Should DE follow bungie's footsteps on balancing for endgame?

[Fallen77]

"What about doing like destiny ?"

*looks at destiny 1 and 2 S#&$storm*

How 'bout no ?

[Olphalarepth]

Following in bungie's footsteps? Those are not footprints Tenno, it's....taste it. I'm sure it's not chocolate.

 

While I thoroughly disapprove of warframe doing the same stuff of other loot shooters I do think the game is extremely unbalanced and favor way too much a certain set of frames. There will always be meta weapons and frames but this is absolutely no excuse for completely ignoring those who cannot keep up or, at very least, taking years only to recognize they are struggling.

1 hour ago, SenorClipClop said:

I get behind this. I'm all for challenging a player's command of their arsenal by providing a somewhat narrow scope of effective solutions; however, when most of the newer bosses (Eidolons, WoSS, Demolysts) have only one solution, the same solution, which just amounts to "throw a LOT of damage at it", it starts to feel stale.

Totally agree on this.

I even have ideas on how this could be done but we know we are ALL wasting our time. DE doens't care about this and is not even reading this. As I wrote, it took them years, literally YEARS, to acknowledge some frames are struggling. What makes any of you think they are going to change a single thing because a bunch of registered loos...users are complaining in a part of the forum they don't even read?

Yup, I'm a little bitter today. Maybe tomorrow will be better

Edited June 18, 2019 by Olphalarepth

[SenorClipClop]

1 hour ago, DrivaMain said:

Warframe’s target audience are casuals...

Don’t believe me? According to steam achievements only 4.9% of players have defeated an eidolon terralyst.

While I'm not disbelieving you, the Teralyst achievement isn't the greatest example of what you're trying to prove.  While there's probably a correlation between newness and not having tangoed with a Teralyst, there's also the limitation of computer specs to consider. Regular Warframe missions are playable on a laptop and/or with Intel graphics. Free Roam maps are not.

[844448]

1 hour ago, DrivaMain said:

Destiny’s target audience are hardcore players while Warframe’s target audience are casuals (looking at current endgame content). DE can pull a huge nerf like bungie did, but I worried that DE will not survive the fallout. I would expect massive riots or boycotts in the community if this were to happen and would alienate the majority of warframe’s playerbase from endgame content.

Don’t believe me? According to steam achievements only 4.9% of players have defeated an eidolon terralyst. Now let’s say DE folllows bungie’s philosophy those 4.9% of steam warframe players can adapt to the change, but what about the 95.1% of steam warframe players ? Those players are already scared to try eidolons with the current setup and nerfing it even further would make those players aren’t gonna even bother to touch eidolons ever again.

if the current endgame content is for casuals, then nerfing is one of the answer for the hardcore because we're gods in this game

[DiabolusUrsus]

3 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

To me that sounds like [1] DE is removing the effectiveness of powerful stuff against a few specific objectives so they can't be cheesed the same way as everything else.

What I'm saying is that the problem is anything being cheeseable in the first place.

3 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

And they are doing this instead of [2] flat-out nerfs to those weapons/powers etc. A lot of the community is pretty vocally against nerfs, and while a few need to happen sometimes, sweeping nerfs to the high-power-low-effort meta would piss off a lot of people. I think DE takes their players' interests much more to heart than Bungie (or at least the people at Bungie in charge of the nerfs mentioned in OP), seeing as how there are certain things in WF that could do well with a nerf but remain as strong as they are.

Which is inevitably a stupid decision. If players could think rationally instead of having an allergic reaction to the concept of subtraction, they should be able to see that even a 50% reduction in damage is less severe than a 100% reduction due to DE randomly making something completely immune.

Players are still getting nerfed into the ground whenever the newest flavor of the month boss is given blanket immunity, but don't reap any of the rewards (engagement/challenge) due to DE leaving a few cheese strategies intact. Status builds should always work. Caster builds should always work. Crit builds should always work. Variable effectiveness in different scenarios is fine, but those tools should always work.

3 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

Anyway, the reason they do this is to make players change up how they solve in-game problems, and sometimes the devs need to draw firm lines like immunities to make that change-up a reality. For example, if a Nullifier reduced Warframe Ability damage by 90% instead of eliminating it entirely, the amount of ability damage we regularly inflict would make Nullies absolutely meaningless until at least Sortie 3 level, probably higher.

So reduce ability damage; if we can overkill a 90% damage reduction throughout most of the game's balanced content, then ability damage is OP by an order of magnitude. Simple as that.

3 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

Then instead of being a Tenno counter-measure unit, for the majority of play they're just another trash mob enemy that Saryn doesn't even see before she deletes them from the map.

And this is precisely the problem. A Saryn should be able to casually delete mooks meant to be slaughtered en masse, but NOT more specialized enemies meant to provide a stand-up fight. It's possible to do this without immunity given proper balance.

Obviously this is just my opinion, but when enemies can selectively ignore my power in a power fantasy (be it status, abilities, whatever) that immediately trashes the fantasy. I mean seriously, what would the Tenno do if the Queens just threw a regiment of Kuva Guardians at them before finishing TSD? What would they do if the Ropalolyst opted to retreat outside the area with the fixed arena cannon? What if Vay Hek stopped opening his mask? How the frick did we manage to beat the Sentients with our Warframes in the Old War when mere fragments of their corpses (Eidolons) can't even be scratched by conventional weaponry?

We'd be utterly screwed. IMO it doesn't matter one bit that we can roflstomp entire armies of mooks when our power is so cheaply-made that it craps out into complete unreliability whenever we need it most.

3 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

I get behind this. I'm all for challenging a player's command of their arsenal by providing a somewhat narrow scope of effective solutions; however, when most of the newer bosses (Eidolons, WoSS, Demolysts) have only one solution, the same solution, which just amounts to "throw a LOT of damage at it", it starts to feel stale.

Yep, and what I'm saying is that this is a direct symptom of DE's approach to avoiding straight nerfs. You'll never see a meaningful boss without status immunity as long as Corrosive and Viral procs exist in their current form. If it's not there on release, it's only a matter of time before DE remembers Shattering Impact and blocks that, too (which is exactly what happened with Eidolons and the WOSS).

[Teridax68]

I think one of the key problems with the "won't someone think of the children casuals" argument is that those who speak the loudest against nerfs tend to be hardcore players as well: for a player whose breadth of content in Warframe mostly resumes itself to the Star Chart, it's not going to matter for them if OP status effects like Corrosive or Viral get nerfed, or if X frame or weapon got their power slashed, because given the mods we have it's going to take some pretty insanely excessive nerfs for them to be felt at the Star Chart range. Thus, it's not going to matter to them how much something gets nerfed unless its gameplay is made worse, and even then, the average casual player is unlikely to spend much time on dedicated internet spaces pleading their case. Meanwhile, when opposition to nerfs is made, it is all too common to see references to:

1. Specific frames that just so happen to be meta in endgame content (e.g. Saryn, Chroma, Mesa, etc.).
2. Enemies at level 100 or above, and missions featuring them.
3. Events that happened years ago in the game (e.g. Viver, Draco, etc.), suggesting the people referencing them were there at the time, or did their research.

So in the end, I suspect the blanket opposition has less to do with the playerbase as a whole, and more with a vocal minority of people, particularly on these forums (Reddit doesn't seem to have the same attitude towards nerfs), not wanting their darling frames or strats touched. While there isn't perfect overlap with hardcore players also lamenting the lack of a "real" endgame, there is nonetheless a fair amount of it, despite the inherent contradiction between wanting a challenge and refusing to accept a crucial method of making the game more challenging.

It's also worth mentioning that, as mentioned immediately above, DE has no choice but to nerf us in one way or another, so really, opposing nerfs is impossible, it's just a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. DE so far have taken the indirect path, and nerfed us via enemy immunities: without so much as touching our frames directly, they have massively nerfed the majority of them, and done more harm than if those same frames had received targeted work instead. The most recent instance of Demolysts, and their laundry list of inconsistent immunities to our abilities, is a pretty clear illustration of DE nerfing our frames in the one way that seems to avoid knee-jerk outrage on the forums: if one were to look rationally at the situation, one could see that many of our beloved frames and weapons are suffering in an environment where our powers cannot function properly, but the problem is precisely that so many of us here do not look at the situation rationally, preferring instead to pounce and bite the developers' face off the moment someone even suggests the possibility of a direct nerf (just look at all the rabid Wukong "fans" who came out of the woodwork to pre-emptively trash a kit we knew nothing about at the time... I wonder where they've all gone, now that we've actually seen the kit in action). If we want to protect the frames and builds we love, we need to accept that some of them are too strong, and need to be toned down, so that they can still do well at a slight loss in power, instead of being outright denied due to indirect and dysfunctional balancing methods.

[VoxMortuis]

On 2019-05-18 at 1:09 AM, 844448 said:

What do you think? Should we suggest DE to follow bungie in this?

No. I don't think DE should follow bungie on anything. There's a reason I still play warframe, yet never picked up D2 after playing D1.

[KnightOwl_]

This is going to sound crazy but you can nerf smartly and not overdo it.  DE doesn’t have to be blizzard and use a chainsaw when a scalpel will do.  You can nerf saryn so she still is a nuker, just not with 3 other people in the corner of ESO on YouTube or that one hub website.  You can nerf chroma so he’s strong but not one shot strong.  (Needs a rework anyway.).  

Balance should be to increase player options and in turn enjoyment of the game, not solely for endgame purposes.  

[Loza03]

I'd just like to pop back in to point out that being powerful and being overpowered, whilst inevitably related, are not the same thing.

Something can be very powerful, yet not overpowered. Something can be weak, yet still overpowered.

Puffshrooms are very weak Plants in Plants vs Zombies, having a short range and low damage. However, at the point you get them in Plants vs Zombies, they are overpowered as in the areas of story mode they're available, as a full row of them can kill all but two zombie types, both rare, and the plants can be infinitely replaced enabling such a setup to be made quite easily. Other enemies that would balance them don't spawn.

Sniper and Spy in TF2 both have consistent insta-kills and very potent protection from enemies (distance and stealth), making them very powerful. However, both are very weak in situations other classes -including each other- are strong in and have limits on how often they can deploy that immense power, meaning despite how strong they are, they aren't overpowered.

 

In the same way, it's possible to both balance Warframe and still have players be super powerful. All it would take are tweaking the rules (probably on enemies) to make it so enemies have some way (outside of Nullifiers, since they're just the same problem in reverse) to deal with powers. For the most part, weapons aren't too bad in this respect, honestly, mostly having drawbacks baked into how the weapon handles. Even the Tigris Prime, since it has downtime between shots and all that. And you have enemies like Noxes or Shield Lancers or Ospreys  which can dodge or tank or block attacks. Or Ballista who can shoot you far away making long range weapons more dangerous, or Troopers doing the same - at least in theory. Where are the equivalent enemies for abilities?

[DOOMPATRIOT]

Personally would be fine for me thanos-nerfing ALL if we get a better game.

But that seems rather imposible since DE doesn't really play the game *35 lvl are high lvl according to Rebecca, they think everything beyond lvl 30 Is a high lvl.

[DiabolusUrsus]

1 hour ago, OmegaDonut said:

This is going to sound crazy but you can nerf smartly and not overdo it.  

No, that sounds refreshingly sane. 🙂

56 minutes ago, DOOMPATRIOT said:

Personally would be fine for me thanos-nerfing ALL if we get a better game.

But that seems rather imposible since DE doesn't really play the game *35 lvl are high lvl according to Rebecca, they think everything beyond lvl 30 Is a high lvl.

We really need DE to pick an official max level and stick to that. The unofficial estimate is 100 or so, but it needs to be an official cutoff.

"Anything above level X is infinitely scaled and not balanced for. Frames and weapons are balanced to be able to beat level X with some moderate challenge."

I'd agree level 35 is too low, but how "strong" an enemy seems is directly related to how strong players actually are. If standard content only goes up to 100 then managing to beat level 200 enemies should be an incredibly impressive feat and exercise of skill... Not something players can casually breeze through up to 9999 given the right build(s). There's no reason players should have to wait hours for difficult content.

[Ikyr0]

2 hours ago, VoxMortuis said:

No. I don't think DE should follow bungie on anything. There's a reason I still play warframe, yet never picked up D2 after playing D1.

He's specifically referring to what they plan to do for the September release.

[Ikyr0]

1 hour ago, OmegaDonut said:

This is going to sound crazy but you can nerf smartly and not overdo it.  DE doesn’t have to be blizzard and use a chainsaw when a scalpel will do.  You can nerf saryn so she still is a nuker, just not with 3 other people in the corner of ESO on YouTube or that one hub website.  You can nerf chroma so he’s strong but not one shot strong.  (Needs a rework anyway.).  

Balance should be to increase player options and in turn enjoyment of the game, not solely for endgame purposes.  

Steady, precise, and small nerfs is the way to go. When devs lose patience and opt to knee jerk or just put bandaids on things, that's what doesn't work for anyone. Including the devs.

[DrivaMain]

8 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

While I'm not disbelieving you, the Teralyst achievement isn't the greatest example of what you're trying to prove.  While there's probably a correlation between newness and not having tangoed with a Teralyst, there's also the limitation of computer specs to consider. Regular Warframe missions are playable on a laptop and/or with Intel graphics. Free Roam maps are not.

While the numbers aren’t really that accurate (because there are console and non steam users and also potato users), that gives you a perspective that the hardcore gamers are the minority in the warframe community. everytime I went to solo capture the three eidolons during a non trido bounty run at night time (I opened it at public on purpose) when I check other squad members most of them never captured the terralyst or never done a trido once (a lot of them are high MR players!). 

Another way to open new metas without the need of nerfing existing ones is to remove status immunity from bosses but add resistance to them instead. Allowing status weapons to have a place in the meta.

[MJ12]

7 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

No, that sounds refreshingly sane. 🙂

We really need DE to pick an official max level and stick to that. The unofficial estimate is 100 or so, but it needs to be an official cutoff.

"Anything above level X is infinitely scaled and not balanced for. Frames and weapons are balanced to be able to beat level X with some moderate challenge."

I'd agree level 35 is too low, but how "strong" an enemy seems is directly related to how strong players actually are. If standard content only goes up to 100 then managing to beat level 200 enemies should be an incredibly impressive feat and exercise of skill... Not something players can casually breeze through up to 9999 given the right build(s). There's no reason players should have to wait hours for difficult content.

I don't think that's quite what "the game isn't balanced to scale at this level" means. It means that if a specific strategy can, say, survive at level 9999 indefinitely, DE doesn't care, so long as it isn't overwhelming or underwhelming in lv100 content. The idea of a hard max level where equipment is intended to be balanced would suggest that something like Fatal Teleport Ash wouldn't be considered "overpowered" because the environment where he starts to drastically outclass other Warframes (lv9999 content, where Covert Lethality + Fatal Teleport means he can kill enemies, and Smokescreen means he can avoid being hit) isn't one DE cares about at all. It's a thing that exists, if you want to do silly buggers with it.

I think that DE should actually look at Musou games (or something like [PROTOTYPE]) for balancing ideas more than Bungie, given how every mission is supposed to be us murdering massive hordes. Straight up stop pretending that basic faction enemies are supposed to be anything more than loot pinatas with funny animations. Yes, in theory on the hardest difficulty mode a Marine in [PROTOTYPE] could kill you when you had full upgrades. If you stood still in front of him for a literal minute. And if you used any of your defensive powers like Shield or Armor, he would literally kill himself from the deflected bullets before he killed you. [PROTOTYPE 2] actually gave you a mid-game upgrade which made you literally immune to the attacks of roughly half of the basic enemies and rendered certain weapons on more dangerous enemies (like Blackhawks or tanks) ineffectual. The actual combat challenge came from the less numerous, non-chaff foes like tanks, Bradleys, helicopters, major Infected, supersoldiers and the like. These basic enemies largely existed because you only got resources (health and super charge) from consuming or killing enemies, and therefore they were the equivalent of health packs and super charge boosts.

I don't think Warframe needs nerfs because 'nerfs' suggests that only one thing is being targeted. I think it needs a significant rebalance regarding enemy scaling, the threat level distribution of various enemies, enemy variety, enemy complexity, and the like. You'd need to consider broad categories and roles for enemies from the word 'go' and build factions from the ground up to interact with the intended combat system.

[DiabolusUrsus]

1 hour ago, MJ12 said:

I don't think that's quite what "the game isn't balanced to scale at this level" means. It means that if a specific strategy can, say, survive at level 9999 indefinitely, DE doesn't care, so long as it isn't overwhelming or underwhelming in lv100 content.

By definition, if a build can survive at 9999 it is overwhelming at L100.

1 hour ago, MJ12 said:

The idea of a hard max level where equipment is intended to be balanced would suggest that something like Fatal Teleport Ash wouldn't be considered "overpowered" because the environment where he starts to drastically outclass other Warframes (lv9999 content, where Covert Lethality + Fatal Teleport means he can kill enemies, and Smokescreen means he can avoid being hit) isn't one DE cares about at all. It's a thing that exists, if you want to do silly buggers with it.

Covert Lethality is OP. Period. The fact that it automatically cannot be allowed to apply to anything not meant to be OHKO'd anyway should tell you something.

1 hour ago, MJ12 said:

I think that DE should actually look at Musou games (or something like [PROTOTYPE]) for balancing ideas more than Bungie, given how every mission is supposed to be us murdering massive hordes. Straight up stop pretending that basic faction enemies are supposed to be anything more than loot pinatas with funny animations. Yes, in theory on the hardest difficulty mode a Marine in [PROTOTYPE] could kill you when you had full upgrades. If you stood still in front of him for a literal minute. And if you used any of your defensive powers like Shield or Armor, he would literally kill himself from the deflected bullets before he killed you. [PROTOTYPE 2] actually gave you a mid-game upgrade which made you literally immune to the attacks of roughly half of the basic enemies and rendered certain weapons on more dangerous enemies (like Blackhawks or tanks) ineffectual. The actual combat challenge came from the less numerous, non-chaff foes like tanks, Bradleys, helicopters, major Infected, supersoldiers and the like. These basic enemies largely existed because you only got resources (health and super charge) from consuming or killing enemies, and therefore they were the equivalent of health packs and super charge boosts.

I largely agree with this. Note that I did not suggest DE should mirror Bungie's approach; just that nerfs were needed.

1 hour ago, MJ12 said:

I don't think Warframe needs nerfs because 'nerfs' suggests that only one thing is being targeted.

That's an oddly arbitrary definition of "nerfs." The only intrinsic meaning in the statement that Warframe needs nerfs is that

a) things are made weaker rather than stronger (nerfed) and

b) multiple nerfs occur.

Multiple nerfs can comprise a wide-scale rebalance, and as a whole player DPS needs to be scaled back for DE to have any hope of creating serious (non-mook) enemies.

DE COULD buff the EHP of every enemy in the game, but I think it would be better to narrow the progression gap to avoid deepening the divide between new and established players. It makes for a better matchmaking environment.

1 hour ago, MJ12 said:

I think it needs a significant rebalance regarding enemy scaling, the threat level distribution of various enemies, enemy variety, enemy complexity, and the like. You'd need to consider broad categories and roles for enemies from the word 'go' and build factions from the ground up to interact with the intended combat system.

Absolutely no disagreement from me on these points, but I still firmly believe sweeping nerfs are essential to establishing that degree of intention and substance. It's hard to build a nuanced combat dynamic when players can casually shut off the enemy AI at will.

[XenMaster]

On 2019-05-18 at 1:18 PM, Drivrius said:

A blanket Nerf to make existing content "challenging" is easily the best way to alienate a player base, new harder content is a better choice IMO.

 

You don't remove the tires on a car because it crosses the finish line too fast or with too little effort on the part of the driver, you make a longer race track or add more turns and elevations.

Like immune to damage other than Radiation...

[Tinklzs]

5 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

While the numbers aren’t really that accurate (because there are console and non steam users and also potato users), that gives you a perspective that the hardcore gamers are the minority in the warframe community. everytime I went to solo capture the three eidolons during a non trido bounty run at night time (I opened it at public on purpose) when I check other squad members most of them never captured the terralyst or never done a trido once (a lot of them are high MR players!). 

Another way to open new metas without the need of nerfing existing ones is to remove status immunity from bosses but add resistance to them instead. Allowing status weapons to have a place in the meta.

Can confirm - didn't do first tridolon run until mr 26 only did it due to nightwave challenge (and because my poor 660 at the time couldn't really handle it). 

 

49 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

By definition, if a build can survive at 9999 it is overwhelming at L100.

I would say that's because of how some frames are correctly balanced and scale indefinitely and others have hard caps/plateaus that they reach (some far sooner than others).

Saryn and Ash (off the top of my head) scale very well, I believe mag and octavia do as well.   That isn't a bad thing, but it is poor design to have some frames scale properly and others not so much.

52 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

largely agree with this. Note that I did not suggest DE should mirror Bungie's approach; just that nerfs were needed.

I agree with it as well (because of the different fighting that could happen with these mini-boss type enemies that shown up, changing the flow of play and adding new ways to fight enemies if you weaponized them (like helicopters).

53 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

DE COULD buff the EHP of every enemy in the game, but I think it would be better to narrow the progression gap to avoid deepening the divide between new and established players. It makes for a better matchmaking environment.

I personally think many enemy types that we fight need a bit of a rework, NOX's, hyena masters, etc. I feel they should be mini-bosses in a way (like bulldozers used to be in Payday The Heist).  Something like helicopters or tanks were in PROTOTYPE - not impossible to kill or even hard in most cases, but changing the flow of combat and requiring a slight bit more of thinking ability (depending on the moment).    

[Lakais]

These endgame balance discussions always seem to skirt around the issue that if ANY meaningful step is taken by DE, someone, a LOT of someones will be pissed off. In some way, EVERYONE will be inconvenienced by it regardless of where you sit on the nerf-spectrum. That's a tough cookie that everyone needs to munch down on. 

Secondly, meaningful balance changes have to be holistic. Meaning if you make content such as high level bosses more challenging or missions more complicated, the rewards have to match, if not by quality then quantity. But that means defining what is quantity and what is quality in reward definitions and where are they appropriate. You only need ONE blueprint for a weapon, you don't run a chance of getting a better Opticor if you build multiples but that's the way EVERY Looter-shooter operates. Arcanes are something you need multiple of but most everything else is a case of needing just ONE. And when you have that one thing, you lose purpose of playing that bit of content unless there is something rare there that needs you to run it a few hundred times. Both options here are bad for someone. 

And in cases you don't need just one, stockpiling is an equally big problem that has no solution that would please everyone. Why do you think DE keeps adding new resources? It's so vets actually play the content they make rather then just click three buttons in their menus to build the gear and level it up on Hydron/ESO or something without actually ever using said weapon. What causes the first part? Stockpiles. And the only bandaid workaround DE has to for it is adding in new resources that no one has. I sincerely wish that DE had started adding in resource caps a while back with new resources. They sort of tried it with Argon and it being a decaying material, but having a solid "20/20 Tellerium" or some other number that means you can build one or two things but you'll be needing to farm for it if you want the third thing. Maybe even a system similar to clan research material collection for some big, rare items needing you to pour in more resources then you can hold at any one time. Is this perfect? No, of course not. But at least I am spitballing an idea here. 

Finally, one issue with Warframe's longevity is that we don't have alts. The one thing that keeps people playing other MMORPGs for YEARS is because you have alternate classes and characters you must level up, each taking a considerably longer time then we with out frames and weapons. You run that high end content over and over not just to improve your current main character but to also beef up your alts so even if you have everything for your main, you still need more for those other toons. And as other classes and races have different mechanics that demands more time and effort to properly master, means that they have far greater longevity then Warframe with its frames. Again, this is a two way issue. In one way it's good we don't have alts as then our resources and loot (especially the super-rare one) isn't split of characters we might not enjoy. But that also means that the incentive that is in many MMO's to grind for stuff when you already have it is gone. 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Lakais

[(PSN)GbHaseo]

21 hours ago, Fallen77 said:

"What about doing like destiny ?"

*looks at destiny 1 and 2 S#&$storm*

How 'bout no ?

I mean, it may have storms, but it still gets tons of players. I think it's actually back to 1 million daily players.

Look at the start of this thread, ppl lost it over the nerfs, the Reddit was in disarray, 1 month later, the population grew, they announced new content. Reddit is back to being Reddit, and ppl are praising Bungie again.

I've seen it here too, various drama happens, ppl lose it, yet Warframe is still here. Melee 2.0, Movement 2.0, UI rework, Ember and Ash nerfs, Void_Glitch getting shut down kind of, DE lying about drop rates, the mods/GotL/Partners situations, etc... I can list 20 more times ppl spelled Doom! all over.

[Methanoid]

balancing endgame?  what endgame?

[DiabolusUrsus]

8 hours ago, Tinklzs said:

Oops; can't delete from mobile.

 

8 hours ago, Tinklzs said:

I would say that's because of how some frames are correctly balanced and scale indefinitely and others have hard caps/plateaus that they reach (some far sooner than others).

Saryn and Ash (off the top of my head) scale very well, I believe mag and octavia do as well.   That isn't a bad thing, but it is poor design to have some frames scale properly and others not so much.

While this isn't incorrect, I think it's important to go back and look at where all this "scaling" power came from.

Back circa U7/U8/U9 (thereabouts), players constantly asked for some sort of "scaling" to add to damage abilities because the only thing vets had to keep themselves entertained was Endless Defense (typically Infested). This was when Ancients still used a scaled-up Runner model. CC abilities scaled infinitely, they reasoned, so damage powers quickly became useless as wave count increased and enemy EHP ballooned. Frames like Ash with pure damage kits were quickly left in the dust next to Frost, etc. In short, players asked for scaling damage because they wanted their DPS frames to stay relevant in the only "end-game" available.

However, THIS WAS WRONG. Enemies scale infinitely not to provide infinite content but to force players out of endless missions. That means allowing players to scale on par with enemies undermines the whole point of infinite enemy scaling! Rather than ADD scaling to damage powers, DE should have STOPPED scaling on CC powers past a certain max level.

(e.g., past max level enemies start to accumulate duration-based resisance to CC effects, etc.)

This would have imposed a better "soft cap" to keep the game where damage powers could still be relevant and made stretching past the limit an actual accomplishment. By doing the opposite, DE has created the paradigm you just described, which in turn quickly eviscerates any attempts they make at "challenging" content. Well-scaling kits are game-breaking, plain and simple.

8 hours ago, Tinklzs said:

Snip

Yes, fully agree. To be perfectly clear, while I feel that Warframe needs sweeping and in may cases drastic nerfs to develop good gameplay... That does NOT mean I want Warframe to become "hard" or anything but casual for its default content.

I just want it to be balanced enough to be engaging in its own right and less dependent on its conditioned response loot system.

[White_Matter]

No, lol.

That is the opposite of progress. And a game like this should move forward. People enjoy rolling rivens, modding weapons/frames and seeing big numbers. Take that away from them and you'll completely destroy the chance of end game if it ever exists.

"Making everything weaker to make end game more challenging." Dumbest thing I've heard.

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by White_Matter

[844448]

22 minutes ago, White_Matter said:

No, lol.

That is the opposite of progress. And a game like this should move forward. People enjoy rolling rivens, modding weapons/frames and seeing big numbers. Take that away from them and you'll completely destroy the chance of end game if it ever exists.

"Making everything weaker to make end game more challenging." Dumbest thing I've heard.

 

Apparently it's something for bungie

[MJ12]

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

By definition, if a build can survive at 9999 it is overwhelming at L100.

Covert Lethality is OP. Period. The fact that it automatically cannot be allowed to apply to anything not meant to be OHKO'd anyway should tell you something.

Both of these are actually wrong, because I've run an invis/fatal teleport Ash with Covert Lethality. It is a viable build at all levels of content, but it is not overwhelming at L100 because he kills no faster than someone using a good weapon with decent aim. The only thing is that Covert Lethality Ash is almost as capable against Lv9999 enemies as he is at Lv100 because it becomes a very surreal DMC Heaven or Hell mode.  And plenty of games have powerful effects which aren't "OP" but don't apply to bosses, because bosses don't have to play by the rules of regular enemies so the argument that "it automatically cannot be allowed to apply to bosses should tell you something," and that "something" is that bosses are resistant to executions, as they typically are in games with stealth elements. Metal Gear Solid has neck breaking, which doesn't work in boss fights. I wouldn't go and say that neck breaks in MGS are OP.

But that's what "we aren't balancing the game with enemies higher than lv100 in mind" actually means. Not "we're going to nerf things which let you survive in that environment." It's "we literally don't care if you find an exploit that lets you deal with lv9999 enemies or whatever as long as that exploit doesn't affect normal gameplay in expected ranges, because it isn't our problem." What you want is for DE to balance the game with lv9999 in mind, the same way AI Wars devs balanced the game with 10/10 in mind. If DE considers being able to survive against extremely high level enemies a bug, that's still balancing the game with a certain difficulty level in mind. It's just that the balance is "doing this should be impossible."

Practically speaking, anyways, the benefit from balancing the game so lv9999 is actually impossible instead of effectively impossible (and not worth actually trying for) is nonexistent. The only reason you might conceivably do it is endless fissure reward scaling, and you could simply hard-stop that from being an issue by capping the bonuses at 20 relics opened or so. Worrying about whether this build can technically function at lv9999 and therefore players might spend eight hours in a Survival mission is a low priority at best given there's minimal reason to do so but bragging rights and I'd argue that the correct way to care about it is to ignore it unless the build is actually overpowered for regular content. You might 'break' said builds, but doing so should be an incidental effect of changes that occur as a result of balancing for other reasons, rather than intentional nerfs. For example, Wukong's Defy changes make him no longer viable for super-high-level missions. But those changes weren't done as a direct, intentional attempt to nerf super-high-level function, they were done to rebalance Wukong. In fact, the Defy changes are basically a net buff for normal gameplay.

This is just quibbling though, I don't think either of us actually care about what happens at lv9999, because it's basically irrelevant. I just don't think that even the minimal effort needed to close exploits that let you technically deal with lv9999 enemies is worthwhile because there's no reason to do that sort of content besides silly bragging rights.

16 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I largely agree with this. Note that I did not suggest DE should mirror Bungie's approach; just that nerfs were needed.

That's an oddly arbitrary definition of "nerfs." The only intrinsic meaning in the statement that Warframe needs nerfs is that

a) things are made weaker rather than stronger (nerfed) and

b) multiple nerfs occur.

Multiple nerfs can comprise a wide-scale rebalance, and as a whole player DPS needs to be scaled back for DE to have any hope of creating serious (non-mook) enemies.

DE COULD buff the EHP of every enemy in the game, but I think it would be better to narrow the progression gap to avoid deepening the divide between new and established players. It makes for a better matchmaking environment.

Absolutely no disagreement from me on these points, but I still firmly believe sweeping nerfs are essential to establishing that degree of intention and substance. It's hard to build a nuanced combat dynamic when players can casually shut off the enemy AI at will.

When you're literally rebuilding the core combat dynamic from the ground up, you could technically call it "nerfs" but given that "nerf" sounds bad and implies that all this is doing is reducing player power (when in fact you could argue that players post-rework are more powerful because you can kill more basic enemies more quickly and basic enemies are less effective against players) rather than changing how the combat system works on a fundamental level. 

A rebalance like this would be better talked about as a form "Combat 2.0" rather than significant wide-ranging nerfs simply for PR purposes.