DrBorris
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Posts posted by DrBorris
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4 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:
A formula would help as well.
E.g.
Shields = (x*n) plus (y*n)
Armour = (x*y) times (y*n)
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens, and whether it'll come about that maybe, just maybe, having stacking multipliers across everything in the game creates... an absolute mess.
The way all of factors come together makes it pretty hard to make heads or tails of what is going on from the equations alone.
- First there is the first half of the new armor scaling equation (the old full armor scaling equation). Current Armor = Base Armor × ( 1 + ( Level ) ^ 1.75 × 0.005 )
- Then we get the new second half of the armor scaling equation that takes full effect at level 75. Current Armor = Base Armor × ( 1 + ( Level ) ^ 0.7 × 0.45 )
- Then Armor Multiplier formula, which is unchanged. Armor Multiplier = ( Current Armor + 300 ) / ( 300 )
- Now we get to the health scaling formula. Current Health = Base Health × ( 1 + ( Level ) ^ 2 × 0.015 )
- Multiply Armor Multiplier by the Current Health to find the EHP of an enemy with armor.
Shields are a bit simpler, but here we go again...
- Use the same health scaling equation. Current Health = Base Health × ( 1 + ( Level ) ^ 2 × 0.015 )
- Then the shield scaling equation. Current Shield = Base Shield × ( 1 + ( Level ) ^ 2 × 0.0075 )
- And just add those two together to get the EHP of an enemy with shields and no armor.
I bolded and italicized the important values within the scaling equations.
- The bold numbers basically represent how curved the scaling line will be. As the bold number increases above 1 the line will curve higher and higher. If the number was equal to 1 the line would be straight (not applicable here, but I have a wild hair idea about an Affinity scaling rework). And if the bold number is less than one the line will curve down.
- The italicized numbers are just a representation of how "strong" the scaling is. The higher the italic number, the faster that stat will start bending in either direction. It is also just a blatant multiplier. There are better and more mathy ways to explain all this, but I am trying to keep it as grounded in gameplay as possible.
The armor scaling equation change is pretty self explanatory, but one of the weird aspects of scaling that has always struck me is shields. While both shields and health have the same curvieness (bold number), shields scale at half the speed that health will due to the italic number being half. For the most part Corpus enemies have far higher base shields than health, but it always stuck me as odd that as Corpus get higher in level, their ratio of shields to health will get smaller and smaller (more of the EHP bar is taken up by health). I can see how asking for DE to buff enemy scaling could be seen as heresy, but I would actually like to see the shields scale faster than health does. Maybe decrease base shield amounts (this would help new players) to compensate a bit, but it makes more sense for higher level Corpus to make more use out of their special "health" modifier.
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I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but ever since DE talked about the armor S curve two Devstreams ago I have been skeptical. And given that the S curve they showed is representative of what we will be getting... yeah, this is barely going to dent the issue.
The most important thing to remember about armor is that it is a separate multiplier on top of health, health already being a stat that scales exponentially (although all factions share the same health scaling). This means that before, the exponential scaling of health was MULTIPLIED by the exponential scaling of armor. Comparing armor to shields, shields do scale exponentially, they actually scale considerably faster than armor, however shields are only ADDED to a Corpus's health value. Just this difference on its own is what led to the massive difference in enemy effective hit points (EHP) that we all know. And while DE is nerfing the rate of armor scaling at level 75ish, the fundamental effects of having a scaling stat multiply the value of another scaling stat still exist.
Enough confusing words, pictures tell the story better. We'll start with one we all recognize, comparing the EHP of all the factions (with the new Armor scaling).
Here we can see the relatively substantial nerf, but it also makes it clear how far armor is still out-scaling shields.
Next is a graph that shows how much more EHP an enemy with armor has than one with shields.
Again, we can clearly see how this is an improvement, but the rate at which Grineer are scaling faster than Corpus only starts to slow down after Grineer already have over 500% more EHP. Even when the diminishing returns of the new armor scaling kick in Grineer will still get more EHP per level than Corpus.
There is also the note that the vast majority of high level content sits only around level 100. As we can see from every chart above, at level 100 the difference between the then and now is negligible. Sure, once you get to the 150s the difference is pretty big, but how often were you playing at those levels? If you were hoping this may dent Kosma (Railjack) enemies a bit, I am sorry to say that Kosma enemies only have increased health therefore the armor changes will do little.
And one final note on the way DE presented the changes to armor scaling. What DE showed in the Devstream was just the multiplier that armor gave to health, all that graph represented was a magical number that exists in the background and does not directly impact gameplay. While this was relatively clear to see when you took a good look at the chart, it was a bit deceptive in that it probably led a lot of people to believe that this was the new EHP scaling for Grineer. Basically what DE showed looked a lot better than it actually was.
These armor scaling changes may be fine, we already have our ways of killing level 100+ enemies, but I think it should be clear that the change being made is only making armor scaling 'absurd' from being 'broken absurd'. The change will have little to no noticeable impact on the average player.
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Gotta love people casually ignoring every shotgun that could not reach 100% status and how this will be a massive buff to those.
All hail our new shotgun god, Vaykor Hek. Actually, there is a chance base Hek may become the best Status shotgun in the game due to its augment.
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A quote from [DE]Scott on why DE hasn't implemented Riven "stat locking" from a stream he did with Tactical Potato.
QuotePotato: Have you ever considered, or did it ever go on the table about locking certain riven stats or do the ability to do like… In games like Diablo and things like that you get to roll a stat on certain armor pieces and that and you get to actually pick the one you want to keep or the one you want to roll. Has that ever been on the table? For doing that in regards to Rivens?
[DE]Scott: Um, I want to say that every time someone new at DE starts that is kind of like the like the ‘here’s a suggestion I have about how to make Rivens better’. I think the problem with doing that for us is Rivens are really, really powerful or can be really, really powerful. Like the upper end stats that are possible on those are really, really high and almost game-breaking high in a lot of cases. So if you have the ability to lock multiple stats or even one stat into something that is, is considered game-breaking. Ya know, um, I think that would be kinda bad for the very, ya know, that end-game player ‘cause then what we’d have to create to fight against that would be absolutely insane. So, I think that the randomness of it keeps the balance in check. So I think that the ability to lock those is probably not a great idea, it definitely gets floated around every couple months that people are like ‘hey, let’s lock Rivens’ and we’re like ‘Hell no’ because of what stats are possible on them. Ya know, obviously you guys probably have some insane Rivens that you’re like ‘This is amazing, and I would really like to lock it and reroll it and get this other stat that I don’t like on it off’.
Potato: When the Riven pass come in, holy S#&$.
[DE]Scott: Yah, and then like its gonna be like ‘oh, well then now its even more crazy’. So, I think for power creep’s sake which is not necessarily something that we always keep a super-duper eye on, the power creep problem, because it is PvE so we can create content to deal with the power creep problem. Uh, so, yeah, I don’t think locking is a good idea for the long-term health of the game.
So basically, DE doesn't want to because they are worried that we would become too "OP".
But it is apparently okay for someone to win the lottery and be "OP"... I don't even know where to begin on how scummy this looks. Like, I get where he is coming from, and I don't at all think DE does this with malicious intentions, but good lord that is a horrible way to go about things. Rivens have the potential to be an amazing endgame system that everyone would want to participate in, it would absolutely be worth the time for them to make it more universally appealing.
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I wish DE had never shown off Revenant in that Devstream and just continued to make him a Vampire Warframe with an Eidolon aesthetic.
Whenever I see someone try to give Revenant more "Eidolon-like" abilities it just looks like they are grasping at straws, now compare that to the rich background of vampire themes in all forms of media.
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On 2020-02-14 at 7:33 PM, -Kittens- said:
C. I sincerely hope you aren't hosting.
Having a Host using a streaming service would probably be the best connection a client could possibly have. The host computer is literally in a server farm, most likely with enterprise level internet connections. This is one of the major positives of cloud streaming, not a negative.
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4 minutes ago, Genitive said:
Instead of nuking your character, self damage could deal a fixed amount of damage to the player, in percentage of health. That way there would still be a risk in using the weapon, but not to the point when you instantly die, unless you're playing carelessly.
What I worry about with a system like this is that the "risk" would effectively be nullified, we have so much access to fast healing that a little self damage may not be enough of a risk to keep the balance of a high DPS explosive weapon in check. Personally I like the idea of knockdowns/staggers as a punishment, possibly increasing the knockdown duration proportionally with the amount of self damage relative to your health. But then this in itself may be too easy to counter with status resistance abilities or Primed Sure Footed. It is a difficult nut to crack, although in general I would say that I would rather have the punishment for self damage not be immediate death.
3 minutes ago, Aisu9 said:If we can deal self damage, enemy shall deal self damage too, it's pointless we're the only one how can blow ourself up
Well, first of all enemies don't deal enough damage to even tickle other enemies with their damage, so a change like this would be effectively pointless. But if DE did somehow make enemy self damage a thing, it would break the AI of the game. Fodder enemies should be dumb, if they dealt self damage then they would be even less of a threat. And if DE added fancy AI so they try not to hit each other would basically just bring us back to square one.
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4 minutes ago, Gabbynaru said:
Yeah, let me know when Tonkor is back to wiping maps like it used to, and I'll join your side. Until then, self damage sucks, because the weapons it is attached to suck as well.
Thanks for missing the point and/or only reading the first sentence, have a nice day. Enjoy your reputation for giving a quick sassy response.
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TL;DR: Great reward demands great risk in the name of balance.
If a single target damage weapon and a multi-target (AoE) weapon have similar damage outputs, the area of effect weapon is effectively superior due to being able to kill multiple targets. AoE weapons need to have things they do worse than single target weapons or else there would be no reason to use single target. The way DE has gone about balancing this in the past has resulted to them giving AoE weapons a moderate to significantly lower damage often in addition to self damage.
Balancing is lists of pros and cons, if we ever want an explosive weapon to have good damage there must be something that prevents it from completely overtaking the meta. I get the “I don’t like self damage” argument, but that’s the point, if there was nothing you did not like about a weapon that had amazing damage and an area of effect then there wouldn’t be a reason to ever not use it.
Now, I am not defending the past state of explosive weapons, for the most part AoE weapons have sub-par damage in addition to self damage. The risk/reward needs to be balanced, and that is where we get to Kuva Bramma. Kuva Bramma and Lenz are the two self damage weapons that hit the risk/reward relationship right. They are both extremely powerful weapons, and to compensate their incredible reward they both have substantial risk.
As for other self damage weapons, many need adjustment. I am not at all saying that self damage in its current state is “fine.” In general many would need their self damage removed/lessened OR have their effectiveness be increased. There is also the possibility for other methods of “punishment” for these explosive weapons besides outright killing the player, many of which have been discussed in other threads. There should be some form of punishment that is potent enough to discourage people from using these weapons in order for them to stay balanced, otherwise we will just get another Tonkor meta.
This is a hot take, I know, but it is important to know some of the good self damage offers. Keep in mind I am not dismissing the arguments against self damage, however whenever discussing the topic it is important to look at the arguments of both sides.
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Backstory
After the events of Tubemen of Regor, Alad V coming back into the Corpus fray left the Corpus Board uneasy. Thus, ever since then the Corpus Board has been quietly attempting to gather as much intel as possible about Alad V’s past, present, and future research. At some point they hit the jackpot, finding the research Alad V was working on during his initial Infestation and his final works of Patient Zero. They had found out (part of) how Alad V remotely controlled a Warframe.
Problem with the research is that while they had figured out a way to 3D print Warframes and had a way to control them, they were mere lifeless husks. It was like trying to control an RC car without a motor. The Mesa Warframe Alad V used during Patient Zero appeared to be one of a kind, nothing they had discovered showed any information on what powered Mesa. They need something to power them for them to be operational. This is where Frohd Beck, still bruised and out for revenge after the events of Ambulas Reborn, comes up with the plan to use the Tenno’s murder-lust against them.
The only thing in the system with the power to power a Warframe, is a Warframe. So, what if they could create a system to steal some of that power?
Mechanics
- Get an invasion from a Zanuka-like bot. The twist is, when you go to finish it with your Parazon you get zapped (all energy drained) and then the Zanuka runs away.
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When you get to your Orbiter, you get a message from Frohd telling you that your stupidity led you to create your own perfect Nemesis, yourself. He then kindly introduces you to them.
- Makes an exact copy of your Warframe’s cosmetics sans armor.
- Gets new Corpus armor and a Neck ring similar to the one Alad V used.
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Your true “nemesis” is a Corpus unit that is piloting your Warframe’s copy.
- This Corpus unit is basically a Corpus Operator sans the Void magic.
- Awesome opportunity to explore what an “evil Operator” could be. Or just a satire of Operators. It may break a bit of immersion but having the Corpus pilots be “MLG pro gamer” stereotypes would be a hoot.
- The Warframe copy is powered by void-juice siphoned from your Warframe when you stabbed the Zanuka.
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Every time you fail a stab of the Warframe it gets more Void-juice, making it stronger and giving it an ability from your currently equipped Warframe.
- Instead of an anger meter, it is a battery bar. The lower its battery the more likely it will attack you to try and get a recharge.
- Only way to kill the Warframe is to take out the Corpus pilot in control.
- Find the location of the pilot by finding the Requiem combo, getting the full code unlocks a new mission on the Star Chart where you can go to face the Corpus Pilot.
- When you get to the location you get one final battle with the Warframe, then get the choice to “convert” the pilot and have them work for you or kill the pilot and take their stuff.
It sounds like DE already has their Corpus Nemesis plans set in stone, but I thought I would at least throw this together for fun before we found out what was in store. Personally I loved the idea of how this nemesis would have a love/hate relationship with you. You are the one going out of your way to foil their plans, but you are also the one they need to keep the power on. It would also serve to be extremely different from Kuva Liches, a brains vs brawn dichotomy.
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Mountain out of a molehill if you ask me. The only time you "need" that MR is if you are trying to approach approach max rank and the difference is whatever you get from maxing Kava weapons.
So let's break down how niche this situation is.
- You need to have every other items in the game already at max rank.
- The current max rank is within the few MR points where the Kuva weapons make a difference.
Both of those things need to be fulfilled for that missing MR to mean anything. And with every few release both of those points are skewed, even of you do fulfill both DE could just release a few weapons and it is no longer a problem.
TL;DR. Maxing Kuva weapons is extraordinarily unnecessary, only the most anal completionists have any reason to do it.
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On 2020-01-31 at 10:49 PM, (PS4)IndianChiefJeff said:
Wait...Genetic Heritage? As in...More randomized stats? I already have all the companions, I don't want some stupid stat to dictate whether or not I should still keep them.
DE basically wants to make a breeding mini-game where you try to make the perfect pet. They actually said something along the lines of it having no RNG, where the result of combining genetic codes would be entirely predictable. However, I can't help but imagine that in order to breed you will need to get the specific traits you want in the parents... which would be RNG.
It could be an interesting system, but tbh it feels like an unnecessary layer even if DE fully delivers and makes it good. We already have modding for customization, we don't need even more layers on top of that.
On 2020-01-31 at 10:32 PM, Grey_Star_Rival_Defender said:Companions have higher tanking stats then their Warframe counterparts because they don't have access to the same level of movement to avoid damage from enemies. Despite this, they still go down regularly. Companions having access to more evasion, such as Kavat attacks which seem to dodge enemy gunfire, would be useful.
This is the single thing that is holding MOAs back. The have some intersting precepts, but they are by far the squishiest of all companions. We shouldn't ever feel like we have to babysit our companions.
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This is probably going to get lost in the mountain of responses, but there is one thing I'd like to suggest.
Overall I like the direction of the end of mission screen, however it would be really nice to have an "expand" button that would expand (duh) the stats on the bottom half to cover the Warframes. Not show new info (keep the stats on the separate screen, also expandable), just show as much of the drops/affinity stuff as possible on one screen (without scrolling). I like the default showing fashion, but sometimes I'd like the option to see more in one shot.
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On 2020-01-24 at 2:16 PM, Thundervision said:
-snip-
While this is all nice on paper, I can't help but feel it doesn't fit the pace of the game. We are killing basic units just too fast for any complex systems like this to have meaningful impact. On the other hand this could work well if we saw more mini-boss type enemies in the spawn tables, but first we need DE to give us those spawns *cough*replace Eximus with Arena enemies*cough*.
15 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:Of course, I'd also advocate using Railjack damage types in ground combat, as well. That is to say NO damage types have either bonuses or penalties against ANY of the health types. Armour would resist all damage equally and all damage would be equally good against it.
The main problem I see with this is that not all weapons are status weapons. This would mean that the base stats and elements you put on low status weapons would be basically irrelevant. While I do think that some parts of Damage 2.0 are needlessly overcomplicated, I think that this would be an oversimplification.
In addition the Railjack status procs share the same fatal flaw as normal status effects, they don't scale with damage. By this I mean the status effects don't get stronger if the damage that inflicted the status dealt more damage. This leads to high rate of fire or pellet count being the single best way to inflict status in most situations, meaning that choosing elements and base IPS of low RoF weapons will also be basically irrelevant.
Railjack status was a step forward in some cases, but it isn't ready for prime time if you ask me.
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I'd much rather have DE break something to make a better system then hold on to a broken system to protect our "investment".
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A promising tech demo.
Expectations were pretty well met, of course I would have preferred it to be better though. I also believe that with the feedback of the community DE will be able to make Railjack great faster than they could have if they kept it internal.
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6 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:
I'm not expecting everyone to stay on the ship all of the time. There's almost always something for at least one EVA player to do. I was more lamenting that there's no real reason to stay inside. Plenty of people have advocated parking the Railjack behind a rock at the edge of the map, going EVA and playing the whole mission in your Archwing. Some reason needs to exist for people to both USE the ship and STAY WITH the ship, and it can't simply be a key/lock requirement. I don't know what form that might take which wouldn't make Archwing combat impractical, though.
Honestly, making the Railjack useful for something beyond being an armoured weapons platform might be a good way to go. I'm of the opinion that Archwings need to use proper ammo rather than this regenerating bullS#&$, which can be recharged at or in the Railjack. Maybe let it recharge energy as well, or give them limited fuel - anything to limit the time/efficiency of an Archwing working AWAY from the Railjack. Put in a healing station, an energy station and an ammo dispenser inside the Railjack, too - there's a massive room which can take it. Maybe even let it spawn buffs every so often, or revive our pets.
I've no issue with players fighting in their Archwings, I just want players to be DEPENDENT on the Railjack in some fashion, where simply parking it off-site is a BAD idea. At that point, sure - we can have Dargyns 🙂
To a degree the "best" way to complete a mission is to stay in the Railjack. You obviously have your pilot. Then two people constantly on Turrets, which when maxed out kill faster than Archguns. Then the fourth on engineering/repair/big-gun duty. I see everyone saying "just use slingshot for crewships" but when you do that you...
- Have one less gun killing fighters
- Have travel time
- Have to wait through a bunch of mini 'cutscenes'
- Have to wait for the reactor explode
Or you can just shoot a crewship for a second with any armor-strip weapon and one-shot it with the canon.
Obviously there are a lot of other issues, but even with the current balance the best way to complete a mission is to use the Railjack. Now the problem is convincing pub groups of that...
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43 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:
OK, fair point there. I do worry, however. Railjack as it stands right now is pretty... Busy, with lots of tasks for everyone to handle both in and out of the ship. Which is what makes it so disappointing that all people ever seem to want to do is jump out in their Archwings and leave me managing to Railjack itself. One of these jobs is already to jump in your Archwing and go sabotage Crew Ships which the main guns otherwise can't even scratch. I worry, therefore, that adding another job that the Railjack can't do but is designed to encourage use of an Archwing would lead to more people just abandoning the ship and doing the whole mission in their Archwings.
This is actually one of the main reasons I've given up on Railjack currently, the "three people in their Archwings and me" problem. While you'll occasionally get a player who's fine with sitting on the guns, fighting boarders and plugging holes, most people seem to evac immediately, run off from the ship and try to solo the mission in their Amesha. Not only does that often leave me doing everything on-board myself, it's also... Kinda' rude, you know? More to the point, however, I'd argue that what Railjack needs right now is more reasons to stay with the ship and fewer reasons to leave. I'm not opposed to people going EVA, don't get me wrong, but there doesn't seem to be enough incentive right now to NOT do that.
Including Dargyns in Railjack missions as you've proposed it is not a bad idea. It gets around my "redundant enemy" issue via rebalancing Fighters to act more like Corvettes and require capital ship weapons to take down efficiently. On its face, you've changed my mid - that would be neat. Taken together, however - the Railjack currently suffers from a lot of on-board busywork that people try to avoid by jumping out, and I feel that needs to be addressed first and foremost. I'm already having trouble keeping people inside the ship as it is.
There are so many compounding issues with Railjack it is hard to ever take apart one piece and analyze it. I agree with pretty much everything you say here, but if I try to suggest fixes to those problems I am going to start talking about the Railjack's level design. Or the way your Railjack takes damage. Or the emphasis on just killing stuff over objectives. Each of those things are massive discussions in their own right, so it doesn't make much sense to get off topic here.
It is weird, but it is almost impossible to have coherent discussions about Railjack because of this. Unless you write a ten thousand word thesis about Railjack there are going to be major holes in what you say. And this applies to how DE "fixes" Railjack as well. Any single hotifix won't fix Railjack, to all we know the current balance of weapons after the latest hotfix is perfect but we can't tell because DE hasn't also fixed the other hundred problems yet. So people may keep complaining about how weapons are broken because we don't have the big picture yet.
Not sure what the point of that was, just a bit frustrated with the feedback discussions that have been happening.
SpoilerBut I am going to quick go off topic on one point anyway...
The Railjack is honestly a bit too big for the current content we have, if I had my way I would add two more turret locations to the Railjack (in that big three level room, where the windows are now) and have the Railjack serve as a 4-8 person ship. Then create a new ship, probably around a quarter to a third the size of the Railjack, that is designed for 1-4 players. It would only have two side turrets, probably only two forges, and maybe take away Ordinance or Tungsta canon. Basically it should be easier to manage with only one or two people on-board.
I don't think Emperyon's future is with everyone always being on the Railjack, that just isn't Warframe, we are supposed to be going out on missions as mercenaries. The ships we are flying need to cater better to that and a lot of that comes down to level design.
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12 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:
There's really no point in having a bunch of redundant enemy types who all behave in functionally identical ways and who are all fought the same.
That's... that's why I am suggesting adding Dargyns. They would be fundamentally a different type of enemy and cater to new gameplay.
Personally I imagine seeing Dargyns as an opportunity to give Archwings a combat role. Rather than have the Railjack and Archwings shooting at similar levels, all trying to kill the same enemies, have Railjack be for the fighters and Archwings be more adept at killing Dargyns. This is just a quick brain-storm, so forgive me for imperfections.
- Multiply Fighter health and Railjack damage by 3 (so basically no change from the Railjack's perspective)
- Give Arch-weapons hitscan back
That's honestly it I think. The Railjack would still be capable of taking out Dargyns, but between sheer numbers and non-hitscan it would be time consuming. You could specialize into this with certain weapons, like Pulsars or maybe even Cryos, but at base Archwings should be able to mop up Dargyns more efficiently. Railjack shouldn't be something where everyone is always just camping on the ship, that should be an option of course but we should be encouraged to mix things up. Enemy diversity shouldn't be implemented for the sake of just having more enemies, it should be to make the gameplay more diverse. Dargyns have the capability of doing such.
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Just give a fancy Ephemera and/or Syandana, then maybe some sort of emblem/sigil that increases with intensity as you get more MR points past MR 30.
That's it, no new "content" because getting to MR 30 is a slog that should absolutely not be mandatory, just some pretty rewards to show off that you did the thing.
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15 hours ago, fr4gb4ll said:
ehh, aren't dragyns not also only about twice the size of a frame? of the fighters, the flaks and the outriders are the biggest ones - maybe doubble the size (or maybe mass) of the cutter and... whatever name they other one has (that one that looks like those hunter-killer from matrix ^^) those 'little' fighters which also 'only' have the pilot in it (cy say so at least) are near the same size of dragyns.
Dargyns are about twice the height of a frame, but they are tall and skinny. The smallest Railjack units are also about twice the height, but they are also about twice as wide as they are tall and four time as long as they are tall. Then as someone else mentioned the scaling in Railack is apparently broken as well.
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Adding Dargyns to Railjack would serve to add two key things...
- A sense of scale
- Enemy diversity in the form of fodder
That is basically the TL;DR, below is the rationale.
A sense of scale: The new Archwing enemies are not small, basically all of them are at least twice the height of our Warframes, but it doesn't ever feel like that because we fight them from a distance. Perspective is a funny thing, if you don't have a frame of reference you have no idea how large or small something is. This is especially a problem in space games because the view distances are so large, making big things actually look big is not an easy thing.
This is where Dargyns come in. We know how big Dargyns are, we have plenty of experience shooting them down and even occasionally flying them. We know that they basically fit a single Grineer unit behind the helm and we have a very good idea of how big those are because we have killed tens of thousands of them. A Dargyn can thus serve as a frame of reference for everything else, if you see a Dargyn next to an Outrider you will instantly understand the scale of that enemy (Outriders are quite large). Or if you see Dargyns fly out of base you will get a sense of scale to how large that base is without flying up to it. Railjack is all about taking on bigger threats than we ever had the means to before, we need to actually think that our threats are big.
Enemy diversity in the form of fodder: Going way back to Archwing's initial release, the biggest problem that plagued the mode is the lack of enemy variety. Even though we were fighting in space with giant weapons it was still basically just killing Basic Grineer Unit #314 over and over again. Railjack has fallen into a similar situation, despite there being a technical variety of enemy units everything feels the same to play against (outside crew ships). They all have similar times to kill, they have similar flight patters, and they all look basically the same at first glance.
What is worse with Railjack is that the enemies are a slog. Warframes combat revolves around deleting fodder enemies, that is the feel the game has really hit its stride with. This is not to say every enemy should be deleted, but rather that there needs to be enemies that can be mopped up to sustain the power fantasy. Just because we are in a bigger ship it does not mean that we should only face bigger threats, we should also face our same old threats with our new power to make our new power feel... uh... powerful. Similar with the sense of scale Dargyns would add they would also serve as a frame of reference for how powerful we have become.
And let's not forget, it is not like Dargyns don't already exist, not only do they exist but there is even a fair variety of types of Dargyns from old Archwing stuff. I try not to assume it would be as easy as copy-paste; but it couldn't be that difficult, right?
Adding Dargyns will not fix all of Railjack's issues with enemy design and balancing, but it would serve to be a massive improvement.
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TWW required nothing of your Archwing.
The Sacrifice was doable with a base Operator.
I highly doubt that The New War will ask anything of us beyond just having a Railjack.
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A problem a lot of Warframe's content creator personalities have, including Brozime, is that they get stuck in an echo chamber. Their stands will assert anything the creator says and if anyone ever questions what the creator says all hell breaks lose from the people who watch that creator. And thus the content creators rarely have their opinions and stances questioned. Their initial reactions to things are perpetuated because their following just parrots them.
And as time goes on this builds up and the creators eventually become so confident in themselves that they stop questioning themselves anymore. And even worse this just feeds directly back into their communities that then become even more confident themselves. It really is just a tragic positive feedback loop.
I actually quite like Brozime's content and streams, although it does sometimes hurt to watch him fall down that slippery slope of negativity. But tbh no matter where I go that negativity will be there, and I appreciate that I can disagree with Brozime as that prevents me from getting too confident in what I think.
More on topic to Railjack and squishy enemies, to me the worst single decision with Railjack was buffing the poop out of the on-foot Grineer units. If DE wanted to add some challenges that should come from unit diversity, for example mini-boss units like Nox. Not by making everything a bullet sponge. O
Energy Economy Solutions (Long Proposal)
in General
Posted
I really liked the idea of integrating the Parazon into the (broken) energy economy, but my worry here is that it is a bit on the slow side. It would work well enough for new players, the time in the game where the energy economy is the worst, but I don't see it scaling well into higher level content. This is a really cool starting point though.
Finding enemies at a health threshold is probably even more inconsistent than energy drops, especially when playing in a party. The Parazon needs to find a way into combat that does not basically rely on a combat "failure" (failing to quickly kill an enemy). Maybe have the Parazon exist on a cooldown that can be accelerated by killing enemies. Or tie it to affinity, get "x" amount of affinity in order to recharge a Parazon finisher. This would also let it scale better into later game activities.
Ya know what this reminds me of? The Chainsaw in Doom 2016.