How many abilities?

Schmuky

Base Commander
Base Commander
Apr 5, 2017
69
118
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Transylvania
#1
Hello! Devs, i realized that in the "Make your Frame" topic Grummz says "pick 2 abilities and a shoulder weapon".
Is 2 abilities what we should expect? For me seems kinda meh. I know that depending on the shoulder weapon that could be a 3rd one, like the one in the latest video update, but not always. Also i kinda though we were heading for 3 abilities+Ult+shoulder or at least 3 abilities+shoulder or 2+Ult+shoulder. Honestly, i play a lot of OW, and the formula works really well. Also the keybinding seems more natural on E,Shift,Q and maybe C or F for abilities with R for reload. Just curious what you guys are going for.
 
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Tyceus

Firstclaimer
Jun 22, 2017
32
122
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Denmark
#2
i can understand why you hope for more then 2 abilities as it can get a little (slow?/boring?)
though i myself hope we will get something along the line of what Firefall had :D
and i do agree with the keybindings from OW (overwatch i believe) being easy to get accustomed to, but i think players should be able to decide that for themselves inside the settings :)
 

Schmuky

Base Commander
Base Commander
Apr 5, 2017
69
118
33
26
Transylvania
#3
i can understand why you hope for more then 2 abilities as it can get a little (slow?/boring?)
though i myself hope we will get something along the line of what Firefall had :D
and i do agree with the keybindings from OW (overwatch i believe) being easy to get accustomed to, but i think players should be able to decide that for themselves inside the settings :)
(yes, talking about overwatch)
of course it should be customizable, as it is in OW, but that is the default keybinding and is seems much more natural then 1-4 for example. And i want more abilities not necessarily because it might be slow with only 2, but because we will be at a severe height disadvantage against the Kaiju, so being at the ankle of one them because your abilities are on cooldown and all you ca do is fire your primary weapon might be kinda crappy. Also with 3 abilities there will be combos that we will be able to do and the effectiveness of them will be down to the skill of the player, so someone that dosen't have the best aim, but has great game sense will be able to have at least the same impact as someone that has amazing aim, but lacks game sense. Skill should be rewarded in all manners possible. If someone has amazing aim, all they need to do to show off that skill is to pick a sniper. But 2 abilities will make melee frames and heavy defense frame vulnerable and less efective, in my opinion at least.
 

Schmuky

Base Commander
Base Commander
Apr 5, 2017
69
118
33
26
Transylvania
#4
in FireFall 90% of the time we were fighting human height enemys, and we had 3 abilities+ult. In Em8er..... pff, maybe 2 abilities+ult+shoulder or 3 abilities+shoulder and no ult. 3 abilities+ult+shoulder seems too much, maybe only for heavy frames with heavy cores.

and maybe some of the abilities might be passives, like heal over time or stuff like that, but they should be there and let us pick if we want active or passive abilities. A sniper might make better use of passive sometimes for example
 
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Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
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Island of Tofu
#5
Depends on the abilities you could have 2 really powerful abilities or say have 3 decent abilities
it also depends on your power supply and how much it drains and even the cool down timer.

If you managed the power for the abilities this would be good for 3 abilities giving you an additional option.
The question is would you want 2 very good abilities or lower the grade for 3 decent abilities hmm

Having the choice for 3 can still mean you can have 2 also.
 
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Schmuky

Base Commander
Base Commander
Apr 5, 2017
69
118
33
26
Transylvania
#6
Depends on the abilities you could have 2 really powerful abilities or say have 3 decent abilities
it also depends on your power supply and how much it drains and even the cool down timer.

If you managed the power for the abilities this would be good for 3 abilities giving you an additional option.
The question is would you want 2 very good abilities or lower the grade for 3 decent abilities hmm

Having the choice for 3 can still mean you can have 2 also.
you could go 2 active and 1 passive or something like that. It gives us options. and 3 decent abilities is better than 2 powerful one in my view
 

EvilKitten

Well-Known Member
Ark Liege
Jul 26, 2016
777
1,557
93
#9
that might be a bit much with the shoulder weapon. having 2+ult+shoulder should be enough in my opinion, with the option to use one or more of the slots as a passive
Depends on how the abilities are designed, passives may be fairly small overall so not be OP with 2 of them. The final number of slots of course is going to depend on how much overall power we are intended to have. The key idea though was to have open slots and passive only slots.
 

Silv3r Shadow

Max Kahuna
Max Kahuna
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 29, 2016
341
764
93
#11
Just throwing this in, like most, I too would love 4 abilities. Maybe to save time and money there could be a class specific ult, eg... Total of 3 ults:

Light frame: Call in gunship providing firesupport
Medium frame: call in drop troops (like halo ODST)
Heavy frame call in iron strike (like ut2004)

As much as I'd like a full ability chain, but giving something like 3 class specific ults can potentially make this possible. If ya get what I'm getting at ^.^

Or as it is a massive planetary wargame maybe add reinforcement as an ult. Different class calling in different squads.

 
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Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
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Island of Tofu
#12
Got me thinking some thoughts on ultimates

A) Chrono Ult - every successful shot made increases slow mo time but caps off at 30 seconds [think like slow mo in max payne/killing floor 2]
B) Ghost walker - Become invisible able to melee only lasts for certain duration
C) Eggciting roll some eggs towards opponents they will stop for a moment as it glows brighter drawing them all to it and then vanish this gives you time to escape

D) Cardiac sync - Everytime you hear a beat press the correct arrows/keys specified to create a more powerful martial art combo
before the heart beats go too fast unleash a devastating hail of punches and kicks otherwise you lose all of that built up power.
 

Aphaz

Deepscanner
Jul 26, 2016
187
260
63
#13
as i said before:

"my idea so far (the 1 with most mert in my head, that is) is along the lines of an Omni Wireframe with slots around it and connected by lines to various parts of the Omni Wireframe. every omniframe has 10 slots, well it's 13 actually, but 3 are already taken as i will soon explain. the slots are placed as follows:

Head - 2 slots

Torso - 3 slots; already taken by Chasis, Reactor, and Pilot cockpit

Arms - 4 slots; 2 each; does NOT include any weapons held in hands, those are special slots

Legs - 4 slots; 2 each

Special slots - 2 slots; used only for hand held weapons used by Omniframe. some weapons could have slots of their own for upgrades/customizations and such.

any empty slot may be used for either an Ability, a HKM, an Omniframe Protocol, Armor, or special goods.

Chasis governs Mass, Reactor governs Pwr, and Pilot cockpit governs Cpu. maybe make, like T1-T4 Chasis/Reactor/Pilot cockpit... :D"

this way, imo, players would have a kind of total freedom in building frames...how about a twin axes wielding light frame that has all but 2 slots stuffed with armor and 2 HKMs specific for melee...doable...a medium frame that has only abilities, like a support engi, or a full on medic...doable
...etc, etc...

my reason for this line of thought is along the lines of "if u have a fixed number of abilities/HKMs or whatnots then sooner or later (prolly sooner :p) you'll get a bunch of similar/egzactly same builds as i've seen it happen to FF and mostly every other online multiplayer game"

but by giving people just "the slots" and leaving it to them on how to fill those slots...now that would result in truly tons of unique builds, at least imo...
;)
 

Schmuky

Base Commander
Base Commander
Apr 5, 2017
69
118
33
26
Transylvania
#14
the only problem with this idea is the fact that a lot of work as to be put in to be sure it all works from an animation standpoint, as having 10 slots with maybe 30 abilities+weapons is a lot of different frames
 
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Rocket

Max Kahuna
Max Kahina
Jul 26, 2016
199
324
63
Australia
#15
I was going to suggest 2 full ability slots and 2 passive only ability slot being optimal.

How would you justify that this is optimal?


Start with what's in the vision book, and build from there. Also the Omniframe build type thread's first post where @Grummz gives insight into possible changes, particularly the lack of passive preferences in the community builds thread, and the addition of a shoulder weapon. Also note that the vision book implies that the reactor is not a slot, but everything else is. So you must have a reactor, but other slots can be left blank (Implied, not stated), thereby offering potential benefit to Em-8ER's single frame constraint, power cost.

But back to those abilities. And those passives.

I'm personally hoping that the shoulder weapon is the equivalent of a HKM. An ultimate ability. One which helps define the players archetype build, and doesn't always need to be a weapon as we otherwise think of them. On top of this, we have the ultimate ultimate. Calling down your T.H.U.M.P.R. to help fight a Kaiju.

Beyond that, two base abilities allows you to expand on the frames intended play-style, without giving the player the ability to become a jack-of-all-frames. This in turn prompts the player to have more omniframes with specific play ready loadouts. More frames means more potential sales for fashion frame customizations. That in turn needs to happen to help fund the games ongoing running costs, in addition to BTP income and the existing fundraising. So this becomes a case of "less is more".

I say this as a former Firefall player who paid for custom faces, hairstyles, and frame paints with Red Beans, not to mention custom reactor and servo models (Arsenal). And when I did, I looked around and saw that most of the players did not. They sure did howl long and loud on the forums that these items should be free however. A lot of these items did eventually become free, as The9 gave away their own potential revenue streams.

As far as passives are concerned, what passives did Firefall have, and what function did they provide?

Early on in the games beta time, you had one single passive. Like the Recon's Stock Accord Regenerative Plating for example. Not a good example as it did nothing to really define the archtype play-style of the frame, but others did. But they were later taken out and replaced with perks, and you got a lot of them. They were massively OP.

Let's avoid massively OP. In fact, let's avoid anything that plays the game for you without you (or a team mate) doing anything. And if we are going to have such things, then let's put them where they belong. Anything you can put in a passive ability would be better served becoming part of a slot item upgrade that unlocks as the world level increases. Let's say that again.

Anything you can put in a passive ability would be better served becoming part of a slot item upgrade that unlocks as the world level increases.

That's half the game right there. We don't need passives.
 
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Schmuky

Base Commander
Base Commander
Apr 5, 2017
69
118
33
26
Transylvania
#16
How would you justify that this is optimal?




Start with what's in the vision book, and build from there. Also the Omniframe build type thread's first post where @Grummz gives insight into possible changes, particularly the lack of passive preferences in the community builds thread, and the addition of a shoulder weapon. Also note that the vision book implies that the reactor is not a slot, but everything else is. So you must have a reactor, but other slots can be left blank (Implied, not stated), thereby offering potential benefit to Em-8ER's single frame constraint, power cost.

But back to those abilities. And those passives.

I'm personally hoping that the shoulder weapon is the equivalent of a HKM. An ultimate ability. One which helps define the players archetype build, and doesn't always need to be a weapon as we otherwise think of them.

Beyond that, two base abilities allows you to expand on the frames intended play-style, without giving the player the ability to become a jack-of-all-frames. This in turn prompts the player to have more omniframes with specific play ready loadouts. More frames means more potential sales for fashion frame customizations. That in turn needs to happen to help fund the games ongoing running costs, in addition to BTP income and the existing fundraising. So this becomes a case of "less is more".

I say this as a former Firefall player who paid for custom faces, hairstyles, and frame paints with Red Beans, not to mention custom reactor and servo models (Arsenal). And when I did, I looked around a saw that most of the players did not. They sure did howl long and loud on the forums that these items should be free however. A lot of these items did eventually become free, as The9 gave away their own potential revenue streams.

As far as passives are concerned, what passives did Firefall have, and what function did they provide?

Early on in the games beta time, you had one single passive. Like the Recon's Stock Accord Regenerative Plating for example. Not a good example as it did nothing to really define the archtype play-style of the frame, but others did. But they were later taken out and replaced with perks, and you got a lot of them. And they were massively OP.

Let's avoid massively OP. In fact, let's avoid anything that plays the game for you without you (or a team mate) doing anything. And if we are going to have such things, then let's put them where they belong. Anything you can put in a passive ability would be better served becoming part of a slot item upgrade that unlocks as the world level increases. let's say that again.

Anything you can put in a passive ability would be better served becoming part of a slot item upgrade that unlocks as the world level increases.

We don't need passives.
honestly, i disagree. Passives can be useful as abilities, but not extra ones, like the perks in FF. Example:

I have one Light dual melee frame, so because i am in constant combat i will use all my slots for active abilities so i always have a way out and don't die because all my abilities are on cooldown.

But i also have a Light sniper frame, with which i fight from afar and i am not in immediate danger, so i will use some of my slots for passive abilities, as the main feature of the frame is the weapon and my accuracy. Passive like: "Armour piercing bullets" , an ability that changes all my ammo for heavier, more powerful shots (with the disadvantage that instead of 10 bullets per reload i only get 7). And so on. But it will be a choice, do i wanna use a passive here or an active ability.

But i agree they should not be OP, and the fact that you have to give up an active ability for a passive one should make it balanced.
That being said, having 2 ability slots + shoulder (whether or not the shoulder is an Ult) seems not enough for me. It might be ok for a Light frame with a light core, but for a heavy frame with a heavy core?

(if the number of abilities is different for different frames with different cores, with the light having 2+shoulder and going up to maybe 4+shoulder for a heavy frame with a heavy core, i am totally on board. Also, the abilities should not be super powerful, maybe give some extra damage or a way out, nothing too incredible)
 

Aphaz

Deepscanner
Jul 26, 2016
187
260
63
#17
honestly, i disagree. Passives can be useful as abilities, but not extra ones, like the perks in FF. Example:

But i agree they should not be OP, and the fact that you have to give up an active ability for a passive one should make it balanced.
That being said, having 2 ability slots + shoulder (whether or not the shoulder is an Ult) seems not enough for me. It might be ok for a Light frame with a light core, but for a heavy frame with a heavy core?

(if the number of abilities is different for different frames with different cores, with the light having 2+shoulder and going up to maybe 4+shoulder for a heavy frame with a heavy core, i am totally on board. Also, the abilities should not be super powerful, maybe give some extra damage or a way out, nothing too incredible)
that's what i ment with passives, they could spice some things up but they should never be OP. and they should "take up some space/stats/slots... which is why i presented them as Omni Protocols that act as a module that can be/do use slots"
this way people have more choices, but also have to weight up whether to choose actives or passives or armor, or...etc.
:D;)
 
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Silv3r Shadow

Max Kahuna
Max Kahuna
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 29, 2016
341
764
93
#19
There will be something like perks Grummz said in a ama/discord chat months ago. Assuming Grummz will try to maximize as many abilities as he can as funds limit everything.

I guess you can have active/passive abilities too like LoL. But yeah, I hope whatever it is, it is good
 

Schmuky

Base Commander
Base Commander
Apr 5, 2017
69
118
33
26
Transylvania
#20
Now you're just taking the piss. One frame to rule them all. You must have been a dedicated Mammoth player in Firefall.
actually played TigerClaw and DragonFly. But then why take a heavy frame with a heavy core if you can get the same abilities and the same number of abilities with the medium frame and still have mobility? The heavy frame will suck at mobility, but it should have some things to make it worth getting
 
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