De, Look At Your Weapons. Breath Slowly, Reassign Mastery Rank Requirements.

[R3leaZ]

As someone who is currently on the verge of Rank 8, I'm personally sick of people suggesting DE use mastery rank as a crutch to excuse kneecapping their own weapon variety through obsolescence and power creep. My understanding of Mastery Rank was that it should allow access to more ADVANCED weapons, but not necessarily flat-out BETTER ones, so on the lower end you have straightforward bullet hoses like the Braton and Grakata, while on the higher end you have more esoteric weapons that offer better stats on paper but might possess significant downsides (Flux Rifle's limited range, Supra's slow bullet speed, Lanka and Ogris requiring a full charge to fire, Torid doing most of its damage from stationary gas clouds, Acrid's travel time and backloaded DPS (although this arguably doesn't properly offset the Acrid's upsides), etc.). In other words, the reward for gaining mastery ranks should be access to more mechanically advanced weapons allowing you to perform increasingly specialized roles as you learn more of the game's mechanics and experiment with different weapon/warframe loadouts.

 

Aside from all that, vertical progression already exists independent of the ranking system. It's called feeding an ungodly amount of fusion cores to Vitality, Redirection, Steel Fiber, Equilibrium, Hornet Strike and Serration, some of these more than once depending on a Sentinel's loadout. Maxing those out might not feel quite as satisfying as equipping the overpowered weapon of the week and trivializing an already easy game, but Serration works just as well on the Braton as it does on the Supra, so this vertical progression doesn't make all the weapons you've used getting it into nothing more than stepping stones.

 

In regards to, say, the Soma, the only mechanic you have to get used to is the short spinup time on it. Access to rifle crit mods aside, this weapon is arguably even easier to use than the Gorgon due to having no accuracy issues to account for. The combination of it having a higher damage potential than every other primary and offering no significant downsides to offset this advantage is why DE shouldn't just slap a higher mastery rank on it and call it a day.

 

The other thing I'm sick of is people acting like nerfs are bad. Poorly handled nerfs like what Ember got can suck, but even then they can eventually be buffed back to a useable state (like with Rhino who crossed the spectrum from amazing to useless to pretty good) and it's better to fix something that's broken than it is to break everything else and call it fixed. Sometimes nerfs need to happen, and sometimes buffs need to happen. It's called "balancing" for a reason.

 

I agree that nerfs are necessary and dislike the mentality of the community of wanting no nerfs. It's just, DE already said they are going on the path of tiering... Though if they really want to go for tiering then they need to do it right. It's no use having 2 weapons which are completely different in stats (Highly superior vs useless) but require the same Mastery Rank or sometimes even the better one requires a lesser Mastery Requirement.

Edited September 18, 2013 by R3leaZ

[LazyKnight]

 

-Snipe-

They hit gorgon with one of the hardest nerfs this game ever had and now it is a crap weapon not worthy of a slot. Supra does not have a single benefit to using it whatsoever and the braton family is a SMG that uses pistol rounds that are weaker than EVERY pistol in game. There are numerous pistols that are on the same league as Soma and it isn't OP the rifles just plain SUCK.

 

 

I agree that nerfs are necessary and dislike the mentality of the community of wanting no nerfs. It's just, DE already said they are going on the path of tiering... Though if they really want to go for tiering then they need to do it right. It's no use having 2 weapons which are completely different in stats (Highly superior vs useless) but require the same Mastery Rank or sometimes even the better one requires a lesser Mastery Requirement.

Make rifles use rifle ammos is all I want. Rifles should be hard hitting monsters and no weapon should be like gorgon and have 20ish damage when a vasto has 50. 

Edited September 18, 2013 by LazyKnight

[WhiteNekophus]

Agreed...

 

 

And acrid should have stayed M.Rank 9...

[Shroudb]

the "better" way (always imo) to balance weapons is to 

a)make them ALL pretty much equal BUT different THEN

b)scale ALL mods to ~ 10-15 ranks each

c)remove mastery OR put mastery requirement to mod ranks

 

this way you can make and play with the weapon you like from the very beginning, but still get the satisfaction when aquiring higher "something" (rank, mod level, etc)

 

to better demostrate what i mean (first example with mastery locked mods, second without):

say that i am a new player that i really, really like rockets. I get into a clan and aquire an ogris even though i am mastery 0. Ofc, since i am new, i don't have any mods to really make it shine, compared say to a braton, it's damage is the same, but the mechanic of delivering said damage isn't.

 

After a while, i have grinded enough to have reached say r5, r5 max mod level is (arbitery number here) 7. i'm still playing with rockets, but now i also have a serration lvl7 on it, as well as faster charge because of lvl7 speed, as well as doing extra r7 fire damage because i like fire and etc.

 

(second example)

Same logic with all weapons, player B might not like rockets but really likes crits, he picks up soma, but without any crit mods, and without any serration and without AP it is a decent low level weapon. In order to reach level 7 in all mods required to make it his dream weapon, he will need serration, 2-3crit mods, piercing, multishot, etc. Getting ALL those mods to high rank (7+) will take a long, long time (seeing as atm just having 4 r10 mods is really time consuming to level all 4 of them, imagine if every mod in the game was like that)

[Archistopheles]

I think this is a far better idea. I see no mastery rank requirements on warframes, why are they necessary on weapons?

 

Too many people do not see it our way.

 

It's a little depressing how programmed gamers people have gotten.

[LazyKnight]

Too many people do not see it our way.

 

It's a little depressing how programmed gamers people have gotten.

I would rather they have no mastery at all, but I know that will not happen because of the expensive clan crap that was added in. Now people are convinced that the only way to get weapons is via the clan structure and mastery ranks and anything not in a clan has to suck for it to be fair.

 

I would rather DE just do what BioWare did and just have a market ONLY and get rid of this clan weapon nonsense that is just a mindless grind for weapon invalidating the entire premise of the market DE is trying to make money off of. 

[CubedOobleck]

It is necessary.

 

But maybe they should do it after they out armor 2.0, assuming that will meaningfully change something...

[TwiceDead]

I'd rather you just remove Mastery Rank altogether. All it does is hold people back, and force them to play for hundreds of hours in order to be able to use a weapon they'd like. 

I am a mastery rank 9 at the moment and just convinced my friend into playing the game, and he asks me how I manage to do so much damage. 

I answer because of the mods and the guns. Then he says he wants the same guns as I do, and I unfortunately have to tell him. "Nav... Sorry man, you gotta be Mastery Rank #, to be able to be as awesome as I am." 

 

Mastery Rank only serves as an unnecessary barrier for no reason whatsoever. It's not needed, and should be removed. 

If you absolutely need Mastery Rank, make cosmetics restrictions or something. Not weapons/frames. 

[SienRenegade]

I totaly agree with the OP, every weapon needs to be analyzed and it needs to be clear what the advantage of that weapon is over other weapons (but keep the comparing within certain parameters, i.e. compare the dps output or how much dmg can be dealt with certain ammo) and give every weapon a mastery rank. It would save a lot of trouble with nerfing everything so "each and every weapon is viable somehow". And it would give players who invested time and resources into weapons a sence of progression.

[Shinreil]

Agreeeed.

[Guest]

:D

[Alphascrub]

Why don't we just get rid of the Mastery Rank requirement for weapons?

Because mastery rank sets goals. You play, you gain power, you gain weapons, you gain more toys, you play more of the game. Without it people would just burn out in a few weeks, complain about this game lacking content, scream that every weapon needs to be nerfed, and overall not present much constructed feedback. Its kind of like what is going on now where the system in place isn't update and therefore is failing. Hence the above problems.

[PrismBlack]

Personally I have no problem with putting limits on weapons, Technically one can call me a causal gamer but really I have Multiple Games I play in a day so I don't put all my hours into this game. Even so I see that having weapons, the more powerful ones have ranks.

OP +1

 

I do not think mods should have a player rank limit not any of the single mods - maybe the twin mods should have a player rank limit for they are more powerful then the singles.
 

[fatpig84]

well, i want to see the armor changes. if armor is nowhere as effective after the update, weapons like the boltor and bolto will be way more useless. first armor 2.0, then mastery locked content

 

Making them useless so other guns can see use ? wut ? D:

[AscendantWyvern]

In the Livestream, Scott finally revealed that the Tiering (as much as I hate it, it's part of the game), is linked completely to mastery.

 

This means that a LOT, A LOT, of weapons need structuring. Balancing or adding masteries to them. Comparing the Sicarus to the Lex or Vasto or Vipers, it is clear that you have a LOT of work ahead of you.

 

I can't say that I agree that masteries are solely the balance tiering factors (the Supra needs a serious buff. Acrid has the same mastery as Supra, but your standards, supra needs to be just as lethal.) but this is the statement we as beta testers need to live by. Let us help Scott with balancing.

Edited September 19, 2013 by AscendantWyvern

[Xana_Skullsunder]

-snip-

 

I'll second... pretty much all of this. Speaking of the Gorgon, can we make it a liiiiittle more accurate again? Just a thought. It hurt a little to work my way up to it and realize how... everywhere the bullets go.

[N7Arthur]

-1

 

Reasons:

 

1-Its a cheap way out of balancing needs, solves the issue by saying "yeah, most of the weapons we spent time and resources developing are useless to a rank 7, but thats a design choice". Vertical progression is fine in a pve game, but don't turn warframe into wow, where epics are only needed to farm the next tier of items, and then threw away, in a never ending circle (or hamster wheel).

 

2-Everytime you level up and unlock "better weapons" all the older ones go become useless, and all the time wasted potatoing, formaing, leveling is thrown away. "B-b-but use the weapons you enjoy using!"  No, 90% of people use the weapon they enjoy most FROM the pool of the most powerful toys they can access - warframe is based on progression, people are compelled to think in that way by the game itself.

 

3-Most people buy plat and packs at the start of their tenno career, maybe after reading the forums/wiki, to get themselves good weapons/frame that will serve for long, items that are usually out of their crafting possibilities for  long time due to mat/credit/bp restrictions (not having the map unlocked-> no mats/bp   not being able to run void-> no credits).  If people knew the stuff they can buy at low ranks will quickly become useless in a few days/weeks,  how many will happily throw their cash anyway?

 

4-Warframe is already too easy for vets, and very hard for beginners. This will only serve to increase the disparity. I don't wanna tell my friends who just started "yeah you'll have to farm 100+ hours to get the good stuff". It's higly demotivating, slows down progression and increase the time and farm needed before i can invite my friends to endgame content

 

5-Research weapons already exist as long term goal, they are shinies very different from everything else. They exist because they give a meaning to dojo building / joining clans. Applying that principle to everything else is unneeded.

 

6-Every time DE introduces a new weapon, they'd have to choose in which "tier" it will fit. Is it a rank 1, acessible to everyone? maybe a r3? and if x>y>k>z   why should someone nearing r8 like me care at all about lower rank weapons?  Content is splitted, and to many of us, obsolete and useless before even getting released.  Getting excited because DE announced 10 new weapons? Too bad, none of them are high tier, no reason to build them or even care about them.

Hmm, then maybe make the rank locking only for building, but allow everything to be plat buyable, so if a new player joins, but doesn't want to go up 7 ranks to get the weapon he really wants, just let him buy it. There, incentive to buy weapons, and newbies can have higher tier stuff to compete, just have to either shell some time or money.