if any Chaos'd enemy dies, or if a Mind Controlled enemy successfully heals you/damages enemies.

Right now Chaos'd enemies, unless killed by you, don't count as an allied kill, so that technically wouldn't work.

As someone said above, what about Loki, there is no way for him to get skills to cooldown since he has no direct damage skills.

 

Anyway, I'm tired of typing such big walls of text, to summarize my opinion;

Energy yay,

Cooldown boo!

Edited July 26, 2013 by DecapitatingJim

[Ardha]

Untimately I'm just spitballin' I think the Energy pool system works well enough for it's intended purpose. I don't think mine is necissarily superior but you never know what will inspire someone to think of the definitive system.

The exact same reason why I started this topic. Something good might come out of it, even if starting ideas have some flaws.

 

btw, with the kills-get-energy thing, how exactly is Loki gonna do in energy gain compared to the other warframes? the fact that some skills are less damage based and more CC based makes it harder for them to gain energy compared to other warframes.

(yes yes, get a pew pew gun but that's besides the point)

 

A reasonable choice would be only having the 4th skill have a cd, while the others still rely on the energy based system. the 4th should be the super powerful move with limitations, while the other skills be still spammable.(could have streamline reduce the 4th's cd time since it doesn't cost energy no more)

True enough. That's why I suggested as my "personal preference" a timer-based cooldown, without involving kills.

Although this is related to all the other aspects of this system: we could have different frames behave in different manners (DPS ones gaining cooldown while fighting, stealth and support ones based on time only), or even just split up "regular skills" and "ultimates" and give cooldowns only to ultimates.

 

To me, the simple fact that out of 4 abilities, sometimes (some frames) half of them are discarded since "others are better" is reason enough to consider changing system.

Even just moving Ultimates to a separate system could bring greater balance to the game and have us fully use our skillsets.

 

I forgot that forums are used to create threads about the same topic over and over and over and over again.

Sorry for that.

As you can see, there's still input from the community. I'm not here to steal your time or anything.

Plus, as said above, this discussion has reason to exist even just to remove the endless skill-comparison and balancing issues.

[Venarge]

I check out this section of the forums quite frequently, and I have to say that I do not see this topic "over and over and over and over again." You sir/madam are a liar. 

You havent seen it because Steve said that its not gonna happen after we had these threads every few days. People stopped making threads after the statement of him.....

[PaperAlien]

I think that an energy from killing mechanism would be quite suitable, but it has to be limited only to weapon/melee kills. Otherwise people would just spam ults so they can spam ults again. Energy from weapon kills would encourage a more diverse playstyle.

[theangelbelow88]

DE doesn't like the idea of a cooldown system, I don't know why, the idea and ideas like it have been bounced around since the early days of close beta...

 

I think even DE said that they don't to implement that kind of mechanic into the game, again don't know why.

Edited July 27, 2013 by theangelbelow88