Modding 3.0 would be great for Warframe

[Hmm...interesting.]

I posted this on the Warframe subreddit about a week ago, but I have now decided to post it here to see what you guys think.

 

Having a modding system is fantastic, but it is not executed well in Warframe. If it were done well, many of the problems that DE is having with community feedback would either not exist or be much less significant. Among those problems are the lack of endgame content, the broken riven system, and underwhelming operators. Now let me just clarify that the modding of Warframes is quite adequate and does not need much changing (though some tweaks could be done to make it a bit better). What I'm most concerned with is weapon modding. There will be some extra modding stuff at the end of the post

Weapon modding is currently diseased with mandatory mods and useless mods. Most weapon builds can be boiled down to Damage, dual multishot, an elemental combo, status chance if it's a status build or critical chance/damage if it's a critical build, and one slot to do what you want with. Almost every other mod is useless. The way to fix this is to remove mandatory mods. I don't mean simply eliminate every mod that we need in this game, but either integrate those mods in another way, change the way the stats of those mods work, or improve the mods that aren't being used.

Flat damage mods:

Almost every single person playing this game will include a damage mod (Serration, Hornet Strike, [Primed] Point Blank, [Primed] Pressure Point) on their weapon no matter what. This means that you essentially lose a modifiable mod slot (ironic isn't it?). The way to solve this is to make the damage of the weapon scale with the level of the weapon. These are just placeholder numbers, but at rank 0, weapons could have a 0% damage multiplier, and at rank 30, there could be a 200% damage multiplier. That solves the flat damage issue.

Elemental and IPS damage:

Rather than add a damage type based on the base damage of the weapon, elemental damage should convert the base damage into another damage. With this, the weapon doesn't do more damage, but it does more of one damage type, and less of another. The tool tip of the mod card would say for example, "Converts 50% of the damage into toxin" or something along those lines. That fixes the issue of damage types.

Critical and Status Stats:

These don't need much changing (maybe just a bit of number tweaking), although it would be nice to get some other mods that could also modify those stats. The "beginner" status mods (Rifle Aptitude, Shotgun Savvy, Sure Shot, Melee Prowess) should absolutely be buffed. They should be made additive instead of multiplicative, either adding status chance before or after the multiplicative status chance buff calculations (from mods like the 60/60 mods). Status values of these "beginner" mods would need to be modified accordingly.

Multishot:

This is the most difficult one to change. I'm not entirely sure about how to best change this statistic, but my current idea is to have it double or triple the damage (with added pellets of course) at the expense of halving (or maybe just lowering) the critical chance and status chance. Feel free to post more ideas in the comments.

 

That covers all of the mandatory weapon mods/stats, and my ideas on them. Let's talk about a few of the problems that this could solve.

Lack of endgame content:

These proposed changes would make weapons less game-breaking, and would make star chart enemies more worthy foes. That being said, some numbers concerning enemy health, armor, shields, etc. would have to be tweaked, but that's not what this post is for. This won't necessarily solve the lack of replayable or interesting content in Warframe, but it will expand the scope of viable end game missions.

The broken riven system:

At the moment, rivens are a broken system. While much of Warframe takes a very predictable and reliable approach to player investment yield (take for example the microtransactions that Warframe uses), the riven system goes in the complete opposite direction. It requires an enormous amount of time invested with a very luck-based outcome that either yields either extreme satisfaction or extreme disappointment. This polarized outcome wrecks the trading system and the economic balance of the game. The proposed changes to modding put a dent in both the economic imbalance of rivens, and the invariability of riven rolling (no more Damage+Multishot god rolls). While there would still need to be many changes in order to make the system work, this would be a step in the right direction. I may make another post concerning how to best change this.

Underwhelming operators:

Since weapons would be nerfed so to speak, the significance of operator damage would increase incredibly since they would do so much more damage than they did before. This would begin to pave the road for the Warframe & operator combat relationship. We don't use operators for anything other than Eidolon hunting and kuva farming, which is truly unfortunate since there is a lot of potential for using operators in combat.

 

Now for some extra stuff concerning mods:

• Make stances and auras all have the same polarities. Limiting the stances and auras on weapons is just counter-intuitive. Why should my playstyle be limited by a polarity? I wanna enjoy different stances without having to forma or severely nerf my build because of it.

• Why in the world do so many weapon mods have V/Madurai polarities? An imbalance that doesn't need to be there.

• Many mods for both weapons and warframes find no use due to their obsolete stats or stat values. That should be fixed.

[peterc3]

32 minutes ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

That fixes the issue of damage types.

Not even remotely. This doesn't fix anything.

33 minutes ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

That solves the flat damage issue.

Except the entire beginning part of the game would have to be completely overhauled just because of even total beginners have, as you put it, not just full current Serration, but way more than that with no Endo or Credit costs to constrain players. Unless this were met with a severe cut to Affinity gains, this is game-breaking.

36 minutes ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

These proposed changes would make weapons less game-breaking, and would make star chart enemies more worthy foes.

This hasn't made anything not game-breaking. I can guarantee you nobody would have more trouble blowing through the star chart with your changes, most people would probably have less trouble than now.

38 minutes ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

The broken riven system:

At the moment, rivens are a broken system. While much of Warframe takes a very predictable and reliable approach to player investment yield (take for example the microtransactions that Warframe uses), the riven system goes in the complete opposite direction. It requires an enormous amount of time invested with a very luck-based outcome that either yields either extreme satisfaction or extreme disappointment. This polarized outcome wrecks the trading system and the economic balance of the game. The proposed changes to modding put a dent in both the economic imbalance of rivens, and the invariability of riven rolling (no more Damage+Multishot god rolls). While there would still need to be many changes in order to make the system work, this would be a step in the right direction. I may make another post concerning how to best change this.

Define wrecking the trading system. How do you know enough of the economy to make that judgement?

41 minutes ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Underwhelming operators:

Since weapons would be nerfed so to speak, the significance of operator damage would increase incredibly since they would do so much more damage than they did before. This would begin to pave the road for the Warframe & operator combat relationship. We don't use operators for anything other than Eidolon hunting and kuva farming, which is truly unfortunate since there is a lot of potential for using operators in combat.

The Operators are not supposed to be on equal footing. If weapons are going to be nerfed, Operators would get a nerf as well. Not entirely sure how they would do more damage given you've proposed changes to weapon mods being nerfed.

[Loswaith]

40 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Except the entire beginning part of the game would have to be completely overhauled just because of even total beginners have, as you put it, not just full current Serration, but way more than that with no Endo or Credit costs to constrain players. Unless this were met with a severe cut to Affinity gains, this is game-breaking.

Not really, when you consider some starting players can already get high damage weapons that trivialise the starting areas if they have bought in with a PA or have friends helping them.  Not to mention that even the starter weapons with damaged mods can do significant damage to the low level enemies.
  Affinity gain is actually quite slow for starting players comparatively to intermediate or veteran players (presuming they don't have help), so they are more likely to feel the power is earned rather than just based on luck.  While also helping to eliminate or reduce progression walls those beginners have, or the light trap that developing damaged mods is for stifling later progression, that can lead to them just abandoning the game as a whole.

[Aheael]

Quote

Flat damage mods:

Almost every single person playing this game will include a damage mod (Serration, Hornet Strike, [Primed] Point Blank, [Primed] Pressure Point) on their weapon no matter what. This means that you essentially lose a modifiable mod slot (ironic isn't it?). The way to solve this is to make the damage of the weapon scale with the level of the weapon. These are just placeholder numbers, but at rank 0, weapons could have a 0% damage multiplier, and at rank 30, there could be a 200% damage multiplier. That solves the flat damage issue.

I don't agree with this because of the fact that this would be messing with a core game mechanic. One of the silent rules of every game is you never mess with core game mechanics. On top of that, you remove one of the most critical incentives for endo for new players. Because it's such an important mod to have and an obvious (or straight forward whatever you'd like to call it) it's one of the first small simple goals new players can strive to max out for. Now I understand that sounds like I haven't thought about "what about other mods that can take that position" That's where I think it becomes subjective. I personally don't think there is a need to mess with the flat damage mods at all for the very reason you think that you lose an essential mod slot, it is good that you lose an essential mod slot. 😂

Quote

Underwhelming operators:

Since weapons would be nerfed so to speak, the significance of operator damage would increase incredibly since they would do so much more damage than they did before. This would begin to pave the road for the Warframe & operator combat relationship. We don't use operators for anything other than Eidolon hunting and kuva farming, which is truly unfortunate since there is a lot of potential for using operators in combat.

 

Now for some extra stuff concerning mods:

• Make stances and auras all have the same polarities. Limiting the stances and auras on weapons is just counter-intuitive. Why should my playstyle be limited by a polarity? I wanna enjoy different stances without having to forma or severely nerf my build because of it.

• Why in the world do so many weapon mods have V/Madurai polarities? An imbalance that doesn't need to be there.

• Many mods for both weapons and warframes find no use due to their obsolete stats or stat values. That should be fixed.

I agree that I wish the operators were more versatile BUUUUUUT it's understandable that they aren't mini-little god turrets. I'm sorry but I just can't agree for even more dps output. That would make the game even more easier than it already is for a majority of the content. That would create a lot of even more people angry about difficulty.

For balancing purposes, of course.

I feel like the last two points you made, you need to provide better explanations considering you are the one asking the question. Have you searched up why? Was there no reason found on the wikis etc. After all, later on in the future it could be explained why they do. We know that they are schools but the lore and story isn't tied deeply into the game in terms of how much content we have. It could just be something DE is working on. Following that, what mods are obsolete, you gotta state them and the why's.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Aheael

[ShortCat]

4 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Flat damage mods:

A firm no to integrated damage into gear level, because:

1. It removes Creddits and Endo sinks, and ignores mod progression.
2. It will make ranking up gear even worse, as you simply cannot give a weapon an immediate damage boost with a mod and go kill some tougher enemies with it.
3. The whole mechanic is pointless, since we can level our gear passivly from shared affinity. I doubt DE will waste time on a mechanic that can be ignored completely. Additionally, due to 2) players will be pushed even more towards this behaviour.
4. This idea is already partially in the game: Frames and Zaws get stats with levels. Question: do you like how it works? I do not, because it is pointless to put any power related mods on a lvl0 Frame, due to locked skills and bad base stats; or because you get a weapon with simply nerfed stats for no particular reason.

Suggestion: several mods, that increase base damage for XXX% with an added negative (kinda like Heavy Calliber), with the restriction to only 1 mod (includes possible roll on a Riven).

4 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Elemental and IPS damage:

I support this.

4 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Critical and Status Stats:

Given, that today almost every weapon has high crit and/or status values, those mods are as essential as Serration. These mods should be changed in their functiality and turn away from simple stat stacking.

4 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Multishot:

The easiest one: it just creates additional pallets, not bullets. Done.

4 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

The broken riven system:

Riven system is a failure, because it is based on current modding and its stat stacking. Change modding into a playstyle choice and you will fix Rivens at the same time, since stat stacking is not important and there are no universally best stat combinations anymore.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

Mods aren't the root of the problem, but I do think that our damage and enemy scaling need to be overhauled for better balance. Since Melee 3.0 will be increasing melee weapon stats though, I'm not sure that kind of balance is what DE is aiming for. The last couple years of updates suggests they're working towards a "controlled powercreep" sort of direction.

Edited December 13, 2018 by (PS4)Riko_113

[Teridax68]

I agree very much with the core of the OP. Modding in Warframe is a system that carries an amazing promise (customize and fine-tune your playstyle however you like!), and equally amazing potential, as there are already some pretty fun mods, but that woefully underdelivers on both. In practice, builds don't focus on fine-tuning one's playstyle, and currently can't, because so much modding space is taken up by mandatory pure power mods, especially on weapons: warframes at least have some leeway in that there's some level of choice in augments, or general build directions to follow, but weapons are almost always built along very rigid lines, usually around either crit or status. Riven mods have utterly failed to add diversity, as their ability to provide any stat has simply caused a demand for more of the "good" stats, e.g. damage or multishot. As such, I think there needs to be some serious changes to the modding system before we can truly begin to have diversity. Thoughts on the proposals in the OP:

7 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Almost every single person playing this game will include a damage mod (Serration, Hornet Strike, [Primed] Point Blank, [Primed] Pressure Point) on their weapon no matter what. This means that you essentially lose a modifiable mod slot (ironic isn't it?). The way to solve this is to make the damage of the weapon scale with the level of the weapon. These are just placeholder numbers, but at rank 0, weapons could have a 0% damage multiplier, and at rank 30, there could be a 200% damage multiplier. That solves the flat damage issue.

I'd say that if we're taking out flat damage mods, why even add damage increases to weapons at all? Is it so bad if a weapon deals the same base damage at rank 1 or 30? Provided enemy scaling were nerfed accordingly, avoiding flat damage increases could actually help equalize a lot of the content, and prevent the trivialization of more parts of the game.

On the specific subject of damage mods, though, I feel it could be acceptable to have them, provided they had equally or more desirable and interesting competition. In this respect, one potential way to go about this could be to severely nerf damage mods, and make sure other mods that occupy a similar function present good enough competition, which may involve buffs: on some weapons, it may be more interesting to have, say, a mod that gives +damage on headshot, and those mods should always be at least as interesting as Serration or its equivalent. 

7 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Elemental and IPS damage:

Rather than add a damage type based on the base damage of the weapon, elemental damage should convert the base damage into another damage. With this, the weapon doesn't do more damage, but it does more of one damage type, and less of another. The tool tip of the mod card would say for example, "Converts 50% of the damage into toxin" or something along those lines. That fixes the issue of damage types.

Agreed. As much as I take issue with the current elemental system, I think it could at least be significantly deeper if it were truly about choosing which elemental type to bring to combat, rather than simply piling on more damage. I'd personally support making elemental types much rarer, and removing conversions from the mod system entirely, but that's likely too harsh a move from right now, so pure damage conversion, rather than addition, would already be a significant step forward.

7 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Critical and Status Stats:

These don't need much changing (maybe just a bit of number tweaking), although it would be nice to get some other mods that could also modify those stats. The "beginner" status mods (Rifle Aptitude, Shotgun Savvy, Sure Shot, Melee Prowess) should absolutely be buffed. They should be made additive instead of multiplicative, either adding status chance before or after the multiplicative status chance buff calculations (from mods like the 60/60 mods). Status values of these "beginner" mods would need to be modified accordingly.

Percentage chance mods I think are one of the cases where there's probably room for a whole discussion: personally, I dislike crit and status as both are currently implemented, because percentage chances do not create gameplay, only the illusion of it. Unless I'm using a shotgun, whether or not I land an elemental proc has little to do with my own skill, so much as RNG, which is also why so many more recent weapons have been given enough status chance to reach or approach 100%. In this respect, I'd much rather tie both to actions involving some level of skill: crits, for example, could very well be mapped directly onto headshot and stealth multipliers, both of which already provide major damage increases and do a much better job of rewarding the player for playing well. Status is trickier, but I think should also be guaranteed in some form, and should instead scale with the player's actions (inflicting a chill status for an extended period could increase the chill until it freezes the enemy, for example, or setting an enemy on fire for a prolonged period of time could have them burn for more damage over an additional duration). 

7 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Multishot:

This is the most difficult one to change. I'm not entirely sure about how to best change this statistic, but my current idea is to have it double or triple the damage (with added pellets of course) at the expense of halving (or maybe just lowering) the critical chance and status chance. Feel free to post more ideas in the comments.

Multishot I think is one of those stats that could be safely removed from the game, without needing to look for a replacement. At the end of the day, multishot is simply another way of increasing damage (also status chance): it doesn't really change one's aim, because the additional bullets don't spread too far from each other, it doesn't change one's firing or reloading pattern, because the additional bullets don't cost extra ammo, and it doesn't give the player any real additional gameplay options, besides some niche cases where some bullets catch one enemy and some others catch another (which is made even more difficult considering how enemy corpses will continue to intercept projectiles). Removing multishot entirely, and increasing status chance on weapons and mods as needed if that stays, could take out a mandatory stat and leave us with just as much gameplay, if not more due to the extra slot. As with damage mods, because removing multishot across the board would correspond to a reduction in damage, this should entail reductions in enemy levels or scaling to match these nerfs, so that enemies don't all turn into bullet sponges.

7 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Make stances and auras all have the same polarities. Limiting the stances and auras on weapons is just counter-intuitive. Why should my playstyle be limited by a polarity? I wanna enjoy different stances without having to forma or severely nerf my build because of it.

I think part of the current problem is simply that dash polarities are the most desirable on auras. In an environment where aura polarities are all equally desirable, they could perhaps help guide a frame's synergies: frames with V auras are likely meant to be more offensive, frames with D auras are meant to be more durable, and frames with dash auras are meant to offer more utility (though frames don't really follow this right now, again because dash polarities are more desirable on auras than the others).

7 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Why in the world do so many weapon mods have V/Madurai polarities? An imbalance that doesn't need to be there.

This is likely because Serration, Split Chamber, and their equivalents have V polarities, and are mandatory mods. It's basically an easy, generic way of giving weapons more customization space, especially because those mods tend to impose heavy drains.

7 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Many mods for both weapons and warframes find no use due to their obsolete stats or stat values. That should be fixed.

Agreed. A lot of older mods especially have the downside of being both very niche and kinda weak (e.g. Flame Repellent), which gives very little reason to equip them. In general, the more niche a mod is, the more powerful it should be when that niche is satisfied, and vice versa: when applied to something as general-purpose as an always-on damage mod, like Serration, this should justify that kind of mod being fairly weak, whereas mods like Argon Scope, Synth Charge, who have much more specific conditions, should feel viscerally strong when they take effect.

[Aheael]

I'd like to add something to your suggestion, and hear what you think about this:

The idea that we just categorize mods into builds BUILT into the game. To try and be a bit more clear, everybody can google search and find out what's the best possible mods people can get to the worst depending on their progression into the game in a couple minutes for whatever build they're going for. The way I suggest we build these categories in should be via the Index. 

Everyone already knows the Index is in need of an update so on top of what it already needs I feel like we could just kill two birds with one stone. Or just have the option of filtering categories when you look at all the mods obtainable. The reason I mentioned the whole "everbody can google" is because in terms of redundancy and what belongs in what build and is useful, all the information is already there for DE with large agreement from Warframe viewers on the wiki, youtube and so on. Everything that doesn't fall in these builds or essentially a repeat, a weak and useless outdated version of existing ones and so forth could just be removed. 

[Hmm...interesting.]

22 hours ago, peterc3 said:

Not even remotely. This doesn't fix anything.

I agree with the first part of what you said. What I should have said is that this fixes elemental mods being mandatory.

22 hours ago, peterc3 said:

This hasn't made anything not game-breaking. I can guarantee you nobody would have more trouble blowing through the star chart with your changes, most people would probably have less trouble than now.

They may or may not have any more trouble getting through the star chart initially, but what this begins to solve is the obsolescence of the star chart. Of course, what I've stated are general ideas, and numbers can be adjusted accordingly.

22 hours ago, peterc3 said:

Define wrecking the trading system. How do you know enough of the economy to make that judgement?

I judge that by the fact that rivens for certain weapons are valued way higher than other rivens, and those are the ones that people want to sell (and many do, filling the trade chat up with posts selling and buying rivens for only these highly valued weapons). This shouldn't be the case at all. Rivens were supposed to level the playing field and bring less powerful weapons up to snuff, and as such, all rivens should theoretically be valued equally.

23 hours ago, peterc3 said:

The Operators are not supposed to be on equal footing. If weapons are going to be nerfed, Operators would get a nerf as well. Not entirely sure how they would do more damage given you've proposed changes to weapon mods being nerfed.

If operators are not supposed to be on equal footing, where are they supposed to be? And by the way, operators would get buffed by being more powerful relative to warframes (assuming their damage values were not changed).

 

And for future reference, rather than only criticizing points in my post, I would appreciate it if you would add what you would do about the current system. That is part of constructive criticism.

[Hmm...interesting.]

21 hours ago, Aheael said:

I don't agree with this because of the fact that this would be messing with a core game mechanic. One of the silent rules of every game is you never mess with core game mechanics. On top of that, you remove one of the most critical incentives for endo for new players. Because it's such an important mod to have and an obvious (or straight forward whatever you'd like to call it) it's one of the first small simple goals new players can strive to max out for. Now I understand that sounds like I haven't thought about "what about other mods that can take that position" That's where I think it becomes subjective. I personally don't think there is a need to mess with the flat damage mods at all for the very reason you think that you lose an essential mod slot, it is good that you lose an essential mod slot. 😂

1) Since when is DE a company that doesn't mess with core game mechanics? They did it with movement to make it better, why can't they do it with modding, a system that is quite unique and has tons of potential?

2) The point of a mod slot isn't for it to be filled with the same thing every time. The point is to make it versatile and "moddable" so to speak.

21 hours ago, Aheael said:

I agree that I wish the operators were more versatile BUUUUUUT it's understandable that they aren't mini-little god turrets. I'm sorry but I just can't agree for even more dps output. That would make the game even more easier than it already is for a majority of the content. That would create a lot of even more people angry about difficulty.

The problem with operators and warframes (I think) is that they are treated as completely separate entities, rather than two parts to a whole. I just presented them as the power houses of the duo because I haven't bothered to think through operators for now and because it seems fitting to me, as they are warframes' core energy source (they're also kind of presented this way in the second dream and the war within).

21 hours ago, Aheael said:

After all, later on in the future it could be explained why they do. We know that they are schools but the lore and story isn't tied deeply into the game in terms of how much content we have. It could just be something DE is working on.

This is a very good point.

21 hours ago, Aheael said:

Following that, what mods are obsolete, you gotta state them and the why's.

I would state them all, but it would take way too long. I don't mean this toward you negatively, but I recommend that you look through the mods that you don't use much and compare them to the ones that you do use. You will probably notice that there is a huge disparity between their strengths and usability.

[Hmm...interesting.]

19 hours ago, ShortCat said:

It removes Creddits and Endo sinks, and ignores mod progression

This isn't necessarily true. The only reason that mods like serration are a huge goal for new players is because they are better than other mods. The point of these suggested changes are to make mods more evenly valued. This way, there is still incentive for mod progression, as many mods that were previously considered obsolete would be made more valuable, and be put higher on the priority list.

19 hours ago, ShortCat said:

It will make ranking up gear even worse, as you simply cannot give a weapon an immediate damage boost with a mod and go kill some tougher enemies with it.

This is a good point to which there is a simple solution. Have it work like mastery where you only level it once.

19 hours ago, ShortCat said:

Given, that today almost every weapon has high crit and/or status values, those mods are as essential as Serration. These mods should be changed in their functiality and turn away from simple stat stacking.

Agreed. I'm sure that many cool ideas could be conjured up for new status and crit mods.

19 hours ago, ShortCat said:

The easiest one: it just creates additional pallets, not bullets. Done.

Disagree. This would just make it another status chance mod, and if you mean to say that it would add damage, then it would become a mandatory mod. That would go against the main point in this post. The reason I have designed multishot as I did is because it gives a good mod to weapons that don't have very good crit or status stats and can simply abandon the crit/status path in favor of more damage.

[Hmm...interesting.]

15 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I'd say that if we're taking out flat damage mods, why even add damage increases to weapons at all?

Because it makes re-leveling weapons more open to more end-game-ish content, though it would have to be implemented in the same way that mastery is, so that you only have to level it once.

15 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Percentage chance mods I think are one of the cases where there's probably room for a whole discussion

I agree.

16 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I think part of the current problem is simply that dash polarities are the most desirable on auras. In an environment where aura polarities are all equally desirable, they could perhaps help guide a frame's synergies: frames with V auras are likely meant to be more offensive, frames with D auras are meant to be more durable, and frames with dash auras are meant to offer more utility (though frames don't really follow this right now, again because dash polarities are more desirable on auras than the others).

The thing I hate about polarities is that they severely limit the types of builds that you can use. Especially for stances. Why on Earth would I have to go so far as to forma my stance slot in order to use a stance without severely sacrificing my build? I have a really cool idea about how to change polarities and focus to work together, but I'll post that later.

[Teridax68]

2 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Because it makes re-leveling weapons more open to more end-game-ish content, though it would have to be implemented in the same way that mastery is, so that you only have to level it once.

This is true, but also kind of a chicken-and-egg problem: currently, "endgame" content only feels good to play when weapons deal a certain amount of damage, but then weapons are allowed to reach a significantly higher level of damage because that's what's needed for them to be viable in the "endgame": take out both the damage increases and the sponginess of enemies, and you'd have endgame content that wouldn't impose a stat barrier, and weapons that wouldn't trivialize the rest of the game's content as much when maxed out.

This may not be something everyone agrees with, but I personally think "endgame" content, or content that is otherwise meant to be more challenging to the player and interesting for veterans, should be challenging due to its mechanics and systems, rather than due to the additional stats required to enter. At the end of the day, raising stats in content doesn't really generate additional difficulty when the expectation is also that players at that point are geared up enough to take that content on easily, which is currently the case in Sorties, ESO, and other current high-level missions. Meanwhile, though, establishing higher difficulty through higher stats, and then giving players enough stats to access that content, causes the rest of the game to become utterly trivial, because players are so overstatted as to experience no challenge whatsoever: this is a major reason why classic MMOs tend to have players play only a small portion of their in-game content at any given time, and I suspect is a major current reason why veterans right now feel so bored in Warframe, since virtually all content is so unchallenging to them as to almost become a chore. In this respect, squishing stats at least a bit more between high and low level ranges, in this case by avoiding scaling damage per rank and having enemies in endgame missions start at a lower level, could help mitigate the issue, while still allowing for some content to be labeled endgame as needed.

2 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

The thing I hate about polarities is that they severely limit the types of builds that you can use. Especially for stances. Why on Earth would I have to go so far as to forma my stance slot in order to use a stance without severely sacrificing my build? I have a really cool idea about how to change polarities and focus to work together, but I'll post that later.

I completely agree, polarities as they currently exist do nothing but limit builds and enable power creep, and I'd like to see them removed or reworked. I'd very much like to hear your thoughts and ideas on this as well.

[Aheael]

4 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

1) Since when is DE a company that doesn't mess with core game mechanics? They did it with movement to make it better, why can't they do it with modding, a system that is quite unique and has tons of potential?

2) The point of a mod slot isn't for it to be filled with the same thing every time. The point is to make it versatile and "moddable" so to speak.

The problem with operators and warframes (I think) is that they are treated as completely separate entities, rather than two parts to a whole. I just presented them as the power houses of the duo because I haven't bothered to think through operators for now and because it seems fitting to me, as they are warframes' core energy source (they're also kind of presented this way in the second dream and the war within).

This is a very good point.

I would state them all, but it would take way too long. I don't mean this toward you negatively, but I recommend that you look through the mods that you don't use much and compare them to the ones that you do use. You will probably notice that there is a huge disparity between their strengths and usability.

1) You got me there.

2) Well, in any multiplayer game that consists of upgrades you'll always find that there is the common item that everybody uses. I just think by your argument on how everybody uses it, by freeing up a new space you could say now everyone might always include crit into their build because they can. There has to be a give and take.

3) True, but rather than the dps I'd say they need to be much more better on the defensive and support front. 

 

[ShortCat]

4 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

Have it work like mastery where you only level it once.

This defies the whole purpose of Forma and how ranking up gear in general currently works. Integrating damage into gear is just to conflicting in Warframe. And once more: why should we get nerfed gear and how will it improve gameplay? If there are other solution to make base damage mods less mundane, why is this solution better?
This still screws lower MR players tremendously, be it only on the first rank up. Furthermore, this still advocates passive leveling - or in other words, to skip the machanic. If you gain more by skipping the whole process, why should it exist in the first place?

5 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

This isn't necessarily true. The only reason that mods like serration are a huge goal for new players is because they are better than other mods. The point of these suggested changes are to make mods more evenly valued. This way, there is still incentive for mod progression, as many mods that were previously considered obsolete would be made more valuable, and be put higher on the priority list. 

Resource sinks are resource sinks; build varaity is build variaty. Remove them and you remove those sinks as well as displease sensibile WF community; change them and you preserve past/future investments and introduce new options.

5 hours ago, Hmm...interesting. said:

This would just make it another status chance mod, and if you mean to say that it would add damage, then it would become a mandatory mod. That would go against the main point in this post. The reason I have designed multishot as I did is because it gives a good mod to weapons that don't have very good crit or status stats and can simply abandon the crit/status path in favor of more damage.

Additional pellets indeed favor status and crits, as each pellet can trigger this effect. However, it will not become a necessity: damage is split between pellets, so the effect will be lowered. Multishot would be in competition with mods that provide direct increase or other effects. In the end, it would be a compromise between magnitude and frequency. Your suggestion is just a damage increase, not only for weapons without crit/status, but also for weapons, that surpass a certain threshold.
What you suggest to do with multishot, is the same idea I had behind base damage mods with negatives.

[Klokwerkaos]

I am adamanatly opposed to these changes, not all changes, but deifinitely these ones.  It fixes nothing and adds a bunch of new problems by shifting things around without a dressing the core issues of enemy ai and enemy scaling.

It doesn't fix anything.

[Hmm...interesting.]

On 2018-12-14 at 1:13 AM, Teridax68 said:

This may not be something everyone agrees with, but I personally think "endgame" content, or content that is otherwise meant to be more challenging to the player and interesting for veterans, should be challenging due to its mechanics and systems, rather than due to the additional stats required to enter. At the end of the day, raising stats in content doesn't really generate additional difficulty when the expectation is also that players at that point are geared up enough to take that content on easily, which is currently the case in Sorties, ESO, and other current high-level missions. Meanwhile, though, establishing higher difficulty through higher stats, and then giving players enough stats to access that content, causes the rest of the game to become utterly trivial, because players are so overstatted as to experience no challenge whatsoever: this is a major reason why classic MMOs tend to have players play only a small portion of their in-game content at any given time, and I suspect is a major current reason why veterans right now feel so bored in Warframe, since virtually all content is so unchallenging to them as to almost become a chore. In this respect, squishing stats at least a bit more between high and low level ranges, in this case by avoiding scaling damage per rank and having enemies in endgame missions start at a lower level, could help mitigate the issue, while still allowing for some content to be labeled endgame as needed.

I completely agree, and this is what prompted my creation of this post.

[Hmm...interesting.]

On 2018-12-14 at 2:38 AM, Aheael said:

Well, in any multiplayer game that consists of upgrades you'll always find that there is the common item that everybody uses. I just think by your argument on how everybody uses it, by freeing up a new space you could say now everyone might always include crit into their build because they can. There has to be a give and take.

I think the Warframe modding system is a little different in this regard, since it's not good to have mods that are always used in a system that is supposed to promote versatility. I do agree with the fact that with these changes, we may have too many mod slots, but that's not too difficult to change. Just adjust the amount of mod slots. Of course it would take a bit of balancing to see whether or not that number should change.

[Hmm...interesting.]

On 2018-12-14 at 3:35 AM, ShortCat said:

This defies the whole purpose of Forma and how ranking up gear in general currently works. Integrating damage into gear is just to conflicting in Warframe. And once more: why should we get nerfed gear and how will it improve gameplay? If there are other solution to make base damage mods less mundane, why is this solution better?
This still screws lower MR players tremendously, be it only on the first rank up. Furthermore, this still advocates passive leveling - or in other words, to skip the machanic. If you gain more by skipping the whole process, why should it exist in the first place?

I think that this entire change would force changes to forma, which is good since it's kind of a bad system at the moment. The only other solution that I can think of is to remove damage increases entirely. Otherwise, everybody is going to use them. I'm not entirely sure of what you mean my the rest of this paragraph. 

On 2018-12-14 at 3:35 AM, ShortCat said:

Resource sinks are resource sinks; build varaity is build variaty. Remove them and you remove those sinks as well as displease sensibile WF community; change them and you preserve past/future investments and introduce new options.

If you mean remove as in trash people's endo investment, then that's not that hard to solve. All you have to do is give them back the endo they invested and give them compensation for the mod, whether that's in credits, more endo, platinum, or something else.

On 2018-12-14 at 3:35 AM, ShortCat said:

Additional pellets indeed favor status and crits, as each pellet can trigger this effect. However, it will not become a necessity: damage is split between pellets, so the effect will be lowered. Multishot would be in competition with mods that provide direct increase or other effects. In the end, it would be a compromise between magnitude and frequency. Your suggestion is just a damage increase, not only for weapons without crit/status, but also for weapons, that surpass a certain threshold.
What you suggest to do with multishot, is the same idea I had behind base damage mods with negatives.

More pellets favor status, but not really crits. My solution focuses on the fact that many weapons focus very heavily on critical or status chance. That's why I came up with the solution I did.

[Hmm...interesting.]

On 2018-12-14 at 3:10 PM, Klokwerkaos said:

I am adamanatly opposed to these changes, not all changes, but deifinitely these ones.  It fixes nothing and adds a bunch of new problems by shifting things around without a dressing the core issues of enemy ai and enemy scaling.

It doesn't fix anything.

Please explain your point. Otherwise it isn't really helpful in finding a good solution. What do you want the modding system to be? What do you want to change if anything?

[Klokwerkaos]

On 2018-12-15 at 9:22 PM, Hmm...interesting. said:

Please explain your point. Otherwise it isn't really helpful in finding a good solution. What do you want the modding system to be? What do you want to change if anything?

the problem with mods isn't the damage aspects, that appears to be the issue on the surface, but it's not, the problem is enemy scaling and AI.

If the AI got smarter (ie harder) as you scale up past lv 80 and the scaling wasn't necessarilly linear but was not exponential and more of an increasing curve it would solve 99% of issues.

The few issues that would remain are things that can't necessarily be solved such as:

-Differences in gamer playstyle, motivations and preferences which are already solvable by putting your own groups together or playing solo or just getting better over time.  (ie, this issue is resolved, people just refuse to take responsibility and want to impose their will on others to force them to play how they like, which is not cool).

-Lack of endgame content which seems to be (unreasonably) impossible for DE to manage.  This causes other issues like new players engaging in walking simulators because people with top tier set ups clear the map before the newbie can even see an enemy.  I can do this with my melee alone (no powers, no guns) and then sit on the extract for almost a minute for literally any start chart or sortie mission before they catch up.  If they do any damage at all before they get ahold of god tier rivens, maxed acranes it's guaranteed to be (low) single digits unless they have a min/maxed AoE clear frame, and even then...  By giving endgame players something to do it would give the newbies a chance to experience the game without the entire thing being trivialized before they even learn the basics of modding.  The problem would still exist, but to a much lesser degree.  I've repeatedly made suggestions for direct to fix this to DE and nothing has been implemented up till now.

-Lack of scaling rewards for challenge.  This is basically a problem with DE vs the playerbase.  They don't want scaling rewards because they don't want the game to not be for the casuals, and also they don't want to give out loot any more than they do because that disincentivises purchases from players if they earn to quickly, at least they thing it does.  I really feel they have this backwards here because legit vets don't buy stuff because they need it, they buy to support the game because they can earn 1000p a day easy, so plat and prime access they can farm in under 3 hours is just not something they need to shell out cash for, but rather choose to.  That said I am abstaining from the cosmetics this go around because I am sincerely unhappy with them and I can't justify fifty bucks for plat I don't need, boosters i won't use, operator accessories that are reshash only uglier and yet another sugatra.  

This isn't really something that can be solved beyond booster use (which is about the equivalent of a paid account if you always keep it up) because the game itself is free.  In a way It annoys the crap out of me, but on the other hand it also keeps the game free, which is super important also.  What I might like to see here is an expensive "scaling booster" for people who are doing endgame stuff like building high tier dojo deco.  It would really change the game a lot for many of us.  Even if it was like "each C rotation after the first has a +10% additive drop pre other boost calculation".

This would likely make them more money and make farming literally millions of dojo resources much less of a slog.  But again, I'm just another idiot spewing nonsense.

 

That said, those issues won't be solved by fixing ai and scaling, but fixing ai and scaling would massively fix the game in many ways.

 

 

 

 

 

[Klokwerkaos]

On 2018-12-15 at 9:22 PM, Hmm...interesting. said:

Please explain your point. Otherwise it isn't really helpful in finding a good solution. What do you want the modding system to be? What do you want to change if anything?

modding is fine the way it is, what needs fixing is enemy scaling, enemy ai and scaling rewards.  

You're on the right track but you've reached a red herring.  You're trying to fix the problem from the backwards end.  Adjusting player experience with buffs and nerfs to players = huge community pushback in all cases.  Adjusting player experience with buffs and nerfs to enemies in the right areas = more rewarding gameplay.  Could we tweak some mods?  Sure, but you're what you're proposing is about destroying a massive investment of all veteran players.

This isn't to say it can't be done, because it has been done in the past, and all players were rewarded with fusion cores as a result.  Doing that back then, was very costly (I know of just 2 individuals that made out with tens of thousands of plat just from this back then, and they weren't the exception, they were the rule. doing it now would be economic suicide and throw the market into chaos, thereby destabilizing the premium currency and devaluing it further, which is against what DE should want as a business.  Creating more rewarding/engaging gameplay however, increases player retention and thereby passively increases plat sales rather than grinding them to a halt.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Klokwerkaos

[Hmm...interesting.]

On 2018-12-16 at 9:01 PM, Klokwerkaos said:

the problem with mods isn't the damage aspects, that appears to be the issue on the surface, but it's not, the problem is enemy scaling and AI.

I agree that enemy scaling and AI need serious work, but here's a thought: why do people choose something like Serration, Split Chamber, or an elemental mod rather than something like reload speed or magazine size? It's because it adds damage, and if somebody is able to add damage to their weapon, they will almost always choose that over any other mod setup. Thus, the ubiquity of these commonly used, damage-increasing mods completely undermines the value of the the other mods that are available. Because of this, weapon builds become unnecessarily one-dimensional and go against what a modding system is supposed to be: versatile and dynamic. My main point in this post is that mods shouldn't be mandatory by any means. The mods you use should be dependent on the weapon that you're using, not because one mod is always better than another. 

On 2018-12-16 at 9:01 PM, Klokwerkaos said:

Lack of endgame content which seems to be (unreasonably) impossible for DE to manage

My changes begin to address this issue. Right now, the star chart goes from level 1 enemies and increases gradually to about level 45 or 50 enemies. By the time we get to that point in the star chart, we can blast through all that content. And here is the issue. Players so strong around that point that they get to Sedna that it would take level 100 enemies to really give players the challenge they need to make the content enjoyable (this is of course ignoring the fact that enemy scaling and AI are trash). If you notice, there is a very large level gap between the enemies at the end of the star chart and caliber of enemy that is required to give a challenge. The only things that fill that gap are long endless missions and sorties. This is where the problem of lack of endgame content is. DE keeps having to make content that is on either side of this level "hole," if you know what I mean. They give content that is either way too easy for experienced players, or way too hard for newer players. There is nothing to fill in that progression gap. What they need to do is adjust our power to fit the star chart. This both allows for challenging content (relative to player power) and removes that gap. As a side effect, this will allow for DE to implement content that let's players ease into its difficulty level rather than being on either side of that playability fence of "too easy" or "too hard".

On 2018-12-16 at 9:01 PM, Klokwerkaos said:

Lack of scaling rewards for challenge.

I agree with this. Rewards need a rework. A big problem here is that Warframe doesn't market its micro transactions very well, so it relies on a bad reward system and badly implemented player progression to get its platinum purchases. A successful micro transaction system is highly dependent on a careful balance between player progression and affordable in-game purchases. 

Rhino costs 375 platinum in the market. Right now on warframe.com it costs $15.99 USD to buy 370 platinum, so let's just assume that Rhino costs 370 platinum. Not many players will buy a new warframe for $16, let alone new players that have just started to play the game. Because of they aren't as ingrained in Warframe, they are even less likely to spend money on the game. Now, if we changed the cost of rhino to make him 40 platinum, then more new players would buy him since they are itching to get their hands on a new warframe. Rhino's cost goes from $16 to about $1.75. Because they have a default 50 plat, they could buy Rhino and even have a little bit more to spend on something else. Because of their inability to make platinum with such little experience in the game, they are more likely to buy platinum. As they progress and they get better at trading for platinum, the cost of warframes along the star chart would increase, so that a warfarme from Phobos might cost around $5 or something. Now let's check out Rhino again; he costs $16. That's more than 2 hours of work at minimum wage, and what do you get? A single warframe. That right there is a big problem, and it affects a lot of how the reward system is set up right now since micro transactions are intertwined in the reward system. 

[Hmm...interesting.]

23 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

modding is fine the way it is

I have to respectfully disagree. It is more stable to keep it the way it is than it is to change it, but it's not a good system right now. If the modding of warframes got changed to be similar to the one-dimensional modding of weapons, the community would go ballistic because it takes away from a crucial part of the game.

23 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

what you're proposing is about destroying a massive investment of all veteran players

I wouldn't consider it a destruction of player investment. I would call it a redistribution of player investments. It would work in a similar fashion to how focus was refunded when there were changes. If the changes were to be made, it would be very responsible of DE to release lots of new mods that work well with the new system. That way, players have other places to siphon their endo. Unless of course you're talking about some other thing that would be destroyed.

23 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

Doing that back then, was very costly (I know of just 2 individuals that made out with tens of thousands of plat just from this back then, and they weren't the exception, they were the rule. doing it now would be economic suicide and throw the market into chaos, thereby destabilizing the premium currency and devaluing it further

What do you mean by this? I was not there when this happened.

[Teridax68]

I personally find it rather ridiculous to presume that changing or even removing some mods would send the player economy into chaos, let alone tank the entirety of Warframe, when we've already had major mod reworks in the past, including not even a month ago. When Parkour 2.0 got implemented, a whole bunch of mods got reworked, and mods tied exclusively to Stamina got removed entirely. Nothing catastrophic came from that. Last month, we received absolutely massive changes to Riven dispositions, and even though Rivens are at the core of the player economy, and priced so high that a change in the market could mean a potential loss of hundreds of dollars' worth of platinum, that change happened, tanked some players' Riven costs... and the market was fine. Players were, in fact, very understanding for the most part, and were perfectly okay with their economy and hard-earned mods losing massive value overnight. As it stands, the proposals for mod reworks here aren't trying to shake up the mods that actually do sell on the market (Serration is so common to find that very few people ever feel a need to buy it), and even in the worst case, the price of non-Riven mods is only a small fraction of the value of many Rivens, which means that even if the player economy does get disrupted, it's not going to be disastrous either.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Teridax68