[A Plea for Change: the Rise of Non-Skill Dependant Weapons and Warframes.]

Well, I see the point of both parties I think, so here are my thoughts, starting from experience. 

I play with a friend who uses the Tonk frequently (when they're not using scattered justice Hek), and My fully built quad-barrel 5k corrosive tigris doesn't stand a chance against his damage. I was really proud when I solo'd my first juggernaut, then another friend came along and just Valk'd one to death in seconds. It can be a little annoying for people who get a little competitive like myself to just let it go when we can't compete on an equipment level.

10 hours ago, Chipputer said:

I don't care what you do in your day to day life. It has no bearing on the game that we're playing.

Games exist to fill a certain function: to entertain and/or engage players. They don't exist in a vacuum, they exist in they players life, and the player brings their experiences in with them. RL is an important part of the players experience that must be taken into account. 

Our friendly neighborhood doctor wants to come home from a hard days work being abused and engage in some skill-based play. To them, that is fun. Someone else might want to come home from a hard days work and just kill a few hundred people with a sea of flames or a wall of black holes (I know I've had days like that). Those people want something different. Both parties deserve to have fun, and they've chosen Warframe as the tool to do that.

So how can DE cater to these two styles? Personally, my favorite suggestion thus far has been:

9 hours ago, Flirk2 said:

I just say let the sniper rifles and bows do about the same amount of damage to a targeted area as a Tonkor, remove the silly penalty on the hip fire accuracy and let shots with punch through ignore the nullifier bubble. That would be the true nod to precision weapons. Not nerfing the AOE into the ground.

Ideally, a casual player should still be able to experience most of the content of a game, whereas a skilled or dedicated player should see their skill or dedication pay off. I'm fine with letting Excal sit back and butcher entire squads they can't even see. I still love taking Mag into a Corpus mission when I've had a rough day. But there needs to be the ability for skill builds to offer something that "devices" can't. It doesn't need to be objectively better, it just needs to excel in enough areas to actually let them feel like their presence was necessary.

But another important point was mentioned near the top, which I can't seem to locate at the moment. They basically said "we should be adressing the underlying question of WHY so many players are using the cheesy devices". And the answer seems to be that if they want to efficiently get the best gear, there are only 2 or 3 very similar missions they can run to get there. That's what really needs to be addressed (though maaaaaaybe the Tonkors damage or ammo does need to come down a tad, it's pretty crazy). Greater variety in mission type, enemies whose difficulty does not stem from their health or damage (the Kavats are a cool example, and the Rathuum executioners were pretty cool though they did suffer from having massive damage and HP).

Crud, I wrote too much again. TL;DR both skill and "device" playstyles should be catered for, skill should be able to offer some role that devices don't, and vice-versa. Underlying causes for a large device-using section of the community need to be adressed (namely the need to farm the same mission and bullet sponge enemies).

There's no need to attack other peoples play style or character here. As a certain Corpus might say, "Let's work together, to build a brighter future."