The game's outdated horde-shooting mechanics are showing (Challenge Discussion)

[Darkuhn]

vor 40 Minuten schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

Don't dodge the question

no im not reading strategy guides I want the raw information on how things work to build my own strategies.

vor 42 Minuten schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

elements exist, here are the types, here's what they do, and you can combine them.

So like the tooltips when modding weapons but a little more fleshed out?

vor 45 Minuten schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

Why is it ok to read a wiki but not a codex?

you didn't get my point. It's: Players don't like reading but complain about that no information is supplied. You even admitted it yourself: 

vor 47 Minuten schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

players don't like to waste time reading

 

vor 48 Minuten schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

Simple hover tooltips would solve much of the existing ambiguity, and conditional prompts could cover the rest

These could work but enough players would still ignore them and complain. So what's the point? That would all just be wasted Dev time for a minor QoL improvement.

vor 53 Minuten schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

You claimed that it took significant time investment to learn the game

Back in 2013 it surely took that long. Information was hard to acquire and it took hours of testing.

I was Mentor for my fair share of players, it dramatically shortens the time someone needs to acclimate with the game, but its much quicker to point them towards specific Wiki pages (I mean the Wiki even has a dropdown called basics) and answer the remaining questions then to explain everything over and over again.

vor 59 Minuten schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

rather than playing it.

I get your point, but in my opinion those who aren't willing to read up on the available Information have no right to complain about something not being explained to them.

vor einer Stunde schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

complexity for the sake of drawing out progression

At which point dose Warframe do that exactly? You can get everything with crappy builds as most Public groups will be carried by one or two players anyways. So even players that lack the essential informations because they don't "want" to know them can get every thing in this game. There is nothing holding back their progress.

The complexity of Warframe is to know how specific Mechanics work and to use them to your advantage.

[DiabolusUrsus]

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

no im not reading strategy guides I want the raw information on how things work to build my own strategies.

See, things like the exact damage calculation formulas for crits and whatnot would be fine to leave on a wiki. All a player would need to know is that increasing crit chance makes crits happen more often and increasing crit damage makes them deal more damage. That particular mechanic is already adequately explained in-game just through the UI; there's no need to give players built-in min-maxing guides.

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

So like the tooltips when modding weapons but a little more fleshed out?

Sort of, but completely independent of finding the mods in the first place.

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

you didn't get my point. It's: Players don't like reading but complain about that no information is supplied. You even admitted it yourself: 

That's actually my point: The information isn't actually supplied. The average player isn't going to ever visit the Forums, let alone the wiki unless they are pointed there by the community. Games need to be relatively self-contained when it comes to simple "how to play" information and opportunities for success. If the information is available in-game, then I agree that anyone who can't be bothered to learn has only themselves to blame.

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

These could work but enough players would still ignore them and complain. So what's the point? That would all just be wasted Dev time for a minor QoL improvement.

The idea that explaining how the game works is "wasted dev time" is precisely why things have gotten out of hand to this degree. It was excusable in 2013 when there was less to actually learn, but that time is long since past and the game is a lot bigger.

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

Back in 2013 it surely took that long. Information was hard to acquire and it took hours of testing.

It didn't. Min-maxing did, sure, but that's different from simply playing. Back in 2013 all players needed to know was "stack elements, prioritize armor ignore."

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

I was Mentor for my fair share of players, it dramatically shortens the time someone needs to acclimate with the game, but its much quicker to point them towards specific Wiki pages (I mean the Wiki even has a dropdown called basics) and answer the remaining questions then to explain everything over and over again.

Quicker for you, not quicker for them.

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

I get your point, but in my opinion those who aren't willing to read up on the available Information have no right to complain about something not being explained to them.

See above; as long as said information is available and accessible within the game proper I agree. Relying on a community-managed site is bad practice.

2 minutes ago, Darkuhn said:

At which point dose Warframe do that exactly? You can get everything with crappy builds as most Public groups will be carried by one or two players anyways. So even players that lack the essential informations because they don't "want" to know them can get every thing in this game. There is nothing holding back their progress.

The complexity of Warframe is to know how specific Mechanics work and to use them to your advantage.

You were the one who suggested that complexity requiring "hundreds of hours of playtime" to master was a good thing. The length of time required to learn complex concepts is irrelevant if the complexity doesn't amount to much practical difference.

As a F2P game, Warframe sustains itself on the number of continuing players and not the number of players who purchase the game to start playing at all. It is in Warframe's best interests to be as accessible and welcoming as possible.

My point is that complexity for complexity's sake with minimal effect on gameplay is just bad design. What is the difference between using Corrosive against Grineer and Gas against Corpus? From a gameplay perspective, absolutely nothing. It's just a pointless effective/not effective gear check where the ultimate solution is still to hover over the target and click LMB. The least the game can do is explain the dynamic instead of hiding it behind multiple uses of a consumable market item that isn't mentioned anywhere in the tutorial (last I checked, anyway).

[BlackCoMerc]

3 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

Well I'll be damned.  BCM came back again for the umpteenth time and finally said something that I agree with.  

I was REALLY hoping Fortuna would offer something that would interest me. I miss the moment to moment game play.

But I dont miss knockdown spam, staggering rollers and constant control interrupts and draining auras. And I certainly dont miss dealing with all of it in tiny little areas where I have to stay in a circle and defend something over and over again. 

This game used to be about Ninjas facing off guerrilla style against superior forces and running appropriate missions for this reason. Then came the lousy horde modes, and its drug the game down ever since.

[(PSN)teacup775]

1 hour ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Then came the lousy horde modes, and its drug the game down ever since.

Horde mode is fine for those bubble wrap bursting days, but yeh.

Power fantasy is a term ladled about by DE with no apparent consideration that their definition is a particular kind of power fantasy.

It’s a limited and frankly complacent notion. Like having hot dogs for dinner. Only.

[Darkuhn]

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

See, things like the exact damage calculation formulas for crits and whatnot would be fine to leave on a wiki.

why tho? Why isn't this information the game should contain it self?

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

there's no need to give players built-in min-maxing guides.

how is supplying the player with the exact calculations a "built-in min-making guide"?

If you want some dumbed down Information for the "average" player then all that other would be is something like: "Corrosive Damage: Is more effective against x-Armor and less effective against y-Armor and reduces Armor with each Status effect."

To implement such uninformative tooltips would be a waste of devtime in my opinion.

I think we can agree to disagree on what kind of information we would like to have contained within the game.

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

You were the one who suggested that complexity requiring "hundreds of hours of playtime" to master was a good thing

With the Quest "The new Strange" players are introduced to Chephalon Simaris who explains them how scanning works. Any Player that doesn't take a peak into the simulacrum/Codex isn't interested enough to even search for the information provided by the game. Take a look into the codex, there is a lot more information in the game then you might think.

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

Min-maxing did, sure, but that's different from simply playing

When Min-Maxing is synonymous with knowing what you do and how a system works then you are right, but what you call playing the game is basically "I saw this build on YouTube and the content creator said it is good so I use it" and all the tooltips in the world won't help those Players as they aren't interested in how the game works.

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

You were the one who suggested that complexity requiring "hundreds of hours of playtime" to master was a good thing

Yes I did and I still mean it, Warframe is easy to "play" (if we go by your definition of playing, which doesn't require any information/knowledge whatsoever) but hard to master and by master I mean knowing how everything works and interacts. And that is what I like about Warframe. 

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

if the complexity doesn't amount to much practical difference

There is quite some difference between the builds of someone who's only "playing" the Game and someone that knows what he is doing. 

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

Quicker for you, not quicker for them.

Both actually, quicker for me and quicker for them as I would overwhelm them with the sheer amount of Information I can provide on different topics. With the specific Wiki pages I link them they can develop their knowledge about the Game at their own pace without getting overwhelmed and with the safety of knowing that there is someone they can ask if they don't understand something.

vor 7 Stunden schrieb DiabolusUrsus:

As a F2P game, Warframe sustains itself on the number of continuing players and not the number of players who purchase the game to start playing at all. It is in Warframe's best interests to be as accessible and welcoming as possible.

Actually Warframe makes the most profit out of short time players that hop onto the game, play a bit, buy some plat and then leave. Even Player hat only login when new content is released benefit the game greatly. 

Let me ask you one thing are you willing to go a Year without new content to get the Tooltips you proposed? 

For me that would be a no go, as the game would die without updates.

But maybe the Team that reworks the UI is already working on said tooltips and they are implemented over the next year or so, that could be possible but its not the intended purpose of this thread to discuss tooltips. maybe you should post your idea about the Tooltips on the adequate DevWorkshop if that is still open for replies.

 

This Topic is about the core gameplay mechanics of the game please let us return to that.

For me the mechanics of Warframe aren't out dated or broken, they work and each player can get the experience he is aiming for. You want power fantasy, there you go. You want the stealthy Ninja type of game, there are Frames that offer you what you want. But don't expect to get what "you" want when you join a public group as the other Players might not want the same thing as you.

Yes there are some enemys that are quite annoying, looking at you Leech Eximus and Scrumbus, but that is okay you just have to target them first. 

All in all the Combat ist fluid and you rarely get into situations were you can't defend your self against the onrushing tide of Enemys.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Darkuhn

[Xzorn]

Warframe wasn't always a horde shooter.

Warframe started as more of a Sci-fi tactical shooter. It was slower, far fewer enemies and restricted health/energy management.

Zombie horde shooters became popular and they adopted the horde shooter aspect. Even added Survival mode in the same update. Realm Vs Realm has always had an audience so they added Solar Rails... or tried to. eSports hit peak awareness and they added Lunaro which I don't think anyone asked for. Open world has been popular with the Elder Scrolls series but perhaps Witcher's switch to sandbox method is what prompted them to create PoE / Fortuna. Even when the reboot of Doom was released suddenly there were explosive barrels in the game. Though unlike doom they're more of a nuisance than awareness reward.

I guess my point is. DE isn't afraid of taking ideas from other games nor should they be. If the horde aspect wanes, they'll change it. They already have many ways to approach the game in general. These boss fights? Not so much but that's only one of many flaws with them.

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Xzorn

[(PSN)teacup775]

2 hours ago, Xzorn said:

I guess my point is. DE isn't afraid of taking ideas from other games nor should they be. If the horde aspect wanes, they'll change it. They already have many ways to approach the game in general. These boss fights? Not so much but that's only one of many flaws with them.

And their house is filling with this past clutter filled with loose ends. For the initiate, they deal with a mountainous junk yard.

[Xzorn]

23 minutes ago, (PS4)teacup775 said:

And their house is filling with this past clutter filled with loose ends. For the initiate, they deal with a mountainous junk yard.

 

Well, DE finishing their projects is a whole other issue.

It's interesting they're very into "synergy" when it comes to Warframe abilities and not the game itself.

Lots of roads to take that play little to no role in the other parts of the game. I really hope they boost Arch-gun performance so it's not yet another boss mechanic that's pointless in the rest of the game like Amps are from PoE.

[DiabolusUrsus]

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

why tho? Why isn't this information the game should contain it self?

how is supplying the player with the exact calculations a "built-in min-making guide"?

I literally explained that in the next sentence. The average player doesn't need to calculate their damage down to the last point; all they need to know is what stats are relevant and what they affect. Crit/crit damage are already self-explanatory.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

If you want some dumbed down Information for the "average" player then all that other would be is something like: "Corrosive Damage: Is more effective against x-Armor and less effective against y-Armor and reduces Armor with each Status effect."

The game already has "more effective vs." and "less effective vs." what would be important to know (from a tutorial, not just a tooltip in this case) is what elements are and how to create corrosive damage.

The little icons don't help a newbie who hasn't picked up the corresponding elements yet.

Also, key information that belongs in, say, a tooltip would be "Status effect PERMANENTLY reduces target armor."

There's a big difference between a minor temporary debuff and potential for armor removal, which the game neglects to mention.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

To implement such uninformative tooltips would be a waste of devtime in my opinion.

Utterly irrelevant; dev time is not allocated based on your or my opinion.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

I think we can agree to disagree on what kind of information we would like to have contained within the game.

Sure, but I can back up why it should be included beyond "I like it/don't like it this way."

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

With the Quest "The new Strange" players are introduced to Chephalon Simaris who explains them how scanning works. Any Player that doesn't take a peak into the simulacrum/Codex isn't interested enough to even search for the information provided by the game. Take a look into the codex, there is a lot more information in the game then you might think.

So you're telling me that new players don't need to be introduced to scanning before Europa... Halfway through the solar map.

Great.

Something that basic should be introduced by Earth at the latest.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

When Min-Maxing is synonymous with knowing what you do and how a system works then you are right, but what you call playing the game is basically "I saw this build on YouTube and the content creator said it is good so I use it" and all the tooltips in the world won't help those Players as they aren't interested in how the game works.

Do you have anything to add to this point beyond looking down your nose at players you perceive as simply too lazy to succeed?

Min-maxing is one thing, but the game doesn't explain basic stuff like elements or multishot at all.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

Yes I did and I still mean it, Warframe is easy to "play" (if we go by your definition of playing, which doesn't require any information/knowledge whatsoever) but hard to master and by master I mean knowing how everything works and interacts. And that is what I like about Warframe. 

I'm sorry, but when you can master a game by reading the wiki articles explaining how a poorly-explained mechanic works that's not what I'd call "difficult to master."

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

There is quite some difference between the builds of someone who's only "playing" the Game and someone that knows what he is doing. 

Translation: the meta is strong. Cool, I guess? Who cares? This has literally nothing to do with the main point of a tutorial.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

Both actually, quicker for me and quicker for them as I would overwhelm them with the sheer amount of Information I can provide on different topics. With the specific Wiki pages I link them they can develop their knowledge about the Game at their own pace without getting overwhelmed and with the safety of knowing that there is someone they can ask if they don't understand something.

That's really only going to apply when the mentor is you, then, because apparently you don't know how to consider your target audience.

You don't info-dump a newbie with all the smallest details, because they don't have all the mods necessary to exploit those details yet. You tell them what tools they need, and where to find them.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

Actually Warframe makes the most profit out of short time players that hop onto the game, play a bit, buy some plat and then leave. Even Player hat only login when new content is released benefit the game greatly.

The most profit per player, sure, but how many players do you think shell out before deciding if they're really into the game or not?

Players who only log in for new content still qualify as continuing players.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

Let me ask you one thing are you willing to go a Year without new content to get the Tooltips you proposed? 

For me that would be a no go, as the game would die without updates.

No, which is why I never suggested it was that important. There's also no reason for it to be developed at the expense of everything else, or why it couldn't gradually be added hotfix by hotfix the way Conclave balance is.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

But maybe the Team that reworks the UI is already working on said tooltips and they are implemented over the next year or so, that could be possible but its not the intended purpose of this thread to discuss tooltips. maybe you should post your idea about the Tooltips on the adequate DevWorkshop if that is still open for replies.

This discussion was a spinoff from you trying to represent complexity as a game mechanic, not a derail. Even so...

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

This Topic is about the core gameplay mechanics of the game please let us return to that.

Sure.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

For me the mechanics of Warframe aren't out dated or broken, they work and each player can get the experience he is aiming for. You want power fantasy, there you go. You want the stealthy Ninja type of game, there are Frames that offer you what you want. But don't expect to get what "you" want when you join a public group as the other Players might not want the same thing as you.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the actual topic of the OP.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

Yes there are some enemys that are quite annoying, looking at you Leech Eximus and Scrumbus, but that is okay you just have to target them first. 

Spare us the dogma, please; it's not building up your point at all.

There are many situations where leech eximi are near impossible to differentiate from the surrounding enemies, they might not even be visible (like through walls), and comba/scrambi can be a nightmare for anyone with hearing impairment to pick out because their main tell is through the noise they make.

It also skips over the fact that leeches/comba/scrambi are hardly the only priority enemies to exist. Sapping Ospreys. Nullifiers. Techs. Detron Crewmen. Anti-MOAs.

Unless you're playing a tank build that can ignore most things, there are more priority targets spawning in large enough numbers that a player with human reaction speed can't possibly hope to process them all fast enough. Which is why you see the community default to things like nukes, resulting in disappointingly one-dimensional, uninteresting combat.

4 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

All in all the Combat ist fluid and you rarely get into situations were you can't defend your self against the onrushing tide of Enemys.

Again, completely irrelevant to the OP.

[Steel_Rook]

17 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

everyone I told that thanked me later as it really helped them understand the Basics at their own pace.

They thanked you because you pointed them to a resource of information that should have been in the game but isn't. Teaching a customer how to get a refund is a swell thing to do, but it doesn't make the product being refunded any less defective, if you'll forgive the blunt metaphor. Unless the Wiki is developer-made and maintained and links to it are available via in-game web browser, then expecting players to find it and read it is not good game design. Or more bluntly, expecting players to do homework before they start playing a game is not good design. It poses an unnecessary barrier to entry and relinquishes control over the new player experience onto whatever random YouTube video or forum post from three years ago the player stumbles upon through Google.

 

17 hours ago, Darkuhn said:

If the game would contain the informations that are provided by the wiki with all the formulas involved Manny players would be overwhelmed within the first few hours.

Formulae, specific stats and behind-the-scenes coding quirks are nice to know, but a well-designed game shouldn't requires players to know them. I shouldn't need to know exactly how Rhino's Iron Skin's damage is calculated as long as I know the rough basics of "based on my armour and damage I take after triggering it." It's fine for a Wiki to exist where in-depth mechanics breakdows and stats spreadsheets can be found. But basic mechanics like "what is Status" or "a critical headshot does more damage than a critical and a headshot combined" should be part of the game's introduction or at least found in the game somewhere. The last time I complained about the vertical bullet jump not being communicated to players, someone dug up an Advanced Movement Tutorial buried three menus deep in the codex that I'd never even run into. I'm sure the people around the time of the movement system updated knew about it, but as a new player I had no reason to suspect that THAT one menu entry had a tutorial attached to it, where none of the others did.

[Steel_Rook]

22 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Yes, I would keep it, because it's interesting. There will always be an "optimal" build, and there's no reasonable way to get around that. The key is shrinking the difference between "optimal" and "good, but not perfect" to the point that most players can ignore it and have fun with the system. Multishot just needs to change from "always good" to "sometimes good," depending on what you're building for.

That was my question, though: What makes MultiS#&$ "interesting?" I understand that you have a more balanced proposition for how it would work, but that in my opinion only fixes the superficial issue of it being a "must-have" mod. Maybe this is my imagination failing, but I honestly can't see the benefit of Multishot itself in a game where a large number of the projectiles aren't even rendered on-screen. Am I really going to notice my assault rifle firing two shots per trigger-pull instead of one? Well, I've been playing around with the Quartakk rifle which fires four shots per trigger pull and I honestly can't tell that it's doing so. To me, it feels like either a shotgun or just a very slow-firing rifle. The native multishot just makes the stats harder to track in my head. I guess it's not "technicly" multishot because the trigger is listed as "Burst" but I don't know. The game never tells me.

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of behind-the-scenes mechanics that I can't really notice in actual play. They're fine as a numbers puzzle to solve, but I feel they end up overcomplicating game systems for no real added benefit. This goes back to my dislike of fine-grained character building, where you only notice a substantial effect once you stack an arbitrary number of buffs which by themselves wouldn't be very noticeable. The only things I notice from Multishot most of the time is the increase in damage, crit and status, so a redesign of the system which diminishes those just seems like it would make even less of a difference in terms of feel.

 

20 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

TBF on this point: from what I recall of WF history, Warframe only took off to the level it's at now because of a ridiculously ambitious change (mostly to movement but to a number of other things as well). So it's not like they haven't done huge shifts before, and to massive benefit.

Oh, I'm definitely not saying changes like axing, gutting or redesigning Multishot are impossible to make. Rather, I'm saying they're big, structural changes which need to be done both carefully and thoroughly. It's a bit like swapping the foundations of your house - you CAN do it, just maybe not by yourself 🙂 Any of the changes we're talking about here, be they to Serration, Multishot, elemental damage mods or what have you - those can't really be done standalone. Either you'd create something massively overpowered or outright break people's builds completely. Ideally, you want to swap the entire system out for something that works better but sort of resembles the status quo at least initially. You absolutely can nerf or change Multishot, you just can't ONLY do that without adjusting weapons, enemies or both.

That's what I meant before. If these changes do come, they're likely to be part of a much larger package revamping the entire modding system, possibly also the damage system. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[(PSN)teacup775]

2 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Lots of roads to take that play little to no role in the other parts of the game. I really hope they boost Arch-gun performance so it's not yet another boss mechanic that's pointless in the rest of the game like Amps are from PoE.

Gun performance is hardly an issue, it what to do with all this stuff. For “vets” or anyone with a decent set of frames and weapons, and mods there is little to do other than grind for the next bit of more of the same, in the same set of mindless and meaningless  missions introduced on Earth. At no point is all the meaninglessness given a reason.

A certain subset of the mountain of crap we have is more than enough to run anything on the star chart or “endgame”.

 

The whole ninja thing is long dead. It’s barbie dolls with guns popping bubble wrap enemies.

[Xzorn]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)teacup775 said:

Gun performance is hardly an issue, it what to do with all this stuff. For “vets” or anyone with a decent set of frames and weapons, and mods there is little to do other than grind for the next bit of more of the same, in the same set of mindless and meaningless  missions introduced on Earth. At no point is all the meaninglessness given a reason.

A certain subset of the mountain of crap we have is more than enough to run anything on the star chart or “endgame”.

The whole ninja thing is long dead. It’s barbie dolls with guns popping bubble wrap enemies.

 

I disagree in the case of both Arch-guns and Amps. It's because of their lack of comparative performance they are a road that goes no where.

If Arch-guns have superior performance to any standard weapon we have then their cooldown would be justified and they would serve as an additional layered mechanic to any other game play in Warframe. I've refereed to them as "Limit Breaks" in quite a few posts. This is a mechanic you as the player can build around and incorporate making the time spent farming the mods useful outside just killing Profit Taker same with Amps and Eidolons.

But if the gun performance never holds up to standard weapons. It's wasted time. For both developers and players. This is what I mean about Warframe the game having synergy. Modes of game play that you can't bring into other modes. We need a web of progression. Each thread a part of others.

Now in terms of content to push the limits and make use of these things well.. that dead horse has been beaten into dust.

[(PSN)teacup775]

2 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

Now in terms of content to push the limits and make use of these things well.. that dead horse has been beaten into dust.

I’m not even talking push the limits, there’s nothing engagingly fun to do with them. Where’s the hyperius or terramorphus you can wax up 300 ways? Where’s the set of missions that are fun to replay because of what happens in them?

Amps are just fine in certain circumstances, but are just another “gun”. I use them to pop nullifier bubbles by shooting at the ground by closing and smacking them in their bubble, outside of sentients and eidelons.

Arch guns are just dps. In arcwhing missions the same old. In fortuna, a special case. But archguns in an exterm or survival? meh.

In Vallis, enemies are litterally pooped on our heads. It’s ok in a pop bubble wrap kind of way.

Is a barbie doll bubble wrap popper game, one that DE contents themselves with?

[DatDarkOne]

22 minutes ago, (PS4)teacup775 said:

The whole ninja thing is long dead. It’s barbie dolls with guns popping bubble wrap enemies.

I believe this is only because there aren't any incentives to actually use or try stealthy and/or tactical play in the game at the moment.  Well at least not while with a group.  I get it quite a bit playing solo, but that's a choice I made.  Not one that's emphasized in the game at the moment. 

[(PSN)teacup775]

12 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

Not one that's emphasized in the game at the moment. 

Remarkable, right?

what did humanity evolve to do?

Bag game larger and fiercer than a puny human, and outwit our conspecifics.

[DiabolusUrsus]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

That was my question, though: What makes MultiS#&$ "interesting?" I understand that you have a more balanced proposition for how it would work, but that in my opinion only fixes the superficial issue of it being a "must-have" mod. Maybe this is my imagination failing, but I honestly can't see the benefit of Multishot itself in a game where a large number of the projectiles aren't even rendered on-screen. Am I really going to notice my assault rifle firing two shots per trigger-pull instead of one? Well, I've been playing around with the Quartakk rifle which fires four shots per trigger pull and I honestly can't tell that it's doing so. To me, it feels like either a shotgun or just a very slow-firing rifle. The native multishot just makes the stats harder to track in my head. I guess it's not "technicly" multishot because the trigger is listed as "Burst" but I don't know. The game never tells me.

Were it up to me, I would make every weapon a projectile weapon with suitably fast projectile speed.

This has several benefits:

• Mechanical consistency, with projectile speed being a more meaningful benefit/penalty.
• Increased benefit from dodging and parkour when fighting Grineer.
• Color-customizable bullets on every gun!

It should also resolve your complaint of "invisible multishot" when factoring in the default accuracy penalty.

Quote

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of behind-the-scenes mechanics that I can't really notice in actual play. They're fine as a numbers puzzle to solve, but I feel they end up overcomplicating game systems for no real added benefit. This goes back to my dislike of fine-grained character building, where you only notice a substantial effect once you stack an arbitrary number of buffs which by themselves wouldn't be very noticeable. The only things I notice from Multishot most of the time is the increase in damage, crit and status, so a redesign of the system which diminishes those just seems like it would make even less of a difference in terms of feel.

Fair enough, and I agree that there should be more to modding than stacking identical buffs.

The intent behind my multishot changes is translating it into a reduction to effective damage range (due to spread) in exchange for less precise aiming requirements/potential to hit multiple targets (like a shotgun). This would make it potentially useful against faster more fragile targets, or when using a status effect that is more useful across multiple applications (like corrosive, radiation, or viral) than sheer magnitude.

Would that be enough of a noticeable difference once visualized through projectiles?

[Mach25]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

Either you'd create something massively overpowered or outright break people's builds completely. Ideally, you want to swap the entire system out for something that works better but sort of resembles the status quo at least initially. You absolutely can nerf or change Multishot, you just can't ONLY do that without adjusting weapons, enemies or both.

That's what I meant before. If these changes do come, they're likely to be part of a much larger package revamping the entire modding system, possibly also the damage system. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Doing something is better than doing nothing.

First and foremost, I propose a simple solution that has been floated before in times past: if the designers are hellbent on using mods as a form of progression (thus defeating the purpose of what the term modification means), they should combine serration and split chambre (and their secondary/melee counterparts) into one mod in its own separate pool on each weapon, away from everything else. This mod does not pull from energy pool, but is in its own slot. This would be the least difficult implementation that is more readily available. After rank 4 of serration, you'll start getting multishot bonuses, with all possible multishot bonuses currently distributed across different mods folded into serration at rank 10. No more multishot mods (outside of rivens, another discussion) are available. Serration itself should be strong enough to make any weapon viable in the designated maximum window of level 45 enemies or whatever is deemed reasonable. About additional damage mods, I'll let you guys debate upon that point.

Second: I would combine this with your earlier propositions to get rid of all these various RPG elements that form a jumbled mish-mash in a fast-paced game like warframe and simplify enemy mechanics - if I remember correctly, it went something like grineer are weak to puncture and corrosive, corpus to impact and radiation, infested to slash and heat.

Third: Later on, down the line, perhaps elemental mods can simply convert your damage leaning more towards whichever elements you wish. (I think I saw that from one of Diab's posts somewhere - correct me if I'm wrong.)

Edited December 28, 2018 by Mach25

[Tyreaus]

2 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

That's what I meant before. If these changes do come, they're likely to be part of a much larger package revamping the entire modding system, possibly also the damage system. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Oh, totally. At the same time, "going big or going home" seems to be DE's (strange) forte - that's all I meant. ^^;

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Were it up to me, I would make every weapon a projectile weapon with suitably fast projectile speed.

This has several benefits:

• Mechanical consistency, with projectile speed being a more meaningful benefit/penalty.
• Increased benefit from dodging and parkour when fighting Grineer.
• Color-customizable bullets on every gun!

It should also resolve your complaint of "invisible multishot" when factoring in the default accuracy penalty.

Regarding multishot: even as projectile weapons, the brightness on the projectiles can make them mush together and look like just one shot. I get that on my Tombfinger all the time: it's (usually) three shots, but it looks like one until I analyse the impact. _{Could be made better with higher spread, but some weapons—pretty sure Arca Plasmor and Scourge, e.g.—won't get much out of it unless the accuracy penalty is huge.}

(An aside: there's a way to do it the game already does—generating a visual projectile, but having the actual damage occur instantaneously. They're thin and faint projectiles and could have the brightness turned up a bit, but it'd technically do the same intended job)

Also, it's super important to point out that non-hitscan is a huge nerf, especially at longer ranges: you have a small target and even a relatively small travel time can mean your target decides to start moving, making your shot miss. Personally, I love when I can nail those Kobe's with my kitgun and am happy spamming balls of light at a target, but not everyone is me.

That said, do feel at least enemy weapons should be projectiles all the way through. DOOM's design was one thing because it had carefully designed enemies, so there was a purpose behind having a mix of hitscan and projectile enemies. We don't get that mix in Warframe much at all. DE could try to follow in iD's footsteps but, considering we're space ninjas and Doomguy is far from stealthy, that's probably not going to work too well...

_{And before the "but it's not realistic" part comes in: Corrupted shotgunners use Struns. You know, those hitscan shotguns. Which fire energy pellets at the player.}

Also also:

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Would that be enough of a noticeable difference once visualized through projectiles?

One thing that could help display the idea of "multishot but lower accuracy" is a bloom indicator on the crosshair to demonstrate accuracy. It's kind of bog-standard for many shooters but it'd be effective if one forgoes all-projectiles.

[DiabolusUrsus]

2 hours ago, Mach25 said:

About additional damage mods, I'll let you guys debate upon that point.

Damage mods should be fine as long as the bonuses are minor and balanced out by suitable penalties.

2 hours ago, Mach25 said:

Second: I would combine this with your earlier propositions to get rid of all these various RPG elements that form a jumbled mish-mash in a fast-paced game like warframe and simplify enemy mechanics - if I remember correctly, it went something like grineer are weak to puncture and corrosive, corpus to impact and radiation, infested to slash and heat.

I think this would be an oversimplification. Minor flavor bonuses like Infested being weak to fire are fine (e.g., the player's first response to Infested is "kill it with fire!!!"), but other than that effectiveness should be built around counter-mechanics.

Rather than "anti-Grineer," corrosive is obviously anti-armor. This would make it good against most Grineer, Corpus proxies, and Infested Ancients.

However... Instead of handling it through an arbitrary damage multiplier, I would implement it through specific effects. For example, armor would be a hard-to-penetrate health buffer instead of percentage damage reduction, and corrosive would eat away its durability over time while temporarily making it easier to penetrate. This would make corrosive useful to slash-based weapons unable to penetrate thick armor effectively, but puncture-based weapons could opt to take health-damaging elements due to penetrating armor more easily.

With adequate swap speed, players could even opt to specialize one weapon for armor destruction (puncture corrosive) and another for finishing off defenseless foes (slash viral, etc.) for a 1-2 punch combination.

In other words, tools should be adaptable for different purposes rather than used as simple color coding for otherwise-identical enemy factions.

2 hours ago, Mach25 said:

Third: Later on, down the line, perhaps elemental mods can simply convert your damage leaning more towards whichever elements you wish. (I think I saw that from one of Diab's posts somewhere - correct me if I'm wrong.)

This was from a chat discussion rather than a thread, IIRC, though it tends to come up whenever someone says "but if you remove damage mods people will just stack elements."

Personally, I would use the proportion of elemental damage to replace status chance as a non-random method for applying effects.

For example, a weapon with a higher proportion of viral damage would reduce target health by a larger margin (scaling up to 50% at pure viral damage) and have more spreading potential (my replacement for the periodic "proc."

This would prevent players from simply stacking a minimal amount of elemental damage to use powerful procs like Viral or Corrosive without committing to them, and would limit the effectiveness of "rainbow" type builds.

Elements would be less about stacking as much damage as possible and more about figuring out how much you need to suit your purposes.

[Steel_Rook]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

The intent behind my multishot changes is translating it into a reduction to effective damage range (due to spread) in exchange for less precise aiming requirements/potential to hit multiple targets (like a shotgun). This would make it potentially useful against faster more fragile targets, or when using a status effect that is more useful across multiple applications (like corrosive, radiation, or viral) than sheer magnitude.

Sorry, I didn't mean to trash-talk your suggestion 🙂 Truth be told, I expected Multishot to have a substantial negative impact on weapon handling and accuracy when I was first reading up on it. I don't really know how Warframe's recoil and spread systems work (and neither does the Wiki, apparently), but it has been my experience and suspicion that this game uses progressive spread. That is to say, spread starts out fairly narrow and blooms over longer bursts. I expected, then, that Multishot would contribute to this bloom, degrading accuracy faster. That doesn't seem to be the case, as it doesn't seem like the cloned bullets from Multishot are considered for the purposes of progressive spread. The same goes for recoil. I expect recoil is done similarly to Payday 2, which is to say horizontal and vertical angular deflection is chosen from weapon-specific bounds and the player's view is shifted by those angles per shot. I expected Multishot to force view offset for every bullet, but it seems that only happens for every shot, instead.

See, if both of the above were true... Multishot would still probably be present in nearly every build, but at least there would be a choice. More multishot means more damage, crit and status, but also a less accurate gun that's harder to control. Wouldn't really affect sniper rifles and slow-firing guns AS much, but it's something. So I'm definitely not against changes to it. My original "would you keep" it question was I guess more aimed towards getting a measure of how important complexity for the sake of complexity is among the player base. Multishot just struck me as one of these because it seems like a mechanic in search of a purpose that players have co-opted as "yet another damage buff." But perhaps I was wrong about that. Sorry that I didn't contribute to discussing your idea.

 

1 hour ago, Mach25 said:

First and foremost, I propose a simple solution that has been floated before in times past: if the designers are hellbent on using mods as a form of progression (thus defeating the purpose of what the term modification means), they should combine serration and split chambre (and their secondary/melee counterparts) into one mod in its own separate pool on each weapon, away from everything else. This mod does not pull from energy pool, but is in its own slot. This would be the least difficult implementation that is more readily available. After rank 4 of serration, you'll start getting multishot bonuses, with all possible multishot bonuses currently distributed across different mods folded into serration at rank 10. No more multishot mods (outside of rivens, another discussion) are available. Serration itself should be strong enough to make any weapon viable in the designated maximum window of level 45 enemies or whatever is deemed reasonable. About additional damage mods, I'll let you guys debate upon that point.

I'm in general agreement, though with a few addendums:

Firstly, I'm of the opinion that quite a few mods can stand to be merged together. Critical mods, for instance, just take up space. Is there EVER a time when you'd build for Critical Chance but NOT critical damage? I could see maybe building for Status Chance without Status Duration, though I'm not entirely sure how useful Status Duration is in the first place. So no, mixing Serration and Multishot into the same mod is not a bad idea as far as I'm concerned, nor is removing the Multishot aspect from everywhere else. While we're at it, we might want to also remove the base damage buffs from other mods. That right there should curb most of the same-buff stacking without entirely blocking buff stacking as a concept. I know DE like to treat their "dual aspect" mods as super-special-rare Nightmare mods, but I'm personally fine with merging some of the basic ones.

Secondly... Why aren't there multiple versions of mods? Why are some mods only Gold and others only Copper? We already have the Flawed mods system that exists to give new players cheap but garbage mods that they're supposed to upgrade from, so why not give players better versions of other mods? If you want mods to be a progression system, then start with a copper Serration that only goes up to 5 pips, then a Silver serration that goes up to 8 and a Gold Serration that goes up to 10? You could even give people a reason to slot the lower level ones, like a Rank 10 Gold Serration might cost 14 Mod Capacity but a Rank 5 Copper Serration might only cost 7, or even 5. Again, same idea as with Flawed mods, in that there's something you can throw at low-level players so they don't have to go completely without a Horner Strike until god damn Saturn, but equally without having to give them the Gold Hornet Strike too early. Maybe even give players the option to upgrade mods by sacrificing a certain amount of lower-level mods, like what you can do with Arcanes.

 

2 hours ago, Mach25 said:

Second: I would combine this with your earlier propositions to get rid of all these various RPG elements that form a jumbled mish-mash in a fast-paced game like warframe and simplify enemy mechanics - if I remember correctly, it went something like grineer are weak to puncture and corrosive, corpus to impact and radiation, infested to slash and heat.

Right, thereabout. You can even play around with this, though. The Grenier could be the faction with the most health, heaviest armour and highest damage output, but the least variety in enemies - they're all big, heavy tanks. The Corpus probably still needs different weaknesses between Crewmen and Proxies, and the Infested could make sense to have three separate factions (Infested, Ancients, Machines) with different weaknesses, as they're the faction that does a little of everything but not a lot of anything. There's room to play around with it, but the differences NEED to be visually obvious. The Grenier have armour and nothing else. The Corpus have shields and nothing else. The Infested have no damage buffer but have lots of units of different kinds to make up for it.

I'd honestly probably cut down on the different unit types, as well. I literally cannot tell the difference between Crewmen armed with a laser rifle vs. Crewmen armed with a different kind of laser rifle, vs. crewmen armed with a different kind of laser rifle and they can also deploy those annoying roller things. Maybe reserve that difference for different enemy subfactions, such as Tusk vs. Frontier vs. Kuva grenier, or Terra Corpus vs... Why don't the Corpus have different factions, actually? They're split into separate corporations, aren't they? Neff Anyo seems to own the Terra, I'm assuming Fhord Beck owns a bunch of the regular Corpus and the Ambulas, Alad V would probably have his own faction for the early game segments, maybe some headless corporate entity previous controlled by Ergo Glast? These can all be just differently-armed versions of the same units so you cut down on the variety of units within the SAME fight (making it easier to keep them straight) without reducing the unit variety of the game as a whole.

You can still have it be very simple, like: Corpus are all weak to Magnetic, Crewmen are weak to Slash, Proxies are weak to Impact. Grenier are all weak to Puncture and Corrosive. Infested are weak to Slash, Ancients are weak to Fire, Infested Machines are weak to Electric. I think we're also past due for a proper "Orokin" faction that's not just pallet swaps of existing units, and these can take up the slack for the other damage types.

 

51 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Also, it's super important to point out that non-hitscan is a huge nerf, especially at longer ranges: you have a small target and even a relatively small travel time can mean your target decides to start moving, making your shot miss. Personally, I love when I can nail those Kobe's with my kitgun and am happy spamming balls of light at a target, but not everyone is me.

I meant to comment on that. As someone who plays Orisa in Overwatch and uses the Supra here - turning all weapons into projectiles would be a MASSIVE nerf to my firepower. I have Terminal Velocity on damn near all my Corpus weapons from the Supra to the Lanka to everything in between. I'm fine with making enemy weapons all projectiles so we can dodge fire at least at longer ranges... Maybe also get rid of homing projectiles like Bombard rockets while you're at it. But for players, I'm strongly against it. Enemy projectile weapons would encourage player movement. Player projectile weapons tend to discourage player movement, instead.

And while we're at it, can we please NOT give every sodding NPS Puncture damage? I get the Grenier all doing that because they use all the "bullet" weapons and because they're supposed to be the "big gun that fires big bullets" faction, but why does nearly every Corpus weapon also deal Puncture? Why do so many Infested deal Puncture damage? What's the point of giving players Armour if 3/4 of the enemies are going to wield anti-armour weapons? I never fully realised just HOW prevalent Puncture damage is in this game until I got the Adaptation mod. Then I started tracking my resistances, and they're usually 90% resistance to Puncture and maybe some to Slash or Impact. But always always always puncture. Well, unless I got to Orb Vallis, where it's 90% damage resistance to all of the damage types because someone at DE thought giving an enemy faction all of the things in the game is how you do "challenge." But I digress.

I'm of the opinion that Grenier themselves should be doing predominantly Puncture damage with a smattering of Blast for conventional explosive and Hear for Incendiary weapons. The Corpus should be doing predominantly Impact damage with a smattering of Electricity and Radiation. The Infested should be doing predominantly Slash with a wide variety of toxic, gas, corrosive and viral, them being the "lots of stuff" faction in my mind. And I'm making this up as I go along, so none of these suggestions are final. I just want the damage a faction does to be consistent in much the same way that I'd expect their damage resistances to be consistent. I also expect a faction to deal the kind of damage it's weak against, because their weapons would be designed with their own specifications in mind, and also to make memorising damage and resistance a bit easier. Also, "tanks with anti-tank weapons" is a specialised faction which benefits from a more hit-and-run approach, vs. the "crowds with crowd control" faction which might benefit from a more "stand your ground" approach.

[DiabolusUrsus]

2 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Regarding multishot: even as projectile weapons, the brightness on the projectiles can make them mush together and look like just one shot. I get that on my Tombfinger all the time: it's (usually) three shots, but it looks like one until I analyse the impact. _{Could be made better with higher spread, but some weapons—pretty sure Arca Plasmor and Scourge, e.g.—won't get much out of it unless the accuracy penalty is huge.}

IMO the game needs to figure out how to bridge the gap between percentage and flat bonuses.

For example, instead of making Heavy Caliber reduce accuracy because it has no effect on zero-recoil weapons, I would have it force a minimum recoil and then calculate off of that when equipped for those specific weapons.

Ideally the accuracy penalty would be enough to differentiate shots at mid-long ranges, because at close ranges the player is deliberately trying to sink multiple shots into the target, and the separate bullets are clearly represented through individual damage numbers.

2 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

(An aside: there's a way to do it the game already does—generating a visual projectile, but having the actual damage occur instantaneously. They're thin and faint projectiles and could have the brightness turned up a bit, but it'd technically do the same intended job)

I'm aware, but I prefer projectiles anyway because they're color-customizable. 😛

Dunno if anything has changed, but DE had said previously that they couldn't implement it for the hitscan particle FX.

2 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Also, it's super important to point out that non-hitscan is a huge nerf, especially at longer ranges: you have a small target and even a relatively small travel time can mean your target decides to start moving, making your shot miss. Personally, I love when I can nail those Kobe's with my kitgun and am happy spamming balls of light at a target, but not everyone is me.

Not necessarily, given adequate speed. Arma 3 is a great example of this, where all the guns use projectiles and actual ballistics, yet it's not really differentiable from hitscan until you get past about ~250m away.

This would also be a great replacement for forced damage falloff, with projectile speed and spread directly affecting how well a weapon works at longer ranges.

2 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

That said, do feel at least enemy weapons should be projectiles all the way through. DOOM's design was one thing because it had carefully designed enemies, so there was a purpose behind having a mix of hitscan and projectile enemies. We don't get that mix in Warframe much at all. DE could try to follow in iD's footsteps but, considering we're space ninjas and Doomguy is far from stealthy, that's probably not going to work too well...

_{And before the "but it's not realistic" part comes in: Corrupted shotgunners use Struns. You know, those hitscan shotguns. Which fire energy pellets at the player.}

Agreed. Adding to this, realism in games only matters insofar as it applies to preserving the player's willing suspension of disbelief.

That's why things like bullet jumps or double jumps are fine, but the obviously glitchy coptering was undesirable even if it was strictly faster... Yet teleports are still fine.

Also, projectiles are by definition more realistic than hitscan functions. 😛

2 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Also also:

One thing that could help display the idea of "multishot but lower accuracy" is a bloom indicator on the crosshair to demonstrate accuracy. It's kind of bog-standard for many shooters but it'd be effective if one forgoes all-projectiles.

Agreed, and I would support smoother recoil implementation as well, even if it were more resistant to control.

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to trash-talk your suggestion 🙂

No offense taken, and I hadn't interpreted it as such.

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

Truth be told, I expected Multishot to have a substantial negative impact on weapon handling and accuracy when I was first reading up on it. I don't really know how Warframe's recoil and spread systems work (and neither does the Wiki, apparently), but it has been my experience and suspicion that this game uses progressive spread. That is to say, spread starts out fairly narrow and blooms over longer bursts. I expected, then, that Multishot would contribute to this bloom, degrading accuracy faster. That doesn't seem to be the case, as it doesn't seem like the cloned bullets from Multishot are considered for the purposes of progressive spread. The same goes for recoil. I expect recoil is done similarly to Payday 2, which is to say horizontal and vertical angular deflection is chosen from weapon-specific bounds and the player's view is shifted by those angles per shot. I expected Multishot to force view offset for every bullet, but it seems that only happens for every shot, instead.

Agreed on the expectation, though I'm just as uncertain of how the spread/recoil works.

IMO spread should be a default maximum angle of deviation from the aim point and just randomly pick angles with each shot. Recoil is a bit trickier, but in PVE I don't think it should be made too complicated with all sorts of horizontal kicks mixed with vertical push and all that.

Halo 2 did just fine with the SMG's simple vertical rise, IMO.

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

See, if both of the above were true... Multishot would still probably be present in nearly every build, but at least there would be a choice. More multishot means more damage, crit and status, but also a less accurate gun that's harder to control. Wouldn't really affect sniper rifles and slow-firing guns AS much, but it's something. So I'm definitely not against changes to it. My original "would you keep" it question was I guess more aimed towards getting a measure of how important complexity for the sake of complexity is among the player base. Multishot just struck me as one of these because it seems like a mechanic in search of a purpose that players have co-opted as "yet another damage buff." But perhaps I was wrong about that. Sorry that I didn't contribute to discussing your idea.

Again, no worries and no offense taken. I added that in because I wasn't sure if you understood the intent behind my changes, which were specifically aimed at removing the "complexity for complexity's sake aspect of multishot.

As it stands, it's just +damage +crit +status. Make it consume ammo, and it's just +RoF.

That's why I aimed to make it fill a more niche role while keeping it different from other possible bonuses.

I 100% agree that complexity is worthless if it isn't serving an explicit purpose, and would even go as far as to say that it is actively detrimental without one. That's the only reason I brought my changes up a second time - to illustrate the distinction I was making.

i.e., Multishot is useful for adding complexity to modding and is aesthetically fairly unique, thus I want to keep it. I agree that it should serve a specific purpose, though, outside of a simple damage output buff.

[Mach25]

8 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I think this would be an oversimplification. Minor flavor bonuses like Infested being weak to fire are fine (e.g., the player's first response to Infested is "kill it with fire!!!"), but other than that effectiveness should be built around counter-mechanics.

Rather than "anti-Grineer," corrosive is obviously anti-armor. This would make it good against most Grineer, Corpus proxies, and Infested Ancients.

Yep, that's what I meant - I saw your idea and agreed with corrosive being good against all armor. I simply said grineer because they're an armor-based faction and I was thinking about Rook's discussion of enemies' characteristics at this point in time, the lack of info newer players don't have and how this game needs proper documentation so my summation was threefold: a distillation of enemies in simple to understand terms so players who don't know about these other resources can get a rough idea of what to expect with each faction, bringing reasonable changes to each faction in general and as well a simplistic argument to help maintain focus and discussion on the topic at hand.

8 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

However... Instead of handling it through an arbitrary damage multiplier, I would implement it through specific effects. For example, armor would be a hard-to-penetrate health buffer instead of percentage damage reduction, and corrosive would eat away its durability over time while temporarily making it easier to penetrate. This would make corrosive useful to slash-based weapons unable to penetrate thick armor effectively, but puncture-based weapons could opt to take health-damaging elements due to penetrating armor more easily.

With adequate swap speed, players could even opt to specialize one weapon for armor destruction (puncture corrosive) and another for finishing off defenseless foes (slash viral, etc.) for a 1-2 punch combination.

I'm still waiting for that game of yours, Diab. I. want. that. game.

8 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Firstly, I'm of the opinion that quite a few mods can stand to be merged together. Critical mods, for instance, just take up space. Is there EVER a time when you'd build for Critical Chance but NOT critical damage? I could see maybe building for Status Chance without Status Duration, though I'm not entirely sure how useful Status Duration is in the first place. So no, mixing Serration and Multishot into the same mod is not a bad idea as far as I'm concerned, nor is removing the Multishot aspect from everywhere else. While we're at it, we might want to also remove the base damage buffs from other mods. That right there should curb most of the same-buff stacking without entirely blocking buff stacking as a concept. I know DE like to treat their "dual aspect" mods as super-special-rare Nightmare mods, but I'm personally fine with merging some of the basic ones.

Agreed. About that, what if, as a matter of progression the baseline damage boosting mods (serration and hornet strike) are divided up into three tiers? The rarer the mod, the more bonuses you get? Copper = pure damage, silver = damage + multishot, gold = damage + multishot at maximum values? You get what I mean. Sure, you may have the other mods to keep you sated until you get the golden one, but once that mod is in play, the other mods cannot be slotted onto your weapon. Your other idea of sacrificing other mods to upgrade it, that's pretty cool. I'll leave that mechanic to further discussion.

Barring status and dealing purely with damage mods as they are currently implemented, I think this would serve as a fine compromise between what we have and what we propose. Granted, this is restrained to what is easiest to implement at this point. I find the multishot rework proposal an interesting point and lean favorably towards it. I will refine propositions as information is exchanged, ideas measured and parties arrive at a consensus, be it agreement or an agreement to disagree.

What I'm seeing here, this is how a forum ideally operates - it is a worthy thing to behold.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Mach25

[Tyreaus]

5 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

IMO the game needs to figure out how to bridge the gap between percentage and flat bonuses.

For example, instead of making Heavy Caliber reduce accuracy because it has no effect on zero-recoil weapons, I would have it force a minimum recoil and then calculate off of that when equipped for those specific weapons.

Ideally the accuracy penalty would be enough to differentiate shots at mid-long ranges, because at close ranges the player is deliberately trying to sink multiple shots into the target, and the separate bullets are clearly represented through individual damage numbers.

I was talking more appearance - i.e., the brightness of many projectiles seems to congeal them all into one, visually, even with a fair amount of spread - but yeah, that's true too.

6 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I'm aware, but I prefer projectiles anyway because they're color-customizable. 😛

Dunno if anything has changed, but DE had said previously that they couldn't implement it for the hitscan particle FX.

Well that second one's just guts.

If that's the case then super-fast projectiles would work, but if they could fix that, I see no reason for the processing overhead regarding:

7 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Not necessarily, given adequate speed. Arma 3 is a great example of this, where all the guns use projectiles and actual ballistics, yet it's not really differentiable from hitscan until you get past about ~250m away.

This would also be a great replacement for forced damage falloff, with projectile speed and spread directly affecting how well a weapon works at longer ranges.

This, because many weapons and most combat scenarios in Warframe are going to make it that hitscan is pretty much equivalent. It's mostly about visual feel. That and people are likely to react badly just to the news that everything is a projectile, not even taking into consideration that the majority of things won't be that affected due to the high projectile speeds most stuff gets.

[MJ12]

2 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I think this would be an oversimplification. Minor flavor bonuses like Infested being weak to fire are fine (e.g., the player's first response to Infested is "kill it with fire!!!"), but other than that effectiveness should be built around counter-mechanics.

Rather than "anti-Grineer," corrosive is obviously anti-armor. This would make it good against most Grineer, Corpus proxies, and Infested Ancients.

However... Instead of handling it through an arbitrary damage multiplier, I would implement it through specific effects. For example, armor would be a hard-to-penetrate health buffer instead of percentage damage reduction, and corrosive would eat away its durability over time while temporarily making it easier to penetrate. This would make corrosive useful to slash-based weapons unable to penetrate thick armor effectively, but puncture-based weapons could opt to take health-damaging elements due to penetrating armor more easily.

With adequate swap speed, players could even opt to specialize one weapon for armor destruction (puncture corrosive) and another for finishing off defenseless foes (slash viral, etc.) for a 1-2 punch combination.

In other words, tools should be adaptable for different purposes rather than used as simple color coding for otherwise-identical enemy factions.

I'd honestly remove most damage modifiers entirely from elemental effects and make elements largely just procs. My question about elemental-typed damage is what they add to the game-and I'm increasingly thinking they basically add nothing in their current state. Elemental resistance mods, save for Adaptation, are bad and nobody uses them-and Adaptation basically resists all elements anyways.

I do a bit of pen and paper RPG design/homebrew in my spare time and the most important lesson to learn from that, for all game design in general, is that players only have a certain amount of mental space and therefore it's important to always ask yourself 'is the amount of mental space it would take for someone to engage with this mechanic actually going to give benefits to the players and the gameplay that are worth the costs?' Oftentimes when you think about things this way, you quickly realize that you have a ton of features that exist not because they're well-designed, but because that's how it's always been done.

This is why Blizzard games are generally incredibly tight and fun to play-they are pretty willing to trash mechanics and complexity that doesn't work so players can play attention to things that do.