Let's talk Abilities

What would you like to see?

  • Yes the T.h.m.p.r should have abilities.

    Votes: 18 52.9%
  • No the T.h.m.p.r should not have abilities.

    Votes: 8 23.5%
  • Yes the play characters should have abilities.

    Votes: 32 94.1%
  • No the players characters should not have abilities.

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • Total voters
    34

Aphaz

Deepscanner
Jul 26, 2016
187
260
63
#24
Any ability that a battle frame can have can have an equivalent on an omniframe mecha. There is no additional limitation on what abilities are possible. In some cases the explanation and science of the ability will be different but the function can be identical.

Example 1: In firefall the medic frame originally had a "heal beam", in a mech game called hawken the technician mech has a "repair beam". They function exactly the same way.

Example 2: In firefall the firecat had various fire themed abilities. Nothing that could not be explained by flame throwers, thermal vents, napalm grenades and thermal grenades. (Have you seen the scorch mech from Titanfal 2?) If we replace firefalls old "hand out" animation with a little launcher or vent that opens it will look more "Weapon-like" but be effectively the same thing in gameplay.

In fact the lore of firefall's battleframes was that they used technology to create these ability effects. Why would being in a mech, which is also based on technology, suddenly take any ability options way? It wouldn't.
I cannot pretend to know what abilities will be decided on but I do know that they are not limited in choice.

TLDR. There is no limitation on Omninframe abilities.
as Ronyn said FF BF abilities can be made as omniframe abilities so i'm not gonnna post all the stuff (read abilities and abilities variations) that i did for ff. if any1 want to read about those they can download my work i posted in my thread about Evolving Enemies. here is just some stuff i came up with now....
Omniframe Abilities

Shoulder Mounted Launcher: weather in the form of a missile or mortar launcher, it fires a barrage of

said projectiles at a designated enemy or place. Variations may include: napalm or cryo missiles or

HE/ frag shells.

Shoulder Mounted Cannon: weather in the form of physical or energy, fires a series of shots at target

enemy or location.

Repair Drones: deploys a set of small drones to repair the Omniframe (either own or target friendly)

over a period of time

Night Vision: gives the player NV untill turned off.

Thermal Vision: gives the player TV untill turned off.

Mulit-Targeting Protocols: support ability. allows other abilities (like missiles or smt.) to target

multiple enemies or locations, dividing shots equally.

Target Tracking Protocols: support ability. allows other abilities (like missiles or smt.) to track a

target.

Head Vulcans: fires a burst of either physical or energy shots at target enemy or location.

Optical Camouflage: renders the Omniframe invisible for a set period of time. usable to hide the

Omni if the player needs to exit it for any purpose whatsoever.

Shield Dome/Wall/Deployable: deploys a specific type of shield to protect the Omniframe if the

player needs to exit it for whatever reason.

Shield Bits: deploys a set ammount of floating bits that intercept incoming attacks.

Assault Bits: deploys a set ammount of bits that attack nearby enemies. variations may include

physical or energy type of attacks


Pilot Abilities

may be bought as P.E.R.C.s (Pilot Education R(something) Course) for in game currency

Juryrig: repairs the Omniframe at the cost of durability.
 

Sn0wfIak3

Active Member
Jul 27, 2016
238
129
43
#25
I think a point should also be made about the imo wrong way R5 tried to balance abilities. Repulsor Blast being a good example.

Repulsor Blast was an ability that people just liked spammy, the damage component made it somewhat easy mode. The obvious first solution to this would be to remove the DMG component. This also makes sense as it would then be more of a defensive ability. Where R5 often went wrong is that their idea of balance was to remove the fun. Completely unnecessary and counter productive. Inferno Dash being another, clearly it was an ability that was more fun to use frequently. Its direct DMG was the main problem, since the Firecat was already a DOT frame the solution was pretty obvious.

I think this also circles back a bit to classes v no classes. The Firecat was clearly more "fun" (subjective, still) towards burst movement/DOT. So again the solution was obvious, no need to reinvent the wheel. The Dragonfly was another example of R5's balancing/jack of all trades mentality. Healing wave actually did DMG i believe, this doesn't make sense. Its self heal turned it into a tank.

It achieved perfect form at one point.

If you're committed to playing a healer (especially since the bio already had a DMG class) than that's what you should be playing. This should be the case for all play styles. Abilities are a big part of this imo.

 
Likes: Fabricio21RJ

Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,897
10,171
113
Island of Tofu
#26
I want an ability that turns me into an armadillo so i can wrap up in a ball armored up and roll around but have no offensive abilities just so i can squish things better and increased protection until the ability has run out and goes on cool down
that would be fantastic!
 

Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,897
10,171
113
Island of Tofu
#27
I want an ability that turns me into an armadillo so i can wrap up in a ball armored up and roll around but have no offensive abilities just so i can squish things better and increased protection until the ability has run out and goes on cool down
that would be fantastic!
I just realized was describing something very like that terrorclaw aah
 
Oct 13, 2016
4
1
3
#28
Abilities on my mind:

-Quick hops (or Phoenix Burst, or Bug's Reflex) : shortens jump time in the air, allows a quicker succession of jumping, and hieghtens or lengthens jumps.

-Burrow : Allows one to dig underground, avoiding damage and negating your attacks, while also allowing the you to navigate the field around you.

-Centi-Stampede (or Berserker's Rush, or just Stampede) : Drastically, if not entirely, takes away the ability to jump. However this ability also grants a good constant buff to straight ground speed.

-Acid spray ( or Acidic Deluge) : Spray acid from your character, or Frame. Can be either hands or from Frames Shell.

-Mist Killer (Mist Eater) : Your Character or Frame spews forth an acidic mist that eats away at all things within it, even THUMPERS and Allies. Players need to think carefully about using it, it it provides decent DoT.

-Blending Presence : Temporary Stealth for your character. Partial stealth for Frames. Would be best for any situation when you would be out of Frame.

-Purified Presence : Periodically, you drop health pick ups(health pods?). or Periodically auto heal allies without an item for a small amount.
 
Jul 26, 2016
1,461
2,441
113
44
#29
fun thread!

Dump & Go.
Releases the internal toliet tank and sprays it out in a mist around the omniframe. Causes confusion, blinds and disorients all creatures within melee distance of the frame.
 

Kouyioue

Active Member
Aug 1, 2016
145
119
43
#30
Wouldn't be a proper MMO without player abilities ^_^

Just don't be like scarletBlade where every single one of your abilites = 'fire your weapon differently'
 
Oct 13, 2016
4
1
3
#31
Stomp ( or Terraforming Wave) : ... You or your frame literally stomps, but instead of stuns, knock up, or daze, you instead create a field of difficult terrain centered on you. radius can be like 50 feet - 100 feet or so and the difficult terrain does minor damage. Slows can also be added.
 

TankHunter678

Well-Known Member
Jul 26, 2016
369
311
63
#32
I think a point should also be made about the imo wrong way R5 tried to balance abilities. Repulsor Blast being a good example.

Repulsor Blast was an ability that people just liked spammy, the damage component made it somewhat easy mode. The obvious first solution to this would be to remove the DMG component. This also makes sense as it would then be more of a defensive ability. Where R5 often went wrong is that their idea of balance was to remove the fun. Completely unnecessary and counter productive. Inferno Dash being another, clearly it was an ability that was more fun to use frequently. Its direct DMG was the main problem, since the Firecat was already a DOT frame the solution was pretty obvious.

I think this also circles back a bit to classes v no classes. The Firecat was clearly more "fun" (subjective, still) towards burst movement/DOT. So again the solution was obvious, no need to reinvent the wheel. The Dragonfly was another example of R5's balancing/jack of all trades mentality. Healing wave actually did DMG i believe, this doesn't make sense. Its self heal turned it into a tank.

It achieved perfect form at one point.

If you're committed to playing a healer (especially since the bio already had a DMG class) than that's what you should be playing. This should be the case for all play styles. Abilities are a big part of this imo.
In the case of the Biotech, the reason why Healing Wave did damage was that they did not want to restrict a frame to being party only, or get stuck in the classic MMO trinity. They had already seen that be the case back when Biotech was called Medic and had a latch on healing beam during early CBT: people became pocket medics exclusively for Dreadnoughts. This was reinforced by the very short range vamp beam they had stock. A Medic could barely defend themselves and were outranged by everything.

Once PvE came into the picture they needed the ability to do more then kill enemies 1 at a time and not be pigeonholed into only carrying a grenade launcher secondary. Especially since players avoided most of the damage the mobs could even do by use of their jumpjets, so healing was not necessary most of the time in PvE. Hence why the healing abilities were designed with inflicting damage and healing in mind. Firefall was not to be a game where all you did was run dungeons with 1 "tank", 1 "healer", and 2-3 "DPS".

Everyone had to have the ability to help kill. Even the healers and tanks, something that even some trinity based MMOs are starting to figure out or have figured out.
 
Likes: Ghost_King

Ronyn

Commander
Staff member
Community Manager
Director of Marketing and Community
Jul 26, 2016
724
2,706
93
#33
Wouldn't be a proper MMO without player abilities ^_^
'
Just to avoid any confusion on expectations, we are not basing any design decisions on what is standard or proper in an MMO. That is very important to note. We call Ember a Massive Planetary Wargame for the sake of clarity on what we are looking to make. With that said I can say that player abilities, in some form, are very likely to in Ember. Though it's hard to say for certain until we see how things shake out in combat iteration.
 

Biz

Kaiju Slayer
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 30, 2016
37
73
18
#34
As long as skills (think abilities) do not, just, take over what would have been basic functions¹ of the weapons or the fact that you are a flying, bipedal tank with impossible servos from the future².
¹- If you have an elemental weapon you can create an elemental field if you just shoot the ground. Be it fire that lingers from a flamethrower a swarm of disassembling nanites from a "poison" gun.
² - you already have more than enough mass to kill most things just by touching/stepping on them. When you are moving speed burst + direction combination can make you both slam into the ground from the air or charge at enemies from the ground or jump up, away from the mobs rapidly.

Skills would still have their place but you shouldn't go "my create poison field skill is recharging and there is nothing I can do about the mob of roaches that are nibbling at my feet".

Actually, not enough mass as you think. Frames are made of ultra light and durable materials. Light enough to make it fly easy, hard enough to break thru walls. With powerful servos, yeah you stil can crunch skulls with ease
For punching things, it does not matter if it is light and fast or slow and heavy.
 
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Torgue_Joey

Kaiju Slayer
KAIJU 'SPLODER
Jul 27, 2016
1,123
2,703
113
Germany
#35
As long as skills (think abilities) do not, just, take over what would have been basic functions¹ of the weapons or the fact that you are a flying, bipedal tank with impossible servos from the future².
¹- If you have an elemental weapon you can create an elemental field if you just shoot the ground. Be it fire that lingers from a flamethrower a swarm of disassembling nanites from a "poison" gun.
² - you already have more than enough mass to kill most things just by touching/stepping on them. When you are moving speed burst + direction combination can make you both slam into the ground from the air or charge at enemies from the ground or jump up, away from the mobs rapidly.

Skills would still have their place but you shouldn't go "my create poison field skill is recharging and there is nothing I can do about the mob of roaches that are nibbling at my feet".
Actually, not enough mass as you think. Frames are made of ultra light and durable materials. Light enough to make it fly easy, hard enough to break thru walls. With powerful servos, yeah you stil can crunch skulls with ease