The Thirst To Nerf. Why?

[Vaskadar]

Let's just go ahead and make a weapon that does 500 base damage (serrated blade), 30 fire rate, and 300 rounds in the magazine, yeah, surely that won't throw off the difficulty curve. Yep, definitely won't.

 

*DE Approves*

 

"Game is too easy! Game is too easy!"

 

*DE responds, makes game artifically more difficult*

 

The reason why nerfs are necessary is to maintain the difficulty curve. What DE just released this last Friday has poorly thought-out statistics, with little concern and regard for real progression. The Soma is a rank 0 weapon. It can kill the Jackal ludicrously fast in the hands of a Rhino, or a Mag with the correct mods, simply by shooting the body.

 

I've been playing since January, and all of the weapons have progressively received bigger numbers, as have the enemies. The difficulty curve has changed, artificially, and I'd like to say it's for the worse, simply because challenge vs. boredom is not balanced here. The game becomes too easy when a ridiculously powerful weapon is released.... this isn't how it's supposed to be. The power creep will continue to manifest and grow, and soon enough, there will be too much ludicrously overpowered content and the difficulty curve of older content is thrown out the window.

[Justin_Case001]

You know, I was just thinking; they're gonna buff every weapon until everyone is so overpowered that they'll buff enemy health and armor, and then just continue in that fashion forever.  I noticed that many games and game series have trends that parallel economic inflation.  Take Final Fantasy for example.  Every game adds a zero to all health and damage.

[Vaskadar]

You know, I was just thinking; they're gonna buff every weapon until everyone is so overpowered that they'll buff enemy health and armor, and then just continue in that fashion forever.  I noticed that many games and game series have trends that parallel economic inflation.  Take Final Fantasy for example.  Every game adds a zero to all health and damage.

 

Exactly. This game is undergoing power inflation. That's bad for balancing the game's difficulty.

[WhisperByte]

What tenno at DE should do is roll out the damage/armor rework (when it's done of course). And then just sit down. Grab some bear. Define tiers. Set baselines for those tiers. Then assign all currently existing weapons to those tiers. Balance them based on those set baselines. Just dedicate few weeks to the balancing. And most importantly they should release all that balancing all at once. Not 1 weapon by 1 weapon but all at once.

[taiiat]

It is all mostly just crippling fear of something called Power creep.

It is a very real threat and could potentially destroy warframe so the community at large is kind of on a state of perpetual panic about it.

 

This video will explain what I mean -> http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/power-creep

i couldn't say it better myself. and i implore more people (and Developers) to listen to the real experience and factual information Extra Credits has to say. Daniel knows what he's talking about. 

 

 

Easy solution to nerfs

there is never an easy answer. especially in a game where player interaction is a major factor.

and i really don't think Mastery levels adds any real progression to Warframe. it's a method to aggravate players into buying platinum for more slots so they can level more stuff they aren't interested in at the same time. good for business, but a drag for players (most of which in any F2P game which are free players). and a drag for players is bad for business.

 

at the end of the day, people that toss money at games may forget that the F2P games they are tossing money at - only survive because of the free player. the free player is actually the most important player in a F2P game. you can pretty much guarantee more people to try a free game all the time, but you can't count on people willing to shell out a lot(or any) of money. number of players is a driving force to keep F2P games rolling while they attract people who will give them money. if an online game has no players, most people will not enjoy the game, and not feel it's worth paying for.

think about it, if you went to the lobby for any sector, and there was nobody in matches, all chat tabs were empty, and if you hosted a match, nobody ever joined - how much fun are you going to have? a lot less than having people, that's for certain. even if you're one of those people that enjoys playing missions in stealth mode from time to time, you'll get bored of doing the same thing over in an empty wasteland soon enough.

 

 

 

 

then they put Potato and mod this gun with the rarest and highest rank mods and then they start to cry because the gun is "overpowered".

content must be balanced around all of it's possibilities. if a Sniper rifle can equip two mods which boost Crit Damage, these must be taken into account when balance is talked about. otherwise you have no balance. it's part of the game, you can't just ignore it. 

mods are a central part of the game, of course if someone piles mods in that make said weapon very effective, a weapon should be balanced around what comes of it with those mods.

retrospectively, the weapon itself should be balanced without mods, so that way everything is in line before and after. 

 

educated people called for a buff to old weapon. not nerf the new one. This way everyone's happy. Too bad not too many people can think of it.

this sounds good, but this is a major issue that has killed games in the past. things escalate too much, and the numbers get too big to balance. things get out of hand, the Developer panics, any future content is likely to be hurt by the stage of the game, and is less enjoyable therefore.

 

i direct your attention to Dungeon Defenders. at first it was great! the game was very fair across the board, it was challenging, and it had unique concepts and features (the most important thing to attract players). additional content at first was working reasonably, it was shinier with more stats than previous, but it was still keeping in check. 

then, a mistake, players were getting loot that was way higher than was intended, and the choice was made to escalate the game with the accidental content, rather than recalling that unintentional content, because people would like numbers getting bigger over time more than items being deleted.

but, from then on, content kept scaling up to asinine levels, equipment tried to keep up with it, and in several months time, it was a completely different game. enemies that had ~30,000HP suddenly had 60,000,000HP, weapons with ~2000dmg suddenly had 150,000dmg, tower stats went from an average of ~700 to ~9000 - and the entire game collapsed on itself, because the entire game got out of hand.

i soldiered through the major 'shooting in the foot' for a long time, until other issues with the less than respectable parts of the Dungeon Defenders community started to succeed in tearing down the trading community, which was the endgame, because there was nothing left to do. 

 

if Warframe wishes to be a successful game, mistakes like this that have happened with others, should be learned from, not copied. Warframe is even more at risk than some other titles that have fallen were, because Warframe is F2P. and that is the most Volatile form a game can be presented in. it's the most delicate and difficult to pull off, but also potentially the most profitable business model. 

 

 

 

(i see a few posts above me also know of these issues and mistakes other games have made, and wish to steer Warframe out of these ruts, instead of leading Digital Extremes into these ruts where players feel content to just sit without challenge and reward, and where games die).

Edited September 17, 2013 by taiiat

[_Chaser]

mods need to be nerfed aswell so weapons will actually matter.

 

right now you barely care about weapon you have, since mods make the weapon. when mods will act like mods instead of weapons, it will be possible to balance out game around weapons. 

 

mods are too strong.

[Revel72]

mods need to be nerfed aswell so weapons will actually matter.

 

right now you barely care about weapon you have, since mods make the weapon. when mods will act like mods instead of weapons, it will be possible to balance out game around weapons. 

 

mods are too strong.

 

Engineer: "Nope!" *Vagineer face. HURR!*

[VScipii26]

The problem is players' lack of intelligence. They build an expensive gun, claiming that it isn't even close to expensive, because they've spent hundreds of hours playing the game and grinding for rare stuff, then they put Potato and mod this gun with the rarest and highest rank mods and then they start to cry because the gun is "overpowered". 

 

There are no better words than 'stupid' and "ignorant' to describe constant nerf whinegirls.

Dear lord, you're an asshat.

The problem with the whole "no nerfs only buffs" sentiment is that it's far too narrow minded.

If everything was as powerful as the Acrid, the game would be boring in all but the most ridiculous of levels. The problem is on both ends of the spectrum, because we have no real endgame, no real standard. If the Ogris was the standard, then there simply wouldn't be any challenges. If Nova was the standard, we'd all have Energy Siphon equipped while having an autoscript press 4.

But at the same time there are things that need buffs. The Grakata is utter trash, and even with the 10% buff to crit, it's never going to see the light of day. The Ignis was a step in the right direction. It's a fairly fun weapon now, and moderately effective (especially against Infested).

Straight buffs and nerfs are the wrong way to go most of the time. There's things other than damage and fire rate numbers that can be changed.

[Revel72]

Grakata is pretty much weapon here what needs buff and the Soma needs this rank required to be increased to 4 or 5.

[neKroMancer]

It's progression vs powercreep as other have been pointing out. The OP seems to understand the gist of it so I'll spare the "choice" part out of it

 

If we're going toward tier as progression. The usual common/uncommon/rare/ultra rare/legendary tiering which has been used in nearly every loot based games is a good example. Is it truly be able to stop nerfing? Things in higher tier don't get dumb down in stat, really?

 

I don't think so.

 

Each tier just has its own balance. All common should be the equal as much as all legendary should be to one another. So, if DE going toward this route and release a legendary item that perform far better than other legendaries. What they should do then?

 

1. Create a new, higher tier.

2. Nerf the item to make all of them equal in performance or meet specific traits.

 

So, tiering won't stop nerfing and buffing. Balance will still be here to maintain the game's integrity.

 

If we take a look at Mass Effect3 MP, even with tiering system, almost all weapons got balance change at some point. Even rare and ultra rare weapons are still perform on par with one stat lower and one stat higher. Driving the higher tier weapons toward more niched gameplay. 

[Kitzun]

mods need to be nerfed aswell so weapons will actually matter.

 

right now you barely care about weapon you have, since mods make the weapon. when mods will act like mods instead of weapons, it will be possible to balance out game around weapons. 

 

mods are too strong.

Ignorance is bliss.

Blatant dishonesty too, it seems.

The mods are all proportional to the base stats of the weapons, they do not add raw numbers.

Now, explain to me why some weapons are considered better than some others if the mods do everything.

Explain to me why people prefer the Acrid to, let's say...the Kraken.

[neKroMancer]

Ignorance is bliss.

Blatant dishonesty too, it seems.

The mods are all proportional to the base stats of the weapons, they do not add raw numbers.

Now, explain to me why some weapons are considered better than some others if the mods do everything.

Explain to me why people prefer the Acrid to, let's say...the Kraken.

 

100% more damage isn't raw number?

150% crit chance isn't raw number?

 

n7snk's point is mod is the key to weapon efficiency. Without mods, our weapons won't go anywhere near the power they are having. Think Soma without Hammershot/point strike/vital sense, it wouldn't be this powerful. Sure, base stat seems good but without mod to boost them, they are nothing.

 

It's a different take on balance. Mod in n7snk's idea is equipment that change how weapons operate or increase efficiency without increasing raw stat. Reduce recoil mod and silencer mods are good examples. 

[Kitzun]

100% more damage isn't raw number?

150% crit chance isn't raw number?

No.

They are based upon the base stats of the gun.

 

And all guns of the same kind can equip the same mods, the only problem is the difference between primary mods, secondary mods and melee mods.

[BlucoaTT5]

Partly agree with you,i have no idea why they have to nerf those weapons.
You know?Torid is nerfed too.THIS IS THE MOST HILARIOUS THING I HAVE EVER SEEN.
We can't really change and keep the game being balanced via nerfing warframes and weapons again and again.

 

[3XT3RM1NATUS]

Dear lord, you're an asshat.

The problem with the whole "no nerfs only buffs" sentiment is that it's far too narrow minded.

If everything was as powerful as the Acrid, the game would be boring in all but the most ridiculous of levels. The problem is on both ends of the spectrum, because we have no real endgame, no real standard. If the Ogris was the standard, then there simply wouldn't be any challenges. If Nova was the standard, we'd all have Energy Siphon equipped while having an autoscript press 4.

But at the same time there are things that need buffs. The Grakata is utter trash, and even with the 10% buff to crit, it's never going to see the light of day. The Ignis was a step in the right direction. It's a fairly fun weapon now, and moderately effective (especially against Infested).

Straight buffs and nerfs are the wrong way to go most of the time. There's things other than damage and fire rate numbers that can be changed.

 

I never said anything about "no nerfs only buffs".

 

My point is: all the elitist whinegirls who cry about things being overpowered has the ability to afford themselves potatoes, formas and all the rare mods.

 

Look at the Soma, for example. Now throw it to a casual player who has played this game for a month. This one, who doesn't have Vital Sense and Hammer Shot, because they are rare as F***. This one, who has only level 5 Serration because he doesn't have credits and fusion cores to upgrade it. This one, who can't forma and potato every single gun because alerts are very rare and it is pretty much impossible without paying plat. What will he say about Soma? He will say it's a PoS and stick with a more all-around gun like Braton or Boltor.

 

Now use your brain and stop building the game around yourself like a selfish F***. If you have the ability to mod your gun to the full, you freaking deserved it to be powerful. 

[Crackpunch]

Ether Reaper vs Reaper Prime. Very similar weapons.

 

Ether Reaper can be bought by anyone.

Reaper Prime takes a fair bit of farming.

 

Ether Reaper is slightly faster and has a polarity slot.

 

You could nerf the Ether Reaper so it doesn't outclass an 'endgame' weapon, or you could buff the Reaper Prime, potentially unbalancing the rest of the endgame weapons.

 

It's pretty simple.

[noneuklid]

I have an important question for the Buff-heads and Anti-nerfers in this thread: What, exactly, is your standard for balancing weapons?

 

It's hard to be perfectly specific because there are some qualifiers to do with type -- like, is the weapon burst damage or sustained dps?  Is it single-target, multi-target, or AoE?

 

So forgiving the vague terms, I'd like a weapon to perform "adequately" within the bracket in which it's obtained and "tolerably" within the one above that.  I would divide the current game into three brackets -- first tier, which is the first five or so planets and T1 Void missions; second tier, which is T2 Void and most of the other planets, and third tier, which is 'endgame' missions (most of Pluto and Eris, a few missions elsewhere, some Alerts, T3 Void, etc).

 

I'd ideally bracket the entire non-credits, non-clan and non-dropped blueprint region as "T2."  For-credits complete weapons would be T1, and weapons whose blueprints cannot be acquired from the market are T3 (with a few exceptions, like Cronus).  But the range in power of that second tier varies wildly, as does that of what I would think of as T3.

 

The problem I have with the wildly varying power of T2 (as I call it) is that there's very little difference in effort required to obtain the weapon... I don't really care that much about the difference between, say, 2 morphics and 6.  So new, more powerful weapons at the same difficulty to obtain feel an awful lot like power creep.

[neKroMancer]

I never said anything about "no nerfs only buffs".

 

My point is: all the elitist whinegirls who cry about things being overpowered has the ability to afford themselves potatoes, formas and all the rare mods.

 

Look at the Soma, for example. Now throw it to a casual player who has played this game for a month. This one, who doesn't have Vital Sense and Hammer Shot, because they are rare as F***. This one, who has only level 5 Serration because he doesn't have credits and fusion cores to upgrade it. This one, who can't forma and potato every single gun because alerts are very rare and it is pretty much impossible without paying plat. What will he say about Soma? He will say it's a PoS and stick with a more all-around gun like Braton or Boltor.

 

Now use your brain and stop building the game around yourself like a selfish F***. If you have the ability to mod your gun to the full, you freaking deserved it to be powerful.

I don't know what is your point with this post. More rage than reason.

Do you ever see a game balance itself around tutorial stage?

[Numot]

I don't know what is your point with this post. More rage than reason.

Do you ever see a game balance itself around tutorial stage?

Have you taken the time to read about new player experience in this game?

 

Its crap. Simply put. New players just can't find a lot of the things an established have to progress smoothly. You pretty much need to be carried through Warframe to have a fun time making progress. Every new player I've tried to bring in has quit do to this. You balance around endgame sure, but you don't balance around extremes either, like having every mod in the game. I'm pretty sure if everyone was reset to new account status the forums would burst into flames from how terrible the game is starting out.

 

People want to nerf things because they want to keep their gun of choice as the best. It's more personal agenda than anything else at the end of the day because the threads tend to have the most arbitrary points used as their main arguments, not to mention the weapons that get involved.

[LazerusKI]

I think at U10 release there were a few "Buff Soma" topics.

Now that some noticed that mods make a huge difference, it is called "Nerf Soma"

 

Thats also the sad part.

First they cry for more power, stronger endgame weapons, stronger frames.

And if there is a stronger frame or weapon, they cry for a nerf.

I dont know what is wrong with the community.

Most want only endgame weapons, over and over again - serrated blade for example. no more cheap beginner stuff, and if there is a cheap beginner weapon, they cry for a endgame-buff.

 

Nekros: Currently there are a lot of Nekros-Buff threads, More Power, but without any negative stat. Sure...sounds fair...

Nova? OP discussions since release, and this frame was Council-Made. Now they cry because she is too strong?

 

Same thing counts for the Embolist - its called weak for now.

Would be interesting to see the first guys with maxed mutlishot rainbow.

If it acts like Ignis, just shorter range with the same area effect - it will be a very very strong weapon.

 

I seriously dont know what went wrong.

It remembers me about the old Dungeon Defenders times - extreme power creep.

First they beg for more power over and over again, and then the game is ruined because you cant beat the normal content without it. Then they cry for nerfs in enemys, so that the powergear becomes even stronger.

you needed endgame equipment to get the same endgame equipment. without you had no chance. the whole game turned from funny towerdefence into one of the most imbalanced games ever. overpowered items, enemys etc, no more room for a beginner, only for veterans. Not even close to fun anymore.

Edited September 17, 2013 by LazerusKI

[neKroMancer]

Have you taken the time to read about new player experience in this game?

 

Its crap. Simply put. New players just can't find a lot of the things an established have to progress smoothly. You pretty much need to be carried through Warframe to have a fun time making progress. Every new player I've tried to bring in has quit do to this. You balance around endgame sure, but you don't balance around extremes either, like having every mod in the game. I'm pretty sure if everyone was reset to new account status the forums would burst into flames from how terrible the game is starting out.

 

People want to nerf things because they want to keep their gun of choice as the best. It's more personal agenda than anything else at the end of the day because the threads tend to have the most arbitrary points used as their main arguments, not to mention the weapons that get involved.

That is entirely different matter, imo.

New player experience is one thing. The game needs better tutorial stage and starter mods for weapon to make them sufficiently go through the game smoothly without hiccup along the way.

However, after they got into the loop with the rest of us - the balance start here. I don't think lump "They want to nerf thing because they want to keep their gun of choice as best" is a good statement. There are genuine concerns that have been voiced in the forum in multiple occasions regarding the direction (well, actually more like no direction)the game is heading into. I, for one, have been questioning DE's motive behind releasing of Hind, Swraith, and Soma as upgrade of existing weapons through market without restriction whatsoever.

[zombaio]

The common reason is, "I've never used that weapon and I don't have to patience to potato and mod my own properly, so make that other guy's weapon weak as mine." At least that's what I've gathered from reading around the forums.

^This

The simplest and for that reason the best explanation of all the whining and complainig about all weapons and frames.

Edited September 17, 2013 by zombaio

[sp4rtan148]

not EVERYTHING need to be nerfed, just balanced.

[3XT3RM1NATUS]

I don't know what is your point with this post. More rage than reason.

Do you ever see a game balance itself around tutorial stage?

 

Ah, yes, rage. Don't forget to post a funny "umad" pic from 9gag or reddit.

 

You seem to have a serious problem with reading if you can't understand what my point is. People forgot what rewarding means. Why there weren't  any whinegirls crying for BFG nerf in Doom/minigun nerf in Serious Sam and etc. back in the old days? Because people understood those things were freaking rare. Tell me how many players can afford themselves all the rare mods, potatoes and formas? It is hardly 20% of all playerbase. Now tell me how many of them enjoy using the stuff? It's like 19%. And finally 1% are infamous whinegirls who want the game to be build around themselves and who has the loudest voices on the forums. 

 

Why do i have to suffer because a selfish elitist F*** finds a game too easy and wants the gun I am enjoing nerfed? 

[neKroMancer]

Ah, yes, rage. Don't forget to post a funny "umad" pic from 9gag or reddit.

 

You seem to have a serious problem with reading if you can't understand what my point is. People forgot what rewarding means. Why there weren't  any whinegirls crying for BFG nerf in Doom/minigun nerf in Serious Sam and etc. back in the old days? Because people understood those things were freaking rare. Tell me how many players can afford themselves all the rare mods, potatoes and formas? It is hardly 20% of all playerbase. Now tell me how many of them enjoy using the stuff? It's like 19%. And finally 1% are infamous whinegirls who want the game to be build around themselves and who has the loudest voices on the forums. 

 

Why do i have to suffer because a selfish elitist F*** finds a game too easy and wants the gun I am enjoing nerfed?

Get me the matric to support your claim first then we will talk. This is nothing but claiming that "minority" complaining about game balance. So far, the number and the math are true. Soma is available in the market without artificial restriction and come with 2V slots, Point strike isn't exactly hard to find, Vital sense is dropped from Io/Callisto as defense reward quite frequently (I skipped at least 5 of them today). Players can use starting weapon to get these components quite easily.

Is there anything about Soma that is hard to find? Hammershot is pretty much optional.

New players can get roughly 50-60 damage per shot in 2/3 of their bullet against light infest in Mercury up to Jupiter. That pretty much cover most basic planets.

Overall, the current direction of Warframe weapon progression is unclear. They keep pumping out DPS monster that don't really require much investment to reach potential but placing no restriction upon them. While Scott expressed his opinion on weapon tier in livestream, this is the opposite of what progression should be. Did new players in Diablo2 get unique sword with 1000 DPS upon arriving at the rogue encampment in act 1?

Weapon balance is now depending on DE's direction on progression. Since the introduction of Clantech weapon, there have been a lot of issues rising from the community about this direction we're heading toward. The change of sidegrade philosophy into upgrade philosophy brought nothing but trouble, as far s I can see. Balance is still required to create true choices for the players without bringing powercreep into the big picture.