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Focus "3.0": Revamp to better incentivize Operator + Warframe gameplay


Synpai
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3 hours ago, Mataeru said:

Ability Kills are a cool concept, but that will grant perhaps a little bit too much power.

Targets would have to be affected by void blast, so it's not like you nuke the map and get it.

3 hours ago, Mataeru said:

Void Spiral adding too much to the schools list of abilities.

It also separates Void Dash from arbitrarily increasing energy for classes that alter void dash. I'm a stickler for mechanical consistency, although the mechanics may be the same, the functionality and style is different. Currently some schools feel like Warframes with only two abilities available.

3 hours ago, Mataeru said:

Energy Regen, Health Regen, and Wisps need to stay with their respective schools. Giving each school a cloned version of something that used to be exclusive to one, makes the others significantly less unique.

It depends on how you interpret the description of the class. Vazarin keeps it's healing on dash, but Unairu gets a passive heal. Not every school has health regen.

Wisps and Energy Regen we'll have to agree to disagree because Energy is core to gameplay and I'm of the strong belief everyone should have a way to do it, sure Zenurik can keep it passive and do it better, but not have a Monopoly. I equally don't think Operator buffs should be monopolized by one school, they all use the operator just able to provide different buffs; it literally makes no sense that Unairu even has that wisp in the first place lol. 

Operators support the overall flow of gameplay in this concept. But yeah take away all those magnetic bubbles on void blast and we're back to Naramon issues of "WHO DID I HIT WITH THIS ABILITY!?"

3 hours ago, Mataeru said:

I do NOT want to give up my 25% affinity bonus on melee kills.

Again in the disclaimer you will see me talking about not wanting to get into a number game. The passive was intended to read as a lesser version of the Venka Prime passive.

25% affinity is debatable. Affinity gain in general is highly criticized, that just feels like a bandaid to me more than a thematic ability.  Regardless waiting on updating schools until Melee 3.0

 

 

Spoiler

I'm not quoting all that, but:

Madurai

Yes Madurai also applies to movement speed, but I relinquished those to the Hemocyte class even if it's not core, still wanted as little functional overlap as possible.

Passive 2: Is a more fun version of the Blazing Fury tree from focus 1.0.

Kill Skills: Increasing damage or Increasing Rate of attack = Things die faster either way, speed can be interpreted plenty of ways (Pretty much how I see it and the more damage vs rate of fire more fits killing before an enemy steels themselves IMO.)

Void Dash: .....

1. Kill fast for damage multiplier (Also affects operator)

2. Unless you're fighting level 30 enemies, that charge damage on it's own would be nada. Operators are supportive in this concept because it feels like how it should be they can't compare to warframes or guns in damage.

Void Spiral:

1. Consistency
2. More reward for accuracy (hitting allies) over not
3. Coop design >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Channels: I want them badly

Maim: Stores damage dealt (by you) as per Equinox's Maim.

See Umbra Blaze for Attack speed ability.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I really don't want to go through the rest and get into a battle of semantics as to why knock down > disarm (Naramon); ammo mutation is outlasting the enemy/endurance. Maybe I'll get bored one day and actually finish, but not at the moment.

Each theme/school overlaps in what you can place where depending on how you interpret them and how you imagine gameplay.

Post will see a lot of changes (in the works) due to new mechanics and the like and fixes to a lot of the clarity issues like Unairu's "shatter" meaning they are free from petrification, but have reduced armor and damage (Which I may do to all but Naramon instead of fully waiting for Melee 3.0). Good feedback nonetheless.

Exhausted after work, forgive my tone if it seems negative.

Edited by Synpai
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3 minutes ago, Snowbluff said:

#*!%ing neg

I don't want more operator in my game.
Operator already has its uses.

but if this becomes the best playstyle warframe dies.

should renamed the title operator.

It's intended to give them more effective uses that enhance their gameplay with Warframes, adding more diversity; It is NOT however intended to replace Warframes.

Yes operators have their use, but they could be more mechanically involved in gameplay for those that want the benefits and flexibility.

 

The game is called Warframe, but  Operators are a part of the gameplay. As such, I'd rather them be more effective than they are currently, so please keep the feedback focused 3.0, because Operators aren't going to be removed, so at least we can see them improved.

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There are definitely some good and/or interesting ideas here. Don't know how I feel about many suggestions looking like rough copies of existing warframe abilities, or how well a system like this would play out as a whole, but at the very least DE should take a long, close look at focus abilities they designed to punish players in certain situations for leveling them. I'm talking about abilities such as void shadow, void aegis, void stalker and most of all void radiance.

Want to cloak an important slow/stationary target? Let's hope you didn't max void shadow or you risk cloaking unimportant far away targets AND have to pay 4x the cost for EACH.

Want to shield an important slow/stationary target? Well if you leveled void aegis too much it might grow past what is needed to stay protected from aoe while letting enemies further away come inside. It has no slow effect, so unlike frosts bubble it's useless once an enemy passes it.

Want to spy enemies through walls with void hunter or get as many void dashes as possible in a row? Careful not to max void stalker as the 4x energy cost lowers the amount of time you can stay invisible and could cause you to get one less void dash with full energy pool.

Want to- no, never mind. Void radiance is so painfully obvious I'm not even going to bother saying it.

I will admit some of these situations rarely see light of the day, but that doesn't make the poor design any better, now does it?

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19 minutes ago, tester616 said:

There are definitely some good and/or interesting ideas here. Don't know how I feel about many suggestions looking like rough copies of existing warframe abilities, or how well a system like this would play out as a whole, but at the very least DE should take a long, close look at focus abilities they designed to punish players in certain situations for leveling them. I'm talking about abilities such as void shadow, void aegis, void stalker and most of all void radiance.

Want to cloak an important slow/stationary target? Let's hope you didn't max void shadow or you risk cloaking unimportant far away targets AND have to pay 4x the cost for EACH.

Want to shield an important slow/stationary target? Well if you leveled void aegis too much it might grow past what is needed to stay protected from aoe while letting enemies further away come inside. It has no slow effect, so unlike frosts bubble it's useless once an enemy passes it.

Want to spy enemies through walls with void hunter or get as many void dashes as possible in a row? Careful not to max void stalker as the 4x energy cost lowers the amount of time you can stay invisible and could cause you to get one less void dash with full energy pool.

Want to- no, never mind. Void radiance is so painfully obvious I'm not even going to bother saying it.

I will admit some of these situations rarely see light of the day, but that doesn't make the poor design any better, now does it?

I agree the punishment is which is why I made Void Spirals, to separate the cost of random void dash energy increases.

As for why most of them are lesser Warframe abilities, It's practical for ease of implementation. 

 

Coming up with brand new mechanics for the whole system would be a bigger stretch considering all of the other directions DE is pulling themselves in for new mechanics.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Brainstorming a Quills NPC that uses focus to buy focus specific Operator and Warframe cosmetics, Peculiar mods, amp parts/arcanes (debatable).

For the arcanes, my current thought is enhancing convergence orbs for school specific boons along with stylizing bullet jumps with elements and Focus logos

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  • 3 weeks later...
3 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

How do you acquire those stacks? There seems to be no Ability that grants those, only some that consume Stacks...

 

 

 

Here you go!

On 2017-11-10 at 6:53 AM, Synpai said:

Melee kills on enemies affected by void blast adds a Hemocyte Stack, spreads Maggot Spores to adjacent enemies and adds Swarm Blade to your next [#] melee attacks (consumed per enemy, not per hit).

 

I wish I had more format options 😱 Hemocyte will definitely need another look as it may be a bit too complicated and poorly worded, sorry. 

Edited by Synpai
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I love the details for every school! And I would have a hard time picking a favorite one as all are really good and well done! Also your solutions for the "Energy/Zenutik"-Problem is splendid!
 
On integrating my Focus Mastery into your Idea:


-I see no problem in picking Passives, Void Dash, Void Blast, Void Spiral and Void Mode from every Mastered School (except Hemocyte).


-Wisps, Energy, Kill Effects and Channeling I would leave depending on the chosen School as they are in my opinion what separates the Schools the most.

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WOOO! Updated a lot of information after Friday's Dev Stream:

  1. Clarified a few things, like Energy Regen!
  2. There are new Mechanics Like Void Gliding!
  3. Vazarin, Unairu and Naramon got makeovers!
  4. Added two methods of focus refunding

I will be working on color formatting to make things more legible!
There is also a whole shop concept to be added to the Focus Mastery System via the fictitious Quills Cephalon: Cephalon Szellem! A few of the items coming in the shop I've even commissioned art for! Stay tuned \o/

 

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Am ‎10‎.‎11‎.‎2017 um 12:53 schrieb Synpai:

Upon completing a focus tree the passives from the tree are able to be unbound (only one can be active at a time; can be changed)

If one has every School completed, he would have access to both Passives of his Primary School and up to one Passive of every other School? Am I getting this right? 

Given the strong Passives in your Concept that would be a great way of rewarding the Players for a Completed School!

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2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

If one has every School completed, he would have access to both Passives of his Primary School and up to one Passive of every other School? Am I getting this right? 

Given the strong Passives in your Concept that would be a great way of rewarding the Players for a Completed School!

That is correct! Along with some nice bullet jump flare/buffing! 

There's even more coming this weekend once I'm able to sit down and format the shop stuff though the art won't be done for a while (I can't wait! Literally typed a few things, but decided to wait until the weekend x3)!

 

1 hour ago, EDM774 said:

This looks way better than what we have now.... *insert why aren't we funding this.jpeg*

<333333333 Things like this keep me going! Q_Q *slides resume under DE door* lol 

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4 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

Sorry, gotten a little crazy farming Focus.


I really like the new Void Dash effect because I don't really appreciate how the Lightning Dash spheres move forward, further, the tripwire effect can be useful on its own, but combined with the means of pulling enemies the school brings, you can drag enemies into the tripwire too, and depending on if the Void Spiral field pull strength and Void Mode pull strength differ, you could potentially do this over and over again. At any rate, it's a lasting useful effect, and I think operators need to focus on those. Further, the Void Blast psychic bolts seem to largely not have the requirement of close range, and I could be wrong, but it seems like that most Focus School abilities require you to either be close or get close to the enemy. This, I think limits the potential utility of Operator abilities, and so I'd like to hope more long-range abilities come in the next set of Operator changes.

Passive 2 seems it will not see a lot of use, because if I'm not mistaken, Health Orbs largely only come from the environment and enemies almost exclusively drop Energy Orbs instead. Equally dubious is the possibility of enemies coming back as ghost after being tagged with Void Blast. From my perspective, the reliance on AI to do the job of killing is the downfall of Duality Equinox, and Nyx, and I do not see a use in trying to raise enemies from the dead with this ability.

The Void Spiral overall, I have mixed sentiments about. On one hand, I don't like the idea of having one move being responsible for two abilities, like I said up there with Void Dash, and Void Spiral for Zenurik would end up having four different functions, or two sets of functions that are closely related. It runs the risk of having one ability too entirely too many things well, and ending up being overpowered, or having to have all those functions be diluted to accommodate all of them and not really doing any of them well at all. Generally though, it's pretty hard to get people to actually play together in missions, and not be four people coincidentally massacring enemies in the same map. It's very possible it will be hard to take advantage of both effects at once.

As for the channels, I think Void Refund will not be useful because your revamped version of Zenurik still has the ability to grant 5 energy per second, and in my experience that completely mitigates most ability costs. Umbra Spike is likely more useful, but I doubt the magnetic effect will end up being useful, both the damage and the status. If it was capable of granting overshields as well, I think that would be especially good.

Finally, I still feel like some degree of shield-usage support should be in Zenurik, and I think something like a higher shield cap or overshield cap would be useful as passives. Passive 2 encourages players to be at full health, but doesn't provide enough of a payoff from what I can see, so perhaps something similar that rewards a player for being unharmed should be in the tree, to encourage people to take advantage of shields, and perhaps some active and passive could be centered around generating shields/overshields, and bolstering them.

I remember my days of focus farming x.x thankfully long behind me

For pull strength thee Void Spiral only pulls when they're already inside of it. And I suppose I could put "chance to trip" over the assumption that it always trips to avoid endless cc. I'll consider it as I continue to work on editing the other stuff in Zenurik, but that seems like a realm of playtest to know for sure as it could also just have a limitation to how many enemies it could trip then there's just straight up chance to shock on enemies that pass through it's a lot of stuff I'm lookin at.

You are correct, Zenurik's bolts are not short range only. Other schools also have ways to increase their range. I think there's a good reason for this range limitation to make them assisting more than parallel. With the above abilities, they could fare better on their own, but still not as well as a warframe that specifies in something which to me is fine. 

I've already changed the Health orb thing (I was in the middle of looking at Zenurik and Vazarin again before lunch). The changes are better, but I'm going to wait on Revenant...Vlad...IDR. The Eidolon warframe to be finished as Zenurik could be improved with some of its abilities. 

Yes the AI isnt the greatest, but not everything needs to instakill or do massive damage to be useful. I feel the extra targets, CC, Damage reduction or just absurdity from some units is interesting enough. The downfall to those is that they are Warframe abilities and not done very well. The Duality augment doesn't really scale well duration wise and typically you only need one form, not both in any given situation. You don't switch fast enough or get enough benefit to really bother swapping between the two. Nyx at the least is another target, you want the things like the Kuva Guardian with its sword (can't), Bombard, Eximus units, summoning units, etc. but those aren't in every mission and are made obsolete by specters. (Nyx as a whole is made obsolete by the addition of frames, Revenant army...I'm looking at YOU). That's a very old frame showing its cracks and a terribly designed augment. DE will eventually improve AI and such, but I...can't do anything about THAT. AI sucks but I still want a bird companion. Much like Madurai swapping between four damage types I can't say "but wait impact puncture and fire are less than slash so this is terrible" because at some point slash won't be the end all be all.

Fair on void spiral, but if you instead put abilities back on void dash, they come with arbitrary costs and you have that feeling of being punished for leveling an ability and I didn't like that so I separated them and made it great if you made direct contact with an enemy or ally, but not all or nothing if you don't (Vazarin Dash I'm looking at YOU).

It's free real estate casting at an increased speed; They're both equal to me: one a selfish steroid, the other more of a support. Yes magnetic sucks now but that's Zenurik's territory. It eventually will not be useless. Regardless, the damage won't be that great, it's the supportive channel.

Passives have changed by the time you wrote this so...I agree, but not on increased overshield capacity because that's only useful with/on a few frames. Think what they've become is a bit better

 

2 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

Not like I can complain about lateness, anyways.

Further, I am not sure if this is a good idea because I'd prefer to think of the Operator's abilities as a set of nifty additions to a complementary Warframe's abilities rather than a full skillset on their own, but I think some allies might end up finding being affected by Void Mode's pull to be more harmful than helpful, especially against enemies like Heavy Gunners with their radial blast and Toxic Ancients. As a replacement off the top of my head, it might be interesting to make the bolts from Void Dash mark a specific enemy, perhaps the first or last one hit as a "Storm Conduit" and have that enemy be the focus of the pull and lightning effect.

I generally don't like attaching effects to Void Mode though because I think Operator abilities need to strongly gravitate towards instant gratification, but I suppose if you made there be a very strong enough reason to use Void Mode, that would be valid as well. Imagine marking one Vomvalyst or perhaps a Grineer as a Conduit, then pulling away all the Vomvalysts from the Teralyst. Some abilities for Operators DO need to be useful for Operator vs Enemy combat scenarios like Eidolons. This would be appreciable, I think.

 

EDIT: It might also be possible to have the effect be an all-at-once yank rather than a relatively gradual pull, to distinguish it from the field effect. You'd charge up in Void Mode for a couple seconds, and then yank right after exiting Void Mode. Perhaps the charge would reset on use of Void Dash to prevent unintended use.

Good point, I'll take the enemy pulling off for now and think on it, but my current plans is more along the lines of shock chroma where they shock enemies that damage them and taking the shield part of vazarin's void mode away. The current Zenurik void mode is strong enough to pull enemies along while you void dash, which is a bit of a double edged sword; regardless more changes in the works! Very valuable feedback!

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10 minutes ago, (PS4)ImTheOx said:

Jesus Christ you are complicating things. 

In some cases yes, in others not so much.

 

In the original time of the post it was a simple "quick fix"  that has since evolved. If you have any detail on WHAT you find complicated, that could be valuable 😄 

Edited by Synpai
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The more the better, imo. To me a big part of why the focus system has really improved the game is adding options and complexity. Instead of relying on 3 other players and their auras you can choose the focus school and abilities inside those trees to complement whatever playstyle you want - for people that prefer to play solo this is a huge advantage. As long as spectre AI is so random and unreliable the best alternative is to be your own companion. Another consideration I hope DE keeps in mind on focus moving forward is that veteran players that have maxed everything get bored and while updates like PoE and Fortuna are cool new missions and landscapes it's the new ideas and systems in things like the focus schools that keep us interested, not to mention having billions of focus points in shards built up makes me want to use them 🙂

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On 2018-08-11 at 5:42 PM, Synpai said:

For pull strength thee Void Spiral only pulls when they're already inside of it. And I suppose I could put "chance to trip" over the assumption that it always trips to avoid endless cc. I'll consider it as I continue to work on editing the other stuff in Zenurik, but that seems like a realm of playtest to know for sure as it could also just have a limitation to how many enemies it could trip then there's just straight up chance to shock on enemies that pass through it's a lot of stuff I'm lookin at.

What are you trying to prevent? The enemy getting tripped by the lines, getting up then getting tripped again because it's still in the place with the wires?

Also, I'd recommend against enemy-shock on pass through. If you do that, against infested and corrupted they'll simply ignore the wire most of the time because of the ancient healers. I am distinctly against insisting shock is a valid form of primary CC because of that. Do I get a lot of mileage out of Shock because of Volt's Shocking Speed? Kind of. Do I look at a horde of Corpus that need to be subdued and say "Boy I will run right between all of them and stop them from doing anything for a whole second?" I don't.

On 2018-08-11 at 5:42 PM, Synpai said:

but still not as well as a warframe that specifies in something which to me is fine.

I would go so far as to say this is ideal. This is so that the Operator doesn't end up outshining the Warframe in utility and take up more time being played than the Warframe.

On 2018-08-11 at 5:42 PM, Synpai said:

I feel the extra targets

Conceded, I suppose.

On 2018-08-11 at 5:42 PM, Synpai said:

It's free real estate casting at an increased speed; They're both equal to me: one a selfish steroid, the other more of a support. Yes magnetic sucks now but that's Zenurik's territory. It eventually will not be useless. Regardless, the damage won't be that great, it's the supportive channel.

Have you considered allowing the powers to be activated with increased parameters such as Power Strength/Range etc?  Chiefly Power Strength. There's a lot of room for trouble with how some frames can't really take advantage of increased casting speed, like Volt or Excalibur I feel, and other Warframes can take advantage of a single extra heap of power like, also, Excalibur, but also every other exalted Weapon user, and some frames also may or may not appreciate more of other Parameters like range, like perhaps Limbo. Strength is the safest power parameter to boost.

On 2018-08-11 at 5:42 PM, Synpai said:

Passives have changed by the time you wrote this so...I agree, but not on increased overshield capacity because that's only useful with/on a few frames. Think what they've become is a bit better

I was thinking Zenurik could also have some other ability that allows it to generate shields and overshields, your implementation of it lacks that though, so I guess it's not as important. Also, your idea is pretty okay, from what I can tell.

On a day to day basis I play a Volt that uses overshields along with Quick Thinking as defensive measures, which served as my motivation for sticking that overshield passive in. My stance on shielding is that fundamentally, shields were hard to justify when I relied on them to come back and regenerate on their own, from when I played Volt, because it took too long to wait for it to come back up. I got so much as grazed, it would stop getting restored, but then I slotted Capacitance and it became easier to justify shielding when I could top it back off by pressing 4. So, I think shields are only useful if your Warframe has a way of forcing them back up instead of naturally restoring them right now. Hence the passive. It might be better if they made shields more useful overall though. Further, there are I think at least 5 frames that are capable of restoring into overshields. I'll look into it a bit more later too, but those 5 frames have pretty poor armor mostly, and they'd benefit a lot from having stronger shields.

On 2018-08-11 at 5:42 PM, Synpai said:

Good point, I'll take the enemy pulling off for now and think on it, but my current plans is more along the lines of shock chroma where they shock enemies that damage them and taking the shield part of vazarin's void mode away. The current Zenurik void mode is strong enough to pull enemies along while you void dash, which is a bit of a double edged sword; regardless more changes in the works! Very valuable feedback!

I took at look at it as it is now. You may want to make it instantly jumpstart shields, and the regeneration would have to be pretty fast, I think.

Edited by Ventura_Highway
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21 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

What are you trying to prevent? The enemy getting tripped by the lines, getting up then getting tripped again because it's still in the place with the wires?

Also, I'd recommend against enemy-shock on pass through. If you do that, against infested and corrupted they'll simply ignore the wire most of the time because of the ancient healers. I am distinctly against insisting shock is a valid form of primary CC because of that. Do I get a lot of mileage out of Shock because of Volt's Shocking Speed? Kind of. Do I look at a horde of Corpus that need to be subdued and say "Boy I will run right between all of them and stop them from doing anything for a whole second?" I don't.

Nah just noting that enemies that contact get pulled in.

True.

21 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

I would go so far as to say this is ideal. This is so that the Operator doesn't end up outshining the Warframe in utility and take up more time being played than the Warframe.

I'm not by any means trying to trample over Warframes; but using minor forms of their abilities and such are easier to implement and code as well as opens gameplay options.

22 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

Have you considered allowing the powers to be activated with increased parameters such as Power Strength/Range etc?  Chiefly Power Strength. There's a lot of room for trouble with how some frames can't really take advantage of increased casting speed, like Volt or Excalibur I feel, and other Warframes can take advantage of a single extra heap of power like, also, Excalibur, but also every other exalted Weapon user, and some frames also may or may not appreciate more of other Parameters like range, like perhaps Limbo. Strength is the safest power parameter to boost.

I have. I tried to stay away from too many pure stat increases compared to gameplay changes.Efficiency was even safer to boost (Void Spiral Direct Contact).

Volt will spam 4 or 1; Excalibur: Slash Dash or Radial Javelin (or just enjoy the 10s of un-drained energy with Exalted blade since it does note that it affects channeled abilities: those that drain over time).

All others will at least be able to use the Umbra Spike although not as offensive. I think a big point is that there are many options in this post for any one frame.

22 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

I was thinking Zenurik could also have some other ability that allows it to generate shields and overshields, your implementation of it lacks that though, so I guess it's not as important. Also, your idea is pretty okay, from what I can tell.

 

23 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

I took at look at it as it is now. You may want to make it instantly jumpstart shields, and the regeneration would have to be pretty fast, I think.

Outside of the channel, there are two. Passive #2 (Nonsensically effective for Limbo) and the Void Mode (which should be imagined similar to shield ospreys; I'll make that more explicit).

 

22 hours ago, Ventura_Highway said:

It might be better if they made shields more useful overall though

As it stands few frames get a Major benefit to over-shields (those with Damage reduction); Mesa and Trinity are the more notable (Even Harrow fails to be able to really use his passive as more than a primer for his 2). I'm not sure how they attempted shield gating, but something tells me they didn't attempt it so large shields gave some levels of damage reduction basically making a frame like Mag a shield tank (granted that would be some painful balancing). I would even think it'd be neat to have an arcane or mod that reduced health or something to give damage reduction to shields, but that's another thing entirely.

I hope that it does improve. Mastery stuff will open up more options ;D I'll get to it as soon as I'm done replying here.

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