[How to improve Defense missions?]

Been thinking about it for a while trying to pinpoint just what's making me not want to play these missions, think I may have pinpointed few things that could be improved.

For those who do not want to watch here's the entire script (not 1-1 with the video because editing but jist is there):

Spoiler

DE defense.... Alright, this has been a long time coming and this will be a slightly different video than usual because usually there is
enough sauce for me to make a compliment sandwich but here it would seem that all the compliments seem to be about some rather lucky mistakes
DE stumbled upon.

Because there's only a small portion of defense tiles where DE did some good things and made them fun but it's mostly very old ones.
Newest ones are unbelievably atrocious to play - especially ones in Duviri's undercroft. So this is a downward spiral trend I'm not a fan of.

In this video I want to try to break down what went well and what went wrong hoping to get to the bottom of it and get some understanding
why things were like they were and now are as they are. And I guess I'm hoping this video will reach someone at DE but that's a long shot.

Anyway, let's start with what DE nailed right on the money and that everyone's favorite Grineer Galeon defense, or commonly known as Hydron.
Many people use it to level up their stuff and it's a fun tile and I attribute most of that fun to tight packed tile with good timings.

Which means is that action is never far away and spawns are close enough so Ai does not get to do stupid things they do and get stuck on
nothing.

But there's also another thing DE did there and seemingly forgot to do it ever again - defense target is a defense mission that actually has
a lot of cover around it that prevents enemies from engaging it willy nilly from 50+ meters away. I think that's the key that puts
Hydron above all others in Warframe because what that does is create a couple of chokepoints which players can control and not worry about
exposing the objective to too much scrutiny.
But chokepoints are also well designed so that if you do not control them - enemies will go through and engage.

Good example is this area because it provides a lot of cover to the player and allows you to pick out a couple of spawns at will, while letting
other spawns group up on the objective side. But it's not like you can't defend the objective from there, you have a line to deal with
enemies that threaten it. Which lets you control the flow of it letting each spawn group up enough to engage with them. And it works.
Spawns are close so timings are easy to get used to. It works for a horde shooter

Now let's compare one of the tiles from The Undercroft, I recorded this in captura but the objective is here and notice how there's little to
no cover for the objective. Even worse, DE made it so that enemies have a lot of cover and have means to engage objective from quite a distance.
On top of that, if you apply the same strat from Hydron and try to control one flank while letting the other flank get to the objective -
they just don't do that. They stay in cover shooting an open objective and some places DE created for enemies to sit in are just too
overpowered and you have to go out of your way and ignore everyone else in order to deal with one or two enemies who are sitting like 30
meters away from the objective and spraying it down. Who thought this was a good idea?

DE's defense on undercroft reminds me of how DE_Mirage works in counter strike. It's just a complete misapplication of the concept because
in counter strike goal is to prevent opponents from positioning themselves on the objective and planting the bomb.
Let's take A site for example, the very site and the objective is very open, making it a risk to go out and take it which is a part of what makes it fun. And because
of that need, positions that are usually taken by defenders in CT and in jungle or con, those positions are very potent and we get a fun
dynamic on our hand. But what if I was to place a big ol objective in the middle and the goal was to shoot down its HP? Then everything goes to
waste, defenders would have no usable positions to prevent attackers from doing that.

That's exactly what DE did in Undercroft and it doesn't work because to almost no-one's surprise, CS and Warframe are very different games.
Yes, in Warframe you have a few abilities that are quite overwhelming in their destructiveness and some that are very good at protecting,
but should players be forced to use them? You can't even force it in Undercroft as choice is randomized, you usually wont get a
nukeframe.

With how attempted rework on Copus ship defense looks it would rather seem like DE is trying to combat that overwhelming nuke spam. Just
without actually addressing it, they just made a map so big that it needs its own spaceship.
In that defense enemy spawns are like 100+ meters away and there's a lot of verticality involved which does not sit
well with Ai, that defense is one of the most recent ones and it is down right one of the worst in the game. They copied the elevator from
Hydron and bottom part has a lot of cover, but still it sucks because spawns are too far which makes timings feel bad and unengaging.
SImilar things can be said about Earth defense, there's cover, just enemies have spawns too far away and their pathing is so terrible that
it ends up feeling frustrating to play.

For undercroft it rather seems that they first created a tile and then slapped a defense objective on top hoping it will work. Many developers
do these things, some even created maps from satellite images and tried to create a balanced experience on top of that. It doesn't work, not
consistently.

So to add some constructive criticism, defense objectives in horde shooters need to have some cover around them, for objectives and for
the players. Put some walls around. There needs to be a human number of angles to worry about and effective ways of isolating those angles
without too much sacrifice. Because in undercroft there's like 7 angles plus 2 vertical angles
plus Thraxx can fly up and there's no way of isolating any of those fights without sacrificing a huge chunk of objective's HP. That's
just overwhelming number of things to do even with the strongest weapons, unless you get some crowd control going then your run will
end quite early. But this problem is nothing new, I remember when I started Warframe that I got stuck at the old Corpus ship defense and
failed it quite a few times. Because again, the objective is too open, no cover for the player, I'm new and not strong and there's 7 angles
to worry about.

If we go back to Hydron, you rarely have more than 3-4 angles to worry about which is fine in Warframe. And for humans.

Enemy pacing is also a very important thing, Ai in warframe is terrible and if we are to give it one thing it's that if it ever comes down to Ai
taking over this planet we can be damn sure that Digital Extreme won't be one to blame. Joke aside, main limitation is that Ai needs to run
on your computer. But if Ai is dumb then make easier paths for them, make their spawns closer.
Because timing is important, if you have built your game to condition players to believe that one rotation should be 5 minutes, you can't
expect players to enjoy a defense that takes 10 minutes for the same reward. On top of it, the same amount of action you get in a 5 minute defense
is just stretched thin across those longer ones, it's not more fun.

I get that we all want missions that are harder and harder, but defense missions are increasingly becoming less fun and more unfair.
I am all up for the challenge, but I also failed a few Circuit runs because I lost focus for a few seconds and forgot about some op positions.

Challenge is fun, but battling against a rather flawed design is not fun. My heart sinks a little bit each time Defense comes in the circuit,
that's not supposed to be how I feel about a video game. DE should look at stats, how many people leave when the next mission is defense?
I'm willing to bet more than half the runs end at a defense stage.
I outright skip sortie missions when stuff like Corpus ship defense, lua defense, corpus outpost and such are in rotation.

DE's inability to understand what defense should look like in a horde shooter is seen in other defensive missions, Excavators and mobite defense
terminals are slapped in some atrocious places, again using the same logic as we mentioned above with Counter Strike and leaving it in the
open while allowing enemies to get very easy shots on the objective.

So it's a systemic thing, definitely not a one off. Duviri was just a spark to get this work done.

 

[Nezha Charkam bug]

7 hours ago, KCToxic said:

I haven't noticed anything regarding health orb drop changes or bugs but I have noticed that the chakram won't really bounce or seek if the first enemy hit wasn't centered in the reticle. So if it grazes an enemy or hits them accidentally it doesn't really bounce like it should. 

I do know I need to aim with it. I just play Nezha a lot (he my top used warframe) and I did feel some disturbance in the consistency of chakram. I know it's random and it could be just me having an unlucky bounces for days but I am curious if anyone else has that.

As for health orbs, are you using Reaping Chakram? Cause that increases drop to 1.25 which means one health orb will drop in 75% cases and 2 will drop in 25% cases. Seeing 0 smells like a fart in the code.
Again, this only seems to happen when I am not hosting, not consistently so I do not know how to reproduce it reliably. If host is responsible for health orb spawn and he plays on a smart fridge with Walmart 1995 Dial up internet that could do it maybe

For me health orbs are important part of the build cause I use Health Conversion to increase Halo HP (needs synth fiber on a sentiniel to make you grab health orbs when you are on full HP).

[Nezha Charkam bug]

Usually in squads when I am not hosting my Chakram can decide not to work, I launch it and it does damage but I do not get a health orb or an energy orb from an enemy.

It started few months back and I was lazy to post it, but at first it started with a random case of not seeing a single health orb even tho I use Reaping Chakram in my build (total health orb drop chance is 1.25). Then it started just flat out not working in some missions, I used to be able to "reset it" or make it work by using Divine Spears and then Chakram on the enemy but even that is now not reliable.

Last part feels kinda odd to represent, Chakram used to go for enemies when you aim it at them, now it hits one, maybe two and tries it's hardest to avoid 20 other enemies that are like 5 meters away. Could be RNG but I felt like it was bit more reliable. Last point happens even when I am on solo mm.

Hope this can be solved 

[War and Broken War should fit exodia arcanes]

21 hours ago, 8faiNt said:

sounds like you dont know how to mod your war. (that wasnt sarcasm btw)

it rather sounds like you can't mod anything else if War is your best melee weapon.

Like, it is good mid tier weapon, Blood Rush/Weeping wounds build works but you need to get a viral riven to make full build work, I have it and it's pretty good, just way weaker compared to heavy zaw or just 1 forma Gram Prime with random mods placed in it.

[War and Broken War should fit exodia arcanes]

53 minutes ago, lukinu_u said:

Each hit add +5% damage type of health type weakness for 5s, up to +20% per type. Overall, it would be a reverse Adaptation that adapt to health type to deal more damage rather than adapting to damage type for more tankiness.
 

this sounds interesting as a unique perk

1 hour ago, 8faiNt said:

they actually would

yes, impact based War with what's effectively a negative riven disposition would outpreform Dokrahm as a heavy blade zaw counterpart. yes.
Or Plague Zaws too, totally, just needs an arcane for it. LOL (t'was sarcasm btw)

1 hour ago, lukinu_u said:

The issue here is you need to read the full sentence to understand.
Exodia make Zaws more unique BUT they don't need to be unique as they already are better than other melee, it's just not balanced. It's a big like doing a variant of a weapon and say "it does AoE damage BUT got double damage", for balance and encouraging a choice it should be double damage or AoE, not both.

Sadly point of Warframe does not seem to be to make a balanced game, unbalanced mess is much easier to monetize and when you make unpopular system like LIches are - you can just slap Kuva Bramma in it, power creep everything that ever existed and since people are playing Liches now and paying hella lot of money for rivens you can now call Lich system a business success.

Same went down for Zaws, regular ones were obviously not power creep enough so Plague Zaws had to outpreform every melee weapon. Because reasons.

Sadly, it is not only DE to blame, players seem to like a trend of paying for Kuva Bramma rivens right now so DE could stay in business for just long enough to create a thing that will make Kuva Bramma obsolete. Weird flex if you ask me, but we can't all get what we want can we now.... Kuva Bramma now, Plague Kripath, Catchmoon, just insert flavor of the year, does not matter really which name we use as all do the same exact thing and it is how we came down to your sentence - "It does AoE damage BUT got double damage"

Reason I want Exodia or any perk on War and Broken War is that those are iconic weapons in Warframe universe and they should be of nature that put them in their own category that makes them a solid pick for something. Does not have to be a new power creep, of I sure a muck hope it's not.

[War and Broken War should fit exodia arcanes]

Both are unique story weapons (technically a weapon) and enhanced by a sentient that makes Eidolon look like a joke. And we beat Eidolon a lot to get arcanes..... (with nerfed shields Eidolons do feel more like a joke but I meant story wise).

Feel like it would not hurt to give them option to fit Exodia arcanes, they won't outpreform zaws but it only should make those two more unique.

Or give them some unique perk.

[Thanks for making Kuva bramma surpass catchmoon]

I love loosing 50% of FPS when 3 players in squad spam Kuva Bramma, so fun to play. Also, FPS effects rate of fire and rips it.

[Corinth Prime alt. fire needs to be adjusted to detonate upon impact after a set distance]

it needs multishot to work and give multiple projectiles for Air-Burst.

Otherwise weapon is a less scaleable version of Corinth and for some reason it's Mr14 requirement. No excuses to limit it.

[Kuva Bramma is balanced]

On 2020-03-14 at 4:54 PM, Tiltskillet said:

More damage, more AOE, louder sfx, slain enemies explode and drop floofs and fully built forma. 

And a random "+x% bonus to Mission Results screen" stat.

oh yes, gimme more aoe particles, I join public matchmaker to have my eyes bleached and my FPS halved whenever someone clicks LMB!

Also like the chance to auto-complete mission, considering how many people play just because they are addicted and not because they enjoy the game I'd say it would be pretty popular and a good sell. And considering popularity of warframes that have nature of letting you skip mission by clicking 444444444444444444444444444 I think you nailed it.

On 2020-03-14 at 5:49 PM, --END--Rikutatis said:

I 100% agree that on release the kuva bramma was extremely power creeped and overpowered. But with the 90% falloff nerf it received it's just a strong weapon. It's by no means as overpowered as you're saying in its current state. It looks impressive on Starchart because even with the 90% dmg falloff enemies still die when low to mid level. But it falls off at the highest levels and in endless like arbitrations (as an AoE, obviously the main impact area is still super strong, but that's practically single target now). Honestly melee weapons far outperform the bramma (or any primary/secondary for that matter). Just pick a nikana, tonfa or a scythe and spam melee to clear entire rooms of enemies of any level super fast. 

As for bows in general, the issue with them is that they compete with snipers in that single target high burst niche. Some of the better snipers are hitscan, have combo counter and some are faster than bows on top of that. So it's kind of hard justifying using a bow in a situation where you could use a sniper. Except the AoE bows like lenz and bramma as you mentioned. 

 90% fallof from bazilion and a half still deletes rooms and even highest level sortie has nothing to say against Bramma. With obvious build, Viral+Heat+HM it does not care for Arbitration levels too - but matter of fact is that for 99.999999999999999% of played content Bramma one shots rooms in one click, no aim, no brain. No one plays 5 hours of arbitration to feel if bramma is bad there, also, simulacrum allows for stress tests and with lvl 170 exo officer that's equivalent to lvl 350-420 heavy gunner - Kuva bramma still clears room full of them faster than any other weapon. Just by shooting in vicinity, not by tryharding for precise headshots so.....

State of Public matchmaker shows it with having at least one of them in every match making me do more missions solo, it is just not fun to play with Kuva Bramma players jumping and shooting in random directions. Just. not. fun.

DE seems to test stuff with one player and rather miss the disruptive nature of it in CO-OP. Making the most disruptive weapon class to be the strongest one for 99.999999999999999999% of the game is not a good design decision in my book, anyone who dares not to pick it and god forbid pick something that needs to do a silly thing called "aiming" is instantly removed from the game unless you are CS:GO or Overwatch pro and you can react in 150ms. Cause it would make decent weapons feel bad cause you never have opportunity to feel their strength unless you disable public matchmaker. I find that to be a perfect mucking design.

But gotta power creep at all costs, like, I do understand people defending it, after all it is an easy ticket to top damage and being done with the game with as little effort as possible, but I do not enjoy paying DE right now for overpowered stuff so they can continue to work on the game and introduce more overpowered stuff that makes stuff I paid for obsolete. And template suggests that is how this game works. But I enjoy the game tho.

As for actual solution for bows, nah, just one representative that's broken as balls.

[Kuva Bramma is balanced]

So half a year ago I made this

tl:dr - After series of buffs to bows I mentioned two ways out of this - buff bows more and power creep everything, or do something useful and make bows viable because single shot nature of bows makes them just suck compared to Catchmoon, Arca, ignis etc.

Now we know which option did DE pick, I kinda wanna go with "I told you so" but I did not expect them to power creep everything in 99.999999999% situations by introducing an overpowered piece of sh(perfect design) and remove self damage so it could be even more overpowered. No weapon wipes rooms full of high level heavy enemies as fast as Kuva Bramma does and if you dare to take a weapon that requires aiming, well, that sucks, have fun aiming trough a pile of explosions.

With power creep design guess this is a "flavor of this year's quarter" and in words of LD - you'll just have to wear it.

Actual reason I am making this topic is - how does DE plan to power creep Kuva Bramma? What are we looking into in the next 6 months to a year? Aimbot Bramma? New modular weapon arcane that spawns 7 Azima discs each time you fire? Contrary to the title this is not me rambling about poor balancing of this game, it is only a clickbait, I am just wondering about future, like, how do you go beyond no aim one tap to clear everything?

Sure, making it as broken makes rivens cost a fortune and it's profitable to make money out of people who want an easy way to do top damage, but how do you make next thing profitable if your design is to profit by selling new levels of power every few months? Because now - if next Prime Weapon does not have sound of KABOOOM then no one is gonna trade for it. Which kinda seems to go against Steve's "we do not want to grab you and cash you in right now, we want you in for a long run" because introducing more powerful stuff every few months seems like it is a "purchase it right now before it gets powercreeped again". It rather seems like once we saturate the market with enough rivens - it is time for a new flavor.

So what are your guesses on the next flavor? 

[2020’s First Mainline: Review, Revise, Refresh.]

I am concerned that removal of self damage did not bring enough penalty to using such strong weapons.

Because for every node in start chart explosive weapons will be most efficient, because everything in your vicinity is dead you will not suffer any penalty cause of stun and people who do not play explosive weapons will not see anything because of all thew clutter of explosions.

I do like the change for explosive weapons but that makes 300 other weapons feel that much worse because you need to aim and shoot multiple times for multiple enemies. I do not like encouraging as braindead of a gameplay as possible and I sure hope that penalty to movement we saw in dev stream will be increased and that there will actually be a drawback to using such weapon.

Making meta into eye clutter with Mirage mains does not seem like an appealing gameplay proposal to me. And fix that devalues majority of weapons in this game does not really sound like a fix to me. Feel like shield gate alone would be enough, maybe add exilus version of "Quick Thinking" for explosive weapon, but flat out making them the best choice by far sounds like a really bad idea imho.

Again, I do hope knockdown penalty is severe and disruptive enough to encourage players not to run like chickens and just shoot at their feet, aiming is already at a huge disadvantage in Warframe and I do not feel we need more of encouragement to spam buttons and let broken warframes and braindead explosive or aimbot weapons carry us trough the mission.

I do agree with power fantasy, but I'd also prefer more than one class of weapons being usable and me having to reduce special effects to 0 just so I can see what in the ever living #*!% is going on in those 3000 explosions every second does not sound anything like fun for me and it CERTAINLY does not sound good for new player retention as they will get to experience even less of shooter.

Feel like it devaues "co-op" part of the game really.

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

On 2019-10-07 at 10:40 PM, (PS4)Black-Cat-Jinx said:

They really just need to have a sniper counter and thunderbolt needs to divide a portion of total damage across area of effect instead of a fixed amount of damage. That by its self will largely fix then. 

then after bows outdamage snipers this suggestion creates another problem.

not to mention that you are basically asking for every bow to be Lenz with combo.... Which solves nothing imho but agree to disagree.

On 2019-10-07 at 9:45 AM, 000l000 said:

My Dread is killing a bunch of heavily armoured lvl 100+ enemies twice as fast as a Catchmoon but hey, bows suck so bad !

Not once it was claimed bows suck, they are just not a primary choice if you want to be able to carry a game. Yes, it can kill, but from all primary weapon classes is is overall the least used one because... of some reasons, probably for being bad as a primary weapon.

 

On 2019-10-07 at 4:16 AM, (XB1)Rez090 said:

I wish people here would stop calling Warframe a HORDE shooter game. There are mobs of enemies sometimes but there are not hordes. World War Z, Left for Dead, Dead Rising are horde games, with actual hordes of enemies.

*looking at mission result, 20 minutes, 6000 kills between 2 dps*

You are right man, it's a dancing game, no horde was seen there.

Now for real, when player(s) are massively outnumbered by enemies and each individual enemy is as good as your average potato - it is a horde shooter. If in 5 minutes you kill hundred to couple hundreds of enemies - it is not  a mucking dance class, it's a horde shooter. A clue, most popular meta weapons are ones who deal with multiple enemies at once, a perfect sign that game is not a horde shooter.....

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

4 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

you can complete every mission without a single kill

So you saying it is possible to do so does not mean people find it fun to do, it is actually quite boring after 2 minutes or so to not shoot in horde shooter game. To each his own, just because YOU can do it does not mean some random person on this planet may not do it.....

4 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Because giving that OPTION to just one bow weaponry class is nonsense. I'd like to have a Tonkor instead my melee. Someone wants to have 3 sniper rifles. Someone wants 3 kitguns.

It is not I am envy and demanding. It is how rules of the game are.

I have a brother who spends entire life on HARDCORE fights against anything new and when he finally tries it he finds it fun.

Maybe you should try accepting that stuff could be fun even if YOU personally, without a single evidence or a rational thought, you do not know if it will be fun or not.

Reason 3 snipers in loadout are not in my suggestion is because people already use snipers.... And people do not use bows, as suggested it is a weapon class with unique use case that no other weapons have. And who knows, if people accept that then maybe we can get some other more flexible loadouts that do not break the game. We know for sure that having Arca, Ignis and Catchmoon in one loadout is broken so my step one of the suggestion was a class that would not make it broken.

I find it funny that someone takes such passion to fight something just for sake of keeping things as they are.... You still got time to learn how much rules change in this game 😉
Weapons are getting an exilus slot, that is a new rule? Should it be banished? I really dislike that kind of argument against any change, it is shallow, defensive and has 0 creativity to it. Argue the topic which suggests to change the rule, do not argue me that rule is such. I got no personal quarrel against you or I am tied to this idea - I want quality suggestions how bows can be improved without hurting other weapon classes.

Instead of telling me that things are as such and that those are rules and that things should be that way because you think so - tell me why is it bad to have bows there? Let's move back to being constructive, I did not claim anyone here being a meta slave, it was a sarcastic way of saying this game has more weapons than Ignis, Catchmoon and Plague Keewar and maybe people would appreciate a dimension of having an option to shove in a bow. Since bows are the most underused class in the game I figure they are a good option, DE buffing them left, right and center shows a desperate attempt to make people use and enjoy bows. And no one does, so my logic says - we are doing something wrong here. It is not their power level that keep them in check.

My answer to it is that it's other broken weapons they are fighting against for a slot in our loadouts and they are loosing. So either make them broken enough, or, give them more slot options. That is my logic.

I would be happy to see your solution to the problem, how can we let more people use bows? One of my initial ideas was - why not have a unique slot for a bow and let everyone have one with them but that kinda interferes with warframe roles and you would need to kinda shove it in the lore that they sleep with their sword and their bow and that is just too much work and kinda forcing it.

So with the thought that bows are fun and not broken I find it that no matter where you let people use them they will not break the game.

1) adding combo to bows adds unnecessary fight against snipers
2) adding more raw damage will do nothing as it already did nothing
3) synergy with stealth kills won't work much as not many people play stealth and it still does not gives us reason to use it because we might need it
 

so we can:

1) make peace with it
2) keep buffing them because repeating same process 7 times and wondering why the heck will it not work is not insane
3) think outside the box

I find loadouts to be to narrow, if you want ranged weapon it has to be primary, secondary weapons that have zoom also have projectile velocity of 2 meters per day.

Having one class or few classes to be "free floaters" sounds like we are breaking a rule, but it also sounds that we may get some fun loadouts. I do not think every class should free float, shotguns that are primary should stay that, feel like rocket launchers could float, snipers need to stay primary, beam weapons too. Thrown secondaries could free float, I can see an argument to use it instead of your melee weapon if you do not intend to use your melee, Chroma could finally have 2 weapons he can use cause you do have to have that Emo Hikou.
Feel like spearguns could use a push, maybe dual wield them with one handed Melee? Roleplay as Gandalf, get CO going... They could free float too imo.

It would also open up opportunities for new weapons to fill up roles, like raw stupid example would be Redeemer in your primary slot.

Since bows are at dead end after 7 buffs - if we will ever have those free floaters at any point then it should start with bows as they are least likely to break the game and most likely to benefit from it. Or we could say rules are there and change won't happen because we like how no one ever uses one weapon class... Sorry, 3 people use it, sorry. But one of those started after Daikyu got buffed and will stop after next weapon gets a buff....

Ples, give me a good idea or try to make my idea better ❤️ 
We are here to try to address the problem with bows, not a phantom problem, no one uses bows and those are official stats backed up by 7 buffs that made total output way over 100% of what it was and still no one uses them - about 50% raw damage buff, riven disposition got pushed significantly, charge time reduced, projectile velocity made shots more reliable and still usage of bows is nowhere to be seen. I am not creating a phantom problem, or maybe I am just so unlucky that I never meet all those people who use bows cause I see it once a week. Then why would DE buff them so much if there was no problem? I do not see them buffing Saryn, Ignis, Equinox, Volt, Arca Plasmour...... Maybe cause I see at least one of those on each public matchmaker but chances are more than one?

So do not fight me, give us a good idea instead.

4 hours ago, Sharkgoblin said:

 

what about: thunderbolt now has a 100% chacne to explode  and the damage instead of being soem S#&$ty flat number like it is, it reflect the damage of the bow counting crits and apply status. 

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhm yeah im not sure about that one

couple of them are, majority are not. Means game has balance issues, yes, but it also means that majority of weapons are not as viable and not everyone likes Catchmoon.

Still, by such logic, if you compare it to Acceltra..... yea.... Even specters are OP with Acceltra, just leave one on Arbitration Interception and unless Ai bugs out you will nto lose the point. Only after 40 minutes it starts to feel weak, then you just recast a specter to get higher level Acceltra and see it MELT heavy enemies like they are cheese. It is stupid.

But since community has a lot of meta slaves who do not even look at the new content if their meta is still meta - DE has to power creep everything with each update to keep player retention. It is DE's fault for feeding that culture, yet again it is a cheap way to make a lot of people run for something, farm it the entire day, trade it, buy it so it works, keeps meta slaves entertained, keeps cash flow to DE - everyone wins. Except the game who suffers from power creep but something's gotta give and it is easier to take a giant dump on your previous content than to get less money.

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

5 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

This is no "other" game. This is Warframe. If you lack "stealth" grab thrown secondary or melee.

Bows are good. It's just people suck in killing stuff with bows. Landing hit is too hard for them. But once you can manage - it becomes even funnier than opticor.

There is literally nothing wrong with bows today. And never was. It's just general players' mindset "Why should I aim at one guy when I can wipe a crowd with my Plasmor?"

so you are saying there should never be any other option, any other option thinkable is bad by that logic? What if someone dislikes thrown secondaries? Or as I mentioned, just does not feel like doing melee that day? My argument is based on person not being meta slave and using stuff that he or she finds fun to use.

And once again, I am talking about THE OPTION to use them in any slot. Not forced, you can still use them wherever you like.

We agreed on one thing - that bows are damn strong but defeated by meta plebs. I just expanded on it - what if we could let people use pleb weapons and also have a bow somewhere in there?

Tho I gotta add that even tho it is possible to fight with a bow on full alert, enemy movement is too erratic to begin with, any kind of ping makes it impossible to lead no matter how good your aim is so it is no wonder very few people do use that on full alert. And this is coming from someone who plays games for 25 years, high refresh rate monitor, 1000hz mouse, all about that low input latency cause I like aiming and hitting heads. Bow is fun for memes, and for the sake of being that one guy who uses stuff no one else uses, for Legolas roleplay, because it can be fun, but never because it is the best option for gameplay on full blown alert.

I feel like that is the only thing that keeps bows in check - what you give out for using the bow. Not the damage, not the power - you give out the option to switch to before mentioned Arca Plasmour when you really need it. And with it a 3-rd dimension to loadouts, more choice. Not saying everyone will start using bows with this, there is still a problem of bows just requiring a brain to use compared to Atterax or Ignis, but I feel like there would be a better argument to put it in a bit more often, have a different loadout, change things up, spice them.

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

but how is that any different? there are Spike Damage Weapons in both Gun Slots. there are Secondary Weapons that out Damage Bows too, so what, then?
are you really believing that making Bows not exclusively slot compete with a Sniper Rifle means that they'll become 'more viable'? if you're already bringing a Spike Damage Weapon like a Sniper Rifle, what use do you have another one for, especially if it still does the same things (Spike Damage, sometimes some Status).

if you want Bows to stand out more, then they'll have to... stand out more.

Okay, let's compare Euphona Prime and any random bow. Bow has easier trajectory, and is stealthy, Euphona does not have a charge time and has a buckshot. Bow can use Thunderbolt which could make it a fun choice.

So there is value proposition for both of them depending on player's taste and desires with a particular build. If we were looking what does most ONLY everyone would run with Saryn, Ignis, Catchmoon, Plague Kripath... Oh wait, every public matchmaker has at least one of those.... dem meta slaves.

It is even easier to justify using it instead of a melee weapon, like, "I do not feel like doing melee right now" which suggests that I may use other weapons which further suggest that I'd enjoy having more weapons at my service. Arca Plasmour is quite a useful primary, I'll take it, recently built Prisma twin gremlins cause of an awesome riven so we'll go with that.... hmmm.... If I could only use a third slot for something that I'd actually need...
Not everyone can carry Redeemer all the time, so why not? I'd take the bow there in certain scenarios, Orb Vallis, with everyone having bubbles it is easier to keep your mid distance and shoot them, also, randomness of bounties suggests that A rotation is a slaughterhouse and rotation B is sneaky spy mission. 

Point being that any weapon only needs to be good enough to be likeable and if it does not prevent you from doing things you want you are likely to use it. Tatsu is a good example, weapon is good enough but it looks darn cool so a lot of people use it. Also situation may suggest you use different things, I mean you can always bring Saryn and 1, 4 your life but not everyone finds joy in that.

My proposition is that every other primary weapon's existence is very reason why no one uses bows - it is a horde shooter. So if bows could fit in any other slot we would see more people use them because their use case scenario dictates that once ship hits the fan that you just holster the bow and start using actual weapons.

Does not make bow weak or less fun, just in horde shooter bow is not your primary weapon of choice. Warframe is played like a horde shooter for 99% of the time

As for why would people do this loadout or that loadout, I suggest you learn every possible gameplay before trying to question it. Particular suggestion from you may mean that you went solo stealthy with a bow which makes sense, then you got spotted and you pulled out a firearm and your firearm of choice just happens to be a sniper because you like it. Because I do not see reason to use snipers on most missions cause most combat will happen on less than 30 meters, open worlds for sure. That is why bow is there for stealth for those who like it. Same as snipers are there for those who like it.

I avoid talking and comparing damage because it is irrelevant for the proposition, it is about flexibility and you do not have to put it in there but I bet a lot of people would. I hate snipers for example, they hit hard but you got 0 flexibility, so I rarely pick them as high alpha damage weapons. It is either Euphona or a Bow... cause I like it, sure, I do Tridolons with Rubico cause it is just noticeably better. But for enemies on most missions Euphona Prime one shots arbitration targets with ease even after 1 hour, has a buckshot for when enemies get close so value proposition for a sniper rifle there is about 0. So by your logic of "why would you use X with Y" is because I mucking want to or I do not freaking want to. As a lot of Warframe players do, it is not all about that highest potential DPS you will never get to make use of, it is about having fun.

Bows are good enough to be fun when playing stealthy. In fact they always were, before all the buffs. so problem lies somewhere else. Okay charge time reduction was cool, I give it that.

Did you play any other games with bows? How do they stand out there? And in which cases did you use them? Go with popular one, Rise of the Tomb Raider, everyone has played it by now. You use it for hunting, when you are stealthy and for utility of taking down cases for example. That is where bow stands out there, when gameplay is slow, it has slight learning curve to learn to lead targets and that is it. Assault rifle is better there, shotgun is better, everything is better than bow but it is pretty cool to use it on stealth approach.
And that applies to a lot of games which feature bows, so why try to re-invent wheel in warframe and try to make Arrows magically do more damage than anti material rifles which effectively means Snipers in this game? Arrow velocity on strongest bows is about 300kmph and sniper rifles can pull nearly 2 mach which is about 9 times more. Why are we even comparing these? Why would anyone suggest they should be used for the same thing? Adding damage to bows for sake of adding it makes no sense to me

Bows are good for stealth, and not a primary weapon of choice in ANY game. That is how it's different.
And in other games people use bows and in Warframe they do not *surprised pikachu*. Which is also different.

Not to mention that shuffling your loadout in such way that there is more than one way to equip your self for the mission is not bad for the game.
And if ONE weapon class should be switchable between slots it's bows just because of their unique use case scenario.

We all know people who never use melee in this game, why not let those have more fun with it? I met many, tho personally I try to use everything to avoid getting bored.

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

1 hour ago, (XB1)KayAitch said:

I do, you could pile primary set mods on the bow (same as you can with the sentinel weapons) to boost your actual primary in ways that may be an absolute pain for DE to code.

Instead, I'd just make bows benefit from melee combo and stealth multipliers on headshots. Chain stealth headshot kills for damage and affinity boosts.

for one - we already can do that with Sentiniel weapon mods, it is even stated on Wiki. We cannot stack beyond what we can already stack with sentiniel weapons so I do not see the problem with it.

Stealth combo is cool - until you realize that 99% of the gameplay is not stealth.

Rest of your quote ends up comparing snipers and bows trying to copy/paste combo on bows which imho creates unnecessary war between them. Switching bows to other place lets you use both.
 

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

i'm not sure how i see letting you put Bows into any Weapon Slot making them 'more viable' than they are now. the Weapon is either capable of doing its job, or it is not. the couple Status viable Bows do that job, the rest do their Damage job (and could still do the Status job with the right Riven).
but letting you musical chairs them around doesn't... change anything.

imho it would give them a place to be used, they are viable as they are, just not viable as a primary weapon. Sidearm, yes.

That's why I think it would make more people use bows, AND would give loadouts a third dimension. Why not take bow as secondary? Easier to answer than taking it as primary.
Weapon's job is, at least one of them, is to give dimension to your loadout. You have shotgun primary? You should pick secondary with some range to it. Melee with condition overload? Pick primary or secondary weapon with some status, or maybe even sentiniel one.

Changes that, gives place to bows and raises loadouts to a next level. I see it as a win but I respect if you are against it, I just see that getting out of the box of primary, secondary, melee loadout could be a fun venture.

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

12 minutes ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Just add the shot combo meter. Problem solved.

You may have missed the part where I said that buffing damage more will not be viable unless bows outdamage snipers and make snipers useless.

Adding combo to bows just like snipers have it would do the exact thing - it will either make bows still not viable if combo is not strong enough to reach snipers or if combo surpasses snipers then it made it so that snipers are turned into mastery fodder.

So instead of matching bows with a firearm, I find it better to have it be unique in a different way. What I suggested is a different way that does not power creep any other class and does not create more problems and more requirements for reworks. Instead it adds flexibility to otherwise quite boring loadouts that lack flexibility.

Adding combo either does nothing as bows already have high damage, or it adds problem of snipers being useless. Really struggle to see the value proposition of it.
Bows have stealth element and they should not have higher damage value. Stealth element sucks in this game, at least for the most part, so more damage is not a solution imho.

Especially with Exilus mods being added to all weapons - you can make any sniper silent. So if bows and snipers have combo, and both are silent, what makes you pick either of them? Damage. So in case of added combo to bows it is bows OR snipers, one is dead. Not a good solution imho

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

10 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

My dreams of a Dread, Paris Prime and Rakta Cernos loadout will be a reality.  I'm gonna up vote this thread simply because of that idea.

Could be fun.

My Ivara loadout would be Rakta Cernos, Cernos, Nagantaka - one shot, "shotgun" and a bit more flexible one. Suggesting that best place for such change to happen is before or with Ivara Prime access.

There is an issue of Bow rivens in such scenario, they could also be made as a separate drop like kitgun rivens are.

Apart from meme loadouts such as we suggested it would give us more reasons to use Bows anywhere. Buffing damage further will not do such thing, may make people try it, trade some Daikyu rivens and then go back to actual primary weapons.

When I say bows are not primary I am not saying bows are weak, in a horde shooting game they are not a viable primary choice which can be seen by how many people use them. They can be with stealth warframes and maybe support...

[To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable]

They have same viability as they used to before the damage buff and before all the riven disposition buffs, now they just hit a bit harder.

Here is how to make people enjoy bows - make them a unique weapon class, make their own mods and let us fit them in ANY slot in loadout we want. Primary, Secondary,or Melee.
Bet a lot of people would use them once they do not have to sacrifice a viable primary weapon to something with such limited use. Or just let them keep primary mods but do not force us to maximize 2 Serrations.

I have few builds where I do not use melee at all, I may have some equipped because reasons but I would probably use Bow more if I could use it instead.
With some primaries I do not need a secondary so I could switch that, only thing that would suffer there are Glaives but you can just disable dual wield when bow is in secondary slot.

Don't see any drawbacks of such change, pros are loadout flexibility and adding some change to it. When Bow is in a melee slot you switch to it with your default melee button and continue using it as , well, a bow. And people will actually start using bows on regular, otherwise bows are cool but on alert mode and in crowded areas they suffer. Pretty good for stealth tho, if not the best.

Let us use them please.

If you just buff damage they will not become any more viable until you make them stronger than Snipers - then you got snipers to take care of and by same logic it's a dead end.
So ples, do not be lazy for bows, I love them in all games but all games also let me use a strong firearm when ship hits the fan. Secondaries are not as viable as primaries. Bows are not viable as assault rifles or shotguns, not on alert. All leads to Bows being separate.

[Here is an idea to make Bows great again!]

48 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

Buff bows in some meaningful way. I don't have suggestions, I just want a proper buff so that I have a legitimate excuse to bring out my bows again. Lenz doesn't count as a traditional bow, and there's a reason why it sees more usage than the other normal bows.

Bows feel like they've fallen into a "novelty" status rather than a weapon to legitimately bring out for a real mission. I want to bring them out for real missions, I miss using them. It's so rare I get to bring a bow out nowadays.

I would use them in secondary slot. Not all the time but a lot more, their competition would be Euphona Prime and there you can see arguments for both sides.

For primary weapon slot, I have A VERY hard time pulling up an argument on why I would use a bow instead of shotgun, assault rifle, beam thingy, anything really and everything beats bow. Unless you are doing some solo stealth play, then it's okay.

Again, not talking about Lenz, that one should stay primary only but I do not think it would be hard to add some of them as optional secondary. In other games you kinda keep the bow in but you do not use it all the time, in warframe Primary slot is for your primary weapon which is supposed to carry you and bow is not a weapon for that.

Guess biggest problem would be with mods, like if you use same mods on your primary of choice.... Could be solved in couple of ways and I do not think I can make an argument for each solution because I do not have option to test each, like do we just let it use secondary mods which may be straight out buff, do we let people use same mods on more weapons (maxing out serration twice just so you can have it on sentiniel weapon is dumb anyway)... consistency is the best go to imo but I cannot really test all.

Feel that like switching bows to be a sidekick weapon would be better

[Here is an idea to make Bows great again!]

4 hours ago, Illumielle said:

What about ballistica?

think Shy sums up exactly everything in terms of what about ballistica.

It got a riven disposition buff, that weapon is just underwhelming even with a riven so I do not think any loadouts will be effected by it, as if anyone has a loadout with ballistica.
I actually do, stealth Ivara loadout, picked ballistica for sole reason of renaming it to "Love you Shy"

[Here is an idea to make Bows great again!]

A bit, but I still do not see that solving the issue of having charge time, projectile trajectory and bullet travel time in a game that has weapons like Ignis, Arca Plasmour and such where aiming is really out of the window with also a lot of primary weapons being hitscan meaning no bullet travel time and no trajectory calculations which means just flat out more reliable weapon.

Hitscan bows would be bad, but as is with such features bows have I feel like they fail to compete with primary weapons in terms of usability, like, in how many situations you can be effective.

So why not offload them as a secondary? Hell, even equip one bow as primary, one as secondary, because reasons

[Here is an idea to make Bows great again!]

Since I saw in patch notes that DE thinks bows are underused I went on to think why. I went back to other games I played where I used bows and tried to pinpoint where I used them, even downloaded Rise of the Tomb Raider to play it a little bit. I like bows really, like a lot, just their usability is not really good when:

1) you are not stealthy
2) you are meeting high number of enemies

Warframe is a horde shooter, no matter how much you buff them they will still lack behind assault rifles, shotguns or anything because of charge time and projectile trajectory as a lot of weapons are just hit-scan.
Certainly bows deal A LOT of damage and that is their thing but in this environment I do not think they can ever be super popular. Their damage per shot already exceeds what is needed for generic play so buffing that further and further does not really solve the reason why are they so unpopular.

Unless....

Make them unique in such way that you can use them both in primary and in secondary weapon slot. That way we do not have to sacrifice flexibility of our primary weapons to have a bow on when we need some stealth plays. As for rivens for it, make unique "Bow riven", same as kitgun and zaw rivens exist.

I like bows but when you play in public and ship hits the fan as it always does in public plays, bows are pretty bad for it. Nail in the coffin for them is ping really, enemies already have a movement that makes very little sense, and add little bit of delay to their stupid movement decisions an you end up wasting time trying to hit someone who is just 20-30 meters away.

Maybe not Lenz in a secondary slot, but bows like Dread, Paris, Cernos, Daikyu do not seem to break the game. Attica, Nagatanka and Zhuge are questionable as they do not suffer the drawback of a charged attack.
So maybe make some of them work like that, small icon in corner to tell people it can be used in both slots would likely do the work.

What do you guys think?

[Riven cap out or date?]

I somewhat understand that since each riven is specific to a 0.1% on each stat and there are 40k+ combinations or so, it is quite obvious that it is not as easy to optimize such database.

And I can see the choice being a thing, just in my case, I grew to love many weapons and just because I do not play my X weapon right now because I am having fun with Y, I do not wanna destroy the X build. Now imagine that with more weapons in.... I just forma stuff so much that even most of my archguns have 2-3 forma on them

I only have couple of rivens that are for the market, rest is just good rivens for fun weapons, very few "duplicates".

Feels bad to wreck builds

[Riven cap out or date?]

Gathering rivens to focus on the market to sell them is one of the worst things you can do, too much waiting for right customers, a lot of failed investments...

I just though for rivens that you use, like I have a lot of them I use and I like a lot of weapons so I'd like to get more. Feel like with each new weapon that those 90 are becoming a though choice on which ones to transmute or sell.

As for riven rework, new system is coming soon, there is a workshop on the forum, basically every 4 months riven disposition will be adjusted depending on few factors.

I know that not everyone has 3500 hours packed in this game and that this problem is not for everyone, I just wonder ho widespread is between veterans