Why does ability power scale to terribly?

[supernils]

Is there something I don't get, from my noob point of view? Has DE just given up? The game runs well for a very long period, so why fix it now? Are they unable to fix this? Can this be intended? No, it can't be intended for most abilities to be useless in mid to high level content. Abilities are what define a Warframe and Warframes are what this game is about.

Edited April 16, 2019 by supernils

[krc473]

2 minutes ago, supernils said:

No, it can't be intended for most abilities to be useless in mid to high level content

You should give some examples and explain why you think they are useless.

• I assume that you are running with optimal builds. So mods like Blind Rage, Overextended etc.

 

Some abilities are fairly pointless. But by not modding correctly you can make good abilities terrible.

[Kerthis]

eem what?

[supernils]

5 minutes ago, krc473 said:

You should give some examples and explain why you think they are useless. 

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

Enemy defense scales much harder than you can mod ability power to account for that

Edited April 16, 2019 by supernils

[Squick]

10 minutes ago, supernils said:

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

Enemy defense scales much harder than you can mod ability power to account for that

I can't think of a frame that can't be modded so that their abilities are useful against sortie-level enemies. Not every ability on every frame is useful, sure, but you mention Gara's 1 which is incredibly useful if you hold it down (knocking down waves of enemies, also makes short work of infested), or mag's 4 that strips armor and has great synergy with her other abilities.

[Kerthis]

17 minutes ago, supernils said:

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

Enemy defense scales much harder than you can mod ability power to account for that

You should start with this and not with that chaotic thing You made as an op.

I bet its really hard to balance out that kind of fixed damage abilities. You see warframe is about getting new equipment to play with. And if DE were to made abilities with fixed damage to do great at long stages of endless missions then that would mean these abilities would literally obliterate all the "casual content" like bounties etc. And that would not be in line with all the gear we see designed and throw at us. Better way for them to take is to make said abilities scalable like saryn does. 

[Test-995]

Because warframe doesn't really have balance?

[Autongnosis]

It depends on the context. 

Some skills are bad. Some are bad against armour (which is a very different story). Some are bad on their own because they serve another purpose. 

Let me give you a few examples. 

Wukong Iron staff is bad, even tho the damage itself is good, because it is terrible at applying that damage. 

Atlas Landslide is bad against armour, otherwise it's incredibly strong in every respect (damage, damage application, risk vs reward). 

Gara's 1 is bad against armour on its own, because its main purpose it's not to directly deal damage but to act as an AoE nuke by exploding the wall or as a high damage aura by charging her 2nd damage. 

[WhiteMarker]

51 minutes ago, supernils said:

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

And that tells me you don't have enough playtime under your belt.
You missed the whole synergy of Garas Kit...
You forgot about Mag's Fracturing Crush and about the fact Crush generates shields and overshields.

Long story short:
Looks like you are doing it wrong...

Edited April 16, 2019 by WhiteMarker

[(PSN)Black_Adder_]

In short OP want to be able to clear any content with just spamming frame abilities. In my opinion it's good that things doesn't work that way in Warframe and players need to actually put some work and planning into which weapons they use and how they mod them. Otherwise there would eventually be frames that can be used to afk farm eidolons solo.

[Dishonored]

so in short you mean that the damage from warframe abilities doesn't scale with enemy level ?

[Numerikuu]

57 minutes ago, supernils said:

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

Enemy defense scales much harder than you can mod ability power to account for that

 

1 hour ago, Kerthis said:

eem what?

You've not played either, especially Gara, have you...

[stormy505]

Although the abilities the op exampled aren't being used correctly. There are abilities that suffer from this problem. Chroma 1 & 4, vauban 1&2, wukong 1&4, ember everything, and nyx everything. These are honestly only a few examples of really bad ability design.

[(PSN)psycofang]

Ops examples were admittedly incorrect though what he does see happening in the game does actually occur to quite a few frames. 

 

OPs example aside warframes whose powers easily fall off at certain levels like say ember will usually spec in more utility over damage to try and compensate for lack of killing power group support or Crowd control or self buffing of weapons to amplify killing power artificially. 

When you get to a point where single abilities stop doing the job you should be at the point where you spec yourself for specific counter play or set ups or inner power synergy

[(XBOX)Shodian]

1 hour ago, supernils said:

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

Enemy defense scales much harder than you can mod ability power to account for that

Well abilities like Gara's 1 is not meant to deal damage at a higher level. It's meant to be used for shattering her 4 so her 2 becomes more powerful.

 

11 minutes ago, stormy505 said:

Although the abilities the op exampled aren't being used correctly. There are abilities that suffer from this problem. Chroma 1 & 4, vauban 1&2, wukong 1&4, ember everything, and nyx everything. These are honestly only a few examples of really bad ability design.

Remember, with frames like Vauban and Nyx they are CC frames. They are not meant to be damaged frames, which is why I only really use them in a squad as support. So it's not because they are badly designed but because they need to be played differently.

[stormy505]

25 minutes ago, (XB1)Shodian said:

Remember, with frames like Vauban and Nyx they are CC frames. They are not meant to be damaged frames, which is why I only really use them in a squad as support. So it's not because they are badly designed but because they need to be played differently.

having bad ability design for some abilities doesn't automatically make a frame bad. Chroma is a really good example of this, easily a most pick in spydolons and eydolons. But he also has a garbage 1&4. Although I think vauban and nyx are below average frames they still have uses, but vaubans 1&2 don't have high cc Power and imo should be buffed for damage, or armor stripping, or even increasing damage taken, mainly because he already has two decent cc abilities in his 3&4. My opinions on nyx aside, her little follower just doesn't have a lot of use even after the buff doesn't put out enough damage.  And her two is just a worse seeking shuriken and that's already a niche ability. (This isn't related to the damage topic but her cc is also niche since enemies still have a chance of shooting you making it REALLY risky for her survivability, and her four is just too slow for the pace of the game)

[Aldain]

2 hours ago, Autongnosis said:

Some skills are bad. Some are bad against armour (which is a very different story). Some are bad on their own because they serve another purpose. 

Vauban's Tesla is all three of these and a bonus of not being worth 1/3rd of the cost of a Bastille.

[VanFanel1980mx]

2 hours ago, supernils said:

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

Enemy defense scales much harder than you can mod ability power to account for that

Banshee's 1 is a good example, its description even says it can kill the enemy but not even low level enemies die to it.

[VanFanel1980mx]

1 hour ago, (XB1)Shodian said:

Well abilities like Gara's 1 is not meant to deal damage at a higher level. It's meant to be used for shattering her 4 so her 2 becomes more powerful.

Are you 100% sure the developer's intent is for abilities to not work well past certain points? that's still leaves a ton of abilities that are always useless like Chroma's 1 and 4.

[VentiGlondi]

Devs' idea of "high level" is different

[VanFanel1980mx]

9 minutes ago, VentiGlondi said:

Devs' idea of "high level" is different

I wonder, the main problem with this "balance" idea always confuses me, are we meant to be super powerful at one point or is Warframe supposed to be "teh dork souls of horde shooters" or something? you can't have both and sometimes it pisses me off how only a handful of frames can participate in certain parts of the game without becoming dead weight.

[Autongnosis]

Il y a 1 heure, Aldain a dit :

Vauban's Tesla is all three of these and a bonus of not being worth 1/3rd of the cost of a Bastille.

Actually Tesla falls into a very specific category that's labeled "why the #*!% does this cost energy exactly?" 

[IntheCoconut]

4 hours ago, supernils said:

I mean abilities that do a fixed amount of damage and not much else, like say Garas 1 or Mags 4

Enemy defense scales much harder than you can mod ability power to account for that

I've never played Mag, so can't help you there, but Gara's 1 is affected by two things: Ability Strength and her Melee weapon's mods.

It does a base damage of 800 Puncture, or AoE 800 Slash when held down. With the correct mods (such as Intensify), you can increase this damage to 4,347. You can further increase it's damage by equipping mods on your Melee weapon such as Pressure Point (120% Melee Damage), Rivens, and Elemental mods.

Edited April 16, 2019 by IntheCoconut

[VanFanel1980mx]

59 minutes ago, Autongnosis said:

Actually Tesla falls into a very specific category that's labeled "why the #*!% does this cost energy exactly?" 

More so, why would anyone not want the full charged effect on the Tesla?

[SenariousNex]

When you give no specifics and just say "abilities bad plz fix" no one has any idea what you are talking about. You can make a list of things you want them to look at but be specific.