The Problem With Mods (Currently)

[TinFoilMkIV]

*Mods are officially getting scrapped, but feel free to keep discussing*

*Note, this is all my own opinion and current view on mods*

Now I love how all the equipment/weapons/frames all have their own skill trees with mod slots for extra customization and cool loot opportunities, however the mods themselves are quite flawed at the moment.

WEAPONS

As it stands now, weapon mods essentially come down to "how much extra damage can I throw on my weapon". Essentially the ideal weapon setup is "the most damage you can fit and optionally one utility mod" which boils down to, Multishot>armor piercing>high grade double damage type mods and one slot for something like penetration or frost damage.

It is not interesting, its not really customization, as it is now its just a loot hunt for the mod that makes your gun do more damage.

There are a few utility options for mods right now, but they are either soo underpowered or situational that damage is almost always better. Fire rate is a worse version of damage increase, as it amplifies recoil and ammo use. Max ammo does not increase the uptime of a weapon significantly and you still only pick up the same ammount of ammo, so it takes slightly longer to run out of ammo, but you're wasting a slot that could be replaced with damage, which would cause you to use less ammo, and make ammo pickups go farther.

Penetration is in my opinion the only truly good utility mod. Clipsize is a good idea, but it has too many drawbacks with too many superior options to truly be considered. Penetration gives you the tradeoff of a damage slot for the ability to hit multiple enemies in your line of fire, and shoot through cover. This is a great utility ability, offering a situational increase in weapon power, isn't soo easy to make use of as to be overpowered, and gives the weapon a unique ability. We need more mods like this. Main issue right now is there is essentially no reason to ever use more than one of these.

Now crits... in theory these are a cool idea, but overall they really dont add much, not as mods anyways. Crit damage is incredibly terrible for guns in its current state, and while stacking crit rate is cool, all it really does is just increase your dps with a more rng factor for short term damage. In my opinion, at least for guns, crit mods should be combined into some kind of crit factor, that scales both the base crit rate and damage by a percentage, as well as increase damage done to enemy weakpoints.

What I think we need is some kind of limit to the type of mods we can throw into a weapon, as well as more varied utility effects from mods. Something like ammo/clip mods, things like increased ammo capacity, maybe special bullets such as armor piercing and whatnot. Reciever mods, effect things such as fire rate, core weapon damage, recoil. Barrel mods, accuracy, recoil, and idk what else. And have a few omni slots where you can put anything you want.

As for utility mods, it would be nice to play up the elements more and maybe give them each a utility mod type. To me Penetration is like the utility version of armor peircing, it takes the aspects of armor piercing and converts it into a special effect that isnt just +damage. We could have things like Shock, Deals X% lightning damage to enemies within Y range of target, with X and Y being variables on the mod. Fire could be a DoT effect that will deal additional damage based on fire elemental attack power but over time. Ice could be something like armor stripping (I'll admit, I wasn't to sure on this one, it was the only viable effect I could think of that could have anything to do with ice's current debuff/crippling style). And to take that farther they could gain increased effect by the ammount of their corresponding elements damage, which would in turn allow the use of things like elemental conversion, ie 50% of base weapon damage is converted to fire, without causing the weapon to become completely situational and only viable against one faction.

Also unique skill trees for weapons, but thats a different issue and has been brought up elsewhere.

WARFRAMES

This will be a lot shorter, for now.

The problem with current frame mods, is that some of the mods completely overshadow the actual skill nodes. Weapons do not have this issue as they all use percentages that scale off the weapons base attributes. In my opinion the easiest solution that would fix this would be to do the same. Create % based mods for hp/energy/shields and whatnot. Do not remove the fixed value mods either, as they will have value to frames with lower base/available values and allow players to build their stats up more the way they want, while lending value to building up the value of your base stats.

*I wouldn't apply the reverse to weapons due to the huge variance in effects of adding a static value to a weapon.

Also it would be nice to see more unique stats available on the tree, such as +armor nodes and/or even some energy regen and such.

Anyways, basically add % based mods, add more interesting bonuses on trees beyond hp/shield/energy

MODS (in general)

Also I would love to see more double and triple rare mods with tradeoff ablities, like a larger +base damage mod that comes paired with +recoil or -fire rate, and something like -recoil -accuracy (requires functioning accuracy ratings first), and so on.

same for frames, we could have rare mods with interesting trades like -shield regen +armor, -maxshield +energy efficiency, obviously with greater values on the positives than the negatives, and in larger ammounts than you could gain from a standard + mod of the same type.

Overview of my take on current weapon mods

*mod list and description copied from the wiki*

Ammo Maximum

-Enables you to carry more ammo for the corresponding weapon.

* sounds nice at first, but a damage mod plus ammo pickups go farther.

Clip Capacity

-Increases the number of bullets in each clip.

*better than ammo max generally, as it increases a weapons uptime which benefits long term dps, however does little for medium/short term engagements, and there are very few weapons that see a significant benefit beyond their clip upgrades on their skill tree.

Fire Rate

-Increases rate of fire [or attack speed for melee weapons].

*essentially a worse version of normal +damage, causes you to use more ammo and generate more recoil. Otherwise a good mod (from a diversity standpoint) as it gives a weapon somewhat different characteristics from another weapon without this mod.

*melee weapons see viable benefits from this as ammo and recoil are a non-issue.

Reload Speed

-Decreases reload time.

*Similar to clip capacity, and possibly better at boosting short term dps, most likely similar effect for long term engagements, suffers the same drawbacks as it does not increase burst dps or ammo efficiency.

Heavy Charge Speed

-Increases the charge speed of charged melee attacks.

*melee only. a viable mod that goes beyond a pure dps boost to effect actual weapon mechanics somewhat and enhances charge based playstyle with a weapon

Charge Damage

-Increases the damage of charged melee attacks.

*same as charge speed without the modification to actual weapon function, pure dps boost but it is specific to a type of playstyle with that weapon.

Melee Damage

-increases the damage of standard melee attacks

*see charge damage

Stun Chance

-Attacks have a chance to stun your target.

*a good idea, but has little value in actual use in anything other than a novelty/gimmick build. Essentially a defensive mod that is somewhat unreliable, and is outweighed by the increase in kill speed offered by +damage mods.

Critical Chance

-Increases chances of a critical strike.

*essentially +damage with an rng factor. With an addition of more factors that effect crit damage this may offer more customization variety, however it will stll come down to which variant of +damage is most effective for said weapon.

Critical Damage

-Makes your critical strikes deal even more damage [base multiplier: 1.5x].

*decent idea, but in its current state is only viable as a burst damage increaser for stealth frames with melee weapons. it is simply too weak on range weapons and offers little more than an extra +damage on top of crit rate. I would either reccomend having this effect come from sources other than mods and/or have critical damage effect the damage dealt to enemy weakpoints to promote a specialized weapon for a different type of play.

Damage

-Increases base damage.

*exactly as it says, may be a viable choice if it does in fact increase the base damage before other damage types are calculated.

Electricity Damage

-Adds additional electricity damage to the weapon. Stuns Corpus Crewman.

*+damage with more variety. extra effective on corpus, neutral on grinneer and weak against infested. I personally feel the difference in effectiveness between factions is far to great, as it does next to nothing against infested, and turns half the corpus units into a complete joke. Also appears to be the most common element.

Freeze Damage

-Adds additional freeze damage to the weapon. Slows enemies and deals extra damage to shields.

*The most versatile of all the elemental +damage variants, as it has a slow effect that applies to all factions. It is also specialized to be extra effective against shields, however the effect of increased shield damage is limited at best. I would actually consider this element as being somewhat over powered if enemies did not already die almost immediately after being targeted. This should replace fire as the rare element if any in my opinion.

Fire Damage

-Adds additional fire damage to the weapon. Deals fire damage over time. Highly effective against Infested.

*well fire damage... it looks cool, deals extra damage to infested, has a similar effect on corpus crewmen to electricity, and doesn't seem to do anything else particularly special. I honestly do not know why this element only seems to appear on rare mods. It doesn't do anything terribly special, and its main strength is practically irrelevant.

Let me put it this way, as a conversation in my clan went during the loading screen "hey guys, ember is a nightmare for light armored targets (primarily infested as per fire damage).... you know what else is? getting hit by any weapon in the game..."

I mean the main advantage of the element is that it kills really weak enemies slightly faster than any other weapon.... not exactly rare only material in my opinion.

I'm not entirely sure what the devs intention with fire mods was, but it seems reall odd to cut one of the three elements out of the circle of common mods when each one seems specialized towards one of the three base factions.

Armour Piercing Damage

-Makes you deal additional armour piercing damage that is particularly efficient vs. heavily armored targets.

* and now for armor piercing, one of the most imbalanced specialty damage in my opinion. it has almost no downside, the only damage that potentially offers more against it is standard damage, and only against enemies with no armor, while it offers significant advantages against at least some unit of every faction. Generally some of the most dangerous units are elites/heavies, which are all heavily armored (as are most bosses) which is exactly what armor piercing is strong against... So why would anyone not want at least one of these on any weapons that doesnt have built in armor piercing?

Multishot

-Occasionally shoot multiple bullets, or increases the amount of pellets shot with shotguns. Decimal values represent the percentage of shots that will feature an extra bullet.

*THE ultimate damage mod, it amplifies every other damage type as well as boosting base damage by extreme ammounts. While somewhat unreliable on single fire weapons, it is still relatively dependable damage increase and has such an extreme effect that this is mostly negligible. Also has no negative effect on ammo supply or use. I find this mod to be a bit silly for weapons that do not already have a base multishot value, and I personally think it should be toned down and become a specialy mod for shotgun and future multishot type weapons.

Puncture

-Bullets go through walls, objects or enemies. The value represents the distance[in meters] the bullets can penetrate.

*as stated in my opening post, an example of a great utility mod. Does not offer direct damage increases, but instead makes a weapon potentially stronger against multiple enemies if you can line up a shot properly, as well as giving the weapon a unique ability to shoot through walls, which isn't terribly abusable since you cannot currently see through them.

[/walloftext]

Edited February 27, 2013 by TinFoilMkIV

[Frazeil]

WEAPONS

What I think we need is some kind of limit to the type of mods we can throw into a weapon, as well as more varied utility effects from mods. Something like ammo/clip mods, things like increased ammo capacity, maybe special bullets such as armor piercing and whatnot. Reciever mods, effect things such as fire rate, core weapon damage, recoil. Barrel mods, accuracy, recoil, and idk what else. And have a few omni slots where you can put anything you want.

Is it me or did you suggest mods that are already implemented in the game?

I'd like to see recoil mods and accuracy mods though, I think those are the only utility mods missing at the moment. I do see what you're saying right now so a few reworks might be in order.

[FreshJB2]

Nice suggestions. Totally agree with the upgrade nodes on warframes. Even an option to convert a health/ energy/ sheild node would be appreciated. As for increasing elemental effects, i always thought electricity mods could have a chance to stun (getting rid of those mods) and fire mods could either have an increased chance of making enemies panic or degrade armor over time.

[TinFoilMkIV]

arg, damn I knew I forgot something, more mods with tradeoffs....

Is it me or did you suggest mods that are already implemented in the game?

I'd like to see recoil mods and accuracy mods though, I think those are the only utility mods missing at the moment. I do see what you're saying right now so a few reworks might be in order.

Also yes those mods are in game. The point of that paragraph was to have specific section/mod groups to seperate them into, ie, ammo capacity would be a clip type mod, fire rate would be a reciever type mod, so that you can't literally put 10 of the same top tier mod into a gun and be done. So that even if there were to eventually be determined "the ideal damage mod" there would still be customisation options beyond those.

Anyways, I will edit my OP with this, but we also need more tradeoff mods, like a larger +base damage mod that comes paired with +recoil or -fire rate, and something like -recoil -accuracy (requires functioning accuracy ratings first), and so on.

same for frames, we could have rare mods with interesting trades like -shield regen +armor, -maxshield +energy efficiency, obviously with greater values on the positives than the negatives, and in larger ammounts than you could gain from a standard + mod of the same type.

Edited February 21, 2013 by TinFoilMkIV

[FreshJB2]

arg, damn I knew I forgot something, more mods with tradeoffs....

Also yes those mods are in game. The point of that paragraph was to have specific section/mod groups to seperate them into, ie, ammo capacity would be a clip type mod, fire rate would be a reciever type mod, so that you can't literally put 10 of the same top tier mod into a gun and be done. So that even if there were to eventually be determined "the ideal damage mod" there would still be customisation options beyond those.

Anyways, I will edit my OP with this, but we also need more tradeoff mods, like a larger +base damage mod that comes paired with +recoil or -fire rate, and something like -recoil -accuracy (requires functioning accuracy ratings first), and so on.

same for frames, we could have rare mods with interesting trades like -shield regen +armor, -maxshield +energy efficiency, obviously with greater values on the positives than the negatives, and in larger ammounts than you could gain from a standard + mod of the same type.

+1

[TinFoilMkIV]

oh right, another idea I forgot was potentially tieing additional effects to crits, Such as certain ammo or damage types might have a bonus effect (scaled with their damage value) when a crit was scored. As this would give value to actually building crit rate beyond just another +dps effect.

Also just for fun, mod with -damage +energy on hit

Edited February 21, 2013 by TinFoilMkIV

[Frazeil]

TinFoilMKIV for dev, I like your idea's.

[TinFoilMkIV]

TinFoilMKIV for dev, I like your idea's.

heh, while I do appreciate the thought I'm not quite there yet, altho I do aspire to be a game dev in the future. Working on putting my own things together, but I do always like to contribute what I can, especially to such a fun game with great potential.

[TinFoilMkIV]

sooo... yea, pretty much bumping this so people actually see it.

[Aretak]

Agree 100% with OP. This kind of 'progression' system is a bit too MMO-esque, as it infringes on the actual shooter gameplay. As it is the passive damage effects make it an odd mix of sheer DPS ganking everything and I agree utility options should be the focus of upgrades no damage. To offset this they'll need to do a bit of revamping for higher level areas too concerning the enemy AI's own passive benefits.

[HadronVictorioso]

Agree 100% with OP. This kind of 'progression' system is a bit too MMO-esque, as it infringes on the actual shooter gameplay. As it is the passive damage effects make it an odd mix of sheer DPS ganking everything and I agree utility options should be the focus of upgrades no damage. To offset this they'll need to do a bit of revamping for higher level areas too concerning the enemy AI's own passive benefits.

Anyone ever play Path of Exile? I like the way they did it - the passive stuff was ALL passive, and the actual skills were items socketed into a weapon. Not quite sure if it'd work with this kind of system, though :/

[Yg-Dosst]

Is it me or did you suggest mods that are already implemented in the game?

I'd like to see recoil mods and accuracy mods though, I think those are the only utility mods missing at the moment. I do see what you're saying right now so a few reworks might be in order.

This guy said it clearly.

There's alot more rarer mods with these sought after utility values that you don't acquire, or even actually get to see, until the higher levels of the game.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Mods

I don't know if people producing a wikia for the game breaks the non-disclosure agreement... *shrugs*

At least the leaking doesn't mean their's false hype, and any failed expectaions.

Back to the point, these are all the mod types in the game as of now, that I know of.

Infact there may even be more that no body has identified because they're so rare.

Really the reason it appears to be all damage, is because damage is what you need to get through the levels, the entertaining features and abilities start to come afterwards to diversify your character and play-style.

[TinFoilMkIV]

This guy said it clearly.

There's alot more rarer mods with these sought after utility values that you don't acquire, or even actually get to see, until the higher levels of the game.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Mods

I don't know if people producing a wikia for the game breaks the non-disclosure agreement... *shrugs*

At least the leaking doesn't mean their's false hype, and any failed expectaions.

Back to the point, these are all the mod types in the game as of now, that I know of.

Infact there may even be more that no body has identified because they're so rare.

Really the reason it appears to be all damage, is because damage is what you need to get through the levels, the entertaining features and abilities start to come afterwards to diversify your character and play-style.

Yes you can use more utility early game, but do we really want endgame mods degenerating into armor peircing and multishot? While I agree the power of some mods is somewhat balanced by rarity, it doesn't change the fact that multishot/crit chance/crit damage, while they seem like something a little more intersting are actually all just slightly less obvious +damage mods. How does higher values of multishot and +X damage type change a weapons playstyle? Sure you can add +clips size, or +ammo max, but then you do less damage, that +20 ammo pickup is 25% more effective on a gun with +25% damage, as opposed to a gun with more ammo. All of the benefits weigh in favor or +damage mods. And why use +fire rate when you can get the same effect without increasing your recoil and ammo use? Some of the mods are there, but as I said in my original post, they are simply outclassed by damage mods.

There 'may' be unknown mods, but I highly doubt there is a mod that is implemented in game that someone has not found yet. And its not really the RPG element of needing more dps every level that bothers me, its that weapon progression is mostly dps based with very lilttle room for utility and true customization without your weapon ending up rather underpowered for its rank.

I can understand if you don't feel the need for new and more interesting mods, I could live with them how they are, but I think they could be soo much better. Theres nothing wrong really with being able to stack +damage type mods, but I'd personally prefer to be able to do something else without gimping my weapons, and would it really be a bad thing to have this?

Also I'd like to point out that guns are the main offender to this case, as warframes and melee weapons actually have some viable paths that aren't so black and white as the +damage of guns.

Anyone ever play Path of Exile? I like the way they did it - the passive stuff was ALL passive, and the actual skills were items socketed into a weapon. Not quite sure if it'd work with this kind of system, though :/

I really like path of exiles passive system as well (active system could use work but thats another matter), but what I thought made it passive skill tree truly great? Tradeoffs. You can do essentially whatever you want with your passives in PoE, somewhat like our mod system, but their trees were not all +attackspeed +damage +crit +hit rate. Most of the core passives were things like that, but then they had the more advanced specialty skills, were you could gain crazy abilities and effects and in return trade away some of your characters ability in another area. Not to mention that just speccing one stat/abiloity would take away from your ability to reach other desireable stats and ability as easily.

Tradeoffs are what make real customization, things like, I could sacrifice some damage to make my gun easier to handle and more effective at long range, or having an an amazing scope/sight that makes hitting enemies at medium range a breeze, while restricting your peripheral view a bit and not being so great at long range. If we have the choice between the weapon setup that can do literally everything, and the one that looks/feels really cool but is twice as hard to use, the vast majority of people will use the Omnigun2.0 over everything else, because why not? and even many of those who wont initially will eventually switch over to it when they get tired of being gimped compared to everyone who does.

Now DE did try to do this with warframe skill trees, and I suspect we will see vastly improved weapon skill trees in the future as well, however the problem is that mods are too strong and too linear compared to the mods we have. The only real decision and trade we make here is mod slots vs the skills you want. Which is why for at least warframes we need mods that scale with core stats as well as flat +stat mods.

Edited February 24, 2013 by TinFoilMkIV

[TinFoilMkIV]

Sorry for the double post, but I'd like to add this without turning my last post into a novel

Anyways lets do some examples then.

In this case I will be primarily using the weapons mods in the case of guns.

*list and descriptions copied from the wiki page*

Ammo Maximum

-Enables you to carry more ammo for the corresponding weapon.

* sounds nice at first, but a damage mod plus ammo pickups go farther.

Clip Capacity

-Increases the number of bullets in each clip.

*better than ammo max generally, as it increases a weapons uptime which benefits long term dps, however does little for medium/short term engagements, and there are very few weapons that see a significant benefit beyond their clip upgrades on their skill tree.

Fire Rate

-Increases rate of fire [or attack speed for melee weapons].

*essentially a worse version of normal +damage, causes you to use more ammo and generate more recoil. Otherwise a good mod (from a diversity standpoint) as it gives a weapon somewhat different characteristics from another weapon without this mod.

*melee weapons see viable benefits from this as ammo and recoil are a non-issue.

Reload Speed

-Decreases reload time.

*Similar to clip capacity, and possibly better at boosting short term dps, most likely similar effect for long term engagements, suffers the same drawbacks as it does not increase burst dps or ammo efficiency.

Heavy Charge Speed

-Increases the charge speed of charged melee attacks.

*melee only. a viable mod that goes beyond a pure dps boost to effect actual weapon mechanics somewhat and enhances charge based playstyle with a weapon

Charge Damage

-Increases the damage of charged melee attacks.

*same as charge speed without the modification to actual weapon function, pure dps boost but it is specific to a type of playstyle with that weapon.

Melee Damage

-increases the damage of standard melee attacks

*see charge damage

Stun Chance

-Attacks have a chance to stun your target.

*a good idea, but has little value in actual use in anything other than a novelty/gimmick build. Essentially a defensive mod that is somewhat unreliable, and is outweighed by the increase in kill speed offered by +damage mods.

Critical Chance

-Increases chances of a critical strike.

*essentially +damage with an rng factor. With an addition of more factors that effect crit damage this may offer more customization variety, however it will stll come down to which variant of +damage is most effective for said weapon.

Critical Damage

-Makes your critical strikes deal even more damage [base multiplier: 1.5x].

*decent idea, but in its current state is only viable as a burst damage increaser for stealth frames with melee weapons. it is simply too weak on range weapons and offers little more than an extra +damage on top of crit rate. I would either reccomend having this effect come from sources other than mods and/or have critical damage effect the damage dealt to enemy weakpoints to promote a specialized weapon for a different type of play.

Damage

-Increases base damage.

*exactly as it says, may be a viable choice if it does in fact increase the base damage before other damage types are calculated.

Electricity Damage

-Adds additional electricity damage to the weapon. Stuns Corpus Crewman.

*+damage with more variety. extra effective on corpus, neutral on grinneer and weak against infested. I personally feel the difference in effectiveness between factions is far to great, as it does next to nothing against infested, and turns half the corpus units into a complete joke. Also appears to be the most common element.

Freeze Damage

-Adds additional freeze damage to the weapon. Slows enemies and deals extra damage to shields.

*The most versatile of all the elemental +damage variants, as it has a slow effect that applies to all factions. It is also specialized to be extra effective against shields, however the effect of increased shield damage is limited at best. I would actually consider this element as being somewhat over powered if enemies did not already die almost immediately after being targeted. This should replace fire as the rare element if any in my opinion.

Fire Damage

-Adds additional fire damage to the weapon. Deals fire damage over time. Highly effective against Infested.

*well fire damage... it looks cool, deals extra damage to infested, has a similar effect on corpus crewmen to electricity, and doesn't seem to do anything else particularly special. I honestly do not know why this element only seems to appear on rare mods. It doesn't do anything terribly special, and its main strength is practically irrelevant.

Let me put it this way, as a conversation in my clan went during the loading screen "hey guys, ember is a nightmare for light armored targets (primarily infested as per fire damage).... you know what else is? getting hit by any weapon in the game..."

I mean the main advantage of the element is that it kills really weak enemies slightly faster than any other weapon.... not exactly rare only material in my opinion.

Armour Piercing Damage

-Makes you deal additional armour piercing damage that is particularly efficient vs. heavily armored targets.

* and now for armor piercing, one of the most imbalanced specialty damage in my opinion. it has almost no downside, the only damage that potentially offers more against it is standard damage, and only against enemies with no armor, while it offers significant advantages against at least some unit of every faction. Generally some of the most dangerous units are elites/heavies, which are all heavily armored (as are most bosses) which is exactly what armor piercing is strong against... So why would anyone not want at least one of these on any weapons that doesnt have built in armor piercing?

Multishot

-Occasionally shoot multiple bullets, or increases the amount of pellets shot with shotguns. Decimal values represent the percentage of shots that will feature an extra bullet.

*THE ultimate damage mod, it amplifies every other damage type as well as boosting base damage by extreme ammounts. While somewhat unreliable on single fire weapons, it is still relatively dependable damage increase and has such an extreme effect that this is mostly negligible. Also has no negative effect on ammo supply or use. I find this mod to be a bit silly for weapons that do not already have a base multishot value, and I personally think it should be toned down and become a specialy mod for shotgun and future multishot type weapons.

Puncture

-Bullets go through walls, objects or enemies. The value represents the distance[in meters] the bullets can penetrate.

*as stated in my opening post, an example of a great utility mod. Does not offer direct damage increases, but instead makes a weapon potentially stronger against multiple enemies if you can line up a shot properly, as well as giving the weapon a unique ability to shoot through walls, which isn't terribly abusable since you cannot currently see through them.

Edited February 24, 2013 by TinFoilMkIV

[TinFoilMkIV]

Edited first post with mod weapon mod list

[bptamblyn]

I dont know why your fixated one type of mods. On my Ash frame I use a jaw sword with crit dmg mods stacked and meele mods on the frame. Its fun to stealth around and just auto attack everything while im invis. On my Rhino I have armor mods/hp mods with Furax having full charge dmg mods. On my Afuris I stacked fire rate mods primarily to give it is an insane fire rite. I am not capable of firing off just one bullet with these guns anymore. I dont see the issue with diversity. It seems that you have decided that there is only one way to be successful in this game and your laying out your mods accordingly.

Edited February 27, 2013 by bptamblyn

[herflik]

I totally agree with the current mods being flawed in balance and simply boring. I have more issues than you wrote, I also see that the whole "requiement" of mods is badly made.

For me all the mods should be categorized in two basic ways:

1)Armor mods - all mods like shield, armor, stamina, ability boosts etc. will be the "warframe" only, no longer like "rhino" "excalibur" only

2)Weapon mods - all elemental and damage boosts, some utility like puncture mods will be "weapon" only, no longer restricted to "pistol" or "gorgon" only

Then we go into sub cathegory limitations with specification that goes this way:

1) Specific weapon or frame mods, can only be used on "insert name" equipment

2) Unique stat set on mods with such restriction, they drop only as BLUE rank mods

3)They cant roll ordinary armor/weapon mod stats, unless its "instert new rank" mod that is double mod of specific equipment + ordinary mod

What do I mean by unique stat set for each frame/weapon?

Well if there will be for example "gorgon" requiement mod it will not longer give the ordinary stats, but something like +Spin up speed, + Clip equal to maximum ammo, + Shred enemy armor for x sec y stacks, +Chance to not consume ammo

OR

"Plasma Sword" only mods: + Convert x% dmg to plasma damage (some new type), + Each swing leave trail of plasma for x sec dealing y dmg per sec, + Charge attacks create energy waves

The unique stat set should be sticking to the weapon style of fighting and of course the lore of game. That would make each weapon unique and increase build diversity. Trade option would be cool then, if we had so many mod types.

[TinFoilMkIV]

I dont know why your fixated one type of mods. On my Ash frame I use a jaw sword with crit dmg mods stacked and meele mods on the frame. Its fun to stealth around and just auto attack everything while im invis. On my Rhino I have armor mods/hp mods with Furax having full charge dmg mods. On my Afuris I stacked fire rate mods primarily to give it is an insane fire rite. I am not capable of firing off just one bullet with these guns anymore. I dont see the issue with diversity. It seems that you have decided that there is only one way to be successful in this game and your laying out your mods accordingly.

To be fair Warframe and Melee weapons are not too bad right now. As I have stated before there are actual viable choices, I did say that the main issue is with guns. Altho Warframes suffer from Mods being FAR superior to normal upgrade nodes at late game. I would like to see a bit more interesting things going on with the tree itself, but as far as mods for frames, if we threw some % based versions of the cores stats like hp/shield/energy then we would see those core stats being a viable trade for a mod slot.

Also if you read the melee specific mods (ie: charge speed/damage) I did note that they are actually okay since even though they translate to 'increase dps' they do it in a way that effects the weapons functionality and playstyle, which is a very good thing, but guns don't have anything like that, not anything truly viable.

Yes stacking +fire rate on rapid fire weapons is cool, and there are some cases where it is a legitimate choice (only really for gorgon as far as I'm aware, as it decreases the spinup time), however lets put it this way, what is better +50%damage/+50%recoil/+50%ammo use.... or +100% damage with no strings attached, or even +25% damage that ignores all defense when most dangerous enemies have armor that negates something like 75% of your damage.

I can live with mods as they are now, but I believe they could be made soo much better, and it doesnt even have to change any of the old mods which would in turn not influence anyone who wants to keep modding equipment exactly as they do now. (with the exception of multishot, as it is waaay out of line with the other mods)

Oh I did also note that crit damage is only viable on melee weapons with stealth frames, which is what you're doing, which is great, I have no problem with that, but that does not make crit damage okay how it is on guns.

I totally agree with the current mods being flawed in balance and simply boring. I have more issues than you wrote, I also see that the whole "requiement" of mods is badly made.

For me all the mods should be categorized in two basic ways:

1)Armor mods - all mods like shield, armor, stamina, ability boosts etc. will be the "warframe" only, no longer like "rhino" "excalibur" only

2)Weapon mods - all elemental and damage boosts, some utility like puncture mods will be "weapon" only, no longer restricted to "pistol" or "gorgon" only

Then we go into sub cathegory limitations with specification that goes this way:

1) Specific weapon or frame mods, can only be used on "insert name" equipment

2) Unique stat set on mods with such restriction, they drop only as BLUE rank mods

3)They cant roll ordinary armor/weapon mod stats, unless its "instert new rank" mod that is double mod of specific equipment + ordinary mod

What do I mean by unique stat set for each frame/weapon?

Well if there will be for example "gorgon" requiement mod it will not longer give the ordinary stats, but something like +Spin up speed, + Clip equal to maximum ammo, + Shred enemy armor for x sec y stacks, +Chance to not consume ammo

OR

"Plasma Sword" only mods: + Convert x% dmg to plasma damage (some new type), + Each swing leave trail of plasma for x sec dealing y dmg per sec, + Charge attacks create energy waves

The unique stat set should be sticking to the weapon style of fighting and of course the lore of game. That would make each weapon unique and increase build diversity. Trade option would be cool then, if we had so many mod types.

I don't really agree with making mod requirements more generic. I feel like it adds to the loot hunt and a feeling of more specialized equipment (at least for me), but I do agree the weapon specific mods could use something to set them apart. And Most definately yes to weapon specific mods with cool effects specific to that weapon or weapon type. That is the kind of thing that would make mods really cool and interesting. People would actually be exited whenever they got a rare mod for a weapon they like instead of just junking it the second its not multishot/armorpiercing/maxdamage/othertoptiermodforthatequiptype.

Edited February 27, 2013 by TinFoilMkIV

[herflik]

I don't really agree with making mod requirements more generic. I feel like it adds to the loot hunt and a feeling of more specialized equipment (at least for me), but I do agree the weapon specific mods could use something to set them apart. And Most definately yes to weapon specific mods with cool effects specific to that weapon or weapon type. That is the kind of thing that would make mods really cool and interesting. People would actually be exited whenever they got a rare mod for a weapon they like instead of just junking it the second its not multishot/armorpiercing/maxdamage/othertoptiermodforthatequiptype.

I know what you mean by loot search, though if you add enough weapon type or specific weapon mods the loot search will be still there. It will be only disabled for the mods that can be shared amongst all the items. You can limit mods restrictions to 3 cathegories:

1)Main - weapon or warframe

2)Type - weapon type like "pistol" or warframe type like "stealth" (in warframe case each of them would have few roles)

3)Specific - weapon like "gorgon" or warframe like "rhino"

Most of current mods can be easly put into the "main" section, since they fit everywhere, there is no real fun in them.

Multishot mod need nerf to the ground, the % values are way to high, it could be remade to " palle count +x" and only work for shotguns.

The other mod that I see wrong is critical hit, IMO it could be changed and split into few other mods: "increase dmg on headshot", "increase dmg on body", "increase dmg on limbs". That would give dmg increase only if you aim in given part of enemy, increase dmg could be swaped with ignore armor on those body parts and you would count them as weak points of enemy. The other way is to give chance to blind on headshot, criple limbs and infict bleed on body shots.

There is lots and lots of possiblities, but it will take time I guess, we must be patient.

[TinFoilMkIV]

Well mods are being scrapped, kind of sad as I thought it had a lot of potential, but it is a good thing as it mean room for even more awesomeness without having to worry about what happens to all of those leftover horribly broken mods (lookin at you multishot).

So discussion is essentialy moot, but feel free to add to this until they're actually gone, more feedback wont hurt anyways.