Gameplay Observations & Solutions

[Ancess]

Hello, my friends and i have been enjoying warframe. The feedback in this thread is from the whole of our group (3 people +1 on and off). We play-test, slowly digest, and afterwards discuss our points before i write them, to ensure the quality of our arguments. Instead of us thinking about what to report back or not, i have written all our observations and solutions, which you can value as you want!

The 2 other players and i have play video games (together) our whole lives. I am interested in game design; I am studying it as much as I can, both through self-study, education and experience. We hope that our opinions can be of use to you

What follows is a wall of text, thorough and filled to the brim with information.

Warframe interbalance

The group of us has played the following warframes extensively

Ash

Rhino

Excalibur

Loki

Volt

Frost

mag

We view abilities not by themselves, but as a part of the fluid whole that is the warframe. We found that in this game, Brute forcing; ie. using abilities that add direct attack, defense or mobility, are much more useful than utility and enemy control. Many brute force abilities are also much more universal, a point which I will explain later. It is ok that brute force abilities are better than utility abilities, but when these abilities are stacked upon the same warframe, the difference between these and other warframes is jarring.

Nerfing the “brute force” warframes would be a bad idea, since we feel that its these warframes who perform best and has the mos –viable- possibilities for a creative player to express themselves. Instead of removing options from the players, making enemies more challenging (read: better, synergistic AI) and warframes evenly balanced, would preserve the feeling of being awesome without removing the tactical viability of different warframes. Being an awesome space ninja, with cool abilities in a grim-dark universe is what this game is about, right?

And we have no feedback on Nyx yet, sorry.

(Incomplete) Warframe Comparison

Excalibur:

1(mobility, direct damage, AOE), 2 (crowd control, AOE), 3(mobility),4(direct damage, AOE)

The Excalibur player of our team only used 1 for most of the early games, until he bought a snipertron. He then began using double jump(3) to get into position – but it was rarely used. At higher levels, the other abilities came into play, all finding a place, but q is a low cost blink with direct damage – extremely useful. Which is okay, we all agreed, but bringing the other characters up to speed would be the best idea. Excalibur is described as a beginners class – if it is that, why does it also have one of the highest damage potentials and mobility to exploit?

In both cases, Excalibur 1-(and ability set) is powerful compared to the 1 and set of say, ash (non,AOE,direct damage, projectile). This is a design flaw, on the part of ash, rather than a flaw in the set of rhino and Excalibur. Granting everyone more tools (not the same, but different tools) and needing to use all those tools in your arsenal is much more fun than limited tools. Atleast from our perspective.

Rhino:

1(mobility, CC, direct damage, AOE), 2 (direct defense), 3 (direct damage, AOE), 4(crowd control, AOE)

Our rhino player says he has no use for 4, even though it feels awesome and looks the part, because his 2 negates its need, and his 1 costs so little that he would rather 2, followed by 1 and 1 after 2 expires. The warframe has great tactile abilities, though Q leaves little time for other players to react and make way for the rhino (it does seem more like a blink than a charge).1-2-3 are very synergistic, which is fantastic

Moving onto another list, showing abilities listed in themes, exemplifying the problem of brute force vs utility:

Frost: 1(single target damage, stun, single target, projectile),2(cone, single target damage), 3(utility, CC, direct defense), 4(aoe, stun, damage).

Ember 1(aoe, projectile, persistent damage, direct damage) 2(aura, direct damage), 3(direct damage, damage sphere), 4(aoe damage over time)

Vs

Loki, 1(utility, CC), 2( indirect damage, utility), 3(utility, mobility, troll), 4(AOE crowd control)

Trinity 1(single target utility), 2(single target utility), 3(quasi direct damage, single target), 4(AOE hard defense)

Mag, 1(single target utility), 2(single target defense/indirect damage/cannot be used on self), 3(single target indirect damage), 4(aoe damage).

The problem here is that either, any utility ability will be negated by target swiftly being cut down, or that they do not have enough effects, whereas the direct abilities of all classes before loki fulfill many roles at the same time. Some other characters have little to no synergy between their abilities - from what we have found. This is mag to be specific.

If loki uses a decoy to control the enemy or to line them in place for his attacks, they will die before loki can position them, by Excalibur 1 or 4, Rhino 1 or 3, Frost 2, 4, Ember, 1234. Loki in general has a lot of tricks up his sleeve (switching places with the copy, stealthing and going berserk. They pale though, against the brute force abilities of frost, ember, and it does not give the creative player an edge in combat with loki: it gives them an edge in helping downed players. And his abilities have to be sued in concert, bringing the cost up for a combo which provides utility. His 1 feels like it relies on the bad AI of enemies, instead of deception. Letting it blow up at the end of its duration could add much needed damage, and make his combos worthwhile. And what is his radial disarm worth, compared to Excalibur 2,1-1. less damage, same control, no mobility, and both cost the same.

I am the one playing loki in the group, and the others say that my abilities are redundant, apart from my decoy, because of its ability save them when they have been downed. We all agreed on, that it did not feel rewarding to use. One said that my 4 rocked (rhino player), whereupon the other (Excalibur) retorted by using his 4, leaving the enemies dead and saying “fix’d”. Loki is fantastic for soloing though, as you have all the time in the spot-light, experiencing your abilities in their devious glory. Moving on from the trickster.

the abilities of Trinity are all very unique (but lack sensory input like sounds and wild animations, so players do not know what to target, important tactile elements.) They also lack tactical and synergistic impact: her abilities, bar her ulti, are single target: enemies will be moved down the second after she uses them, making them redundant. Her abilities are great against bosses, but against others, they fall flat on their face. And the synergy of your abilities are: stack them on the boss – using R when things get hoary.

Mag’s 1 can be used to drag enemies over holes and traps, and brings them to you: against normal enemies, some bullets would leave that single enemy dead for no cost. Against “mini-bosses”, the stun is valuable, but none of my friends found it of any value when I switched places with a grineer napalm as loki (we did have a laugh though, which is of great value!), nor will they be grateful for mag causing the same “disruption”. Her ulti is insane, but not more insane than any other radial death ulti – just a lot more flashy.

Characters like Volt, frost, ash, Excalibur and rhino all have brute force abilities, and sets that feature both hard defense and utility mechanics, that are vastly superior to the sets of mag, trinity and loki. Ember deserves a special mention, as she is just as one sided, having only damage, and is therefore grateful for any support brought by other characters. The problem here being that instead of picking a warframe bringing only utility to support her, a rhino can support her by “tanking” with 2 for her, and a frost can freeze and use his fantastic 3 to supply defense, both while wreaking havoc, as opposed to mag, trinity, and loki. That put aside, Ember still suffers, as her damage is nearly outclassed by more versatile warframes. As Volume said:

I also feel that Ember needs more than raw damage abilities. A mobility feature like Excal or Volt for sure. Having a good mix of direct damage and utility feels like the player has more choices (usually a good thing in game design), rather than being pigeon-holed into a role they never asked for. And if they are going to be pigeon-holed into a role, the class better be damn good at that role, and not painfully outclassed by a more versatile class.

Here is a list of the warframes, with our verdict on their usefulness in teamplay:

Frost: perfect balance between offense and defense, unique tools, focus on cc

Ember: extreme damage with many persistent elements that makes the full arsenal good for a combo. Lacks in any other department, maybe a bit too much.

Volt: varied niche abilities, spammable chain damaging ability, aoe nuke - had a too extreme range. Now overloads damage varies- but his 1 is outperformed by hatever gun you are wielding.

Rhino: Tanky because of disruption,stats and hardened skin, balanced by damage of 1 and 3

Excalibur: has already been explained.

Giving mag, loki, and trinity abilities abilities that lets them bring more than utility/cc on a single button press would alleviate this problem: letting loki’s decoy explode, let mags shield buff be an aoe and become her 75 cost ability (which would make it a situational ability to use instead of 4- so maybe not a good idea), or let the 1/3 of trinity let he do more damage to a group around her target with her attacks is some of the things which would add punch.

Another option would be to give the players the choice of focusing on abilities or attacks: letting all characters enjoy heightened ability power (not just damage, general usefulness) and regenerating energy at the cost of only being able to wield a main weapon or side arm? This would let volt become the “alternative to gun play”, laying shields down while frying enemies (and his ultimate should probably only be the way it is now in “mage” mode, as it is ghoulishly disgusting. That is maybe the single thing in this game that needs a nerf – But not to the ground – as it clears continents, blows up circuitry in a large radius, and sends mag down into a whirling depression. (I play volt now instead of loki, and the whole of my group agrees on nerfing the damage, and giving more damage per circuitry involved – would lead to smarter play and use of the ability.)

In a game where everything is about raiding, assassination and killing, getting in and getting out alive, characters with abilities that are strictly supportive seems counterproductive. Mass effect 3 countered this with hard enemies, cooldowns instead of ability costs, and many cross class combos. We are not saying you should tackle it the same way, but you do need to tackle it before release.

Even though that option would require too much of a rework, giving energy regeneration would make picking a warframe more important. Right now, sometimes you can spam your abilities because of the energy pick ups, other times you are left stranded with nothing that defines you apart from everyone else apart from your passive stats. All things considered, this adds to the meaningfulness of each ability used, but it also seems randomized and it makes everything a battle of who presses their nukes first.

The warframe “trees” are nice, but could be a lot more unique and have more depth. Instead of general “upgrade ability X”, an option would be to add choices: make the decoy explode/make it reflect damage. Or maybe just add energy regeneration which differs from warframe to warframe.

Weapons

The weapons are varied, functional and can each find their use. We do believe though, that you have to be creative about upcoming weapons, as you already have burst, full-auto, and tap weapons. Weapons that nail enemies while ignoring armor is effective and creative, but an expansion will only add to this feeling. Beam weapons that fire in a constant stream of energy straight lines. Piercing javelin shooting rifle/shotguns, throwing knives, glaives and scythes that become aoe if they kill their targets, lances with long range and running attacks, whips.

We don’t demand anything, but you have a plethora of options available, and choosing to stay in the world of nails, burst, full-auto and tap weapons would be a shame.

The AI:

The ai is fine at lower levels, but at higher levels, adding a second difficulty could be an idea. Enemies do not attack in concert, apart from the corpus, and when we face a strong enemy, its not because it is tactically challenging, it is because it has 1 shot attacks. Instead of ramping up the difficulty with “brute force” enemies, let them begin acting in concert as much as possible.

Examples: Moas going guerilla (shooting while moving), corpus crewmen spreading out, giving them longer range. Grineer laying down fire constantly (not just drooling while we shoot them, at least make it look like they reload.) Let the some infested wall run.

I know this part was short, but it is heartfelt – challenge is everything. And combined with super-powered characters, it is fantastic.

The element of awesome

A discussion of sensory cues, vividness and repetition.

The tactile part of any kind of game, from board games, outdoor games, to –yes even- computer games, means a lot.

If a gun made no sound when you shot it, if air did not “woosh” out of the room when you make an improvised opening into empty space with a shotgun, if the screen did not shake when you pound on corpus with a hammer, and if grineer did not gib – the game would not be awesome. Though all elements representing tactics and customization would be present, the game would never come alive. And the whole of our group finds the tactile dimension of "Warframe" fantastic: one of our group said his swords “feel sharp”, and I have commented on the “weight” of my hammer before. and we laugh and yell "coming through" when another's shotgun suddenly breaks the silence. The illusion of tactile elements in games is important – and you nearly master it.

“all said before a but means nothing” – but in this case it does.

BUT (3 times the charm) to make players stay, or the players focused on aesthetics stay, the sensory fragments which constitute the aesthetic dimension has to be ever-changing. Just as in Pen & Paper game, or a horror game/movie: 1 decapitated head is scary, the fifth is not, unless it begins talking.

Cut to the chase.

(beta is beta, but I mean apart from map variation). Let’s take an example directly from the game: gibbing and melee. This has multiple dimensions, here are some of them: the sounds, weapon used, and animation. Both come from the weapon and the target *splat*.

Sometimes (not very often) the aesthetics in warframe get very one dimensional.The repetition of gibbing. It seems as if the Tenno have only been taught the technique of 90 degrees midsection carving “the clean 90ies cut” – and in case of the hammer wielding space Vikings, making bodies fly. When I bought the Fragor, a plethora of gibs flashed before my eyes: the force could squash targets, or hit with such force that a body part went flying. I was excited, so was my group. The first 50 times i sent people flying we would laugh. The next 50, not so much. My Scindo wielding buddy also thought he could cleave people vertically with his vertical slash, but no, mid-bisection again. Gibbing is always axhilarating though. Especially when Axterminating grineer, axtually.

Better KISS (keep it simple, stupid) than have effects all over the top (it makes the individual effects hard to discern). But certain elements are lacking:

Some Abilities feel as if the tactile element has been disengaged. If we are to play as a group, these act as cues for other players to react upon, and are even more important in team play without means of communication.

Instead of saying all that we think is well made, because then we could go on for days, the focus will be tactile elements that need sharpening, and our reasons for thinking such:

some abilities do more, but feel like they do less, because the tactile elements are not as present. The effects of trinity, mags and Lokis 1 and 3, all lacking sensory cues for other players to follow, and they do not feel like they have an impact, even though they do. That said, sometimes less is more: the silence and sudden pinning of Ash enhances his stealth theme, and stands in brilliant contrast to his berserk 4!

When 4 players play together, the before well-meshed elements of the tactile dimension begin to unwind: picture this: 4 players with fragor or scindo, hek, one a rhino, fighting mine ospreys. (ok, going over the top, but you get the notion). Warframe suddenly evolves into “live earthquake at a rave party simulator”. We love spacequakes, raving sounds and colors kept in check by the grey gloom of grim dark space, and mine ospreys are great at distraction because of they do all of this by themselves. When all the elements come together though, the players crowd control each other just as much as the enemies.

Moving on…

The Jackal has the memory of a goldfish. It keeps upgrading us to pathetic while fighting it. In fact, most characters with voices seem to replay their commands very often. If they could only say the same thing once, or ten times, each battle, it would not ruin the suspension of disbelief.

Killing enemies with nails/bolts *boltor,akbolto, bolto, some abilities* makes them fly faster than the bolt they were hit by. Not very visual, epic, or visceral. They dissapear in the blink of an eye. If it’s an active aesthetic choice, fine with us, if not, you hereby know what we think.

Aesthetics and conclusion

Making warframes gender bound is something you should reconsider. Both me and a girl I know, like to play our own sex in the games we play. It brought her much joy to be able to play a female witch doctor in Diablo 3, and me much joy to play a male wizard. I know this is a lot of work for something which may seem of no importance to some, but to others it means much.

Even more important is that we would both gladly pay for the option to choose sexes for our characters in a free to play game. Make a profit out of aesthetic options, but do not make them differ in stats:

if you make the price small, but individual for each frame, people would not think of paying for said option.

If you tie stats to them, like the helmets, some people will not buy them because of aesthetics. Instead, tying those effects currently tied to helmets, to some kind of “jewel/rune/catalyst” that could be bought for platimum or maybe crafted via blueprint, would give the player greater ability to customize their character, while still generating an income from both helmets and “jewel/rune/catalyst".

For example, I am currently not playing mag or nyx because of this, nor have I bought any helmet. The others of the group agree that they would pay for both helmets and catalysts. We do differ though: they will play the warframes they want, no matter the sex, whereas I do not: It may not be of high priority to the player base, though I do hope so. Maybe, instead of adding many new warframes, fleshing the existing ones out aesthetically and tactically may well be a better choice.

I hope this feedback from 4 players will be seen – not essentially put to use, but just taken into account. We love your game, and will continue our support. I will probably do a lesser report again for us, when I have gathered enough observations. Fantastic game!

Edited February 7, 2013 by Ancess

[electricsheep]

I have no gripe about the content of this post itself, but did you really have to refer to skills as your custom keybinds instead of their names or default numbers?

[Ancess]

skills are now referred to by numbers.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Ancess

[S3riaL]

really interesting post and when I think about all that, I just hope that like the producer said we are only looking at the surface of the iceberg (iceberg = Warframe)

[Volume]

Great post; lots of excellent points in here.

Tactile feel - agreed 100%

Support/utility stuff - agreed 100%. I hope that at least boss encounters are tuned to make having support abilities useful, rather than "We made the game, oh, I guess we need a support class, let's toss a mini-healer in there, should be good enough" afterthought like Trinity being the only example.

I also feel that Ember needs more than raw damage abilities. A mobility feature like Excal or Volt for sure. Having a good mix of direct damage and utility feels like the player has more choices (usually a good thing in game design), rather than being pigeon-holed into a role they never asked for. And if they are going to be pigeon-holed into a role, the class better be damn good at that role, and not painfully outclassed by a more versatile class.

Weapon animations need to improve. Having the same three or four melee swings is kinda mundane. Having only one charge attack animation is worse. Boltor speed thing and pinning enemies to walls like that is being addressed - part of a physics update. Same with the Fragor/Scindor shaking EVERYONE'S screen.

Threat level upgraded to pathetic I believe is being addressed too, not 100% sure though. The repeat text seems to start over every patch even though Tutorials are off.

Excal's 1 with power range can be quite ridiculous for mobility, to the point of outclassing most/all other mobility options. Not getting into too many specifics but certain things scale much better than others.

[Ancess]

Great post; lots of excellent points in here.

Tactile feel - agreed 100%

I also feel that Ember needs more than raw damage abilities. A mobility feature like Excal or Volt for sure. Having a good mix of direct damage and utility feels like the player has more choices (usually a good thing in game design), rather than being pigeon-holed into a role they never asked for. And if they are going to be pigeon-holed into a role, the class better be damn good at that role, and not painfully outclassed by a more versatile class.

Agreed. Either she needs a more balanced set, or all her abilitites need to come together for an insane amount of damage if used right. Each individual ability could also be exploited for serious damage in a single situation. Good idea, adding to the original post at the request of the group.

[Ancess]

bump for visibility.