Could You Try And Tackle That Big Cow First? - Removing Serration

[Innocent_Flower]

Or was it a pig? It was an animal I'm sure;  I was watching the devstream and the devs began talking about weapon balancing. Particularly of note was serration (and by extension point strike, hornet strike and probably point blank), and how it'd mean having to take on enemy scaling and so on at the same time.

 

I got excited hearing this; I'm sick of loosing all build variety because I need the most objectively powerful weapon for a mission, or sick of having to nerf myself for the slightest of challenge in a  lower level mission. So, Being the benevolent bastard I am, I came up with too many problems and solutions I can for this conundrum (because we all know how bad DE are with oversights)

 

 

 

Query- The people have already invested in serration/hornet strike/point blank/P-Point blank/pressure point

Problem- It takes a lot of effort to make high level versions of these mods (except for pressure point). So you can't remove them.

Problem- Grandfathering them In like arcane helmets would be problematic, because it'd create a giant rift between players, and the mods would still be widespread as they are tradable and in large quantities.

Solution 1- Cores and credit replacement. 

Solution 2-Replace mods with the new versions

Problem with solution 2; If there are multiple versions of what replaces these mods, how do you get the right one?

Solution to problem with solution 2: Keep the mods, but make them unequipable. Then, Change mod transmutation so that specific combinations of mods will always make another mod (with the level of the the main sacrifice in this level) so that players can easily transmute the item they like. 

 

 

 

Query- If you take out Serrration/hornet strike/point blank/pressure point players are still going to stack +damage for the best builds.

Problem- Multishot

Problem-Elemental damages

Possible problem- Crit damage. 

 

Multishot solution

Have multishot a unique thing for each weapon category.

Semi auto- turns gun into burst fire weapon. Imagine a latron thinking he's a burston. 

Automatic rifles- Not sure. Change the firemode perhaps? Widen the cone? 

Shotgun/machinegun- Widens the cone of damage (though not reducing or increasing the damage in any particular area) Allowing you to kill people you'd normaly have missed. 

Explosives- Split projectiles into parts and shooting them off either as a single spray or as a burst.

Bows: Fire a second arrow at a second enemy near to the one you're aiming at

 

Elemental damage Solution 1- Cap the amount of elemental/extra physical damages you can put on a weapon

Elemental damage solution 2- Have these mods convert, rather than add to, damage.

Elemental damage solution 3 (this one please) don't have elemental mods add elemental damage to each shot, but rather increase the likelyhood and severity of each status proc (Minor burns versus the fires of hell) The severity will also be affected by the base damage of the weapon (so no grakata master-race)

 

 

 

Query-  If DE do this, and super awesome players do less damage, doesn't that bring me down so that I'm more comparable to lower ranked players even though I'm MR15+, have over eight hundred hours and all the prime weapons and such a thing shouldn't happen cause I've earned my op? 

 

Answer: If you want to be OP, aren't they making an easy mode for you? Are difficulty modes going to be a thing? Or you could play on earth and mercury. 

 

Answer: A series of smaller upgrades to weapons Is still a huge increase. Look at warframes; You can times your health by about five (more for some frames) and modify your abilities in such a way that although you don't become god-like (usually) you still have a huge advantage over newer players and the enemy. Weapons should become more like that. With the way damage scales in warframe; it's impossible to balance. It also limits your ability to customise your weapons; I want a latron for 40 minute survival that reloads fast with a huge clip and has lots of punchthrough with only one elemental element- I can't do that because I need damage more than those things; In most other games Fast reloads and bigger clip sizes and statuses and handling and so on would be the difference between a good gun and a bad one. 

 

Edit:

Query- Why this first? If you reduce the amount of damage mods we use

 

Answer- Balance becomes easier for DE, as having less huge multipliers to obscure the true values of items

 

Answer- Maybe DE could focus on harder, more skill based enemies at high level, instead of the same guys with higher values.  Something that would certainly benefit infinite game-modes. 

 

Answer- Better sort this out before raids that require huge balancing efforts on their own.

 

Query- But if this happens then enemies become huge bullet sponges or...

 

Answer- No they don't. This'd go hand in hand with a re-balancing of enemy scaling.  

 

 

 

EDIT: the other possitive changes this would allow

Removing serration and making mods more than just +damage =Customisation. Rather than instant kills we could have 

 

-A more in depth Status Proc system (because there's no point in one if everything dies instantly)

-More gun customisation. Don't like a particular part of a gun? You're not forced to ignore it for more damage per shot. 

 

- Better AI could be a thing, because it wouldn't be wasted in single shots of a full auto. 

- More interesting enemy design in general, because that effort wouldn't be wasted against instant-kill full auto. 

- More teamwork, because there's no 'one player instakilling everything with his gun so the rest can carry on'. 

 

 

 

Ah, I remember when many were against removing ability mod cards altogether (I think I even wrote a thread or two advocating their removal) But that turned out for the best, right? 

 

Trust me™

Edited January 11, 2015 by Innocent_Flower

[rechot]

I like my serration and this new solution would take up more mod card spots causeing you to lose a entire mod so no

[Izial]

I Like where this is going , Too many people rely heavily on Straight Damage mods It breaks build variety in favor of just a single setup. There is no denying that everyone Runs Serration/Splitchamber on virtually every weapon they obtain I personally think Solution 1 is a simple solution to a major problem. return whatever they invested into maxing that mod and get it out . Warframe isn't balanced in the least bit so i look forward to this year and hope to see some Big Changes.

[Llyssa]

I always wonder what people mean when they demand there be more variety in weapon builds. Exactly what kind of variety are we talking about here? I mean, I've never heard anyone asking that my braton be able to fire rockets or nets.... what do you mean?

[Repligon]

I would suggest leaving Serration and other sraight damage mods and give them a special energy-free slot. Now Serration is still rewards you for investing in it and as a bonus you can take fresh guns to highter rank misssions without waiting untill you can fit damage mods in it. Corrupted mods like heavy caliber give greater damage boost but occupy that slot too (so you can't use both).

 

Split chaimer can also eat multiple bullets. You exchane ammo efficiency for DPS.

 

And of cource enemy damage resistance scaling will have to be toned down.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Repligon

[Sangad]

I dont see how changing the mods will help with re-balancing the weapons. If you change the mods without changing weapons' stats, a useless weapon is still useless 

Edited January 10, 2015 by Sangad

[Sasquatchias]

I dont see how changing the mods will help with re-balancing the weapons. If you change the mods without changing weapons' stats, a useless weapon is still useless 

 

Changing the mods to be less powerful will lead to a much clearer view of each weapon's performance, allowing DE to better balance individual weapons better. 

 

Right now there is a fair amount of issues with trying to balance weapons for all levels of content due to the fact that players can raise their damage up to the thousands, obliterating anything that isn't something that spawned after 30 minutes in a Tier 4 Survival.

 

 

I always wonder what people mean when they demand there be more variety in weapon builds. Exactly what kind of variety are we talking about here? I mean, I've never heard anyone asking that my braton be able to fire rockets or nets.... what do you mean?

 

One example I suppose would be using mods like Hawk Eye or Eagle Eye instead of Barrel Diffusion or other pure damage mods to allow the weapons to play as a more long-range role (like modding your pistol as a long range status support gun and using your shotgun or rifle for when enemies get too close.)

[Llyssa]

Changing the mods to be less powerful will lead to a much clearer view of each weapon's performance, allowing DE to better balance individual weapons better. 

 

Right now there is a fair amount of issues with trying to balance weapons for all levels of content due to the fact that players can raise their damage up to the thousands, obliterating anything that isn't something that spawned after 30 minutes in a Tier 4 Survival.

 

 

 

One example I suppose would be using mods like Hawk Eye or Eagle Eye instead of Barrel Diffusion or other pure damage mods to allow the weapons to play as a more long-range role (like modding your pistol as a long range status support gun and using your shotgun or rifle for when enemies get too close.)

"The game is balanced, so we need to nerf mods to unbalance it, so it can be balanced." <.<

 

Your example is odd, and is a design issue--the game doesn't have much in the way of long-ranged combat because of how the maps and AI are designed. It's possible to play LR, but not particularly rewarding. Only using pure damage mods isn't really a useful weapon strategy.

[Monolake]

Why?

 

What do you win by removing Serrtion? A single mod slot.  And this slot will be taken by another damage mod. What difference does it make? 

What do you lose? Long-term progress. And weapon damage will still be dependant on damge mods, but more on RNG of getting all those other  mods.

 

Tink about it. Its a change for nothing really.

[Monolake]

And Il repeat the same thing I said a year ago: want less 'mandatory mods' and more build variety?  Get rid of multi-shot first,  not base damage mods.

 

If you want to force people into using utiliy mods - make utiliy-only slots.

 

But first of all - balance the mods.  But this falls on deaf ears for over a year. There are still many many plain inferior and downright useless mods. And DE only keeps on adding more useless ones. 

Edited January 10, 2015 by Monolake

[ZukaBazuka]

But Multi shot do add a massive bonus to the damage. Its a unique mod too. The other mods are pretty much standard mods you find in any game. Taking away multi shot just because its one of the mandatory mods is kind of a bad move.

[NezuHimeSama]

Honestly, I think my marelok would still do pretty well even if it did only 300 or so damage total across the 2.8 shots.

People obsess over straight damage, but it doesn't scale for S#&amp;&#036;, and even with a full corrosive projection party, it's often more effective to use proc weapons or support skills over straight damage builds.

 

Honestly, a lot of the popular builds(heavy cal on boltor for example) really aren't all that great. Hugely overrated, and totally outclassed by cheaper, easier builds.(vile acceleration, for example, results in higher dps than heavy cal as well as making the weapon more effective at range. Combine with increased clip size and an elemental affinity for the hardest mobs in the area you're going to, ex rad for bombards, and it shreds through them like nothing while still being effective against most enemies)

 

I kind of like the variety in builds, and while replacing serration/hornet strike with primed serration/primed hornet strike, and introducing new R5 serration/hornet strike mods would be a welcome change, straight damage really is totally overrated.

I mean, hey, look at Ember. All the straightforward, basic damage, for all the good it does. Accelerant + WOF just isn't enough.

[LABAL]

Turn both serration and split chamber into a stance/aura analog for primary weapons, mutually exclusive. Problem solved.

One would be better at straight damage, while the other would be better at crits and procs. Diversity.

Edited January 10, 2015 by LABAL

[Azawarau]

The day false choice mods are reduced to only 1 or 2 is the day utility mods actually have a meaning

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

Why?

 

What do you win by removing Serrtion? A single mod slot.  And this slot will be taken by another damage mod. What difference does it make? 

What do you lose? Long-term progress. And weapon damage will still be dependant on damge mods, but more on RNG of getting all those other  mods.

 

Tink about it. Its a change for nothing really.

I imagine this is why the OP proposed tweaks for all those other damage mods...

[EvilChaosKnight]

I think OP went from the wrong end of the problem here.

Mods serve the purpose of dealing with enemy scaling in levels. If lvl 1 lancer has 100 hitpoints, then why would lvl 30 one have several thousands? Now if said guy had 100 at lvl 1 and, say 840 at lvl 30 (that's lvl 30 frame with maxed vitality and 100 starting health) + no increase in armor numbers, that would actually be a lot more fair which would remove any need in stacking up thousands worth of DPS.

 

My solution to the power levels and such is in fact rather opposite from what OP is suggesting.

1. Make enemy scaling less bs as mentioned above. Reduce the spawnrate and tweak all the drop rates accordingly. Keep their damage scaling per level the same or even buff it slightly.

2. Cap enemy max level at, say, 40. On survivals just start throwing more enemies at players once level cap is reached.

3. Keep damange and multi-shot mods. Buff them if weapons are going too weak because...

4. Make elementals replace the % of damage, not add up more.

This way low-end enemies become tougher while high-end mobs grow weaker in terms of durability.

 

Oh and a side note. Removing damage mods will not help or hamper the weapon balancing. They have base stats, and every mod works with the base stats. Lvl 0 Boltor Pr is better than lvl 0 mk1-Braton. Crit weapons might look like an exception but most of them require you to have crit mods to unlock their full potential properly.

 

Oh and excuse me for giggling at this part

In most other games Fast reloads and bigger clip sizes and statuses and handling and so on would be the difference between a good gun and a bad one. 

In games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and etc enemies actually die in 1 to 8 hits from any weapon. Your character there won't live for much longer as well if exposed to enemy fire. Warframe is completely different in this regard. Lvl 0 Lato or MK1 Braton will take quite some time to muder even lvl 1 lancer. Closest thing I can think of in regards to Warfame's genre is Third-person Shooter RPG.

Like any RPG it's supposed to have a sense of progression. Which in turns makes starting/low-level areas extremely easy after getting stuff from the high-level zones. Similar games which come in mind are Borderlands series or Destiny. Yet I haven't played either so it's hard for me to say much about them but something tells me that in those games you need DPS over handling/clip size as well. 

[blackstraykitten]

-snip-

 

Split chaimer can also eat multiple bullets. You exchane ammo efficiency for DPS.

 

-snip-

 

split chamber bullets are free bullets

pls think before you speak

[Sangad]

split chamber bullets are free bullets

pls think before you speak

 

I think you didnt understand what he meant. He suggested to change split chamber so it consumes the ammo

[Innocent_Flower]

 

Oh and excuse me for giggling at this part

In games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and etc enemies actually die in 1 to 8 hits from any weapon. Your character there won't live for much longer as well if exposed to enemy fire. Warframe is completely different in this regard. Lvl 0 Lato or MK1 Braton will take quite some time to muder even lvl 1 lancer. Closest thing I can think of in regards to Warfame's genre is Third-person Shooter RPG.

Have you played halo/gears of war/Killing floor/payday/dues ex/ several other examples... 

 

But, I thank an opposing argument who's read the OP.

[Kaisty]

I think you didnt understand what he meant. He suggested to change split chamber so it consumes the ammo

Oh he understood it clearly. Split chamber and other mods like it give us a chance for a free extra round per shot. To change it where it actually uses two rounds per shot would lead to some weapons not using the mods due to extremely high ammo consumption.

[Taranis49]

One example I suppose would be using mods like Hawk Eye or Eagle Eye instead of Barrel Diffusion or other pure damage mods to allow the weapons to play as a more long-range role (like modding your pistol as a long range status support gun and using your shotgun or rifle for when enemies get too close.)

 

As noted, there simply isn't that much long-range combat ingame where things like increased zoom are actually desirable. Even in the largest, most open maps, there's barely a hundred meters between you and a target. Not only are they situational mods, the situation in which they'd be handy almost never occurs.

 

"The game is balanced, so we need to nerf mods to unbalance it, so it can be balanced." <.<

 

Your example is odd, and is a design issue--the game doesn't have much in the way of long-ranged combat because of how the maps and AI are designed. It's possible to play LR, but not particularly rewarding. Only using pure damage mods isn't really a useful weapon strategy.

 

Eh, depending on the weapon, going pure damage gets you farther than most mods do. Best way to reduce the time spent reloading? Increase damage. Best way to increase ammunition economy? Ditto.

 

Biggest exception being the odd punch-through mod, but that's it and for some of the most popular weapons (e.g. Boltor Prime) they have an innate form of it or a close enough facsimile such as physics impact.

 

Even crit-building in the cases of weapons where it's preferable they tend to simply act as pure damage mods.

[Innocent_Flower]

Oh he understood it clearly. Split chamber and other mods like it give us a chance for a free extra round per shot. To change it where it actually uses two rounds per shot would lead to some weapons not using the mods due to extremely high ammo consumption.

and thats... a problem, somehow? 

 

No, I didn't mean all weapons with multishot would use more than one round, unless I said burstfire on non-projectile weapons. that'd use multiple shots.

[BlutAdler]

I like the idea of a single mod having different effects on different weapons. Much like firestorm while yes it just "increases explosion radius" It has different effects for weapons with different mechanics with generally the same concept. If serration and multi-shot had these changes it would be a very cool change to the game.

 

As if your are truly modifying/augmenting your weapon to tailor it to you.

 

I imagine it would take a great deal of conversation thought before it could actually happen. 

[LtZefar]

Why are people acting like these Utility mods are worth messing up the entire damage tables for?

 

They just add some boring stats.

 

Faster reload

More bullets

More bullets in magazine

Faster shooting

Make less noise

 

Did I forget some other boring ones?

 

Multishot is a utility mod. It makes you shoot two bullets. Yes this does increase damage but that isn't an issue. So why do we need to mess up the damage tables for these boring mods? :/

[Llyssa]

Why are people acting like these Utility mods are worth messing up the entire damage tables for?

 

They just add some boring stats.

 

Faster reload

More bullets

More bullets in magazine

Faster shooting

Make less noise

 

Did I forget some other boring ones?

 

Multishot is a utility mod. It makes you shoot two bullets. Yes this does increase damage but that isn't an issue. So why do we need to mess up the damage tables for these boring mods? :/

I actually use all of your "boring" mods to amazing results. <.< So I'm not even really sure where there's a problem.