Tanks dont exist in warframe and here's why.

[TheKazz91]

There are no tanks in warframe. I am not talking about mobile artillery pieces I mean the classic MMO archetype. The guy that is supposed to be up front taking the damage and protecting his team does not exist. I know what you're thinking, "what about all of the tanky frames like Rhino, Inaros, Frost, Nekros, etc." Well you're half right they are "tanky" but they are tanks. They are not tanks because no warframe very few warframes have an ability to taunt or other wise draw aggro effectively and keep them selves alive while/after doing it. There is only 1 4 way to actually make things more likely to attack you specifically instead of your allies or the cryo pod or what ever else they are attacking and those options are: a melee mod that says you cant attack if you want to draw aggro, a mod for Ack&Brunt (which is a trash weapon) that will redirect damage dealt to allies onto you, Nyx's absorb, and Rhino's Iron skin. The first two of which are just not how warframe is played, the third is a fringe case on a frame with relatively low survablity outside of this one ability, and the forth is barely noticeable at all to the point that I bet most people have no idea it even does that. Also before the arguement that rhino and inaros are actual tanks that prevent damage from being delt to their allies because they have hard CC I am gonna say that having CC does not make you a tank it helps you tank but unless we are gonna start calling Titania a tank because she has lantern... yeah not sorry but no...

Basically in warframe there are two types of frames those that can be played in missions with level 200+ enemies (please note the disclaimer about his example below) and those that cannot. It doesnt matter what your team comp is it doesnt matter how much damage you can do all that matters at that level if "difficulty" is how well a frame can keep it's self alive. This means that there are a lot of frames that are simply not viable at those levels. 

So how do we fix this? Well to over simplify the answer: "AGGRO". So I have two suggestions on this. The first is more of a classic MMO solution where tankier frames have more baseline agrro as well as some sort of a taunt ability. This can Litterally just be tacked on to abilities that are already it the game like rhinos roar, inaros' sand storm maybe? Personally I feel this is the less effective way to achieve this and it would require additional reworks to frames that otherwise really do not need them. 

The second suggestion I have is adding an aggro stat to weapons. A great example of how this could work is a game called "Army of Two" which much like warframe is a very fast pace co-op game but it is also fairly strategic because of this aggro system which encourages players to swap it back and forth to complete various tasks. I think adding a system like this could open up a lot of interesting game play opportunities and make Warframe feel like more of a team based Co-op game rather than a solo game you happen to be playing with 3 other people which is honestly what it turns into a lot of the time. Again I think this is a much better method of adding some sort of aggro management to the game for higher difficulty content. This is because it doesn't require any one from altering what they would naturally be doing in warframe which is generally just trying to shot everything in the face. If you want to draw more aggro use a gun that generates more threat possibly even toss in a mod to increase threat on that gun weapon. There is also already a noise level attached to each weapon that could be adapted and expanded to flush out this system.

EDIT:

Most common comments so far: This isn't needed because nothing in warframe does enough damage to require this sort of aggro management OR The traditional holy trinity of roles doesn't apply because Warframe is not that kind of game. 
SO I am just going address these two comments right here and explain why I think this is bad for the game so we can move on with an actual discussion. To the first comment of "there is no content that requires this" well this is half true. It is true in the sense that there really isn't any form of true end game content that is at all challenging to a group of players all with a 4-6 forma build using primed mods for frame, primary, secondary, and melee. The closes thing to something that would present a challenge to a group like this is hanging out in a survival for way too long for no other reason than just to see how long they can. Basically it is on the players to make the game artificially harder with no expectation of better rewards if they want to challenge them selves. This is bad for the game because if it is not challenging then MOST players will eventually hit a point where they get bored and stop playing. To be clear I am NOT suggesting that DE should balance for content that is level 200+ because this is beyond the point that the game is actually designed to be played at as is evident by the ludicrous enemy scaling that basically requires players to abuse what should quite frankly be considered bugs in order to complete that level of content. The reason I use this as an example above is because it is the CLOSEST thing the difficulty level that real end game content should get to when/if DE ever decides to give that to us. 

Now because we are using level 150-200 content as our stand in for what real end game content should effectively be like in terms of the actual difficulty of it, we run into some issues. For about half of the current roster of frames this level of content is perfectly reasonable in fact a small number of frames could push this to 250 maybe 300 and still function. How ever for the other half of the roster They simply don't have the tools in their own personal kit to survive fire power of that magnitude. They may do enough damage to perform at that level of play but because and only because they don't have the ability to mitigate incoming damage they are simply not viable at that level. This result in people going to the forums and saying so and so needs a rework because they can't deal with level 150-200 content. You know what the easy solution to that is? Well look no further than Mesa for a prime example (no pun intended). Mesa is a great frame possibly one of the best. However the thing that Mesa is most known for, that being her ability absolutely murder every body in the same room as her even at very high level content, is not why she is great. No no no, Mesa is great because of her 3rd ability that gives her a 95% damage reduction. If you don't believe me take her into a sortie 3 survival and don't use her 3rd ability. You'll spend more time on the floor than you will firing your regulators because just 2 or 3 stray bullets will put you down. So why am I pointing out Mesa? Well it is not because I hate fun and think she needs to be nerfed. I love Mesa but there is no way that she should even have an ability that gives her a 95% DR based on her achetype let alone NEED that 95% DR in order to be a great warframe. We should be able to replace her 3rd ability with literally anything else and she should still be great but that's not the case. If you take away her 3 she is mediocre for sorties and she would be all but useless in missions with 150-200+ enemies.

Again this requirement for a frame to have this level of damage mitigation in their kit whether it comes from DR, CC, Health Regen, invisablity, (or in a few rare cases the ability to kill everything before it even gets to the doorway of the room you are in) just means that players go to DE and say "hey why isn't my favorite frame good enough to do high level content? Make it better" So lets say that every frame gets a rework to get them to the point where they can be used in this level content. Well now the Rhino and the Inaros players are going to start saying "hey why is Ember just as tanky as me but also deals large amounts of damage to everything with in 6 miles?" So then they get a rework too and now everything is the same. they are all unkillable and murder the world by pressing 4 (except Vauban because he is still trash after is 4th 5th rework.) I know this is an exaggeration but you get where I am going with it. If they just keep reworking every frame to give it more survivability to make it more viable for high level content they might as well just nerf the whole game which is the LAST thing that warframe needs. It needs more challenging content not less but it needs to introduce that more challenging content fairly where all frames except Vauban can be viable for different reasons and being able to take a lot a damage is not mandatory. 

Now moving on to the second comment of traditional roles don't apply to Warframe. Again I am going to half way agree with this. Warframe is about moving fast and hitting hard, it should never be possible for any warframe to be plopped into another game with it's same kit and mobility and be confused as anything but a DPS by the standards of that other game. That is just how warframe is played. This is the reason I am particularly in favor of adding some sort of aggro system that is attached to the weapons you are using. You should never have to stop shooting something in the face so you can stay alive unless its to reposition or get a bit of cover while your shields recharge (if shields didn't in general massively suck at keeping you alive which is another topic entirely) Having some measure of the threat or aggro your weapon generates lets you build a team comp where you can be relatively safe while still performing your primary role of shooting everything in the face. 

As far as the roles other than DPS which we have established all warframes fit into, I think there is still very much a place for them IF DE gave us the kind of end game content that a huge percentage of the player base is chopping at the bit for and presented it fairly as I stated above. Make content that makes playing a glass cannon viable and rewarding because you know that the mission would have taken 3 or 4 times as long with out Titania's insane single target DPS, Or that everyone would have died during a "phase" or mid-mission event that dealt a ton of damage to everyone if trinity/oberon wasn't there to heal everyone up and keep them alive even with Rhino taking 90% of the total damage. Again these are just examples I know operators could just ignore huge damage spikes like that but that is not the point and I also really hope that gets changed in the future so you can't just hangout in void mode near indefinitely (hopefully because void demons try to posses you or something interesting like that) 😉  Anyway the point is that saying there is not a place for roles in this game is just a lack of creativity in the content design which is going to need to improve if DE expects to keep veteran players engaged and interested for years to come which is very much in their best interests. 

Final point I want to make here is that this is a suggestion to basically "Fix" under performing frames without actually needing to do anything to most of them (vauban being one of the obvious exceptions here). It is to allow for more diverse and challenging content that is inclusive to all waframes regardless of how "tanky" or squishy they are to be created in the future. It is not: in any way shape or form intended to sound like this is necessary to complete any of the content currently in the game. This is a system that would allow other systems to be built on top of it and flourish. It is my suggestion on a first step towards improving late game content and should not be required for any player to even know this system exists or what it does in order to hop into a pug group to farm polymer bundles and crack relics with high success, work their way through the star chart, or even complete sorties. This is intended to be a system that really comes online and becomes important in late game content where you most likely have a group of friends or clan members who are in voice chat together who are all fully built with forma and max primed mods. The "solo together" model works great for the content we have right now but that philosophy will never produce the kind of challenging and rewarding content that veteran players are itching for after putting thousands of hours into the game. 

EDIT #2:

So we got the mainline update with Arbitrations today and  I think this just drives this point home. I have a very strong impression that you will almost never see the squishier frames used in these missions. This is going to be absolutely dominated by frames like Trinity, Rhino, Inaros, Nidus, Frost, Etc. Don't get me wrong I think it is a step in the right direction when it comes to providing some endgame content despite the fact that most of the prizes are just endo which a true veteran player doesn't need which is a topic for another day. But as far as actually providing a challenge and a reason to push your self they are a nice addition to the standard game play and a good way to utilized existing game assets to provide a challenge with out requiring a huge investment of man hours to push out to the players. I do think it will definitely make it much more appearant that there is a fundamental problem with how warframes a balanced and how they interact and what makes a warframe great as opposed to being good enough to complete the star chart. 

Edited October 13, 2018 by TheKazz91
Addressing common comments

[FreeWilliam]

There's also damage redirection, which is a decent 'support the team' concept as well as an existing mod (admittedly only for one weapon)

Still, it'd be better if you didn't have to stop attacking, eh?

[-QUILL_PETER-]

1 minute ago, FreeWilliam said:

There's also damage redirection, which is a decent 'support the team' concept as well as an existing mod (admittedly only for one weapon)

Still, it'd be better if you didn't have to stop attacking, eh?

[TheKazz91]

Yeah the not attack thing is really what kills mods like these. @-QUILL_PETER-It is just not how warframe is played. Why would you use a mod slot to get an effect that only help team mates that are close to you if you stop actually helping? 

As a side note I just want to point out that gardian diversion has a .01% drop chance from one enemy type making it one of the hardest mods to actually get ypur hands on.

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by TheKazz91

[BansheePrime]

4 minutes ago, TheKazz91 said:

Yeah the not attack thing is really what kills mods like these. @-QUILL_PETER-

But... you can block while using melee with it. I should know, I use it all the damn time with Atlas.

[Buttaface]

Blocking for a second or two then attacking during the buff, then rinse repeat, is not "can't attack." The reasons there is no or little tanking in WF are a) overabundant, overpowered long range radial CC makes it unnecessary; b) to date, bossy (Eidolon) damage is PBAOE and not single target c) Mob AI is primitive and damage easily avoidable or mitigated, to avoid most of the damage from half of the mob factions, one has to simply keep moving and juking, and the other mobs behave rather stupidly or have spoolup/downtime allowing plenty of time to avoid; d) Spamming of OP radial AOE damage powers, some of which also have CC of their own.

WF is probably not going to create modes where tank n spank or the holy trinity are applicable. It's an easy, casual hybrid shooter game with not much emphasis on the "shooter" part, despite the way they attract shooter gamers with the weapon variety. It's also not a tiered raiding game with tiered gear required for the next content. Until they do create such modes, not sure what benefit there would be for players to create or use tanking builds over other options. Things could certainly change in the future though.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Buttaface

[FreeWilliam]

Just now, BansheePrime said:

But... you can block while using melee with it. I should know, I use it all the damn time with Atlas.

Anyone who melees with Atlas is a friend of mine. 🙂

And good point, Final Harbinger works great with the block button held down.  

[Sorenxoras]

And they only work in distances that a good number of players and ranged enemies generally stay out of in basically every mission type. So basically useless either way.

[Alcatraz]

Iron Skin does draw aggro. I remember this from a patch some time ago going in affect, but it was never mentioned on the wiki. Problem is, it doesn't draw everything, it just makes you more of a priority for enemies to shoot at but, with the amount of enemies you could be dealing with in a team, you're not going to notice it.

It's just the type of game Warframe is. No real, crowd drawing Warframes like that of which you want. Even the mods aren't that great. Fatal Attraction is one of the best aggro drawing mods, but that's for a sentinel so it's always overlooked, and not constant.

Warframe is more of defensive and offensive abilities type, and specialized crowd control. Like Harrows Chains for example; it is crowd control. Rhino Stomp can be the most effective hard CC type. So if it doesn't kill, heal, control, or do a fancy trick, you're out of luck.

[FreeWilliam]

7 minutes ago, Sorenxoras said:

And they only work in distances that a good number of players and ranged enemies generally stay out of in basically every mission type. So basically useless either way.

Very much this.  The range on those things is pretty pitiful.  

[TheKazz91]

@Alcatraz 

I did not know that Iron Skin did that. But yeah because it just makes enemies slightly more likely to prioritize Rhino i do feel like it is still missing the mark.

@Buttaface 

You're right the current game modes, enemy design, and "difficulty" scaling in the game does really lend its self to the tank/healer/dps model of most MMO's but thats not to say that it could never get there. Just look at how raiding in WoW has evolved over the 11+ years its been around. Vanilla raiding in wow used the same difficulty scaling model that Warframe is using right now. The bosses were not really interesting and didnt have may interactions with the players they were essentially just giant blobs of health that dealt a lot of damage, how ever now the difficulty in WoW comes from mechanical interactions not just raw numbers and raiding in wow is arguably better now than it has ever been. The only thing limiting that sort of evolution in design in warframe is what the players want and what DE is willing to put the time and resources into to make it happen. 

Edited October 8, 2018 by TheKazz91

[Eirshy]

Enemies already have a rudimentary aggro system, actually. It uses a lot of the stealth mechanics in place; if you run something silent like the Baza and/or engage at longer ranges, you'll notice guns are typically not pointed in your direction compared to other tenno. Proximity is probably the biggest factor in the AI's targeting- if you want aggro, get in their face.

There's also some things with increased threat. Titania's razorflies are a good example. Nothing active "YOU MUST LOOK AT ME!", but in the Razorflies' case, they'll charge enemies and steal aggro from almost anything (and typically die quickly because of it).

Which brings up why there are no "tanks" and never should be: this is a shooter- "tanking" is the job of cover, not entities. Frost, Volt, Gara, hell, even Nyx with Assimilate have some form of deployable, one-way cover. They're (essentially) your tanks.

 

1 hour ago, Buttaface said:

WF is probably not going to create modes where tank n spank or the holy Trinity are applicable

But serious Eidolon runs have Trinity as a near-requirement! ^{_{this is a joke}}

Edited October 8, 2018 by Eirshy

[Dabnician]

Aggro is based on distance and range, if you want the npc to aggro your team mates you run behind them while they shoot at it???

Granted though: the Rhino's Roar should aggro all npcs with-in X distance if only for a moment before they resume normal target again. it would help in defection missions.

 

UO,EQ,AC,AO,SWG,CoH,FE,WOW....MMO Style raids are not fun, fighting 1 boss for 3-4 hours is not fun, a raid missoin that takes 3-4 hours to complete multiple chains on the other hand is fun. im just worried when we say "raid" we basically get more eldions. WoW is also not a FPS they dont have the a time-step-lock like most mmos where results are simulated server side and then synchronized between clients. I would really like to see multiple chain/leg missions that require teams of specific warframes to complete.

 

 

[krc473]

1 hour ago, TheKazz91 said:

They are not tanks because no warframe has the ability to taunt or other wise draw aggro.

So, abilities that draw enemy fire do not count? What about Octavia, Loki and Titania? All three have abilities that draw enemy fire. Are they considered tanks? If “draw aggro” is all you are requiring, they should be.

[TheKazz91]

50 minutes ago, Dabnician said:

1. Granted though: the Rhino's Roar should aggro all npcs with-in X distance if only for a moment before they resume normal target again

2. UO, EQ, AC, AO, SWG, CoH, FE, WOW....MMO Style raids are not fun

3. WoW is also not a FPS

 

 

1. This is really what Im suggesting in my first idea

2. That is entirely subjective and also makes it very appearant that you have not raided in wow in the last few expansions. Because pretty much raid encounter has some sort if enrage on it which effectively puts a time limit on the fight and nearly every raid boss in the last 3 expansions have adds so its not just fighting one guy and the fights that do not have any adds tend to be the least popular among the community.

3. Neither is Warframe it would be a TPS (third person shooter) meaning it is just as easy to telegraph high damage abilities in war frame as it is in a classic MMO

I do agree that raids in war frame would be much better as a series of say 10 5-20 minute missions (basically extended sorties) rather than 2-3 hour slog in one instance. (Which is why the current "end game" for people that actually want something resembling a challenge is so bad right now. The only way to make the game "hard" right now is to spend 3 hours in a survival)

50 minutes ago, Eirshy said:

Enemies already have a rudimentary aggro system, actually. It uses a lot of the stealth mechanics in place; if you run something silent like the Baza and/or engage at longer ranges, you'll notice guns are typically not pointed in your direction compared to other tenno. Proximity is probably the biggest factor in the AI's targeting- if you want aggro, get in their face.

There's also some things with increased threat. Titania's razorflies are a good example. Nothing active "YOU MUST LOOK AT ME!", but in the Razorflies' case, they'll charge enemies and steal aggro from almost anything (and typically die quickly because of it).

Which brings up why there are no "tanks" and never should be: this is a shooter- "tanking" is the job of cover, not entities. Frost, Volt, Gara, hell, even Nyx with Assimilate have some form of deployable, one-way cover. They're (essentially) your tanks.

 

But serious Eidolon runs have Trinity as a near-requirement! ^{_{this is a joke}}

So what your saying is the frame work for the system I am suggesting where using certain weapons will make enemies more likely to target you is already in place they just need to expand on that basic frame work a bit and make it more noticeable and relyable to make this happen? 

Using cover abilites to tank damage is great for defense mission or other mission types that basically require players to hang around one (or a small number of) location(s). But saying they should never and any form of active aggro generation is basically saying they should never design interesting enemy types that require team work to defeat which is non-sense for a team based co-op game with dozens of unique ability sets with varying strenghts and weaknesses. Personally I'd love to see harder content that actually requires me to think and strategize with team mates rather than just bring limbo and stop time on the entire map or bring saryn and just spore everyone on the map. 

Even just saying war frame is a shooter is really not true when you get 3 hours deep in a survival. Because guns dont kill enemies at that level of play abilities do. Stun locks with covert legality does. At that level if play guns are basically tools. Guns are tools for striping armor with corrosive procs or halving an enemy's health pool with a viral proc and abilities to the rest of the work at high level content. 

[TheKazz91]

49 minutes ago, krc473 said:

So, abilities that draw enemy fire do not count? What about Octavia, Loki and Titania? All three have abilities that draw enemy fire. Are they considered tanks? If “draw aggro” is all you are requiring, they should be.

Sure about as much as stop makes Rhino a tank. Also of the ones you mentioned I am pretty sure only Titania's razor flies (which she has 0 control over) actually work on assassination targets which are effectively the "bosses" in the game. So none of those abilities are particularly good for tanking in the traditional sense. 

[Eirshy]

@Dabnician

On aggro... Yeah basically. Like, they don't quickly switch until you smack them or their buddy, but usually a formation will focus on a "target", which, when alerted, tends to be the first enemy that draws attention to itself and lingers in LoS.

On Roar... Why should Roar draw aggro? It's a damage buff, not a tanky buff. Is it just because it's named "Roar"? What if they changed the name?

On 3-4 hour fights mandating specific frames... oh boy...
On "specific frames"... you mean like "Must Have Trinity"? Or do you mean "Must Have Healer"? Or do you mean "Must keep Lures alive somehow."? The first one is absolutely no never. The second one is thinking too class-like; Warframe is not a class-based game, it's a kit-based game. The third one, however, is how Eidolons work. Everyone settled on Trin because she's easiest, but Oberon can (mostly) manage it, as can a skilled Limbo (especially with Haven). This also means the devs don't have to remember to add new frames that could do it to the "approved" list- the players just have to notice it.

With regards to 3-4 hour "Missions".... If your content design requires more than 1 hour in a single sitting, you need to change your content. Be that add checkpoints from which the party can pop in and out for the given run, or lowering the numerical requirements, or adding an optional puzzle move that can make the fight quicker (Vindi had this on its boss Lionotus, where you could knock him off the cliff to deal %life damage; at release this was by far the fastest DPS you could deal, by the time Season 3 was released, it was fairly slow and mostly unknown). The +2hr Mot crowd only does that for the challenge, not because they want to spend 2+ hours in one mission. If you were to let them start the level scaling at Mot's 1-hour mark, almost all of the times you'd see discussed would be dropped by 1 hour. It's not the time they want, it's the enemy scaling.

 

@TheKazz91

Sort of on the system already being "there". The issue is you can't make it weapon-specific due to how much modding is in play. You can build and use a Vectis Prime sniper rifle as a CQC weapon if you want, for example. I could see a correction to the "Sound Level" stat to being the actual distance the "alarming" sound travels, then adding a mod like the silencing series that instead increases that while also formalizing  noise level -> threat level (as of now, it's more that noise level -> tenno noticed and targetted if no higher threat noticed). But anything beyond that is just.... eh. Why bother?

On needing a game-wide "aggro" system for interesting fights... What? You don't need anything remotely like that. An individual AI can be designed to have an aggro mechanic if one would be necessary. Vindictus did this with Lakoria's "I'm basically a Zerg Sunken Colony" tail spikes- they target whoever is farthest from the center of the map. Players realized this and thus the role of "runner" was born- the person whose job was to run in circles at the far corner of the map so everyone else could just DPS. Albeit that's an example of a really boring fight in Vindi, but at the same time, it also brings me to the other problem with your thinking...

Like Vindi (and Monster Hunter games), Warframe only has one class: DPS. You're soloing together as a party of DPS, and only in pidgeonholing specialization can you get anything remotely resembling not being DPS.

Eidolon fights aren't even an exception to this. The only "required" role is "lure wrangler", and that can be handled in a lot of different ways- the easiest being have a Trinity press 4 in a +duration build. Everything else in the meta is simply to make the run faster- which is what makes Eidolons interesting. You're not trying to force your way around some mechanical requirement, you're racing against the clock. It's not "can you do it", it's "can you do it faster". It's only gotten boring now because it's been out for a year and nothing has really been found that could shake up the meta (outside of the rather dumb imo decision by DE to make Operators oil to their frames' water, cementing the meta). Castanas MQuanta Ivara is the closest we've had to something "new" in a while, and that was largely borne from people trying to find a use for their Castanas investment for Trinity's now-defunct /wrists ESO build.

Which brings me to the issue with your thought of what constitutes an interesting fight. Fundamentally, everything in Warframe must be possible solo- and not by scaling back what is done to the lone tenno (that's how you get neuros), but by making the mechanics reasonably achievable by a single player's competence. This is how you make pickup-group gameplay comfortable, and how you avoid getting another LoR/JV. What you're wanting is another LoR/JV.

When you get 3 hours deep in a high-level survival, you're still being shot at (by shotgunners, from across the map, for instagib damage) prior to your radial CC neutralizing them. Of course, this is also why that content isn't balanced for, offers no better rewards, and seems to just be languishing. It's allowable content, not intended content. And not something that will ever be truly "supported" (outside of potentially made easier to access than "2hr at Mot", because the time investment is more annoying than the fact that only the numbers get bigger).

At all levels, everything from your guns to your warframe, to your companion, to which school your 5 is on is a tool. "Killing" is simply a possible purpose.

And last time I looked at ultra-late-wave runs, frame power damage doesn't scale anywhere near enough (outside of some exalts) to come close to what you can get out of combo meter weapons. Saryn provides an obvious exception now (given her 1), but prior to that rework, the only any-level-kill power I can recall is Trinity's Energy Well trick.

[Scissorsmith]

Well, lets look at what defines tanks. They protect teammates by somehow redirecting damage to themselves and thus protecting allies. There're very few ways to draw aggro in warframe, and the traditional "tank with my face" doesn't work with shots coming ftom all directions.

However, warframe does have tanks of sorts who fullfill the role of damage mitigation/redirection thus protecting allies. A tank does not have to be tanky, by the way, I remember some games where you could be a dodge-based tank.

So tanks in warframe - frost is definitely one. His snow globe provides a "shield" for allies that mitigates damage and protects them. Similar to a Reinhardt or Orisa in Overwatch for example. Other frames you could put in this category - gara for sure, possibly khora, though she's a bit of a hybrid, maybe limbo, though he's more of a utility character. Anyone who can "shield" allies I'd say, because indirect damage mitigation/concentration to one spot is sort of the point of tanks. The others I mentioned are give or take, but frost is definitely a true team tank in this game - combining both CC and shielding in his kit, like most tanks. Volt goes into the more untility focused slot I think, like Limbo. 

[TheKazz91]

@Eirshy 

Thats gonna take some time to write out a proper response and I will probably miss somethings but I'll try to cover the key points.

1. When I say that the frame work for an aggro system is already there I mean that there is logic built in that can modify enemy targeting priorities that is the base line required code to make that system work. Everything else is just plugging values into that baseline code

2. I will concede that you dont NEED an aggro system to design interesting enemy types but it does make it easier. 

3. Not sure why youre bringing vectis prime into this?

4. A weapons threat level doesnt need to be based on its damage out put. You could have an under performing weapon like say a sobek have a crazy high threat level so if you are playing a Rhino and want people to shoot at you and not your squishy Equinox friend you run a sobek even though its not quite as good as your tigris prime. (As an example) 

5. You are right that by conventional standards all warframes would be put in a DPS role (execpt maybe vauban... Poor vauban) which is why the current methods of "taking aggro" which require you to be holding a melee and blocking are trash and why I am suggesting attaching that functionally to a threat level stat on weapons that you are constantly using any way. That is just what fits into warframe  and how we play the game. 

6. Not to say I think warframe is bad but I think it could be better than "solo together"

7. Not all content in the game right now able to be conpleted solo. Have you ever tried getting all the drift mods solo? What about derelict vaults for corrupted mods? Arc wing interceptions? Defection sortie 3's? It is not realistic to do any of these things solo. (Maybe vaults if your willing for it it to take 4 times as long but at that point it would be more effective to frame plat and just trade for mods so I'm counting it) 

8. The old raids were garbage mostly because the current peer to peer net code doesnt handle more than 4 players well which creates a lot of lag and bugs to pop up. (Not to mention arc wing) 

9. The fact that the meta for eidolons only exists to make things go faster is one of the big reasons eidolons are boring and toxic AF especially for players who are new to them and dont really understand what is going on or what they are supposed to be doing. 

10. I get that the game isnt balanced for 2-3+ hour survivals and it shouldnt be. I am mostly using that as a stand-in for the end game cotent that could exist because it's the closest thing to actual end game content that warframe has right now.

11. Equinox maim (when you pop it) is another example of an any level murder everything if you are striping armor and/or using viral procs. So is Octavia's mallet. And surprise surprise those are the only frames out side of volt prime and frames with god teir survivability or perminate invisibility that you see running around mot for 3+ hours. Let me know nest time you see an ember or a vauban or titania stick around mot for 4 hours 😉

12. Just because I feel like I need to say thing again given my last comment staying in mot for 3+ hours is NOT actually end game content and speeding up the enemy scaling so that 1 hour is now the same as 3 hours isnt going to change that. We need real end game content added to the game. Content that can challenge the players that have 1000+ hours in the game with full forma max prime mod builds without simply relying on obscenely over bloated health pools and instagibbing damage. The only GOOD way to make it more challenging is to add mechanical difficulty not some stupid invulnerable periods but powerful, punishing, yet still predictable and manageable interactions. Keep that in mind when I am making these suggestions. More if the same with bigger numbers does not keep players invested, It doesnt make the game better. 

[W3zeer]

I raise you a "there's no teamplay in warframe", because we're all geared to the exted to be able to kill every single enemy on the map by ourselfs without giving them the chance to harm us, no matter if there's other players in the group or not. And at this point I don't think the holy trinity (of classes 😉 ) can be implemented anymore, the game is not made with the classic roles in mind. For ppl like me, who love support roles this is pretty sad, but I'm fairly sure I'm part of a minority there so I don't expect any changes in this area.

[TheKazz91]

@W3zeer

Fair point on the "there is no team play"

I dont think I'd say it is too late to implement some variation on combat roles and team play though. I think the reason you dont see it actually has very little to do with frames as I think they are very much designed with specific roles in mind. It is entirely due to how enemies and encounters are designed as wells as the relative power ratio between the players and the enemy AI for 99% of the content the game will throw at you players are basically gods beating up toddlers so there is no need to work as a group. 

Edited October 8, 2018 by TheKazz91

[Eirshy]

@TheKazz91

1) Still an expansion of a system that I'm not sure we really need.... then again, it might lead to re-stealth against Infested/Corrupted being possible, and might go well with the GTA alert meter that Fortuna has. So... maybe, once DE gets some stuff off their currently-heaping plate.

2) Not really. Warframe by nature doesn't have much for forced standing still, and the most potent tanking tool, void mode, is part of the base 5 kit. Amusingly, this is actually part of why DE's been pushing Operators as much as they have- it gives everyone a guaranteed bag of tools regardless of what frame they picked. Was a major boon to spy missions, too... Operating (once leveled, anyways) is really good at those. Anyways, you can just let aggro fall where it may, and have everyone react to who's targetted rather than try to control who is targetted.

3 & 4) My point is that people use weapons in ways that aren't necessarily intended. Tying aggro draw to weapon select is going to shoehorn people into a role they might not want. This is why I suggest tying it to noise level- most weapons have the same under-the-hood value for noise level with only a handful with reduced (mostly snipers) and a few being silent. Toss in a mod for increasing your weapon's noise level, and it's fully player choice if they want that extra aggro or not. It's also not contrived, part of what makes guns "scary" irl is how ear-rendingly loud they are.

5) Again, not saying we can't, just not sure if we'd really gain much from adding it. Also part of why I suggest tying it to something already in-game and just expanding on it (noise level). Would reduce the workload even more.

6) "Solo Together" is good, in fact, it's ideal with a full-on PUG matcher. To do more would mean recruiting chat would become even more necessary, and the lengths to which people will vet the people who join will only get worse as time goes on. This is why LoR/JV died and were almost solely run by the Schoolbus and Speedrunner crowds. What you see for Eidolons is about as far as we can go and remain functional.
We don't have a class system you can shove into a fanciful Dungeon Finder like FFXIV has- a given Trinity could be a Blessing build (heal + DR), an EV build (mana), or even a sort of hybrid battle-chiurgeon running Abating Link (armor strip + a bit of the rest). That Lanka she's packing could be Radiation with a riven (ideal vs Eidolons), or it could be basic corrosive (wrong element for vs Eidolons), or it could even be a gambler's HM build (useless against an Eidolon). The number of things a matcher has to check to accurately allow for team-based PUG runs is absurd. As-is, the meta got latched onto as hard as it has been for eidolons almost entirely because the level of communication required for actual team-play is so high. The meta simplifies it, and your kill/cap stats are often used to fill in the answer for those "is the build on their stuff good?" questions with people making the false assumption that 100+ caps means the player learned something.

7) The only Drift mod you can't solo for is Coaction. My first set of all but that one was gotten solo back at their release. And I did my first Agility test on Mirage. There was actually a time I used Drift mods for plat farming, too, lol. Wrong person to use those as a sample of hard solo content on.
Archwing Interceptions.... I did the Limbo Theorem on solo, yes. But then my Itzal is like 3-5 forma and I have a mostly-modded Fluctus and Kaszas (also both forma'd in the 1-3 range iirc). You'd be amazed at how much less of a slog Archwing is once you get actually good weapons, reason my stuff is actually forma'd.
A Defection 3 Sortie? Max Duration Limbo or Trinity would snooze through that on solo. Tavier did it on Mirage and a few others.
Vaults are about the only thing you can argue isn't solo-friendly, and that's simply because the key is RNG (iirc Bleed is most likely). This is something that has been complained about a lot, but is still the only instance of something that is actively solo-hostile. But it's not that it has combat mechanics that require people- it's simply RNG.

8.) The old raids were garbage, period. This is speaking as someone who had three JV-sourced Energize arcanes before the change. They were very minimum-viable-product, and never got any of the attention they needed to not suck because they were so very unpopular in the first place.

9) The issue is metasheep. It's no different from another game making demands about builds/gear. I will agree it's a bit of a nuisance, but it's also the first piece of content to actually have a "serious" meta. You can typically bypass the problems of it by hosting yourself, and/or asking for help. There's a reason I personally refuse to not be the Trinity, and it's because with my kit (riven'd lanka, null set, 414 amp), I'm set up to drag a group to a 2x3 almost single-handedly. This is also why I say DE made a mistake when they made it so Volt's shields were the only damage buff Operators could still use, as it killed a lot of potential diversity in the meta.

10) Dead horse topic imo.... "Endgame tier" content is Sortie 3, Eidolons, and ESO currently. Giant Spooders will make a fourth as soon as Fortuna drops. 2+ Hours of Survival isn't actual content. It's an outlier. _{(I realize that 12 is in agreement with this)}

11) Considering I specifically said scaling was the problem, not sure why you thought to mention Ember- the QUEEN of insufficient damage scaling on powers. A Blitzwing Titania would be fine outside of her squishiness and reliance on energy- as the ELeech spawns increase she becomes increasingly grounded. Combo her with a Disarm Loki though and it's just the absurdly high energy throughput that keeps her down- you can get into Lanka damage range per bullet on the Dex Pixia fairly easily. Provide a Banshee for sonar splotches and you're basically set for peak output, with only sustainability as the concern. Vauban's problem is that he has no ranged defenses, only melee defenses. Make that a vs Infested survival and he's (almost) perfectly fine. Totally forgot Octavia's mallet tricks, and with her invis she'd be quite good. Equinox, sure that scales, but isn't it reliant on damage being dealt in the vicinity? Also reliant on someone else providing the survivability. Mind, that was a requirement for my Titania assessment, so there is that.

12) You're in agreement with 10, so there's that. I'm honestly looking forward to seeing what the Venus spooders end up being. Judging from what we've seen of the Orb Vallis, DE has learned a ton from Plains. Both technically (in terms of how to make stuff work), and in design. Cave networks that can be used as shortcuts, elaborate buildings you can go inside of, infinite use travel enhancers, a GTA-esque map threat level, not having to go all the way back to town to start another mission... While we haven't seen the spooder fights yet (or really any details on them), I have a feeling they're gonna have a similar kind of "we learned from the Eidolon fight design". And that should give us old fogies something to do while we wait for Railjack to give us a completely new progression system to fire up.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Eirshy

[Axio.]

 

[TheKazz91]

@Eirshy

1,3,4,5) I think we are arguing semantics at this point... If noise = threat and different weapons have different volume levels (case and point the baza) and we have mods that can both increase or decrease "noise" then this is basically exactly what I am suggesting in the OP it's just called noise instead of threat or aggro so it is just is much less intuitive for someone unfamiliar with how "noise" works in the game. (par for the course I guess?)

2) I guess my stance just come from my time spent raiding in wow where influencing where the majority of the damage is being dealt makes an encounter (mission in this case) more predictable but still allows variation. This is good in my opinion because you can make the content harder without it feeling unfair or unreasonably hard. Something that is predictable allows the players to be prepared to respond accordingly. I also don't want to give you the impression that I think it should be so predictable and controllable that the rest of the party never have to worry about taking damage because the Rhino will always have everyone shooting at him all the time. But if you can get it to the point that say 80% of the damage is going on the Rhino if the whole team is in the same general area then you can scale the enemy damage output to a point where if you're not staying together and working as a team anyone that is not the Rhino (or has the ability to keep them selves alive) is probably dead. Again just makes it more team focused which I like. 

6) I agree that Solo together is good for pug matches and I think there are definitely ways to set this up so that you can have the PUG solo together style AND still provide the kind of team oriented harder content at the same time. We have two great examples of this (that I know of) that are in the game right now. The first is dragon keys and the second is the plague star event. The dragon keys when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it are just items you can carry to give your self a handicap so that you can access better/unique loot that you don't have access to other wise. And in plague star if you wanna run on easy mode that is totally fine don't stick any phylaxis or catalysts in the mixer. If you don't do that then it's easy peasy you run around for 10 minutes kill some infested and go home. But if you do want more of a challenge then you stick more items in to spawn more things and higher levels and get more rewards. If we can do that in plague star way not in regular missions? Just expand the drop tables and include loot with ridiculously low drop chances (like 0.0001%) and then add in some items that can be equipped (or possibly activated in game) like dragon keys to increase the difficulty or "summon" harder enemy types (not really harder but the Zanuka beacon is a example of this working in game right now) and when you have these items it alters the drop tables so now instead of a 0.0001% chance that item has a 5% drop chance if all four players have these items equipped or the "summoned" enemy has unique loot that only drops off that summoned enemy. I think this would be a very easy and fair way to provide some real end game content. 

7) Ok point taken it is possible to do everything solo but I am assuming you still get what I am saying can you do it yea sure but not everyone has 36 warframe slots and has access to [insert best frame/weapons/arc wing for any given mission type here] granted that is probably their own fault for not either supporting the game with real money or at least spending the time to farm plat so they can buy more slots and even if they do that doesn't mean the like playing that frame or that they enjoy completing that content solo but I digress. 

8 ) Seems like a chicken or the egg situation to me. They needed to be played enough for DE to invest the resources to make them better but they needed to make them better if they expected people to play them. Again I think the reason they got dropped had a lot to do with the limitations of the hosting technology and DE knew that with that technology they couldn't get them to the quality they needed to be for people actually want to play them so why bother with the rest of the rats' nest? 

9) Thats fair I also think one the the major problems with the eidolons is that they are only up for a limited time which also wouldn't be so bad if there was a rough equivalent for them running around during the day. (maybe some sort of greneer mech or something like that?)

11) the biggest problem with Titania at those levels is that most of her survivability is base on a coin flip. (two consecutive coin flips if you have full dust). Yes things need to die around equinox for maim to work but pair her up with an covert lethality Inaros and you'll have that on lock. Fair enough on the ember but I still could have used a dozen other examples (atlas, chroma, gara, harrow? (honestly I almost never see harrow period) hydroid, Khora, mag, nova nyx, oberon, revenant, wukong, zephyr) Basically if you don't have a 90% DR, mass stuns, near infinite health regen or something equivalent you don't belong there. 

10,12) I am also hoping for some good endgame content to come out of fortuna and rail jack and if not then well fingers crossed for the new war and them hopefully making sentients a full blown enemy type that is geared toward veteran players. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by TheKazz91

[krc473]

9 hours ago, TheKazz91 said:

So none of those abilities are particularly good for tanking in the traditional sense. 

Re-read what I quoted from your post:

12 hours ago, TheKazz91 said:

They are not tanks because no warframe has the ability to taunt or other wise draw aggro.

I was listing what can draw aggro. Besides, why do we need tanks for bosses? Some bosses can be killed in five or less hits. You are taking the difficulty of an MMO boss and trying to stick that on WF's bosses. If your boss will take 10 mins to kill, a tank might be useful [MMO games]. If you boss is dead in three seconds, why do you need a tank? [Warframe]

• If DE gives us bosses that are actually hard, a "traditional" tank might be useful. Until then, there is very little point.

 

For level 200+ content, which you mention: surely the ability to draw fire from the random mob enemies is more useful than "can distract a boss".