(XBOX)Avant Solace
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Posts posted by (XBOX)Avant Solace
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So this is something kinda petty, but bugs me to no end. Excalibur Umbra seems to have clipping issues with his scarf and chest armor. If the scarf piece would hang over armor pieces instead of clipping through them, that'd be ideal.
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I kinda have to agree. While Umbra is a beautiful Frame, his distinct Orokin (East Asian) design often clashes with base Excalibur's more generic/western design/skins. Having his "Umbra" parts toggle-able would vastly improve his fashion potential.
Side note: Thoughts on making his Radial Howl into a Radial Blind when Umbra details are off?
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(Not sure if this is too sensitive, but whatever...)
What is the main cause of the hiccup between Tennogen on consoles with the introduction of the Switch? Was it a mainly technical issue or a mainly legal issue?
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Really "Mandatory Mods" are simply a symptom of a bigger problem: Enemy scaling is far too dramatic.
If you take a weapon built to push through sorties to pretty much any node before Pluto and you will one-shot everything. The majority of enemies at the start of the game will rarely have over 300 EH (Effective Heath), but almost anything past level 30 will have well over 3000 EH. Get to level 100 and even the common peons will be pushing past 90,000 EH. Naturally the only way to combat such a scale is to dramatically scale up weapons to compete. A gun that does 50 damage a shot? Cram as many damage and status mods as you can so you can dish out 5000 damage a shot.
We become gods and then complain that we no longer bleed.
Ideally there should be a system where enemies have a similar overall time-to-kill regardless of level, so long the player's items are of similar or higher level. That way players will build more for consistent DPS and better feel rather than raw damage. "Mandatory Mods" could still exist in this model, but in a heavily nerfed form that may only prove situationally better rather than a universal upgrade.
Really there is no easy fix. DE can patch things here and there, but the only way they will ever see an end to these debates is to totally overhaul the scaling systems.
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1 minute ago, (XB1)Mr Spwinkles said:
Bruh, failed??? She's one of three frames that strip armor like a hot knife through butter. She is the better version of CP (corrosive projection), now the entire team can run PD (power donation) which is far better than cp in late game content.
That's a different discussion in itself. While I've raised ire over the leveling of armor, it has little influence over how Warframes themselves act on the defensive side.
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This is just a wild idea I thought up a while back. Basically its a Warframe inspired from the Irish hero "Cu Chulainn", also sometimes known as Irish Hercules. Basically Cu Chulainn (born Setanta) is renowned for having unbelievable tenacity so much so that even while dying his enemies were afraid to approach. As such, it makes sense to make a sort of "defensive berserker" off his design.
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Base stats (level 30):
- Health: 400
- Shield: 50
- Armor: 500
- Energy: 200
- Passive: "Tenacity" Setanta will stop lethal damage by draining energy with 50% efficiency.
- Ability 1: "Hound's Roar" Deal an Impact and Puncture proc to all enemies in range. Setanta gains temporary health regeneration for each enemy afflicted.
- Ability 2: "Protection of Spirits" Grant increased armor while also vastly improving Setanta's "Evasion" stat (Evasion determines how accurate enemies are when targeting the Warframe).
- Ability 3: "Druid Rune" Place a charged rune on a surface. Enemies that pass by this rune will experience Heat damage with high proc chances until the charge is depleted (only afflicting enemies depletes the charge). Likewise place the rune on an enemy. Afflicted enemies will run in a fiery panic and set other nearby enemies on fire.
- Ability 4: "Riastraad" Setanta enters a bererker frenzy. Armor value and all weapon damage is greatly increased, but Setanta slowly loses health. Enemies killed while channeling Riastraad have a greatly increased chance to drop health and energy orbs.
Signature weapon: Gabolg. A stave (spear) weapon that deals heavy slash damage and moderate puncture damage. While its base damage is lacking, its high critical and status values make it deadly with the proper build. Unique effect: When wielded by Setanta, aerial attacks will throw the stave and home onto the targeted enemy with +300% critical chance.
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Base stats (level 30):
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Now before anything else is said: This is NOT a cry to bring back Excalibur Prime. That ship sailed, sunk, got raised back, set on fire, and decomposed by the briny deep. However, this does address one little nugget regarding the topic.
Since nearly the beginning of Warframe DE has always held this promise: While cosmetics may be one-time deals, actual gameplay items will always return in some fashion. This can be seen with items the Braton Vandal, Snipetron, vaulted Primes, etc. This is done mainly because of how Warframe's leveling system works. In order to achieve higher Mastery Rank (MR), one must master more weapons and Warframes. If a weapon is eternally locked away, then players that missed out on that item would never have a chance to reach the current maximum MR. But now there is a problem... Three items with MR value and actually unique gameplay stats are in fact locked away indefinitely. These items are Excalibur Prime, Lato Prime, and Skana Prime.
So now we have the conundrum of how can DE honor both their desire to always allow fair MR opportunity while also keeping these three items exclusive to the Founders? My proposition: Add an item to "simulate" these Primes.
I call this item "Primer". Similar to Forma, it is added to a compatible item to modify its values and behave itself as though it actually was the Prime item. Excalibur, Lato, and Skana would become "Primed" Excalibur, "Primed" Lato, and "Primed" Skana. They would behave, both in MR and gameplay stats, as their primed counterparts but would not gain any cosmetic addition. By doing this, Founders can still have their "trophy" as being an exclusive cosmetic (and unique name), but the average player can now catch up to them in MR.
I even thought up a bit of lore behind the "Primer": Most Primes were safely sealed away when the Orokin fell, but the oldest of the Tenno's Orokin artistry was lost to the ages. Indeed only the most devout Tenno were able to hold and maintain these relics throughout the centuries. Through great research and effort a way to approximate the power of these lost crafts were found. Using this Primer on a compatible item will infuse it with the Orokin tech needed to function similar to its lost Prime.
Thoughts?
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2 hours ago, OvisCaedo said:
Mmm. This is another one of those situations where options exist for the issue in game, but also many of them are so absurd that they'll heal you from nothing to full in seconds or less. But until you have them, it just kind of feels bad, and health orbs have a horrible drop rate.
...Oh. Which, actually, is probably what I'd think they should address instead of adding slight passive regen: just make health orbs drop more.
Health Orbs are almost a discussion of their own. Basically relics of the earliest builds, they don't heal much (a meager 25 hp) and their drops are rather inconsistent for how many are needed to actually heal.
Just spitballing here, but it health orbs could go one of two ways: they stay relatively uncommon but heal a good chunk of health (like a medical kit in other games), or they continue to provide relatively little health but drop much more plentifully. Likewise there could be "scaled drops" where health orbs become more common the more damaged the player gets. Really its worthy of a thread in itself.
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2 hours ago, NightmareT12 said:
I'm pretty sure back in 2014 someone made a note about how actual katanas worked (and even pointed out that all animations shown up till then were using the sword and sheath in the inverse upside down VS what the actual art is), which the animation team then researched and properly used.
I don't think they're using it improperly.
That was a small but appreciated tweak. The reason katanas are holstered that way is because you literally cannot unsheathe it with the curve facing down (as the angle grinds the blade into the sheath). That said its still just an easy fix on their side.
What the nikanas lack is context-action. The dynamic change in animation based on the recent input. Which is bizarre because DE has all the pieces to finish this puzzle. They have the default nikana animations, sword animations, scripting to adjust relative positioning, and even special "idle" scripts for weapons (like the dual raza); and now they have melee 3.0's fluid auto-swapping to top it off.
Basically a new animation script would work something like this (keep in mind this is insanely dumbed down): Melee pressed > "Draw" attack. Stopped attacking > Sword idle. Attack while in sword idle > standard attack. Remain in sword idle for 10 seconds > activate sheath script. Remain in sheath idle until melee pressed.
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6 hours ago, Loza03 said:
Pretty sure you have this guy to blame:
Vergil is pretty much the posterchild for katana-wielding action game characters (even though many others came before him - DMC3 was hugely influential), and lo and behold he uses his sheath to block things, puts away his sword mid-fight constantly -it's even a gameplay mechanic when you get to use him in the special editions of 3 and 4- and so on and so forth. A lot of people at DE are fans of DMC (Steve in fact used a Vergil gif to tease Melee 2.99) so it's no surprise that they drew influence from him.
That and Iaijutsu - draw, quick attack or series of attacks and resheath - is a real martial art.
All that having been said I would be very partial to something like this, at least for Decisive Judgement which is very clearly based off of Kenjutsu, not Iaijutsu. The attack animation for Decisive Judgement doesn't start with a draw attack but a regular strike, so resheathing it every time makes even less sense. I mean, Blind Justice had its own animations for a while (gone now though for some reason) so I don't particularly see why Decisive Judgement couldn't get similar treatment.
Using the sheath as a guard isn't impossible, just improbable. What really bugs me about it is that the Tenno just clips the nikana out the side of the sheath like its no big deal. On top of that they can't seem to decide where to keep the sheath. Is it loosely attached at the waist, or is it on the sword? Could be either/or depending on the animation. There is also the fact that there are options to put the nikana/sheath on the back, but as soon as you use the weapon both are put at the hip. Its an odd sacrifice of both function and rationality for the sake of fashion.
Really though, the martial arts surrounding the katana are much more pronounced and diverse; utilizing speed and elegance more than most other sword techniques. Its an odd thing where if done properly it looks amazing, but done improperly it looks foolish. Sadly Warframe is doing it improperly.
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With the gradual introduction of "Melee 3.0", we are getting the special new feature of "auto-equip melee". This removes the usage of fast-melee in favor of fully drawing out a weapon after the initial strike. Now this opens up an opportunity to fix an animation error that has irritated sword enthusiasts like me for the longest time: The constant sheathing of nikanas after every attack.
The animation of the nikana is based on the real life technique of the "Draw Strike"; as single fluid motion where a katana is drawn from its sheath and used to slash all at once. This motion has many purposes, though mainly it is used to either give a surprise attack or block. They main thing about this technique though is that it is basically a sucker punch; a one-time use. Once the sword is drawn it is to remain drawn until the battle is finished. The Tenno totally ignore this fact as they will immediately sheath their nikana after they are done swinging.
Now with the addition of auto-equip, a slight tweak in programming could readily fix this martial flaw. With the new mechanics, the first auto-equipping strike could be used as a draw strike. After that strike, the idle animation for nikanas would be the same as swords: unsheathed and resting in the hand. This slight redesign would make the animations of nikanas more realistic while still retaining some Tenno flair.
Thoughts?
Other slight nitpick: Scabbards do not make good shields.
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8 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:
Oh yeah, forgot the big one. The Rejuvenation Aura exists.
"You want to heal back the occasional Slash or Toxin proc?"
"Yes?"
"Then slap on this Aura mod. You'll likely need to use a Forma and you won't be able to use any other Auras."
"But... My build needs a different Aura."
"Don't worry. Its for the sake of build diversity!"
Forcing people to shoehorn in equipment just to offset the occasional chip damage is the enemy of build diversity.
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10 hours ago, Nukesnipe said:
I'm really not sure where you're coming from? It got a big buff across the board.
"DE is afraid to make an automatic Tenno rifle with competitive stats."
Soma Prime? Tiberon Prime? Really? That's your argument?
And Stradavar not being good for late game is fine, not every weapon needs to be endgame-level. But even in MR8 weapons, it's sub-par. Soma Prime is MR7 and it's significantly better than Stradavar in every way.
Um... Soma Prime has been getting a ton of flak for being extremely underwhelming. Its regarded as one of the weaker primary Primes currently. Meanwhile Tiberon Prime is viewed as possibly the best primary rifle with its all-round high stats.
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1 minute ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:
There are a handful of weapons that heal, health pads, healing frames, and a sentinel mod. We don’t need to give every Warframe passive healing.
Fair point, but that's just a band-aid solution (pun not intended). Players Shouldn't need to modify their builds just to handle the occasional scuff or toxin. Really this is more for people who are early/mid-game. By late game nearly everyone has the capacity to heal themselves within seconds via arcanes and whatnot.
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We've been in a situation like this before: We're playing with a squishy Warframe (Mag, Nyx, etc) and just got done clearing out a hoard of enemies. You're now low on health and not having any luck getting health orbs; so now you're playing more cautiously. Everything is going fine until a stray Toxin or Slash proc hits you. Your health counts down: 10, 4, 2, DEAD. If only you had on a Rejuvenation aura.
SpoilerReally it doesn't make sense as to why Warframes can't just naturally regenerate health. They're Infested super-humans crammed full of mythologically advanced technology. The fact they can't heal the occasional scrape or ding without outside aid is baffling.
Ideally Warframes should be able to heal themselves at the tiniest of increments. Not enough to actively heal a good chunk of health between fights, but just enough that the occasional flesh wound will patch itself up after a minute or two. Like (+1 hp / 2 sec) or something.
Thoughts?
EDIT: I've been seeing a lot of comments saying it will "make the game too easy". I'm just gonna throw down some math to offset these argument.
The average Warframe has 300 health at rank 30 with no supplemental mods. If they were given health regen of 1hp per 2 seconds, it would take ~10 minutes to fully regenerate their health from near death. I personally cannot think of any situation in which a player would be on the defensive for 10 solid minutes without health orbs dropping. The focus of this entire argument is that small amounts of chip damage should not spell death.
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13 hours ago, Nukesnipe said:
Yes, because let's add a Prime with nothing but a tiny increase to two stats, when the base version of the gun was already deep fried garbage. If they just made "Stradavar but with +5% crit/status chance", nobody would use it, because Stradavar is an awful weapon. Primed, it has great long range damage and good full auto trash clearing. Stradavar already had a thoroughly average magazine size at 65, boosting it to 90 just makes it more functional when firing on full auto. Increasing the reload speed by 0.2 seconds would... basically do nothing. That's a fifth of a second. That's 200 milliseconds. keeping a thoroughly average reload speed with a larger magazine is perfectly acceptable.
I just don't get what your point is. Prime weapons are upgrades to the base versions, maybe sidegrades to other special versions (see Dex Sybaris and Sybaris Prime), so why would you want it to be identical to the base version but with extremely tiny stat increases? It baffles me.
You have to think just how far a couple % can go in this game. +5% crit chance is small on its own, but add in Point Strike and you now have +12.5%. That would bring Stradavar Prime's crit chance to 72.5%. As an auto weapon, that would make it's DPS absolutely devastating.
The thing about the original Stradavar was that it is a rare "Hybrid" automatic Tenno rifle. Most automatic Tenno rifles lean towards status chance, with the few Crit oriented Tenno rifles often being woefully underpowered. The Stradavar was nice purely because it filled a unique niche, but was held back by the fact none of its stats were "competitive" enough for late game. The hope for the Prime version was it would give slight bumps to its damage stats so that it would finally get its competitive value while still staying in its niche. The prime was still, for the most part, in its niche but didn't get as much of a boost as was expected. Its almost like DE is afraid to make an automatic Tenno rifle with competitive stats.
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6 hours ago, Perye said:
Not our fault DE decided to make Tiberon into Stradavar Prime
Huh, didn't think of it like that. Truly if the Tberon Prime was locked to burst-fire (or maybe only given an auto secondary fire instead of all 3), then it wouldn't have beaten out Stradavar's niche. The original Tiberon was basically Crit/hybrid upgrade to the Burston, while the Stradavar was a crit/hybrid upgrade to the Braton. With Tiberon Prime assuming all 3 modes of fire while still having high stats all around, it beat out any competition and parallelization
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34 minutes ago, OmegaZero said:
I guess it’s a matter of perspective. For me the full auto mode feels pretty much the same, but stronger. Sure the semi-auto had the biggest changes but I don’t feel that pushes me to use it over the auto mode at all, especially with the increased ammo consumption of the alt-fire.
I always played Stradavar using the full auto mode to hose down trash while reserving the semi-auto shots for tankier enemies or times when I required high precision. The release of the Prime has done nothing to change my play style in that regard. That all being said, I wouldn’t say no to any buffs to the gun.
Its by no means bad its just... not the upgrade it needed. It didn't need a larger magazine, just small bumps in its crit and status. Its just kinda weird choice is all.
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58 minutes ago, Deadoon said:
Like I said, ignoring it.
Auto feature in the prime is actually more competitive than the original. The original was a rapid light semi auto with a mediocre auto mode, the prime is a good automatic with a specialized slow semi auto. The prime doesn't have a huge emphasis on the semi auto, the semi auto is slower than the original and costs two ammo per shot(it isn't a two round burst, it is literally 2 ammo for a single 80 damage bullet). Full auto is a straight upgrade, semi auto is for when you need a bit more precision and has some innate punchthrough.
Using the build of: Serration, heavy caliber, vital sense, point strike, split chamber, vigilante armaments, primed cryo rounds, infected clip. My big crit hits build.
Base * (1+[damage boosts]) * (1+ [elemental]) * (1 +[multishot]) *(1 + [Base crit chance]*(1+[Crit chance mods])*([Base crit damage] *(1+[Crit damage mods]) -1))
Stradavar prime Full auto 4387 damage per shot.
30 * (1+3.3) * (1+2.55) * (1+1.5) * (1 + .24 * (1+1.5) *( 2.6 *(1+1.2) -1))
Stradavar prime semi auto 14868 damage per shot
80 * (1+3.3) * (1+2.55) * (1+1.5) * (1 + .30 * (1+1.5) *( 2.8 *(1+1.2) -1))
Stradavar original full auto: 3248
28 * (1+3.3) * (1+2.55) * (1+1.5) * (1 + .24 * (1+1.5) *( 2.0 *(1+1.2) -1))
Stradavar original Semi auto: 6449
50 * (1+3.3) * (1+2.55) * (1+1.5) * (1 + .28 * (1+1.5) *( 2.0 *(1+1.2) -1))
As above, the Prime with semi auto deals ~3.39* the damage per shot of full auto, 70% more damage per ammo(costs 2 ammo), and 13% more dps.
The standard Deals ~1.99* damage per shot, 99% more damage per ammo, and .8% less dps.
The standard is more ammo efficient in semi but generally the same, and the prime you get less ammo efficiency, but a bit more dps. The dps here is very much "theoretical" in semi autos because you will not have a perfect tempo. The timing gap to have increased dps over full in the prime is less than 1/20 a second. Also it ignores vigilante set bonus, which benefits semi auto a lot, but only procs every so often so is too inconsistent for my taste.
Its not bad in any real way, it just feels different. The base Stradavar was already a nice balanced weapon. The only things it was relatively weak on was its auto-mode's status and crit values being a little lower than ideal. The bump in Crit damage was a welcome addition, but a tiny bump in status and crit chance would have also been greatly appreciated. Semi-auto mode got a healthy bump in these stats, so why leave out auto mode?
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2 minutes ago, OmegaZero said:
I can understand being disappointed but claiming that the Prime is closer to a sidegrade feels rather hyperbolic. Ignoring the alt fire mode and just looking at the stats that have have been changed, it’s a straight upgrade. I would have liked to see a touch more status, but increased damage/crit damage, accuracy and magazine size without losing any reload speed or fire rate is still a welcome buff.
It is indeed an upgrade, but it comes somewhat of a loss of identity. With the bulk of Prime upgrades it is simply making a weapon into its "ideal self". Braton to Braton Prime hammers out its terrible crit damage but focuses mainly on bumping up its status chance and damage so it can reliably work as a status weapon. Burston to Burston Prime is a direct upgrade of damage values. Tiberon to Prime gives damage, magazine, and reload bumps with a slight reduction in RoF; which works as the original Tiberon already had great base stats.
The key to Primes is that they feel overall the same as their originals. Stradavar Prime oddly doesn't feel quite the same as it puts an odd focus on its semi-auto mode that the original did not.
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1 hour ago, Deadoon said:
Stradavar standard semi auto is half of the main modes fire rate for close to double damage(originally was double damage but has since changed). +78% damage -50% fire rate.
Stradavar prime on the other hand is a third the fire rate with closer to triple the damage, costs two ammo, but you get innate pt. +167% damage, +1M PT, -67% Fire rate, -2 ammo per shot.
Combining with the critical modifications, this is a much more powerful weapon than the original, although mediocre compared to the tiberon's insanity, it's still quite functional. The original was in some sense a subpar semi auto with a mediocre automatic mode attached. This is a powerful(ignoring Tiberon p) automatic rifle for spraying down enemies unusually precisely with the ability to get precise high powered shots off that can get through cover a bit.
The semi auto mode is like a slower, higher cost with pt Latron Prime with a large magazine and fast reloads.
The Tiberon Prime is just an unfair comparison regardless. What bugs me about the Stradavar Prime is that its auto feature got shortchanged during the upgrade. There is a rather significant lack of Tenno brand automatic rifles with decent critical and/or hybrid potential. I, as well as many others, were kinda hoping that the Stradavar Prime would be a saving grace in filling this niche.
Ideally I'd like like to see the following changes:
- +2% critical chance on auto mode.
- +3% status chance on auto.
- Reduce mag back to 60 and just bump up reload to 1.8.
This way it'd feel more like a direct upgrade without being stupidly powerful.
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I know there are already a couple of threads regarding this weapon, but I believe it deserves a proper analysis.
The original Stradavar was something of a hidden treasure. It is a rare automatic rifle that has decent stats all round, making it the Tenno's "Jack of All Trades". Its critical stats were good but not great. Its status chance was good enough to ensure at least 1 proc on an enemy with the proper mods, making it good with non-stacking elements like Viral. With 60 rounds and a 2 second reload, it genuinely felt like a classic assault rifle. And to top it off it put a slight emphasis on Puncture and Impact over Slash, making it somewhat more useful against both armor and shielding than a weapon with equal damage. And to top it all off it had a semi-auto mode that allows one to take potshots at enemies at range; making up for the automatic mode's inaccuracy at range. Basically the Stradavar was what the Braton Vandal wished it could be.
Now with the release of the Stradavar Prime it was largely expected that its role as a "Jack of All Trades" would be emphasized with a healthy touch up in most of its stats. Oddly though, that wasn't exactly the case.
- The Stradavar Prime received a slight damage boost, as was expected. The semi-auto mode was given an abnormally large boost with emphasis on Slash.
- Accuracy was given a bump, making its automatic mode a bit better.
- Magazine size was increased to 90. This is somewhat odd as its magazine size was already fine. Really a slight boost to reload speed may have been more natural.
- Critical damage was increased to 2.6x/2.8x, but critical chance was untouched in auto mode.
- Status chance was untouched in auto mode but increased in semi-auto mode.
- Semi-auto mode was given innate punch through but also eats 2 ammo per shot. Weird.
Overall the upgrade from standard to Prime seems somewhat nonsensical. Instead of giving small/decent bumps to its good points or working out some flaws, it instead drastically modified the semi-auto mode while largely ignoring the auto mode. It went from a "Jack of All Trades" rifle into a "Marksman rifle with an LMG secondary mode". Truly it makes it feel closer to a sidegrade than a direct upgrade, which is somewhat of a shame as the Stradavar was love at first sight for me. Anyone else getting that feeling?
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For some reason people, and DE themselves apparently, forget that the Soma was something of an "experimental" weapon. When the game was still young, most weapons had very low status and crit values, as they were largely unneeded (enemies in general were much weaker). The Soma mixed things up a little by having, at the time, insanely high crit chance and damage multiplier. To balance this they gave its base damage a huge nerf, so its critical potential was high, but faltered in certain situations.
This was fine at the time, but as more and more weapons got introduced with better and better stats the Soma went from being a superior weapon to a par one. That said enemies were reworked and gradually scaled up to balance against these increasingly better weapons. In the end Soma went from being a superior weapon, to a par weapon, to ultimately mediocre. Even at MR7, people can still readily craft stronger weapons. Now only its concept of glory remains.
Of course if they just bumped up the base damage a bit so it actually hits harder than a pee shooter, it'd be fine.
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Fair warning: This is half constructive and half rant.
Rant first: I've killed the Exploiter over 60 friggin times and no shocking step!!!! And just to salt the wound I've gotten 4 freezing steps! At first I loved this fight as it was rather creative, but now I'm pulling my hair out over a cosmetic. The incorporation of lore was nice at first, but no I just want them to SHUT UP ALREADY! I've heard this boss' dialogue so much I could probably recite it from memory. I'm losing my sanity here!!!!!!
Proper construction: The above is basically what happens when a drop table is poorly balanced. The idea of drops is to keep players coming back to a certain place or to give them something to work toward. It shouldn't be easy, but it should not be unnervingly difficult. When things are too easy, people get bored and move on. When things are too hard, people get frustrated and become volatile. A bored person can be enticed back, but a frustrated person is not so easy. They become skeptical, reluctant to return, and may even protest against the game as a whole. Really when it comes to drop chances, you have to keep in mind people do typically have lives and can only spare so much time for a game. Forcing them to do one thing over and over for hours just for a valueless reward is not something reasonable to ask of players and can really damage a game's image.
With that said it would be ideal if the drop chance of Ephemera's (and future items) were given more reasonable drop rates; or perhaps even a means to subvert the drop rates provided enough effort was put in.
Fight the Powercreep!
in General
Posted
So this is going to be something of a broad topic. To put things in extremely simple terms: Warframe suffers horribly from "powercreep". That is to say that as the game keeps developing and new content is added, older content becomes increasingly obsolete. Originally I thought this was an issue that could be slowly addressed and worked out over time on DE's side, but with the release of the new "Disruption" game mode this no longer seems to be the case.
With the introduction of Disruption, players are met with the task of defending special terminals from both mob enemies and a special unit type called a "Demolyst". These Demolysts are obscenely tanky and immune to several Warframe abilities. To make matters worse they will beeline to the terminals without pause, and will quickly destroy it should they reach the terminal. Essentially they are what is known as a "DPS Check", an enemy/problem that can only be defeated/solved with ungodly amounts of firepower. This kind of enemy design shows that DE is not only accepting "powercreep" but are actively incorporating it. Now of course simply making a buff enemy is not powercreep in itself, rather it is this in conjunction with other variables that make it so.
The weaponry of the Tenno are vast and varied. They have simple rifles like the Braton to guns that create miniature black holes on a whim. But all that glitters matters little if it cannot kill fast enough. The first weaponry the players start with (Braton, Lato, Skana, etc) are only viable until about Jupiter, afterwords players will be hard pressed to get something better. This is not powercreep in itself as starter weapons are expected to be underwhelming in most games. However even the "upgraded" versions of these weapons (Primes, Vandals, etc) only have so much use before they too are insufficient. Warframe has a strange unspoken rule that newer weapons will arbitrarily be better than the majority of older weapons. Just take the a look at the Soma: Once famed for being a DPS monster due to its formerly rare high Critical Chance; it is now a relic of lost glory due to so many newer weapons having high Critical Chances on top of high base damage. Overall Warframe has shied away from giving consistent weapons with similar DPS but unique feels, towards simply giving stronger weapons with or without a neat gimmick upon each update. As a result players are less likely to use weaponry based on their personal preferences and more because it currently has the best DPS.
So here are the two key variables: Enemies keep getting stronger, and weapons keep getting stronger. When these two variables combine they create a spiral in which the game is constantly trying to "outdo itself" and creates a large amount of wasted material and potential. If it continues then the game runs the risk of collapsing under its own scaling curve. The only way to counter powercreep such as this is by "lowering the curve". Essentially the difference between a starting enemy and "endgame enemy" should not be an exceedingly large percentage. Likewise weaponry and their mods should be designed so their lethality is relatively close to one another.
Example for enemies: A level 1 Grineer Lancer has 100 units of health and 100 units of armor. A level 50 Lancer has 3,701.5 units of health and 553.75 units of armor. This is an extreme increase. However should a level 50 Lancer only have 500 units of health and 100 units of armor, then a larger number of weapons would be viable with proper mods.
Example for weapons: An unmodded Braton has an average DPS of 210. With a maxed Serration mod its DPS becomes 556.5. An unmodded Braton Prime's DPS is 335.3, while a Serration mod bumps it up to 888.5. The difference in the unmodded versions is 125.3, but the Serration widens the difference to 332. This type of modding creates an exponential curve, but if the Serration mod gave a much smaller boost then it could be swapped for another mod depending on one's preference. Overall some weapons are going to be better than others, but so long a their scaling curve is kept in check the margin of viability will greatly expand.
Thoughts?