Uncooperative Multiplayer Shooter

[Seeryx]

 

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Warframe is a cooperative free-to-play third person online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world.

tells us the short description. Cooperative means everyone is participating to achieve the game's objective. But there are frames that make it more of a regular single-player shooter with a twist - there are three bored bystanders with you.

^{Yes, it's an obligatory "map wipe frames are not healthy" thread. I'm pretty sure it's an MR26 challenge, isn't it? I decided to prepare it beforehand.}

Map Wipe Frames or MWF for short. We all know their names too well already. Btw, I owe all of them, and two of them are my mains and favorite ones, esp. design-wise.

Maining them feels fine. You're running around, doing stuff, using abilities, killing tons of enemies, managing energy, etc. Agency and feedback, it's all there. The game loop is working, it hooks you in hard. Being on the same team as them with other frames, on the other hand, is... Not such a stellar experience. Yeah, you kinda-sorta can manage to kill some enemies before MWFs get to them, maybe revive them a pair of times when they get too overconfident or go get more coffee. Open some lockers, yeah... search for stars.

In short, cooperative shooter becomes a game of trying to find something to do other than playing the main gameplay loop of "shoot guns and use abilities to kill stuff". It destroys any interest in Warframe super-hard. Agency is lost as MWFs don't really need help in dealing with any amount of standard-content-level enemies. Feedback is lost. Sure, you gain affshare, but just like any freebies, they start to feel unrewarding real quick.

And this is the way Waframe becomes an uncooperative online shooter, pardon my stale puns. Regardless of how much you love your favorite map-wipers - and I myself love them extremely, having sunk hundreds of plat into their fashion alone - they destroy the gameplay loop for other players. It will keep affecting the health of the Warframe community and meta-game and will hurt its health as a brand in the long run. I love my Saryn, but I love playing Waframe more, and thus I'm fine with reworked MWFs.

On a more specific note, MWFs raw enemy-deleting power is fine. After all we're playing a power-fantasy horde-slaughtering shooter, not a tactical one. It is their incredible range and reach that makes them so capable of outclassing all other damage-capable frames. Like, I dunno, take Hildryn's balefire or, well, even Hydroid's tentacles. Both can shred common content too - but both can do it only one corridor or a part of the room at a time, under usual conditions. That's a good level of power. Impactful, but leaving space for others to play. Compare that to Saryn's spore, which can easily wipe the entirety of some tilesets, leaving others with nothing to do.

The range is what needs to be looked at:

Saryn. I have a hunch that the usual idea of making Saryn's spores respect Line-of-Sight would take waaay too much processing power. A lot of physical ray casts and those don't come free. But there is an easier way. Spores, when cast, will affect all enemies in a cone in front of Saryn and the spore recast is much-much cheaper in terms of accumulated damage, losing maybe 2-5% of it tops. OTOH, their own spread range is cut down to 25% of the current. This way, Saryn is quickly flying around a map, spreading waves and waves of spores in front of her to build up a good bunch of infected enemies and then wipes them out with a blast of Miasma. Pretty much the same end result, but with so much more to do and leaving a fair share of the enemies for others to toy with. I dunno about you, but smashing the exact same set of buttons from pretty much same position gets stale after a while.

Mesa. There is really little reason for Mesa to affect the entire screen at once. She'll be more than capable even with a minimal reticle - at an average distance, it still means you can just point in the general direction of the enemy and let the regulators do the work. With her near-invulnerability and excellent DPS that works well into sorties, that tame 'nerf' will leave her perfectly playable, while taking away the ability to one-spin whole rooms. Choosing positions where small reticle can be exploited becomes increasingly important, bringing more strategy into Mesa's positioning game. On the plus side, Mesa's Waltz can be incorporated into ability itself. It's good QoL, allowing Mesa to inch just a little bit over a ledge that unexpectedly blocks line-of-sight without recasting ability.

Equinox. I've never played them enough to get a really good read on their dynamics, but the easiest way to rework them seems to be changing their killing sphere to be a wave. Still capable of clearing the map one sector at a time. Wipe this part or that? Damage both quickly or wait for an ultimate wave that leaves no one alive? Just the perfect type of strategical dilemmas for Warframe: not too primitive, not too complex.

I'll recharge and think of Banshee and maybe even Ember at a later point because both pose way less problem in the current meta and I'm not too hot on applying the same cone/wave concept to all AoE abilities.

Edited April 30, 2019 by Seeryx
typos; suggestion; pronouns

[(PSN)GrandisSupernus]

I DO find that while playing Saryn I have a mild frustration a few times a mission where I'm trying to cast Spore on an enemy running back and forth in front of me, maybe at a distance, but my reticle just never rests on them for that split-second to recognise that enemy as my intended target. A casting cone wherever I'm aiming would solve that issue.

I don't know enough about the "meta" of the game because I intentionally avoid those min/maxing people and prefer playing with newer players, so I can't speak for how any of these changes would affect quick, high-level play.

[Seeryx]

That made me think - my proposed changes for Equi and Mesa are pretty much straightforward nerfs, while Saryn is nerfed but gets a QoL improvement.

It can be capitalized upon at least in Mesa's case, incorporating Mesa's Waltz augment directly into the ability. Augment is repurposed into something else - at the simplest, just allowing Mesa to move at quicker pace.

Equi's ability is pretty straightforward, so QoL should come somewhere else (like to his pretty much non-existent form switching).

[Birdframe_Prime]

Anecdotally, I was literally just in Arbitrations Defense with a group today. A newer player that did need a bit of help and two Mesa players.

Now look at my name, guess which frame I was playing. Yep. Zephyr Prime. Why? Because I'm testing out my Umbral Jet Stream build and projectile weapons like the Staticor to see just what kind of performance you can get when you accelerate the projectile speed to the point where you can pick Dargyns out of the air on the Plains with a fully-charged Staticor shot. Also, I'm kind of weird like that. It's fun, is all I'm saying.

Anyway, guess who top damaged with 54%? Guess who didn't die once? Guess who picked up tokens to go revive allies and didn't suffer from the debuffs? Me. Why?

It's actually probably my enthusiasm, Zephyr's total ranged damage mitigation, and my hard-won target acquisition skills for placing shots, to be fair. And it's fun using high damage AoE weapons that can one-hit the Arbitration Drones at most reasonable levels, and can two-shot them at the higher ones, that I'll assure you.

What I'm saying here is that there are frames that can easily out-damage other frames. Do you have to let them do that? Not really no. You can do your own thing, have your own fun and take a silly frame to the missions you like as long as you have the ability to carry your own weight and not drag a team down because of your choices.

High damage frames have their place in the game. The same with Control frames and Support frames, and even the same with a Zephyr. Largely the player dictates the play, not the gear.

Just because high damage frames make some parts of the game easier, to the point where at some levels it feels like the other players aren't contributing, does not mean they need a nerf. That's a key point to remember.

We've genuinely seen where that kind of mentality leaves us. Instead of reigning in the ability to sustain World on Fire in its relentless drive to be anti-fun to anyone on an Exterminate mission less than level 30, DE instead decided to reign in its range and increase its cost over time, which does not accomplish this at all, and makes the ability objectively worse to use overall. (The real fix would have been to make World on Fire a charge-and-release function similar to Harrow's 4, where you have a time period where some function charges up a multiplier for the ability, and then a release period that's very short and capable of dealing much increased damage because of the charge, which can't actually exceed a certain amount of time due to placing the base Duration low enough. This would mean that World on Fire's usage switches from an always-on burn to a strategic fire storm capable of scaling far higher than it could have before. Support that by making Accelerant an Aura ability rather than a status you have to cast on every single new enemy in turn, and switching Fire Blast to a more focused direct damage ability that gains bonuses based on her passive and based on whether enemies are on fire at the time... Yeah... I have Ember rework ideas... But that's where DE and I have agreed to disagree, it seems.)

Saryn, after all she's been through to get to where she is... she definitely needs to be left alone for about a year before we come back to her. Enough is enough for now, let her be powerful and concentrate on making some of the other frames better instead.

Mesa has been given a slew of limitations on her usability already, and the result is a frame that functions well at a high level. Let her be powerful too. Concentrate on making more frames that can do things to the level she does, and then maybe it won't seem nearly so strange.

And Equinox... is also a She. Confirmed to be so in all three forms, so less of the 'he' talk ^^ But also, while the Day Form's Maim is quite powerful, it does tend to run into the problem of people actually wanting to use her other abilities once in a while. And there is actually just as much potential in a good Duality build, or a Spider-nox Sleep build depending on what mission type you're trying to accomplish rather than endless scaling.

But here's the thing I keep coming back to.

It is allowed, in a game with 30+ characters, for some of them to be good to the point of being a little too good. Things will balance out and, because of shifts in the enemies and game modes (rather than the frames themselves) the meta will move anyway. Saryn is not all-powerful, neither is Equinox or Mesa. There are good, and sometimes better, choices for the games we play on the daily (tell you what, you won't see many Equinoxes running Orbs or Eidolons... Nor will you see many Saryns, or, for that matter, too many Mesas outside of the Exploiter for those lovely Vega Toroid drops from the mini-spiders).

I would concentrate on elevating the weak, not tearing down the strong, in this case.

[Seeryx]

7 минут назад, Birdframe_Prime сказал:

High damage frames have their place in the game.

Well, yeah, I specifically said:

56 минут назад, Seeryx сказал:

MWFs raw enemy-deleting power is fine

Their DPS is great, they scale great, and there should be more frames that scale that well. I agree with you on that fully.

What's not fine is their ability to delete everything across the map the moment it appears, leaving others with little to do. Silly frames can't do their silly things when there is literally nothing alive and enemy-colored on the map.

Mesas, depending on the map layout, can indeed sometimes leave others with a bit of their own playground. But "sometimes maybe on some maps you can actually play the game" is not a good gameplay formula.

You can see it sometimes, especially in ESOs, when there are several MWFs. First one is already so capable at map clearing that second and third ones have extremely little to do except dealing with some very situational stragglers.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Seeryx

[EinheriarJudith]

@Seeryx you are going to get push back on this because some of these people who play warframe, have never played games like Killing floor, Mass effect 3 MP, Mass Effect Andromeda MP, Dragon Age Inquisition MP, Vermintide, Payday, Destiny, or any other coop game where 1 person cannot do the job of all the members in the team.

Edited April 30, 2019 by EinheriarJudith

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

2 hours ago, Seeryx said:

Mesas, depending on the map layout, can indeed sometimes leave others with a bit of their own playground. But "sometimes maybe on some maps you can actually play the game" is not a good gameplay formula.

Mesa PM is limited to a 50m range, LoS and she's stationary. Not to mention a aimed rng (random enemy selecter) ramp up period before she can achieve full damage. As well as the 2nd highest energy drain in the game. She susceptible to status, melee and explosions.   She's been nerfed plenty.... That said Leave her alone, she's fine.

Edited April 30, 2019 by (XB1)RDeschain82

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

4 hours ago, Seeryx said:

Equinox. I've never played him enough to get a really good read on his dynamics, but the easiest way to rework him seems to be changing his killing sphere to be a wave. Still capable of clearing the map one sector at a time. Wipe this part or that? Damage both quickly or wait for an ultimate wave that leaves no one alive? Just the perfect type of strategical dilemmas for Warframe: not too primitive, not too complex.

Her*

Also, unless you're playing lvl 20 content, Maim is hardly OP, since Equinox has to work and build up charges.

I agree on Mesa and Saryn needing some fine-tuning. Once could argue that Volt falls into that category as well

[(PSN)BenHeisennberg]

Most people do not use recruit chat for every single mission.  It takes forever to get a group together even if it's a popular mission to group up for.

So, everyone choses a frame where even if the squad is absolute garbage, they will do well.

I definitely don't want to have to rely on pubs.  People be dying in Meso fissures, half a map away at double doors, not making it past wave 5 on Hydron, etc as is.

[EinheriarJudith]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)BenHeisennberg said:

Most people do not use recruit chat for every single mission.  It takes forever to get a group together even if it's a popular mission to group up for.

So, everyone choses a frame where even if the squad is absolute garbage, they will do well.

I definitely don't want to have to rely on pubs.  People be dying in Meso fissures, half a map away at double doors, not making it past wave 5 on Hydron, etc as is.

this happens for the exact reasons that places allow people into them where they dont belong and frames being able to carry them, and how passive play is extremely rewarded over active play.

[(PSN)BenHeisennberg]

Just now, EinheriarJudith said:

this happens for the exact reasons that places allow people into them where they dont belong and frames being able to carry them, and how passive play is extremely rewarded over active play.

It's not even that.  I've seen an MR 25 Inaros die in a sortie, or high MRs with good gear die to the Profit Taker.  A lot of people just can't use their abilities or movement.

The issue comes down to the fact that people honestly kinda suck.

[EinheriarJudith]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)BenHeisennberg said:

It's not even that.  I've seen an MR 25 Inaros die in a sortie, or high MRs with good gear die to the Profit Taker.  A lot of people just can't use their abilities or movement.

The issue comes down to the fact that people honestly kinda suck.

well the game is designed for you to die. and not everyone is going to be good. mission failure is pretty low in this game. in killing floor 1/2 if to many people die on the team the mission fails unless the last person is able to kill the remaining monsters in the wave or finish of the boss (after he had been severely damaged by the team), because of last man standing rules.

Edited April 30, 2019 by EinheriarJudith

[(PSN)BenHeisennberg]

Just now, EinheriarJudith said:

well the game is designed for you to die. and not everyone is going to be good. mission failure is pretty low in this game. in killing floor 1/2 if to many people die on the team the mission fails unless the last person is able to kill the remaining monsters in the wave or finish of the boss (after he had been severely damaged by the team), because of last man standing rules.

Of course, people still *complete* missions.  That's because most missions have no challenge.  However, you end up finishing and realizing "I could have done this easier solo, without the guy who brought better stuff than me."  Combined with the quantity of trolls I run into, I'm basically at the point where if I'm public, it's for the sole purpose of speeding something up.

[EinheriarJudith]

Just now, (PS4)BenHeisennberg said:

Of course, people still *complete* missions.  That's because most missions have no challenge.  However, you end up finishing and realizing "I could have done this easier solo, without the guy who brought better stuff than me."  Combined with the quantity of trolls I run into, I'm basically at the point where if I'm public, it's for the sole purpose of speeding something up.

i feel this way about sortie, since hacking in this mode disallows the use of ciphers, and hazards requiring some knowledge and care about what you take. end game modes need stricter requirements for entry. but until passive play is remove along with 1 frame being able to do the job of a 4 in a full squad, no one has to care about getting better.

[Seeryx]

6 часов назад, (XB1)RDeschain82 сказал:

Mesa PM is limited to a 50m range, LoS and she's stationary. Not to mention a aimed rng (random enemy selecter) ramp up period before she can achieve full damage. As well as the 2nd highest energy drain in the game. She susceptible to status, melee and explosions.   She's been nerfed plenty....

And she's still more than capable of single-handedly carrying through 90% of up-to-level-100 content, with some bosses being a bit of exception (though even against bosses, her nigh-invulnerability comes very handy). Lately, I've been playing Mesa a lot, I think she should be my 2nd most used warframe by now, so I have an idea what I'm talking about. I know that with Waltz and semi-decent positioning, I can leave my team with nothing to do on a lot of missions and tilesets.

 

5 часов назад, (PS4)LoisGordils сказал:

Her*

Also, unless you're playing lvl 20 content, Maim is hardly OP, since Equinox has to work and build up charges.

I think it's their 'male' form that posses the Maim? Or their both forms are considered female? In any case, I'll update the pronouns in OP.

Equinox is a lesser offender than Saryn, but it still feels wrong being on the same team, when every X seconds everything around you just dies. You fight a bit, then the map is cleared out - fight a bit, reset - fight a bit, reset... The gameplay loop is not non-existent, as in case of Saryn, but it's still fragmented into tiny little pieces of fun instead of being one immersive and continuous experience.  

Edited April 30, 2019 by Seeryx

[Seeryx]

1 час назад, (PS4)BenHeisennberg сказал:

So, everyone choses a frame where even if the squad is absolute garbage, they will do well.

MWFs, though, won't just do well - they're guaranteed to replace the whole squad. 

As @EinheriarJudith says, it's part of the reason people run absolutely unprepared into semi-challenging content. "Someone will carry me through" mentality. And indeed, there is a good chance of a single MWF on the squad who'll clear every enemy on the map for them. People are essentially forgoing part of the game experience - the shooting and killing - to get loot quicker, and then after a while wonder why there are burned out of Warframe.

[Warhydra]

6 hours ago, moostar95 said:

 It's funny how more and more of these threads pop up. All i have to say is welcome to modern day warframe. Where coop is non existent due to unchecked power creep. I blame de 100% on this crap.

Modern day? This sort of complain has been around since 2013-14. Except it was about CC frames trivializing the whole map. It was arguably worse since we had fewer alternatives, frame damage was mostly non-existent since they didnt scale (Except for Absorb) and even squishiest frame today with Adaptation probably has more eHP than the toughest frames of those days. (Nyx with infinite Absorb notwithstanding) So you either CC the whole map or... well, lose terribly. 
The problem has more to do with game mode than anything else, you dont hear about people complaining about dps frames in spy missions or Eidolon/Profit Taker since in those missions killing hordes of enemies is not the objective. But vast majority of the missions in this game focuses on killing hordes of enemies, and frames that affect huge amount of enemies will always be seen as overpowered compare to those that couldn't.

So really, all these "We have to nerf X" threads are too focused on the symptom, rather than the source of the problem, which is that we need more variety in our game modes. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Warhydra

[Seeryx]

1 час назад, Warhydra сказал:

all these "We have to nerf X" threads are too focused on the symptom

It's not a symptom and a source, they're separate problems. Even if we have more modes, there will and there shall be killing-focused modes. And those will stay dominated by map wiping frames if they're not addressed.

See, stealth frames are better fit for Spy missions, as should be, but you can run others successfully and do it in a team. A single Ivara or Loki won't leave you out of things to do during Spy.

A single Chroma won't do everything by itself during Profit-Taker and there is a reason to take a pair of other frames into composition, like Trin for survivability or Mesa to clean up the fodder quickly (and that's despite PTs immunity to pretty much anything but raw damage).

On the other hand, Defense? Single Saryn and that's it, on 90% of tilesets. Other people are there to increase the enemy spawn rate so that spores don't kill them all too quickly.

[Warhydra]

2 minutes ago, Seeryx said:

A single Chroma won't do everything by itself during Profit-Taker and there is a reason to take a pair of other frames into composition, like Trin for survivability or Mesa to clean up the fodder quickly (and that's despite PTs immunity to pretty much anything but raw damage).

 

eh... what? Plenty of solo Profit taker with Chroma, myself included and I am not the greatest of Chroma players. Most pugs for profit taker will usually have 2-3 Chromas and a well-geared Chroma can carry 3 other people who have no idea they are doing. 
 

 

18 minutes ago, Seeryx said:

 On the other hand, Defense? Single Saryn and that's it, on 90% of tilesets. Other people are there to increase the enemy spawn rate so that spores don't kill them all too quickly.

Good farming group for defense/survival DO include other frames, like an EV Trin for energy, Nekros for loot or Speedva to speed up enemies. Just because these frames dont deal much damage doesnt mean they didnt contribute to the mission. 

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

8 hours ago, (XB1)RDeschain82 said:

Mesa PM is limited to a 50m range, LoS and she's stationary. Not to mention a aimed rng (random enemy selecter) ramp up period before she can achieve full damage. As well as the 2nd highest energy drain in the game. She susceptible to status, melee and explosions.   She's been nerfed plenty.... That said Leave her alone, she's fine.

Oh please, what pathetic excuses. 

Mesa is overpowered. Period. 

[Seeryx]

38 минут назад, Warhydra сказал:

eh... what? Plenty of solo Profit taker with Chroma, myself included and I am not the greatest of Chroma players. Most pugs for profit taker will usually have 2-3 Chromas and a well-geared Chroma can carry 3 other people who have no idea they are doing. 

I think you're still missing the point of the thread. In profit-taker, there is stuff to do other than sit on your thumbs even if there is a great Chroma player in the squad. Enemies to kill, beacons and pylons to destroy, etc.

38 минут назад, Warhydra сказал:

Good farming group for defense/survival DO include other frames, like an EV Trin for energy, Nekros for loot or Speedva to speed up enemies. Just because these frames dont deal much damage doesnt mean they didnt contribute to the mission. 

Just reread your own words and think about them: Warframes - war frames - that are essentially relegated to the roles of glorified Energy pads and resource boosters. Main gameplay: the gunplay, the abilities, are just not there for them.

I run Trin in ESO a lot, and I know she's extremely useful in those kinds of situation, but simply spamming EV and bless burns out any desire to play Warframe hard. 2-3-4, 2-3-4, 2-3-4, for dozens and dozens of rounds, while Saryn is playing the actual game. Actually, scratch that. As a Saryn, I also press a sequence of buttons with no thought to it. A squad composition that gets rids of gameplay - is that the thing that Warframe needs? As a game? In long run?

Edited April 30, 2019 by Seeryx

[AndyBeans]

17 minutes ago, Seeryx said:

Just reread your own words and think about them: Warframes - war frames - that are essentially relegated to the roles of glorified Energy pads and resource boosters. Main gameplay: the gunplay, the abilities, are just not there for them.

Support has been part of warfare for millenia, entire military campaigns have failed because they were lead by people who overlooked the need to keep soldiers well supplied. Personally I don't care if my Rhino is relegated to being a damage-buffer and mobile revive facility if it helps my squad finish the mission.

[Madway7]

10 hours ago, EinheriarJudith said:

@Seeryx you are going to get push back on this because some of these people who play warframe, have never played games like Killing floor, Mass effect 3 MP, Mass Effect Andromeda MP, Dragon Age Inquisition MP, Vermintide, Payday, Destiny, or any other coop game where 1 person cannot do the job of all the members in the team.

I can't really speak for the other games since I haven't played or done much research about them, but a major difference I've heard with Destiny is that enemy spawns are more tight rather than it being focused on hordes coming at you.

The issue with Killing Floor here is that it's the opposite and playing it alone is pretty much impossible.

 

 I'll just copy paste and edit my previous response to the general topic from another thread that popped up.

 

I know this is a slippery slope argument, but this can easy go down a very bad rabbit hole.

First starting with AoE abilities killing enemies too fast, then moving on to hard (or some soft such as Nova's 4) cc being too effective, then going on to some frames being too tanky. Then probably moving on to weapons. (AoE > non AoE)

I think the essence of your issue is that AoE damage in some frame abilities (possibly weapons) make the game trivial. 

If so, yes, the game was designed around the simple mechanic of killing enemies, just in a variety of ways. DE had a choice to either make us feel like gods killing mass amounts of enemies (Ala Dynasty Warriors) or to slow down the pace and focus around more strategic or harder combat. They chose so far to keep the first option because of 1 reason.

It works. It's worked for them for so long and more and more people started to play and kept playing for 1 reason. It's fun. 

Yeah, it's subjective on what you find fun. You can find a Saryn killing everything the worst thing in the world while I just chill and try to enjoy the game regardless.

But what this boils down to is a big change, because there was once a time where stuff like ability cooldowns existed and melee was severely limited by stamina. With just a few changes we could go back to those times and just have more options (compared to before), it might work it might not. Point is it's a big risk, mostly because enemies are getting more and more designed to counter what we can do, including aoe spams, and one big problem is that DE would have to readjust everything from enemy scaling, possibly armor scaling, enemy mechanics WHILE ALSO making sure the game is maintained relatively the same so they don't lose their core audience.

OR they could do things like nerf Mesas 4 so the reticle is always small, make Saryns 1 and 4 do no damage, give Maim damage falloff etc. And while these would solve your issue they would also ruin the enjoyment a lot of people get out of playing these frames. 

I am not against these nerfs, but what I do want is to not put the cart before the horse, I would rather DE either balance the game around less killing first THEN balance the frames accordingly. 

Because nerfs are easy to do it seems, at least compared to actually solving the issues that caused those nerfs to be needed. 

[Loza03]

Maybe it's not the frames that are too strong but enemies too weak? Like 'typical enemies have no defence against abilities unless there's a handy nullifier removing abilities from the equation entirely nearby'.

In the past, I've suggested some form of case-by-case enemy resistances to abilities, based on what those powers do. Like - machines aren't affected or affected less strongly by slash or toxin procs and abilities related, and act as lighting rods for Volt's discharge, but in turn take way more damage based on how many enemies they're 'lightning rod-ing' for, and get messed up more by Mag's powers. Or, using Mesa as an example, her peacemaker could have a system built in where its aiming gets messed up by Shield Lancers, 'locking' her to wear down the shield and break it whilst its within her target area, in the meantime leaving her only able to target the shield lancer whilst her reticule is over it and thus vulnerable. And, of course, shooting gallery shouldn't affect melee enemies so they become more powerful against Mesa specifically, since aside from her Peacemaker she has no defence against getting blindsided by them.

It only takes a few situations that counter specific abilities to make them not overpowered - after all 'overpowered' just means its too good in too many situations, or in Warframes case, there are too few situations. There isn't an 'oh, there's an enemy that I'm going to have trouble against' or even an enemy combo. You can either freeze/nuke them into being non-threats or you cant. If there are several instances in which there could be a problem - such as the aforementioned idea of Mesa struggling against Shield Lancers and Melee enemies - that would serve to make cooperation more useful. After all, for one those individual enemies could have specific weaknesses to another frame's abilities (I dunno, Loki disarming the shield), or even simply having other players target them to facilitate other players.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

6 hours ago, Seeryx said:

And she's still more than capable of single-handedly carrying through 90% of up-to-level-100 content,

Well yeah she's a dps frame. That's what dps frames do. 

 

6 hours ago, Seeryx said:

I know that with Waltz and semi-decent positioning, I can leave my team with nothing to do on a lot of missions and tilesets

Well sure, If your squad is full of CC frames that's bound to happen. But with frames like Nova, Mag, Saryn, Octavia, Frost, Volt or any damage dealing frame that requires no LoS, someone like myself can fairly easily out damage / out kill any competent Mesa player. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by (XB1)RDeschain82