A Solution To The "4" Spam.

[NetSlayer]

Why not just make ultra's part of a gauge?

Using powers 1,2,3 adds power to the gauge.
Taking damage adds power to the gauge.
Killing enemies with melee adds power to the gauge.

At full capacity pressing 4 will release an ultra.

Done.

[neKroMancer]

I don't have any of the really OP ult frames, but in my opinion they don't need a nerf because they're meant to be an integral part of gameplay used for certain situations. Most of the "OP" ones  are for crowd control (CC), and thus seem overpowered. Maybe instead of nerfing the ults, make the guns and enemies better?

Nerfing ultimates is just one way to deal with it, and a wrong way to deal with the problem. However, the problem isn't the damage that power itself deliver but the fact that they can be spammed without consequence. Ultimates in current form and function is just one big nuke that player can spam over and over again.

The satisfaction that player gain from using it is short-lived. They don't encourage player to learn anything but running into middle of a group and press 4, collect blue orbs and repeat the sequence with the next encounter. It's shallow experience which any game that looking forward to longevity should avoid. Even the game as a whole is good, the AI got better at killing players, armor scaling got fixed - the ultimates can render the entire endeavor fruitless. Player can negate DE effort with one button. 4.

So, the problem is the fact that they're spammable and not how powerful they are. In fact, they're not even powerful past level 60-70. Many powers that don't have armor ignore become useless at that point which is another matter that should be fixed.

Some of my posts in many topic concerning this subject were identical to the OP's. We need another system to support ultimate. (Frankly, we can use CD for 1-3 and have another system to deal with ultimate to permanently get rid of orb RNG) The first system that comes to mind was the action-related bar. The more frame performs specific action, the more point the bar gathers.

- While damage recieve/taken is the most simple system, it doesn't add much to the game. Every frame will be played the same and problem regarding which kind of damage generate more bar will be hotly discussed.

Imo, each frame should have different kind of action tied to the bar. This will create difference between each frame about how they play. Right now each frame doesn't offer much different gameplay experience anyway. If you learn how to play Loki without redirection/fast deflection then you can play any frame.

- Example: Excalibur - charge bar related to slash dash, radial blind and damage. Killing multiple enemies with slash dash earn large amount of point for the bar. Killing enemies under effect of radial blind gain full point for self and 1/2 point from other players. Melee damage dealt get full point and range damage get 1/4-1/2 point.

Encourage player to use abilities in a smart way, get teammates to work together, and create more diverse gameplay for each frame.

[MASimon]

But how will I save my group on defence missions?

I am talking about Rhino and Excalibur. the 1 and 4 buttons are the only useful ones?

[PaperAlien]

I think orbs should just be removed completely, and passive energy regeneration (like, pretty fast regeneration) be added.

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

There's an even simpler fix to this than the OP suggests and that is to make it so that when an enemy is killed with a skill, they won't drop energy orbs. That way you don't have a self-sustaining economy and you have to loot lockers/boxes for energy orbs.

[Sgaterboy]

There's an even simpler fix to this than the OP suggests and that is to make it so that when an enemy is killed with a skill, they won't drop energy orbs. That way you don't have a self-sustaining economy and you have to loot lockers/boxes for energy orbs.

 

This.   I was going to post the same thing.

 

Orbs should continue to function as-is in game, but if an enemy is killed by an ability he drops no orbs.   Problem solved.

[Tsukinoki]

I'll quote one thing from the FAQ first:

We hope to convince you this is a better path for Warframe and that slow and tactical, although great on its own, just doesn't fit well with Warframe.

The people wanting this game to be more "tactical" have to understand that that is not what DE wants this game to be. They want it fast paced and action filled....not one where you have to think a whole lot before every ability usage or ultimate usage.

Now that that is out of the way...

If you find that people are spamming 4 all the time and you don't like it, why don't you just find a group of players that play how you like and play with them instead of pugs? Or play at the higher levels where you'll rarely see 4 being used because its just not worth it.

I don't spam my ultimate all that much, unless I am rushing through a level, and even then there are times when its fun to go out and wipe out an entire room with one button press.

Besides that, you want to remove the spammability of the 4 ability, ignoring that that is not every frames strongest power, which sounds all well and good until you get to the medium levels of ED where you kinda *need* to spam those room wiping abilities.

True, I will admit that DE could make the other abilities more useful and desirable so that more people are willing to use them (though that depends solely on the player regardless of what DE does, some like myself use all the abilities depending on the situation. Others *only* equip their ult), but I dont think that they need to nerf ultimates or reduce the option to spam them.

Otherwise you're removing a choice from the player, the choice being: do I use my other abilities or go for overkill of wiping the entire room; as well as removing the desirability of speccing your frame to be able to cast your abilities as often as you can and as strongly as you can. That should be a viable choice for people to spec into and be able to do it. If you don't like how much other players use their number 4, just dont play with them and get a good contact list. That's the best solution for the "spam 4" that you're complaining about.

And please don't say that it removes the "fun and challenge of the game!" it may remove the fun for you, but probably not for the person using their 4 ability. If it removes the "fun and challenge" (which this game has fun but nearly no challenge already, even without ever using a single ability) for you, then consider playing with friends that wont do that.

@neKroMancer

The ability to spam 4 would not negate DEs efforts. There is a lot that they can do that can improve the difficulty of this game and AI without having to worry about the "4 spam". And the easiest one? Change how the AI in the Grineer and corpus love grouping up into tight little bunches. If they would spread out a bit more you would already see less 4 usage. Part of the reason for the "4 spam" is that the enemies get into super tight groups where if you dont have a shotgun or an ability like Frost's "Ice Wave" that goes through the entire group you're going to take a pounding trying to shoot them all down...unless you use the one ability in your arsenal that can actually damage the entire group.

Which really brings up the entire crux of the issue and why you see people "Spam 4". The players don't consider the other abilities worth it. After all, why would a volt shock and stun 1 corpus when he can use overload and kill 30 that are shooting at him? Sure he could use his shield and provide a very nice buff for his team to take them down with bullets, but that is a choice that depends on the playstyle of the player. And that choice *should* be the players, if they want to "spam 4" let them.

@Hap-muhr

That is a decent idea. the only concern is what it would do to defense missions, though they could probably put in special rules into that, mostly considering the higher waves of ED though. While that is a solid idea and fixes the "problem" that OP and others are having and is pretty well balanced for normal missions you do have to take ED into consideration.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Tsukinoki

[JerichoFayne]

First....NO ONE IS USING THEIR ULTIMATE EVERY SECOND.  That is a flagrant usage of hyperbole good sir and/or madam.  This is the Interwebz...and we're all serious business here.

 

But beyond that....

 

What you really want is a cool-down timer.  All this chicanery involving multi-colored gumballs is nonsense.  You're going to make the game look like some kind of Kawaii nightmare.  Do you want the game to start looking liked this:

 

[Tsukinoki]

@JerichoFayne

DE already tried a CD system early on in CBT.

It did not go over well and slowed missions to a crawl so they removed it and they aren't likely to go back to it.

Why?

Because who wants to play a game where 90% of people sit outside of every single door for 30 to 60 seconds while all of their CDs refresh?

Reintroducing a CD system wont fix anything, and if anything it'll just make more groups of enemies wiped out by peoples ults. Why? If they can just wait 60 seconds outside of each room and then run in and use it to clear the room why wouldn't they?

And I am not extrapolating or making anything up. That is honestly what was happening in 90% of all PUGs in the game. And if people think that they only use their 4 ability now...

[Hayden11121]

I'm sorry... am I the only one here that enjoys clearing an entire room in one move?

It's called an Ultimate for a reason...

Yea. An Ultimate.

 

Not "Oh hey 4 orbs let's clear another room"

[neKroMancer]

@ Tsukinoki

To be frank, gameplay is shallow as hell at the moment. After playing for 300 hours since January, I'm no longer convinced that this is the path that Warframe should take. It's repetitive and no skill whatsoever involve in the process. I'm no longer please with the system.

Moreover, I do not propose a slower gameplay. Just reduce the frequency which ultimate could be used with another system to support it.

[Phoenix86]

Altought i like spamming 4s anywhere i'd say: "Isn't a cooldown timer an easier solution?"

(didnt read the last 3 comments above me, nevermind this :p )

 

Or maybe (like in Mortal Kombat) the "Ultimate's bar" could be filled by the dmg you take and dish out!

Edited August 14, 2013 by Phoenix86

[Bruce_Swain]

or you could just nerf streamline 

[Hammie]

Why not just make ultra's part of a gauge?

Using powers 1,2,3 adds power to the gauge.

Taking damage adds power to the gauge.

Killing enemies with melee adds power to the gauge.

At full capacity pressing 4 will release an ultra.

Done.

 

THIS - perfect solution :D I'd be so happy if they added this. Then id actually have to work for my ultimate spamming

[Hazmatzone]

There are several disadvantages, but they apply to high level enemies and survival/defense missions.

The thing is, guns already do this, sure you may have to shoot once or maybe even three times for every dude, but honestly the clearing still doesn't take long unless the enemies are are super beefy.

Also, rushers will simply leave the enemies behind alive instead of killing them, so it may not fix the problem as succinctly as you seem to be hoping it will.

The disadvantages when it comes to high level enemies that I can see could be how it takes 10 mins to kill a single enemy just to be dictated by RNG which can keep you from using an ultimate for a while, that would be a problem and thanks for pointing it out.

 

When it comes to guns though I don't really care if they're oped because guns still only hit one enemy at a time(few exceptions) instead of hitting everything around you in a 360 degree cone and killing them all at the same time. If I'm shooting enemies with even the most powerful of weapons I'll still be giving large groups of enemies enough time to get hits on me and attempt to down me.

 

Also this isn't a solution to rushing, I'm not trying to solve rushing with my suggestion because rushing is a much larger problem that almost the entire game revolves around, to fix it would require a complete overhaul to several systems in the game. Mine suggestion just focuses on reducing people pressing 4 all the time.

I like the idea of reducing 4 spam, but I feel like the solution is a bit lacking.  Instead of picking up other orbs, giving us yet another incentive to run to point x, y, and z constantly to clear a room, there should be some sort of ultimate bar that responds to quick and accurate shooting or varied attack styles, or maybe a combination of both depending on the Warframe.  This would give the 'frames more personality as well as an added layer of skill.

A solution like this I wouldn't mind either, I don't really care if my solution is chosen or if another solution is chosen, I just want a system that makes the spam go down and make ultimates feel like they're ultimate. Keep in mind though that what you propose would be a good deal more work than just taking the blue orb system right now and making a few changes to it.

my 2 cents on what would fix the ultimate spam:

make it so you have to kill enemies with your guns/melees, a set amount of them to store a "charge" for the ultimate, so instead of running in the room pressing 4 and leaving with uber affinity gain, you have to actually kill things and be weary of your "charge" count. the "charge" could cap at 3-4 and be increased by flow?........... which could leave it at 7/8 charges. still enough where it could be used wisely but not so much that its' still "press 4 to win" like it is now.

Refer to my response towards TheGambler_BR

A lot of games have a cooldown on spells/effects in addition to their "mana" costs so that you can't continually cast them.  If you put a 15 or 30 second delay on the abilities then they can't be spammed over and over again.

Another solution is to change the drop rates on blue energy orbs.  Even simple abilities like Slash Dash are free because killing three enemies will get you back at least one energy ball.  So if they actually limit the amount of energy available then the abilities can't be kept active all the time.

A system like this could work but it would slow down gameplay, and if I remember correctly DE once put a cooldown on the "run>slide>jump>flip>slide>repeat" mechanic which resulted in a huge uproar from the community mainly because like I said the game centers around rushing and trying to stop it without making big changes to several systems will result badly again.

 

As for the second suggestion I feel like a warframe should always have their basic powers be easy to obtain even if basic powers are really powerful in some cases, if you made blue orbs drop less a player will have all their powers in usually be unavailable which isn't a good thing.

 

-snip- sorry wall of text too long :(

1)Basic powers should be accessible almost all the time, they're what makes each warframe unique, though that ultimates that kill everything and make it almost unrequired to use any other powers on warframe is the bad part.

 

2)Enemies are abundant yes, but as the game is enemies are abundant because you just kill all of them with 1 button press, if you couldn't kill all of them with one button press then there's a chance DE might lower the enemy spawn rates. Also if there's 20 enemies firing at you but you can't kill all of them at once you'll have to take them out 1 by 1 this'll either allow enemies to actually be a threat where there strength is in their numbers also it'll promote stealth gameplay because you can avoid large groups of enemies if the button doesn't get pressed, that's not saying it'll fix stealth but it gives more of an incentive to be stealthy.

 

3) Like I said in above basically if you got a super powered being on your hands that kills low amounts of your troops easily you'll throw more firepower at it and hope that it's enough to damage them even if slightly. The game is too easy at this point and people who continue to demand more of a challenge are probably the people who keep killing everything by pressing 4, all DE will continue to do at that point is keep making enemy stats higher until one "4" isn't enough to kill them but instead it requires two "4"s or "3" which'll still be too easy because of the abundance of energy and the cycle will continue just about forever. The main reason why high level defense is so enjoyable to people is because enemies can reach the point where ten "4"s won't kill an enemy and that's just fun because you actually think of your enemies as a threat at that point

 

So your idea is to give people a second energy bar and clutter up drop rates with a "solution" that solves nothing. Right.

Your post was neither "constructive" nor correct, you didn't give me any reasons why you disagree with my solution and you didn't give me how you felt we could fix the problem, you're basically one of those people who tell the chef that their food isn't good but they themselves can't cook anything at all.

 

I'm sorry... am I the only one here that enjoys clearing an entire room in one move?

It's called an Ultimate for a reason...

I enjoy clearing a room but how many times can you honestly watch 30 guys shatter in ice or explode before you start to get bored of it?It only takes 30 seconds into a mission for me. This shouldn't be the case, for example I used to play a game called Vindictus, and in it I played the same character for over 9 months those 9 months I always enjoyed using my ultimate because it did massive damage, it was flashy, and I only got to use it if I worked hard so I rarely ever got to use it. That's how an ultimate should feel like and that's what I want it to feel like in this amazingly better game.

 

EDIT: Shortening

Edited August 14, 2013 by Hazmatzone

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

@Hap-muhr

That is a decent idea. the only concern is what it would do to defense missions, though they could probably put in special rules into that, mostly considering the higher waves of ED though. While that is a solid idea and fixes the "problem" that OP and others are having and is pretty well balanced for normal missions you do have to take ED into consideration.

 

Naturally defense missions would need to utilize the current ruleset to remain viable, at least until the armor issue on higher difficulty is mitigated. However, based on the information supplied in the live-stream yesterday, the devs are certainly working on a new system. However, as it requires them to rebalance elemental damage for all enemies, it'll be quite a while before they can get this out of the door.

 

But, in the meantime, this topic fills a very good function as it enables us to iron out the more obvious logic pitfalls, thereby saving DE time in implementing it. (assuming of course that they consider this viewpoint a valid one)

[Nipcat]

Why not a nasty cooldown on skills ?

 

(or why not Zoidberg ? : p )

[LtZefar]

Cool downs are the worst thing you can have in a game. Why? They just slow you down, stops you from having more fun and sometimes the cool down goes too far. Like 15 minutes cool down on a revive skill. Oh look, I can't be useful in a team fight, why should I bother with this skill? This would be Tera Online then. They had other silly skills that had too long cool downs and it generally just made you run around to let them charge up.

 

Using skills to clear room easily is fun for me. Seeing all of those enemies disappear after I stomp the ground is satisfying. But I could easily just use my Hek and get rid of them all with one shot each. I got other powerful weapons as well.

 

If I have found enough orbs to throw my ulti twice I should be able to do so. But more and more people are not using their ulti when they are max level because it won't get them EXP to their main weapon that they might be leveling. This is one of the reasons I'm not using my ulti all that much.

 

Also I only use the Iron skin and Stomp on my Rhino so if you had to use all 3 first skills I wouldn't be able to use my ulti. In fact Rhino Iron skin last for quite some time on lower level mission and this would mean I'd never be able to use my ulti.

 

 

I've seen cool downs in far to many games and I don't want to see them here. This game balanced skills around the mana system. Sure you can get quite a bit of it but it's not always spam able. 

 

Even if you stop the skills from being used a lot people will still just use their guns. Guns that deal a whole lot of more damage than most skills ever could.

Like

 

Hek

Acrid

Despair

Latron Prime

Supra

Flux

 

And a whole lot of more weapons with Orikin Catalyst and double shot mods tend to rip apart anything the game has to throw at you. Except high level bosses.

 

So all this will do is make skills being used a bit less for no good reason.

[CY13ERPUNK]

i feel like the OP is coming from a good place, but i disagree with the ideas

yes the game can be simplified with the spamming of ult's

but IMHO this is largely a "mid-game" tactic

mobs over lvl 100 really begin to shrug off most ult's

truly high lvl content in the game show how powers with utility and not just pure dmg, really have more usefulness

now a dmg/armor overhaul is in the works/coming soon, so a lot of the 4 spam might be addressed when that gets here...

more and more difficult content is coming to the game, and even a team spamming ult's can fail missions, as long as the threat is great enough, then the 4 spam is less a problem of the ult's themselves and more about the other powers lacking usefulness

[Lord.Finster]

Or we could simply nerf the droprates of blue orbs from enemies.

 

Ultimates can only be easily spammed because using the ultimate results in a situation where 2-4 energy spheres drop from my enemies, which practically replenishes my pool instantly and leaves the use of the power without negative consequences.

 

Players should question themselves constantly if the use of an ability is justified in a certain situation.

Is it feasible to use my ultimate here to kill 7 enemies or should I rather use slashdash to kill 4 and dispatch the others 'by hand'.

 

Making energy pickups less abundant would not only lead players to use their abilities more carefully but also give everybody a chance to reevaluate the cheap skills.

 

As a sidenote, I don't consider Energy Siphon as too much of a problem, since the regen is quite slow and practically turns the energy mechanics into a cooldown system. Think about it. If there were no blue orbs in the game, ES would just mean that you could use skills only once in a certain timespan; the time it takes to replenish the energy pool. ES is only so powerful because it complements the pickups so nicely and closes the gaps between pickups, so we can use ultimates all the time.

In short: If the blue pickups were significantly reduced, ES would become less powerful and more utilitarian.

[neKroMancer]

i feel like the OP is coming from a good place, but i disagree with the ideas

yes the game can be simplified with the spamming of ult's

but IMHO this is largely a "mid-game" tactic

mobs over lvl 100 really begin to shrug off most ult's

truly high lvl content in the game show how powers with utility and not just pure dmg, really have more usefulness

now a dmg/armor overhaul is in the works/coming soon, so a lot of the 4 spam might be addressed when that gets here...

more and more difficult content is coming to the game, and even a team spamming ult's can fail missions, as long as the threat is great enough, then the 4 spam is less a problem of the ult's themselves and more about the other powers lacking usefulness

I hope the damage system rebalance will brig semblance of balance back to Warframe. However, I disagree about more difficult content being made, I don't call exponential armor value difficult. That's just poorly made system.

As I had posted before, there are two issues here.

1. Ultimate should not be able to spam like it's Slash dash. Spamming it like a madman devalue the game in term of longevity since it adds repetitiveness without much challenge.

2. Ultimate should be consistently powerful throughout the difficulty: Scaling problem.

[stacey69]

How about balancing the amount of Tenno per amount of enemies and then work out how much energy should be dropping so people can have fun (pressing 1 button to kill all must be so much fun...) but still manage to be able to do missions. Does not seem like rocket science to me.

 

A calculator is an amazing piece of equipment.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Best solution I've seen (not my idea, mind you...) was changing Warframe energy pools into heat gauges. Using your abilities heats up your frame. Different abilities add different amounts of heat (with ultimates obviously nearly filling the gauge.) to the point of overheat, which implements a forced cooldown timer before beginning to cool down. Your Warframe cools naturally over time if you don't actually overheat, and stuff like Energy Siphon (renamed, probably) would help affect the rate at which your Warframe cools. Streamline would affect how much heat would be added, and Flow would increase the capacity of the heat gauge.

This could obviously be adjusted so that ultimates are extremely limiting to use, and would justify improving existing ultimates to be worth the subsequent loss of utility. Not only that, but it would allow for the complete removal of energy orbs, freeing us from the evil clutches of the RNG where Warframe abilities are concerned. Heck, maybe the new system would even allow for a unique mechanic with Ember's Overheat ability.

 

[Shifty_Shuffler]

Why complicate things when you could just reduce the Blue orb drop chance.

[Hazmatzone]

Seeing some really good suggestions guys wish I could comment in here more but I'm going to be busy for a while.

 

Keep the suggestions and comments coming guys!