Dev Workshop: Warframes Revisited

[Xantheis]

3 minutes ago, LinXiaoWong said:

We will see these in execution but I feel there will be further changes because some stuff still not adressed. 

We will absolutely see what happens but, the list of changes is long and, honestly, im very interested to get my hands on those changes.  so yea, i completely agree - we will see in the execution.

I think further changes a good thing too.  iteration and updating/tweaking/etc abilities to make playstyles fresh and give more options is good.  

definitely looking forward to it. 

[An8rchy]

Like Ember doesnt still deal with armor, and banshee deploys ember's wof with the augment

And mag isnt still viable, Zephyr is unless cuz theres celings everywhere... etc etc

[(XBOX)Anxious Chammy]

a little late but with the new unvauting system tying us to bounties. Syndicate relic packs won't offer relief?

[KaeseSchnitte]

4 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

EMBER

World On Fire - 5 seconds after casting, a percentage will begin counting up on the ability icon. As this percentage scales from 0% to 100% over 10 seconds, the ability’s energy cost and damage dealt both grow to double, while the ability radius shrinks to half.
 

Ember is the original damage caster frame, offering low survivability in exchange for high offense. Her ultimate, World on Fire, is unmatched in terms of widespread lethality - while many Warframes specialize in certain mission types, Ember’s specialty is “anything under level 30”. By simply bullet jumping through levels with World on Fire active, enemies become a non-factor, making Ember a ubiquitous pick across most of the Star Chart. Like a mobile Resonating Quake, this monopoly on kills can leave squadmates struggling to keep up, in an attempt to see the enemy before they melt. These changes increase lethality at higher levels, while addressing the ability’s huge range.

World on Fire will continue working similarly to how it does now, but with changing effects over time. The gradually increasing energy cost should encourage most players to toggle the ability when needed, instead of the current “set and forget” approach. Players who can afford to run the ability at max charge may need to get more up close and personal, but the increased damage should help Ember out against higher level enemies.  World on Fire is still very capable of clearing rooms and sweeping hallways, but should now be applied more deliberately!

Dear DE, dear Connor, I am going to tell you something you already know: Warframe is grindy as F***. And that is ok, I am certainly not complaining about that.

And I'm going to tell you a second thing you already know: There is a limit to how much grind players are willing to put up with. The latest example of this would be the lore segments as bounty reward during the ghoul event. The majority of players complained that it was way too grindy to complete those lore fragments and you agreed and changed it for the better. Now let me add to the last statement that the amount of grind one is willing to put up with varies from player to player.

Keeping those two points in mind, Ember and its kind as AoE nukers are actually a form of player retention. Ember is my most played frame, and for a good reason. By the time you get decent mods, about 90% to 95% of the game just become a cake walk. The most taxing thing in those cake-walk-missions is to get the enemies into your line of sight, so you can oneshot them. Ember eliminates the need to seek out each of those low level enemies and by doing so, removes the most aggravating part about having to run those low level missions over and over again.

It is true that having an Ember or the like as team-mate can be frustrating, but while players that are at the mercy of an Ember may *@##$ and whine, they will keep playing. And they have a choice to leave the squad if they see an Ember joining. However, if you remove Ember and similar frames from the game, players like me, players who have not as high of a tolerance for grind, are being forced to run cake-walk-missions over and over again to get that one drop they want, they wont have the choice to just leave the squad to speed up the grind, and they wont keep playing, they will leave, at worst permanently.

I hope you can see where I am going with this. AoE nuke frames like Ember increase the range of players your game appeals to, because it means that players with a lower tolerance for grind can at least speed up that grind significantly. Please keep this fact in mind when balancing Embers WoF. I'd really hate to be in a situation where I get pissed off at just the thought of having to spend so much unnecessary time in missions because I have to either run to every enemy or let them run to me.

Edited February 2, 2018 by KaeseSchnitte

[MJ12]

I understand and accept the reasoning for the World on Fire nerf, but the problem is that Ember has no other good abilities.

None of her kit scales well into the lategame and she's basically entirely dependent on WoF, which is why you're getting a lot of negative feedback about that.

You say that she offers 'low survivability in exchange for high offense' but only one of those two statements is true. Her survivability is bad but her offensive power is mediocre at best.

If WoF is getting a nerf, which is fine-I understand the problem with basically just murdering the entire starchart with 0 effort because you picked an Ember-the rest of her kit needs pretty significant improvements to compensate for this problem. I would suggest something like:

New Ember Passive: Any heat procs caused by Ember's abilities and weapons also force a viral proc on the enemy. Given that the "extreme heat" sortie condition halves health, Ember being able to halve health with fire damage would make sense in the game's logic and also give her a reasonably potent support effect that emphasizes her offensive nature.

Fireball: Scales with damage/multishot/crit/crit damage/projectile speed mods for the currently equipped weapon. Gains some base crit chance and damage.

Fireball becomes Ember's bread and butter offensive ability-she's a caster who basically packs a rocket launcher that she can use as an off-hand attack. This gives Ember a powerful offense that scales through the level range of content and requires more than a single button press.

Accelerant: Enemies who are killed when under the effects of Accelerant explode in an AoE, dealing heat damage equal to a percentage of maximum health to nearby enemies. This effect is increased if the enemy was killed via Ember's powers.

Accelerant becomes a more offensively-focused version of Molecular Prime, trading off its CC (or mission-accelerating) qualities for additional firepower. This emphasizes Ember's intended playstyle-Accelerant to render people vulnerable to heat damage, then using

Fire Blast: The initial expanding fire blast wave destroys enemy projectiles and stops non-melee attacks (hitscan guns). After Fire Blast's duration ends, the ring of fire implodes, dealing an AoE damage burst that scales according to the total damage the fire blast did over its duration, and pulls/ragdolls enemies towards its center.

Fire Blast gains an indirect synergy with Fireball and Accelerant, by becoming a crowd control tool that, like Larva, drags enemies towards a central point that Ember can exploit by using her Fireball on, dealing damage and (if Accelerant is used) making the death AoE more effective.

[devil_kit]

@[DE]Connor @[DE]Pablo

 

I saw the Banshee augment change on stream and Pablo said they weren't sure if they wanted to let it stack. I thought about it and came up with two ideas to consider.

 

Let the augmented Quake have multiple casts but each quake can only be cast 10~20 meter distance epicenter to epicenter of each individual quake. Or a variable formula of Augmented Quake range /x = minimum epicenter to epicenter range. EXAMPLE Augmented Quake range 100 meters / 2 = 50 meters minimum distance epicenter to epicenter for each separate quake. This would force the Banshee player to keep mobile to place down multiple quakes, which I feel is the intention of the change to this augment. But given the short duration  to Quake the augment does is 50 meters too far to traverse to drop another quake before the first one times out is something to be tested. Also there probably should be a visual identifier for the minimum epicenter ranges if such a system is implemented.

 

On letting Quakes stack you could create an additive mechanic that can refresh the duration / add to the duration (to a cap) of an active quake within 1~3 meters radius, add 10-20% range on 1st stack after casting initial quake, +5~10% range on 2nd stack, +2.5-5% on 3rd and 4th stack. So that is a total of 5 casts to reach max range stack (20~40% at max stacks in this example), additional stacks beyond 5 would only refresh / add (to a cap) the duration of the quake being stacked.

 

I offer both of these interesting possible game play addition / changes to the Augment to test for the dev team to try out. 

Edited February 2, 2018 by devil_kit
@DE tags

[HellVOps]

So when does some of these changes go live? any ETA?(unless i skimmed that part)

[__Beowulf__]

Ash rework, damn it was about time! His 4th ability is useless right now, let see how this work now. 
Atlas rework sounds great, nice synergy. Never was a fan of him, but now I maybe take a second look.
Chroma rework, meh, I never really liked his abilities so i'm indifferent. 
Ember and Banshee rework, I almost can hear all those fanboys crying, and I can't be more happy about it. Those warframes went from "mediocre-frames" to "tactic-frames" you want glory? earn it!
Zephyr rework!!! Hell yeah! My lady bird (or is bird lady?) is going to have a brand new ability, i'm glad, she deserved it.
Volt rework... well... I understand why, I just hope you don't broke him.
DE keeps fine tuning their characters, and that's not easy, but i'm glad they still care enough to improve the game and the general experience for all of us.

Great work and thanks!

[tbeest]

EMBER

World On Fire - 5 seconds after casting, a percentage will begin counting up on the ability icon. As this percentage scales from 0% to 100% over 10 seconds, the ability’s energy cost and damage dealt both grow to double, while the ability radius shrinks to half.

 

Please consider Firequake as well, because this will severely limit its CC capabilities. I suggest it will get rid of the shrinking along with the damage increase.

Edited February 2, 2018 by tbeest
Forgot augment name, whoops

[Soup2504]

dgdagadgpap

Edited February 2, 2018 by Soup2504
double post

[Underdrill]

Almost all of the changes look pretty good, although I'll have to try out the Atlas and Ember reworks myself before I make a verdict.

The only change on this list that needs to be reconsidered is Mag's Crush. The ability does not translate at all well to gameplay as it is incredibly slow, clunky, and not worth using over her other abilities. This change does not do anything to improve it. I would much rather Crush be completely replaced with a new ultimate rather than it being band-aided over and over again. As someone who's seen Mag evolve over almost 5 years, I really do think this would be the best move forward for her.

[devil_kit]

Just now, HellVOps said:

So when does some of these changes go live? any ETA?(unless i skimmed that part)

On stream they said on PC as soon as 1 week- on consoles (because of cert) up to 6 weeks after it goes live on PC.

[ADDgamer45]

Ok if you sit in a hydron mission with an ember or banshee you can actually see them get less experience than you even though you aren't getting the kills. Pay attention.

[Soup2504]

1 hour ago, EvilMunchkin-EN- said:

Zephyr's 4 is still the only objectively bad ability to have up in the game since it can prevent you from killing enemies, causing missions, especially bounties, to fail. 

Tornado -  Tornadoes do a better job of keeping enemies captured, and shooting Tornadoes will do damage to enemies trapped inside.

get your eyes checked mate

[HellVOps]

17 minutes ago, devil_kit said:

On stream they said on PC as soon as 1 week- on consoles (because of cert) up to 6 weeks after it goes live on PC.

Ok thank you.

[Luccin]

additional zephyrs changes that i would like to see

Tailwind - make transition between tailwinds more smoother. Better base range (even slashdash excal has more range than Zephyr. make a period of time after tailwind is cast where zephyr is unaffected by gravity so that you can reaim your tailwind without falling to the ground.

Airburst - this is fine i guess, kinda hope it does good dmg so we don't get another ability that just ragdolls enemies and makes it harder to kill

Tornado - Make it recastable, Better base DMG, big increase in speed of which tornadoes move to prevent tornadoes to struggle where to go when you are flying around aiming in different directions. (also what's the point of having 4 tornadoes if they all go to the same spot?)

Augments - replace the divebomb augment (we already have a ragdoll with airburst and stacking would be pointless?), Replace tornado augment (we didn't need 4 tornadoes since they all go to the same place so why make it 8? and the speed increase would be uselss cus the dmg is non existent unless they buff it.

[(PSN)Thanasiomedes]

As much as I appreciate these changes (especially to ash and banshee) Id really appreciate if you could take a look at Titania. If your motive is to make frames fun idk how having your enemies and your ccing lantern float off into space is fun. Or even how having to smash yourself into the ground to pick up loot in razorwing is fun. And having tribute be a throw away ability seems to just reinforce that the only way to play her is in razorwing. Im not sure but it even seems like with her new augment that we are even being encouraged to just focus on her 4. I really do actually like using titania but so many things about her abilities just make them not as fun. 

[(XBOX)ChromaTheDragon]

Nope to the Chroma change.

[(PSN)abb12355]

Finally, after 4 years, the Zephyr's get what they wanted. 

thank you DE

[JackMcRain]

All of that sounds amazing! I still don't have all frames like Atlas of Chroma but I'll try my best in getting my hands on them, especially when these reworks come out.

[BezNazwy2506]

Amazing, can't wait to test atlas and ash.

[Ocerkin]

2 minutes ago, theANIMALtm said:

Ash rework, damn it was about time! His 4th ability is useless right now, let see how this work now. 
Atlas rework sounds great, nice synergy. Never was a fan of him, but now I maybe take a second look.
Chroma rework, meh, I never really liked his abilities so i'm indifferent. 
Ember and Banshee rework, I almost can hear all those fanboys crying, and I can't be more happy about it. Those warframes went from "mediocre-frames" to "tactic-frames" you want glory? earn it!
Zephyr rework!!! Hell yeah! My lady bird (or is bird lady?) is going to have a brand new ability, i'm glad, she deserved it.
Volt rework... well... I understand why, I just hope you don't broke him.
DE keeps fine tuning their characters, and that's not easy, but i'm glad they still care enough to improve the game and the general experience for all of us.

Great work and thanks!

so let me ask you a question, what does this nerf do in order to make "tactics" an option? ember is a glass cannon, she cant handle being close to enemies, even 2-3 level 40 enemies can end her day quite fast, so what does her being forced into close range do to make her a tactical frame? where did they make her more effective in any other way to make world on fire NOT the only thing she is useful for?

 

stop the mindless hate of a frame and consider what theyve done to the frame, its only been useful for world on fire since she was crushed by the removal of overheat, and now theyve killed her one useful ability, so you tell me, how SHOULD we play ember if we want to play as EMBER?

[G4d0]

Please remove Mag's magnetize bubble shrink 1-2 second delay before explode after the timer run out !!! make it explode instantly as casting it.

[Kinperor]

Speaking as an aspiring designer, a long time enthusiast of Warframe, and other competitive games like League of Legends, it is my opinion that Volt's current kit doesn't properly fit his supposed identity as a damage caster frame. 

This opinion is based on: 

1. An analysis of his kit.
2. Personal experience.
3. Developer's public statement.
4. An overview of the Warframe Builder website. 

1. Kit analysis.

Volt's kit presents two abilities that are dedicated to ability damage, and two abilities that support damage output from his equipment: 

Speed boosts his melee damage output by increasing the attack speed of Volt and his ally. At it's root, it is an ability that brings a lot of utility for what should be an offensive frame. I would even argue that it serves as pretend CC. Consider that normal CC usually increase the difference in mobility between you and the enemy by slowing down the enemy. With speed, the same effect is applied (increased difference in mobility) but by accelerating the player instead of slowing down the enemy.

Shield is a support ability that increases survival of allies and increase damage output of firearms. 

I do not personally feel that his passive is practical enough to contribute to my enjoyment of the warframe. 

Based purely on his kit's description, Volt harbors a lot of utility. It isn't an inherently bad thing, however it isn't in congruence with his identity (an offensive frame). 

2. Personal experience.

Volt's damage seems to fall off in the neighborhood of level 30-40, which is the high end of the starchart in general. Depending on the enemy, it could be earlier than that (the infested and Corpus shuts down AOE abilities really hard). 

If you would look at this video evidence of me using Volt's first ability, you would understand that I'm more inclined to use Volt's ability as crowd control. I toyed around with builds, and this isn't most optimal for damage. But, to me as a player, it felt much more productive to just shoot them while they're twitching.  

Same thing with Discharge: when I use it, I enjoy the CC much more than the damage. 

So speaking as a veteran who does a fair amount of mission past level 40, using Volt as a damage frame is not practical or enjoyable. I also believe that Volt's kit suffers from its accessibility: by having the ability be so much easier to aim than many other frames, it is not reasonable balance-wise to give him too much damage. This low skillfloor, low skillceiling means that a player doesn't have a lot of option to become a better Volt player in general, and his performance stagnates way past the early stage of the game. 

3. Developer public statement.

This post happens to quote the other update to Volt that stated that the designer couldn't ship the uncapped damage of Volt, because uncapping the ability turned it into a godly crowd control ability. 

What this indicates to me is that, the current iteration of Volt's ultimate is more optimal for crowd control than damage. As long as it is the case, the balance of this ability will be a lot more finicky than other comparable abilities: to make it a damage ability, you have to work against he CC-oriented nature of the ability.  

4. Warframe builder website.

Warframe builder is a popular resources for players to create and share builds. 

In Volt's case, an analysis of his top 6 most popular build showed to me that 4 out of the top 6 builds were dedicated to one of Volt's non-damage ability, 3 for the second ability and 1 for the third.

This indicates to me that Volt is used mostly as a support frame, which is contradictory with his stated identity as a damage frame. 

------

My opinion for future changes to Volt is that we need to dig in deeper and change the foundation of his kit. Looking at his low skill floor (in the gif above, I easily CC Grineer that are off screen and eventually kill them after a lot of time), the ease with which he can apply CC (his abilities are not hard to aim) and at the proportion of support abilities to damage abilities in his kit, Volt doesn't strike me as a damage dealer.

My suggestions:

• Look at the stats that make Melee and Firearm stand out in term of damage, compared to abilities. The former has the combo system, the latter has multishot. In the time before the combo implementation for melee, this class of weapon was blown out of the water completely by firearms, no contest. Combo was added to give melee a chance to compete with multishot, and now they are just as viable, if not more, than firearms. Abilities inherently have no stats to level the damage difference. If you are to make Volt the caster frame by excellence, consider giving him a similar mechanic, a new passive that recasts a previous abilities on ability usage. Tweak the details as needed, but give Volt a shot at playing with the chart toppers of damage (IE, actual weapons). 
• Change his ult and first ability. As is, they are AOE burst-sustained damage, that applies crowd control as well. Taking League of Legends as an example, overloaded kits are never a good thing balance-wise (see: old Jarvan IV, Ornn's unstoppable, old Sion). The character's power budget is spread too thin on many little things rather than giving him clear strength and drawbacks. I recommend adding a more precise aiming aspect to the first ability. On the ultimate, the changes required varies on what you do with the rest of the kit. We saw with old Rhino that having two abilities for the exact same thing (ground pound and Rhino Stomp) was not conducive to a quality kit. I recommend one of the following:
  • An exalted caster state, upon activation he has a small AOE burst of damage, and for a duration his other abilities are exalted to god-of-thunder tier. 
  • A burst of AOE damage centered on Volt that leech shields and empowers his next few casts.
• Remove one of his support ability. As an exterior observer to Volt's case, I am aware that his Speed is very popular and his Shield is practical. While removing Speed might be the least popular option, I believe that the removal of Coptering has shown that removing 'meme' mechanics can sometimes lead to a better game experience. I recommend that his mobility be limited to himself and that the power budget that was spent on giving his team a buff to mobility and melee attack speed (two buffs that are not in congruence with Volt's identity) be re-budgeted elsewhere. I recommend the following, assuming the implementation of the passive I recommended above: 
  • Give the second ability a press/hold mechanic: on hold, Volt applies a mark on his location. On press, Volt teleports to the farthest of these two options: the most recent ground-zero of his first ability OR his mark. 

 

I would like to reiterate: Volt's kit is not inherently bad. What I want to address is the difference between how Volt is described (damage frame) and how I have experienced him (a frame whose contribution past a certain level range is limited to CC and buffs). 

 

I do not feel entirely satisfied with Chroma's changes either, but that will be the subject of another post. 

[paul5473]

:( on ember