The Problem With The Tiered Weapon System In Warframe

[Jamescell]

EDIT: Sorry to clarify, I'm talking about what is already in game, how certain weapons eclipse other models, (ignoring primes) I will attempt to keep this excruciatingly short, the problem with adding a tiered weapon system to Warframe is that you end up forcing players to use mediocre weapons to get to the next mastery level, because they have made mastery a goal for themselves to prevent personal burnout (speaking for myself and others). For those who have failed to understand the post and keep wailing about mastery, I'm not talking about weapons that require a certain rank, I'm talking about how there are weapons that serve the same purpose, but one design being better in every aspect than the rest. There is the argument "we need to give noobs bad guns" but there really is no need for that, mod levels  should be able to fill that role. And even though the game is supposed to be pVe oriented, there is still a huge "race to the top" aspect of the game that really discourages staying at low mastery.  How many weapons you can grind through, shouldn't be the only indicator to other players of how "good" you are at Warframe. 

Edited August 29, 2013 by Jamescell

[GIMO]

I don't see how adding a tier system creates a problem that's already present..

[Althix]

what?

[K1LLZ0NE]

There isn't much of a tiered weapon system in Warframe.  Not if you ask me.  Sure, there are a few rank locked weapons, but those weapons aren't inherently better than all the rest.  Except maybe the Acrid.  Personally, I would like more of a tiered system.  A weapon that costs 10 neurodes and 8000 ferrite should be freaking awesome.  Just like a weapon that is rank locked at Mastery Rank 10 should blow you away.  Otherwise what is the point of getting it?

[Saenol]

I'm not rushing through mastery ranks.

 

I'm still rank 6 with 350+ hours into the game, and have more frame/weapon experience, as well as double the kills, of some rank 9-11 individuals on my friends list.

 

I rank up when I rank up, doing whatever I feel is fun in the mean time.

[qwertyboom80]

I agree with this. However, I don't think the current mastery system should be totally removed. Instead there should be more than one way to rank up mastery. Perhaps something along the lines of an achievement system for doing things like killing 15+ enemies with one ult, or finishing x missions undetected. This topic is definitely worth some thought.

Edited August 29, 2013 by qwertyboom80

[Jamescell]

Sorry, I originally didn't specify what I was talking about, post is now edited. 

[Althix]

 

I rank up when I rank up, doing whatever I feel is fun in the mean time.

yeap.

[Jamescell]

@Althix The game isn't a good provider of that for most players. 

[Virtus_Dei_Est]

i think all this will end once they fix the armor scalation problem... i mean if you dont use an armor ignore weapon you can do anythng after a certain level...

[Jamescell]

No.. It won't. The best weapons still eclipse the rest or similar versions, and this is purposeful, however, it is not an effective system as I mentioned.

[K1LLZ0NE]

I'm sorry, but what "best weapons" are you talking about?  The Despair is arguably  the best weapon in the game.  And it isn't even rank locked.  And the Boltor is also very good and, again, not rank locked.

Edited August 29, 2013 by K1LLZ0NE

[Jamescell]

Haha wow I mention nothing about mastery, yet you fixate your responses on my "mention of mastery" try to understand the post by reading carefully.

 

-Read the post again, I clarify on a pretty basic level, in the middle of the post, because you can't seem to understand what I have blatantly stated. 

Edited August 29, 2013 by Jamescell

[K1LLZ0NE]

First of all, you DO mention mastery in your post.  Sorry if that is not what you want to get rid of, just saying, you do mention it.  My point is that there is NO tiered weapon system.  Not really.  Sure, you have weapons that are better than others, but they are all accessible straight from the get-go.  It isn't really "tiered".  The only form of "weapon tiers" in Warframe is the Mastery Rank system, but all rank locked weapons aren't necessarily better than the rest.  Are you saying that there is no tier system, and you don't want one?  Or are you saying there is a tier system, and you want it gone?

[Jamescell]

Not in the way you were lamenting about. And I use the term tiered loosely, meaning there are weapons that are far better than others. Try and think outside the box before you pose arguments and questions that are so narrow in scope they don't seem to actually address the OP, or are addressed in the post. This is some common sense stuff to figure out dude, I'm not sure why you monitor the forums. 

 

DE has said they want weapons that are nooby, and weapons that are super good, so players can switch off as they get "better".

 

-You negatively impact the post by making it about your concerns that you don't understand the topic fully.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Jamescell

[K1LLZ0NE]

Not in the way you were lamenting about. And I use the term tiered loosely, meaning there are weapons that are far better than others. Try and think outside the box before you pose arguments and questions that are so narrow in scope they don't seem to actually address the OP, or are addressed in the post. This is some common sense stuff to figure out dude, I'm not sure why you monitor the forums. 

 

DE has said they want weapons that are nooby, and weapons that are super good, so players can switch off as they get "better".

 

-You negatively impact the post by making it about your concerns that you don't understand the topic fully.

 

Its not my fault if you don't know what "tiered" means.  To get back on topic.  Obviously there are weapons that are better than others.  That's just how a game is.  And where has DE said "they want weapons that are nooby, and weapons that are super good"?  All weapons are pretty much viable up to a point.  That point being lvl 100 mobs.  And DE is hoping to fix this issue with the new damage/armor system.  If your concern is that some weapons are better than others, than I have this to say:  Why do you want the same weapon re-skinned a dozen times?

 

There, you see how i responded POLITELY and COURTEOUSLY?  You might want to look into it.  It'll make you seem like less of a Jerk.  

Edited August 29, 2013 by K1LLZ0NE

[S3raph]

People argue that they want everything to be sidegrades...

 

Funnily enough, in over 6 months playing the game I have yet to see a "Pls Buff Skana" thread. No one seems to have a problem with the skana being a S#&$ melee weapon as it's viewed as a beginner's weapon. Without tiers, there is no sense of progression and all weapons would basically be reskins of each other.

 

Any game with RPG elements will have some form of tiered equipment system. You grind to get a better weapon so that you can kill enemies faster and get to the next tier weapon. If it wasn't this way, you would max out your loadout and you're done. The game is finished. What incentive is there to get another weapon, if it's basically the same as the one I have now?

[Jamescell]

The weapons ARE re-skins of each other. And at K1LLZ0NE I wasn't directly quoting them, but they have stated something like that in one of the recent live streams. And your point about weapons being viable is completely disregarding what I'm saying, and framing me for arguing a different point, like almost all of your prior comments. Sure with maxed serration Braton could struggl to lvl. 100 missions, but why use it when there are other weapons with better stats in pretty much every aspect that aren't mastery locked. Mastery forces us to max the Braton league guns, unless you pretty much disregard mastery, but after a certain threshold of time invested, it's one of the only partially satisfying goals available in game.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Jamescell

[Voidflow]

The problem is not in tiers. The problem is in poor weapon balance and in sidgrades respectively.

With proper balance you could have tiers, where the difference between low tier and high tier in amount of polarity slots, looks and animation. 

On the top of that you could increase weapon stats with each added polarity slot (cap at 6 formas) to make the DPS gap between tiers wider, without changing final weapon balance at min./ maxed level.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/99726-weapon-balance-tiers-and-sidegrades/

 

This way you could have tiers with "beginner" and "high level" weapons and a possibility to push beginner gear to high level.

Also min maxers would have more to do to level or to bring low tier gear that appeal to them to higher level.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Voidflow

[Jamescell]

The problem is not in tiers. The problem is in poor weapon balance and in sidgrades respectively.

With proper balance you could have tiers, where the difference between low tier and high tier in amount of polarity slots. 

On the top of that you could increase weapon stats with each added polarity slot (cap at 6 formas).

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/99726-weapon-balance-tiers-and-sidegrades/

 

This way you could have tiers with "beginner" and "high level" weapons and a possibility to push beginner gear to high level.

 

 

That is essentially what I am trying to state. Did I really do such a poor job of being concise? What I meant by tiered is that weapons are unbalanced, and essentially you can have a weapon eclipsing all the rest that play the same role, with just as much accessibility.

[Vaskadar]

Tiered weaponry also creates disincentives to forma weapons (because power creep emerges shortly with it). I think there's a lot to be said for the Braton, which is an awesome weapon that players can get so very early in the game, which while a general-use weapon, is still capable of being taken to super high-level stuff. A more powerful weapon should require more effort to use, not to acquire (i.e. leading targets, or paying attention to ammunition levels, or rush in close like with Boltor).

I like sidegrades or weapons that do completely different things, while still maintaining the difficulty curve of the game.

[Logajam]

An Idea I had while going through this thread.

Instead of Teirs of weapons, have interactive buffs and debuffs between weapons and warframes.

 

Example is the best way I can show the Idea.

 

Gorgon:  -20% movement speed on warframes.  Rhino only has -10% movement.

Furis: +5% Crit Chance for all weapons, +10% Crit Chance with Sayrn.

Paris: Enemy Detection Radius reduced.  +20% Damage when used by Banshee

Amphis: Energy Syphon effect +.1.  +.2 for Trinity

Skana: Movement +5%  Excaliber All melee damage ignores armor.

 

The ulitmate Idea is to create a system where every weapon shines somewhere in conjunction with some other set of equipment or warframes.  It may eventually lead to a point where if you're playing Warframe A then you must have weapons XYZ and if you use weapons WPS instead then the XYZ crowd will never respect you.  But by making the combinations more complex that day of reckoning is pushed back.

[Jamescell]

I like it.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Jamescell

[Lers]

An Idea I had while going through this thread.

Instead of Teirs of weapons, have interactive buffs and debuffs between weapons and warframes.

 

Example is the best way I can show the Idea.

 

Gorgon:  -20% movement speed on warframes.  Rhino only has -10% movement.

Furis: +5% Crit Chance for all weapons, +10% Crit Chance with Sayrn.

Paris: Enemy Detection Radius reduced.  +20% Damage when used by Banshee

Amphis: Energy Syphon effect +.1.  +.2 for Trinity

Skana: Movement +5%  Excaliber All melee damage ignores armor.

 

The ulitmate Idea is to create a system where every weapon shines somewhere in conjunction with some other set of equipment or warframes.  It may eventually lead to a point where if you're playing Warframe A then you must have weapons XYZ and if you use weapons WPS instead then the XYZ crowd will never respect you.  But by making the combinations more complex that day of reckoning is pushed back.

 

Unlikely that it will happen, but i like it too. DE seemed very adamant sofar about the equal gear selection options between frames.

 

As for the whole "tiered" weapon system and some being much better than the others? The armor scaling revamp poetntially could fix some of our issues. The problem isn't that some weapons are better than others. The problem is that some weapons are better in the astronomical scales after the armor starts ramping up on the enemies. Small disparities would probably be tolerated by the people, but at the moment, even the notion of bringing a Latron or Burston into a lvl90+ mission is absurd at best.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Lers

[SpacePirateKing]

The problem I have is having some weapons just be flat-out better in every way with no advantages to the old ones is customization. I like using the burston on my Nyx. The Hind is pretty much superior to it in every way, but do I want to use it with my Nyx? No, because it doesn't look as good with her. It really impedes customization. I like to use a different set of weapons for every single warframe that I have, with some alternate weapons that I can switch around as I please, but each warframe I have has at least one set of weapons I only use with that frame, because I like the way they look, and they work well with the frame's abilities. As I get each new frame I craft/buy (whichever makes more sense at the time) new weapons for it. When the Hind came out I decided it would look great with Loki, so that's where I put it. Of course this is just my opinion and how I, specifically, play the game, but one of the things that pulled me into warframe was the level of customization. The color selector was the best I've played out of any game, whereas most games it's just 'pick a camo'. You might not be able to change the way weapons look other than color, but that's good enough for me because that would be just too complicated. Customization is really important for me because I like to make the game my own, not just use a cookie-cutter that's already there. Hell, one of the reasons I first bought platinum was just so I could get more colors. I have a strong sense of individuality and if a game lets me carry that into the character I'm playing, I enjoy it so much more.

 

TL;DR: Basically I like using some of the old underpowered weapons just for cosmetic purposes, so if they could be more viable at higher levels than I would enjoy a lot of the game much more. Ex, Aklato. Everyone seems to think they suck, and they kinda do at high levels, but they're still my favorite weapon.