Should Weapons Be Competitive End-Game Or All Of Them Unqiue And Different?

[Niryco]

Warframe is getting weapons every few weeks for the past year, the amount of weaponry within the game is close to 150 weapons or more, I can't be entirely certain.

 

1.) Should the balancing of all weapons be pursued? to balance out all these weapons making them all equal, so simply that all player can use any weapon for end-game content, which means every weapon can have a purpose in-game.

 

If weapons are kept lacking and made not capable for end-game, the general community would ignore them and players who use these weapons would believe that they have no role within the game, some weapons include our dear snipers, from the Vulkar, vectis and even at times the lanka. This means these weapons are useless and deserve to be removed since what is the point of them when they are so niche and have no use at all in end-game content?

 

2.)However would keeping all the weapons balance simply make all 140 weapons just re-stats of one another, or worse just re-skins?

 

There are weapons that are currently lacking such as the braton prime or the Glaxion and people are asking it to be buffed to be pushed up closer to the "normal weapons" region, such as braton prime and all other prime weapons to be on par with the boltor prime, but wouldn't that make them all different models of a boltor prime? In that sense would we be using unique weapons or weapons that are different in plain numbers?

 

3.) As players which should be traded for and decided upon? Should we have weapons that are unique, or, Should we allow all weapons to compete equally end-game wise?

 

Can we have both you may ask, well attempts at this usually fail such as the launcher ammo nerf, where they still retain their unqiueness and are balanced, but in general all those in the receiving end of the nerfs feels it is unjustified and simply too harsh. Many other buffs and nerfs have done the same, and they would never come to a general consensus, so let's make the middle ground clear as to what we are aiming for in terms of weapons in warframe, about whether we want unique weapons or competitive end-game weapons.

 

You can only pick one or the other, not both or neither. Discuss!

Edited August 31, 2014 by Jacate

[Yazeth]

Both end game AND unique. It's a goid choice, since it gives a lot of players more variety while still give that powerful feeling that some players enjoy.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Yazeth

[AdunSaveMe]

b-but

 

My braton prime is strong D:

[Jahadaya]

You know, this is always a hard topic to decide about.

 

On one hand, we could have more weapon variety, but they would be just plain re-skins (Takes out the fun if everything is OP).

 

On the other, we could have just a couple top tier weapons, and people mainly using those. But it adds more fun because there's the added challenge of using some not so OP weapons (Soma, Boltor Prime)

 

What I say, is that we should get a mix of the two. We have several (more than we currently have) top tier weapons. But instead of just having them in certain categories (Dragon Nikana -katana, Dakra Prime - long sword, but no heavy melee of equal footing. Same goes with rifles)

 

We have some ""God Tier" weapons in each category that are all equal to eachother. And then we have some mid-lower grade ones.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Jahadaya

[BrotherIcarus]

In a PvE game having all weapons be equal would not be good, variety is better than equality.  Plus most weapons in the game can work in end game with the right builds. 

[Kalenath]

You know, this is always a hard topic to decide about. On one hand, we could have more weapon variety, but they would be just plain re-skins (Takes out the fun if everything is OP). On the other, we could have just a couple top tier weapons, and people mainly using those.

 

There are arguments both ways as has been said.

 

Reskinning Boltor Prime to take the place of everything else won't work. Yes, it is insanely powerful but it gets boring. I forma-ed my Burston Prime again simply to have something different.

 

Then we have the 'OMG IT IS DIFFERENT SO IT HAS TO SUCK' crowd. The less said about that the better. Too many threads going there already.

 

PvE games thrive on people having choices. Any weapon in this game CAN be viable IF you mod it properly and play to it's strengths. This is not always easy. But some of us love a challenge.

 

I know one player who JUST uses the MK-1 Braton. He has forma-ed it 8 times. He gets all the others, masters them and sells them. That is little much for me. (He DOES have different sidearms and melee weapons, but only uses the MK-1 Braton as a rifle and he is BADA$$ with it.)

 

I personally would like to see different weapons. Weapons that don't JUST hit the target and do 'x' amount of damage. The Glaxion isn't perfect but it is fun (Haven't even forma-ed mine and with a 43% status chance per second? Things freeze nicely!) That is a step in the direction I would like to see. The Nukor likewise. But not everyone wants what I do.

 

That is part of the fun here. Not everyone has to do the same thing, the same way. Not everyone has to carry Boltor Prime./ Orthos Prime/Whatever Prime is Flavor of The Week this week.

 

It's fun to mix and match. To see how things work. Or don't sometimes.

 

And it is supposed to be about having fun, yes?

Edited August 31, 2014 by Kalenath

[Niryco]

Both end game AND unique. It's a goid choice, since it gives a lot of players more variety while still give that powerful feeling that some players enjoy.

This would not solve any problem when deciding on both, simply because there will always be two sides of the arguement and when a weapon does change(buff or nerf) no one likes it and that weapons would be forgotten with time, this has happened to so many weapons like the ballistica, sicarus, kraken,spectra maybe even the flux rifle and alot more other guns.

 

The desire to choose both is a fools error, it is firstly too hard to do and it does not do all weapons any good simply because once new content is released weapon changes will be pushed back, like how alot of the launcher changes happened 6 months after they were implemented, snipers are even worse and it provides to imbalance within the game for longer periods of time which affects the general player satisfaction value.

 

Also it would start to lead to players wanting updates filled purely with fixes, and this would split the developers priorities even more and lag updates even more and therefore worsening majority of the player's satisfaction to an even greater degree. As such choosing both means you don't mind making others unhappy with changes that will never satisfy everybody. If we are more firm in this decision making process, lesser people would be upset and therefore even if there are people unhappy, they would not be unhappy for longer periods of time and made to wait on false hope.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Jacate

[Jahadaya]

There are arguments both ways as has been said.

 

Reskinning Boltor Prime to take the place of everything else won't work. Yes, it is insanely powerful but it gets boring. I forma-ed my Burston Prime again simply to have something different.

 

Then we have the 'OMG IT IS DIFFERENT SO IT HAS TO SUCK' crowd. The less said about that the better. Too many threads going there already.

 

PvE games thrive on people having choices. Any weapon in this game CAN be viable IF you mod it properly and play to it's strengths. This is not always easy. But some of us love a challenge.

 

I know one player who JUST uses the MK-1 Braton. He has forma-ed it 8 times. He gets all the others, masters them and sells them. That is little much for me. (He DOES have different sidearms and melee weapons, but only uses the MK-1 Braton as a rifle and he is BADA$$ with it.)

 

I personally would like to see different weapons. Weapons that don't JUST hit the target and do 'x' amount of damage. The Glaxion isn't perfect but it is fun (Haven't even forma-ed mine and with a 43% status chance per second? Things freeze nicely!) That is a step in the direction I would like to see. The Nukor likewise. But not everyone wants what I do.

 

That is part of the fun here. Not everyone has to do the same thing, the same way. Not everyone has to carry Boltor Prime./ Orthos Prime/Whatever Prime is Flavor of The Week this week.

 

It's fun to mix and match. To see how things work. Or don't sometimes.

 

And it is supposed to be about having fun, yes?

I edited my post as it wasn't done (wanted to post quickly huehuehue), ya should read it :D

[Kalenath]

I edited my post as it wasn't done (wanted to post quickly huehuehue), ya should read it :D

 

Right. Good points.

 

There are weapons that are not as good at things as others. Heavy melee stand out, as you said. But I still use my 4 Forma Fragor occasionally, because every so often, I just want to put the hammer down.

 

FROST SMASH!

Edited August 31, 2014 by Kalenath

[Niryco]

You know, this is always a hard topic to decide about.

 

On one hand, we could have more weapon variety, but they would be just plain re-skins (Takes out the fun if everything is OP).

 

On the other, we could have just a couple top tier weapons, and people mainly using those. But it adds more fun because there's the added challenge of using some not so OP weapons (Soma, Boltor Prime)

 

What I say, is that we should get a mix of the two. We have several (more than we currently have) top tier weapons. But instead of just having them in certain categories (Dragon Nikana -katana, Dakra Prime - long sword, but no heavy melee of equal footing. Same goes with rifles)

 

We have some ""God Tier" weapons in each category that are all equal to eachother. And then we have some mid-lower grade ones.

What you are saying isn't a balance option but a unique weapons because weapons are split according to tiers of usefulness for each weapon catergory. This means all weapons would be different statically and there would be an upgrade path to which each catergory would have that no. 1 best weapon.

[Metalarcher]

If the devs have not changed their minds, I heard in a livestream they wanted to pursue tiers of weapons.  Meaning:  if you can buy the weapon on the market outright it should probably be lowest-tier.  If you can buy the bp but need to farm parts, it's moved up a tier.  If you need to research the bp in a dojo or find it in the void or farm it from stalker, harvester, or G3, it should probably be at max.  Weapons you can get through bosses like the Miter should probably have some exception to fit them in depending on how hard they are to get.  At least I would imagine that's how DE wants weapon tiers to work, because it makes the most sense.  More effort/time = better weapon.  After all, who wants to be able to buy the best weapon for 20,000 credits from the market?  It would make all other weapons extraneous.  Which isn't to say that no one would use them, but there's a conflict between "it took forever to get this weapon, and now that I have it it's awesome!" and "it didn't take very long to get this weapon, and now that I have it it's awesome!"

 

There are plenty of weapons that work the same way already, so balancing all the weapons almost certainly would create a feeling of reskinned/restatted weapons.  i.e. Twin Gremlins and Akbolto (one is semi-auto, the other is full-auto) and Boltor and Attica (both automatic bolt weapons, one with a higher fire rate).  So tiers are probably a good move.  Not to mention if DE does plan to incorporate more conclave rating-based missions as in the tactical alerts, every weapon would be viable in the sense that if you need to lower your conclave rating, you'll still be getting the most bang for your buck.

 

However, I will add that something needs to be changed about the way weapons are "tiered" now, because (and this is the argument I always come back to) I can buy a Penta BP on the marketplace and get a WMD in a can, but I have to jump through a dozen hoops to get a Spectra, and it's basically a glorified flashlight.

[Niryco]

If the devs have not changed their minds, I heard in a livestream they wanted to pursue tiers of weapons.  Meaning:  if you can buy the weapon on the market outright it should probably be lowest-tier.  If you can buy the bp but need to farm parts, it's moved up a tier.  If you need to research the bp in a dojo or find it in the void or farm it from stalker, harvester, or G3, it should probably be at max.  Weapons you can get through bosses like the Miter should probably have some exception to fit them in depending on how hard they are to get.  At least I would imagine that's how DE wants weapon tiers to work, because it makes the most sense.  More effort/time = better weapon.  After all, who wants to be able to buy the best weapon for 20,000 credits from the market?  It would make all other weapons extraneous.  Which isn't to say that no one would use them, but there's a conflict between "it took forever to get this weapon, and now that I have it it's awesome!" and "it didn't take very long to get this weapon, and now that I have it it's awesome!"

 

There are plenty of weapons that work the same way already, so balancing all the weapons almost certainly would create a feeling of reskinned/restatted weapons.  i.e. Twin Gremlins and Akbolto (one is semi-auto, the other is full-auto) and Boltor and Attica (both automatic bolt weapons, one with a higher fire rate).  So tiers are probably a good move.  Not to mention if DE does plan to incorporate more conclave rating-based missions as in the tactical alerts, every weapon would be viable in the sense that if you need to lower your conclave rating, you'll still be getting the most bang for your buck.

 

However, I will add that something needs to be changed about the way weapons are "tiered" now, because (and this is the argument I always come back to) I can buy a Penta BP on the marketplace and get a WMD in a can, but I have to jump through a dozen hoops to get a Spectra, and it's basically a glorified flashlight.

Well that is a more akin to unique weapons option in that case.

[Sloan441]

Seeing as the end game is primarily farming up the new stuff, I'm really not seeing a problem with things as they are.

 

I use a lot of what are regarded as mid-tier weapons every day because they're perfectly adequate for the job (and I like them).

 

If the mission calls for long term survival, then the big guns come out. If not, there are any number of other weapons perfectly capable of getting the job done.

 

Mission drives the gear train.