Today's Staticor, Yesterday's Plasmor - An analysis regarding weapon changes/reworks/rebalances carrying over from PvE

[-Livjatan]

Okay, so basically, for those of you who are still unaware of it(which I totally understand as it is a direct consequence of DE's actions towards dataminers), PvP balance lies in a single multiplier that either increases or decreases a weapon's dmg, along some really exceptional tweaks for some.

What that means is simple :

• Every time a weapon gets its PvE firerate increased(eg. Vasto, Magnus), it's increased in PvP as well,
• everytime it gets its PvE damage increased(eg. Lex), it's increased in PvP as well,
• everytime it gets a rework in its mechanics(eg. Staticor), that change carries over to PvP,
• and everytime a weapon has its fall-off readjusted(eg. Plasmor), it may just totally break in PvP(just like when it was first introduced and had no falloff whatsoever, and that for slightly more than a month; Which I suspect has been back for a while now, if you got free time, please test it for me, K).

Now, mind I don't blame DE's employees for that, and that I highly appreciate the work they put into PvP so far; Also, it's been pretty clear, since they stopped adding the new stuff in PvP, that they kinda dropped that 'balancing every warframes and weapons for PvP' thing they had going.

Thus, I suggest a simple solution, concerning all those "reworked weapons that turned into a cheese fest", that will both :

• Save them the hassle of going back into trying to balance stuff
• Save our butts from the nightmare fuel that these de-balanced weapons can be

Here it is : Remove them from the pool of weapons usable in PvP.

Of course, it'd only be "temporary", until they can be re-balanced and put back in a fine way.

Finally, albeit obvious, it'd be nice to do that as well each and every time a weapon has to get a PvE rebalance that'd likely carry over.

Many thanks for reading me, you may leave your opinions and thoughts in a proper way below.

Edited January 29, 2019 by -Livjatan
Making it clear beforehand for them PvE addicts that removal implies a PvP removal rather than a global one, as many weapons have yet to be introduced in PvP and thus it should be alright not to have those that have been before.

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

2 hours ago, -Livjatan said:

Okay, so basically, for those of you who are still unaware of it(which I totally understand as it is a direct consequence of DE's actions towards dataminers), PvP balance lies in a single multiplier that either increases or decreases a weapon's dmg, along some really exceptional tweaks for some.

What that means is simple :

• Every time a weapon gets its PvE firerate increased(eg. Vasto, Magnus), it's increased in PvP as well,
• everytime it gets its PvE damage increased(eg. Lex), it's increased in PvP as well,
• everytime it gets a rework in its mechanics(eg. Staticor), that change carries over to PvP,
• and everytime a weapon has its fall-off readjusted(eg. Plasmor), it may just totally break in PvP(just like when it was first introduced and had no falloff whatsoever, and that for slightly more than a month; Which I suspect has been back for a while now, if you got free time, please test it for me, K).

Now, mind I don't blame DE's employees for that, and that I highly appreciate the work they put into PvP so far; Also, it's been pretty clear, since they stopped adding the new stuff in PvP, that they kinda dropped that 'balancing every warframes and weapons for PvP' thing they had going.

Thus, I suggest a simple solution, concerning all those "reworked weapons that turned into a cheese fest", that will both :

• Save them the hassle of going back into trying to balance stuff
• Save our butts from the nightmare fuel that these de-balanced weapons can be

Here it is : Remove them from the pool of weapons usable in PvP.

Of course, it'd only be "temporary", until they can be re-balanced and put back in a fine way.

Finally, albeit obvious, it'd be nice to do that as well each and every time a weapon has to get a PvE rebalance that'd likely carry over.

Many thanks for reading me, you may leave your opinions and thoughts in a proper way below.

The mutiplier applied to balance weapons/gear in Conclave was probably an ingenious solution at one point in the development of it. However, it is beginning to affect the balance of Conclave in potentially negative ways. 

As mentioned above, a weapon receiving a damage buff in Conclave by proxy of its PvE buff was most likely unintentional and unforeseen by DE. I believe that the multiplier should no longer be applicable in conclave from here on out. It would be simpler to just put reasonable stats (in comparison to a weapons counterparts) on a weapon for conclave than to just slap the multiplier on it and give it the whitelist for usability in conclave.

[SevenLetterKWord]

5 hours ago, -Livjatan said:

PvP balance lies in a single multiplier that either increases or decreases a weapon's dmg, along some really exceptional tweaks for some.

It's a lot more than that.
All weapons have headshot-specific damage multipliers instead of critical damage.
All weapons have an adjusted ammo max, and most high-capacity weapons also have an adjusted magazine size.
Many projectile weapons have adjusted flight speeds, and most bows gain a charge hold limit.

5 hours ago, -Livjatan said:

What that means is simple: [every time a weapon/frame is changed in PvE, the changes also affect Conclave]

While balance comes first, it's best for utility stats and ability effects to match PvE performance where possible, as maintaining this consistency lowers the barrier to entry for PvE players, who are spared the inconvenience of learning new frame/weapon identities.

As for frames, the recent reworks to Titania and Nyx don't appear to have changed Conclave.

Side note: Have you had a chance to test the Brakk and Kohmak/Twin Kohmak?

[-Livjatan]

Yeah, my bad, there are indeed specific PvP-values for the things you mentioned, and these being tweaked in PvE won't change how the weapon acts in PvP.

Also, recent reworks to warframes seems to have indeed left their kits unchanged when it comes to PvP(including the changes to Vex Armor). I was writing that part with Limbo and Hydroid in mind, as both, at the time they got reworked, changed dramatically in PvP. Only Hydroid seems to have been looked at and readjusted though.

Finally, as supportive as I am of the idea of having every weapons and warframes being usable in PvP in a way that matches PvE performance, many of those have to be worked on to make sure they don't exceed balance standards, and there again, temporary removal from the pool of weapons usable in PvP is a feather-light workload that solves the issue for the time being.

PS: Only tried Brakk, didnt see much difference in spread but it's been a while since I last played it, & I didn't keep any ss of the previous spread so I'm not sure if that carried over.

[Kontrollo]

14 hours ago, (XB1)Solar Rails said:

The mutiplier applied to balance weapons/gear in Conclave was probably an ingenious solution at one point in the development of it. However, it is beginning to affect the balance of Conclave in potentially negative ways. 

As mentioned above, a weapon receiving a damage buff in Conclave by proxy of its PvE buff was most likely unintentional and unforeseen by DE. I believe that the multiplier should no longer be applicable in conclave from here on out. It would be simpler to just put reasonable stats (in comparison to a weapons counterparts) on a weapon for conclave than to just slap the multiplier on it and give it the whitelist for usability in conclave.

I don't think that's easily doable.

They'd have to duplicate all the weapon stats and then change the Conclave arsenal and everything else which at the moment looks for one of the PvP flags on the stats, and change that to use the new system.

Temporarily removing a weapon from Conclave should be much simpler. It's another flag in the stats: AvailableOnPvp=1

 

Spoiler

I've made an example and later went and dug up some old threads in this (only tangentially related) topic if you're interested:

 

[Aramil999]

Most likely they wait to add all the fixes together with big PvP update this year coming together with Stalker Mode. (Prime Time #233 Rebbeca annouced Stalker Mode this year).

Stalker Mode is confirmed coming so I can't belive they will just leave other PvP things broken as they are now. 

PvP team is probably working right now on Stalker Mode so they are busy and have no time to fix and balance things now.