Anyone else feel like the damage is too bloated?

[Seyv]

Like, how does a 300 total damage greatsword able to do 500,000 damage in red crits?
Isn't that a bit weird?

What if DE were to normalize the damage across the board?
Have a 300 total damage greatsword actually do an average of 300 damage per non-critical hit on a non-armored, non-shielded, non-special health enemy.
Enemy health scaled down to match the current difficulty and numbers.
I feel like it would be a good step with dealing with balance and difficulty in general.

Would make the bosses feel like actual bosses at the same time as well.
Look at Stalker. Should be an actual threat but dies in seconds.
Zanuka spawns and dies in milliseconds even.
WIth the damage as it is now, enemies either dies too fast, or sponges up damage too much that it's annoying (there is no middle ground tbh).
And the reason for that is that players are dealing millions of damage in mere seconds.
And bosses suffer because they are forced to have weird gimmicks or else they won't be able to keep up with players.

I'm a bit out of the loop, but it would be nice if DE is planning on changes about this.

[-Krism-]

The game works with waves of enemies thrown at your face, if you can't one-shot them, don't even bother

We need weapons that deal a crap ton of damage

[Seyv]

7 minutes ago, Xenox_Ilz-ot said:

The game works with waves of enemies thrown at your face, if you can't one-shot them, don't even bother

We need weapons that deal a crap ton of damage

Yeah, but I also said that scale enemy health based on the new non-bloated damage.
Normal mobs still die fast.

Bosses on the other hand, shouldn't die as fast as normal mobs.

[taiiat]

51 minutes ago, Seyv said:

Have a 300 total damage greatsword actually do an average of 300 damage per non-critical hit on a non-armored, non-shielded, non-special health enemy.

but it already does. you just added 7-8 Damage Mods to it so it deals more Damage.

52 minutes ago, Seyv said:

And bosses suffer because they are forced to have weird gimmicks or else they won't be able to keep up with players.

only because of how hard they try to be 'anti-meta', rather than making something fun to play, if you ask me.

[Lutesque]

1 hour ago, Xenox_Ilz-ot said:

The game works with waves of enemies thrown at your face, if you can't one-shot them, don't even bother

We need weapons that deal a crap ton of damage

+1

[Oldskinzz]

You're quite right that damage numbers are bloated. It's due to how different damage mods are calculated, which stack multiplicatively with each other. 

For instance raw damage mods increase both weapon base damage and that of elemental damage mods. Critical damage adds another layer of multiplication on both. And niche mods such as condition overload and faction mods multiply that yet again. 

So effectively a fully modded weapon deals at least several tens of times the damage of the original weapon. Enemy hp scales similarly to match this. And it's why some weapons without strong scaling stats such as crit and status don't scale well with increasing levels.

One could make the argument that this bloat could be prevented by changing the way damage mods are calculated, but that would require a complete overhaul of the damage and enemy scaling system. It's probably safe to say it's not a priority of DE right now.

[Seyv]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

but it already does. you just added 7-8 Damage Mods to it so it deals more Damage.

I wrote "total damage" in my original post. I think it's my fault that I didn't imply properly that I was talking about weapons with mods in them.
Even still, don't you think that the live numbers are a bit too much?

Why was there a need to stack damage sources multiplicatively in the first place? Why not just made it additive or something?
Mods that increase crit damage like five times, crit chances going over 100% and giving even more damage, mods that multiply damage from other mods, not to mention Vex Armor;
It's just damage x damage x damage x damage x... till you get billions of em.

And now the game is centered around bloated damage numbers.

---

26 minutes ago, Oldskinzz said:

That would require a complete overhaul of the damage and enemy scaling system. It's probably safe to say it's not a priority of DE right now.

Dangit. That's a little bit sad to hear.
I remember in a Devstream somewhere that Steve talked about doing something with the damage issue, but maybe I'm misremembering things.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Seyv

[Oldskinzz]

Oh i haven't been keeping up to date with DE's schedule of planned updates so that was just an assumption on my part.

There may be something released with Melee 3.0 since melee is the worst offender of bloated damage scaling. No telling when that will ever get released though other than Soon (if you've been following the other rather hilarious thread on this topic)😁

[Cubewano]

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

only because of how hard they try to be 'anti-meta', rather than making something fun to play, if you ask me.

i don't think one tapping bosses would be all that fun tbh, fast sure, but you can only run a game like a job so long before it just gets tedious

Edited July 28, 2019 by Cubewano

[Tinklzs]

3 hours ago, Seyv said:

Like, how does a 300 total damage greatsword able to do 500,000 damage in red crits?
Isn't that a bit weird?

What if DE were to normalize the damage across the board?
Have a 300 total damage greatsword actually do an average of 300 damage per non-critical hit on a non-armored, non-shielded, non-special health enemy.
Enemy health scaled down to match the current difficulty and numbers.
I feel like it would be a good step with dealing with balance and difficulty in general.

Would make the bosses feel like actual bosses at the same time as well.
Look at Stalker. Should be an actual threat but dies in seconds.
Zanuka spawns and dies in milliseconds even.
WIth the damage as it is now, enemies either dies too fast, or sponges up damage too much that it's annoying (there is no middle ground tbh).
And the reason for that is that players are dealing millions of damage in mere seconds.
And bosses suffer because they are forced to have weird gimmicks or else they won't be able to keep up with players.

I'm a bit out of the loop, but it would be nice if DE is planning on changes about this.

And also while they're at it make the leveling system have more continuity.

Level 30 frame, level 100 enemies.

But if you put forma on it, it's technically a prestige so.... 5 forma frame is now level 150? So our limit should be 160-175? Yet we can kill level 9000+ enemies. So it's kind of confusing, yeah.

[Tinklzs]

47 minutes ago, Seyv said:

I remember in a Devstream somewhere that Steve talked about doing something with the damage issue, but maybe I'm misremembering things.

You remember correctly, it's been mentioned a few times in another thread.

 

5 minutes ago, Cubewano said:

i don't think one tapping bosses would be all that fun tbh, fast sure, but you can only run a game like a job so long before you get tired of it

The Sergeant, Vor (and Corrupted Vor), Hyena Pack, Alad v (Now there are TWO things to shoot at!), Tyl Regor (with invincibility cycles, ugh).  

Just a damned shame we can't have better boss fights, we have super unique abilities and powers, our enemy "commanders" (bosses) use tech and the kitchen sink to fight us, and yet aren't a challenge. I wish we could have some interesting combo's or unique.. anything, to make the fights more memorable and feel like we're fighting a boss rather than just someone with either a little bit more health that can be one shot.. still (Sergeant, Corrupted Vor, Alad V etc) or have invincibility timers and 'phases' because we're so powerful (Tyl Regor, Lt. Krehil etc.).

 

[taiiat]

50 minutes ago, Seyv said:

Even still, don't you think that the live numbers are a bit too much?

well, since you were talking about a Melee Weapon, that's..... mainly because of just Blood Rush and Condition Overload. that's basically the entire problem right there.

51 minutes ago, Seyv said:

Why was there a need to stack damage sources multiplicatively in the first place? Why not just made it additive or something?
Mods that increase crit damage like five times, crit chances going over 100% and giving even more damage, mods that multiply damage from other mods, not to mention Vex Armor;
It's just damage x damage x damage x damage x... till you get billions of em.

need? isn't a need technically but Mods being able to make a noticeable impact to your end result is just fine. as most of them aren't huge Multipliers on their own and for all the rest of the Mods(still thinking about Melee since that was your case example) while they could be weakened, the Damage Output without those problematic Mods using broken math is pretty much just fine.
_{(also i prefer some of the stronger linearly scaling options over Vex Armor since they're more effective, but i digress)}

 

5 minutes ago, Cubewano said:

i don't think one tapping bosses would be all that fun tbh, fast sure, but you can only run a game like a job so long before you get tired of it

that just means that the Boss wasn't made particularly well.
if it's a "Boss" because of having a long Health Bar or because you have to stand around and wait for a button, both of those are terrible Bosses.

a good Boss focuses more on mechanics and execution, while having a little bit of the other things but not focusing on them.
the game could offer these things, but Digital Extremes only things 'anti-meta' as the solution to everything and every. single. time. they themselves create that 'meta' that they say they don't want by being so 'anti-meta' in the first place.

[Cubewano]

1 minute ago, Tinklzs said:

The Sergeant, Vor (and Corrupted Vor), Hyena Pack, Alad v (Now there are TWO things to shoot at!), Tyl Regor (with invincibility cycles, ugh).  

Just a damned shame we can't have better boss fights, we have super unique abilities and powers, our enemy "commanders" (bosses) use tech and the kitchen sink to fight us, and yet aren't a challenge. I wish we could have some interesting combo's or unique.. anything, to make the fights more memorable and feel like we're fighting a boss rather than just someone with either a little bit more health that can be one shot.. still (Sergeant, Corrupted Vor, Alad V etc) or have invincibility timers and 'phases' because we're so powerful (Tyl Regor, Lt. Krehil etc.).

 

I agree, it is a shame we've more or less boxed ourselves in with our options for boss fight designs due to the games current state of balance, and I would love more ability involvement in fights, unfortunately so long as we remain as busted as we are that isn't all that realistic of an option I feel. 

[Cubewano]

3 minutes ago, taiiat said:

that just means that the Boss wasn't made particularly well.
if it's a "Boss" because of having a long Health Bar or because you have to stand around and wait for a button, both of those are terrible Bosses.

a good Boss focuses more on mechanics and execution, while having a little bit of the other things but not focusing on them.
the game could offer these things, but Digital Extremes only things 'anti-meta' as the solution to everything and every. single. time. they themselves create that 'meta' that they say they don't want by being so 'anti-meta' in the first place.

Is that not what recent bosses have done? Eidolons, Orb Mothers, the Ropalolyst, they all are more mechanically driven fights whose duration is more tied to practical play and knowledge of combat, as was even Kela. Of course restrictions had to be made on abilities to let those systems work since with abilities we would just instantly delete/disable them, but I'm not seeing your point about bosses just being big bullet sponges you sit around on or how ability inclusion would improve that. Do you think Eidolons would be more mechanical if you could press 4 and peacemaker them to death in several seconds? If you could perma juggle them with bastilles? Where's that presumed head of yours at with this? 

Understand I'm not saying boss design in Warframe is the best, our current balance really limits options, but it is definitely better for the exclusion of abilities (more so busted meta frames) under their current state. 

[Aldain]

It is kinda nuts...I mean condition overload causes numbers you'd see in a Korean F2P MMO to explode from enemies.

[Lutesque]

1 hour ago, Cubewano said:

i don't think one tapping bosses would be all that fun tbh, fast sure, but you can only run a game like a job so long before it just gets tedious

The assumption here is that if Boss Fights last longer then they would be more fun....

[Tinklzs]

39 minutes ago, Cubewano said:

Is that not what recent bosses have done? Eidolons, Orb Mothers, the Ropalolyst, they all are more mechanically driven fights whose duration is more tied to practical play and knowledge of combat, as was even Kela. Of course restrictions had to be made on abilities to let those systems work since with abilities we would just instantly delete/disable them, but I'm not seeing your point about bosses just being big bullet sponges you sit around on or how ability inclusion would improve that. Do you think Eidolons would be more mechanical if you could press 4 and peacemaker them to death in several seconds? If you could perma juggle them with bastilles? Where's that presumed head of yours at with this? 

Understand I'm not saying boss design in Warframe is the best, our current balance really limits options, but it is definitely better for the exclusion of abilities (more so busted meta frames) under their current state. 

I think Eidolons and the orb fights are the way I'd prefer fights to be than invincibility or ability immunity.

Profit-Taker is okay, I can see why it's not a liked fight, but you can get most (if not all) of the elements to solo it, so groupplay is quite easy for PT. 

Exploiter-Orb is a nice twist on the orb fights, but I'd argue it's also boring and slow. It's doing the same monotonous thing over and over, I think it should've had a few other simple mechanics and maybe an additional attack that forces parkour (besides her ice attack in phase 1).

Eidolons are simple, the first real step DE took in a new direction for a different boss fight, and while simple - are fairly good and satisfying to kill. I'm okay with them being how they are. 

I just want all the other boss fights to be looked at to actually kind of feel like bosses. They don't need to deal one shot damage or have a billion health but something unique and challenging about them.

Like Alad V + Zanuka. Have zanny run around and climb/grapple onto pillars around the room, trying to range attack (rockets) the tenno and grapple onto one and deal some major damage (like a manic). When Alad is down, zanny comes to his aid as per usual.  Alad could have some mobility (think those roller skater corpus, Comba/Scrambus), to make him harder to hit and maybe even roller skate on the walls? (Which could be added to comba/scrambus to fill the void for those mobility I'd like some enemies to have.. DE). 

 

Just an example, but I think it could work, at the very least it would make them harder to hit, which is how it should be. Yes, we're all powerful Demi-Gods and can spank anyone, but the NAMED individuals we're fighting (Regor, Hek, Vor, Alad V etc) should pose a challenge to us, and while maybe not equal, should be at least 70-80% of what we are, just in a different capacity. It doesn't need to be raw power and health vs raw power and health. It could be Power vs mobility or any combo of things.

[Cubewano]

43 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

The assumption here is that if Boss Fights last longer then they would be more fun....

Last longer than a second, and more than a single attack, yes, and I think that assumption is fairly reasonable. 

Edited July 28, 2019 by Cubewano

[Cubewano]

31 minutes ago, Tinklzs said:

I think Eidolons and the orb fights are the way I'd prefer fights to be than invincibility or ability immunity.

Profit-Taker is okay, I can see why it's not a liked fight, but you can get most (if not all) of the elements to solo it, so groupplay is quite easy for PT. 

Exploiter-Orb is a nice twist on the orb fights, but I'd argue it's also boring and slow. It's doing the same monotonous thing over and over, I think it should've had a few other simple mechanics and maybe an additional attack that forces parkour (besides her ice attack in phase 1).

Eidolons are simple, the first real step DE took in a new direction for a different boss fight, and while simple - are fairly good and satisfying to kill. I'm okay with them being how they are. 

I just want all the other boss fights to be looked at to actually kind of feel like bosses. They don't need to deal one shot damage or have a billion health but something unique and challenging about them.

Like Alad V + Zanuka. Have zanny run around and climb/grapple onto pillars around the room, trying to range attack (rockets) the tenno and grapple onto one and deal some major damage (like a manic). When Alad is down, zanny comes to his aid as per usual.  Alad could have some mobility (think those roller skater corpus, Comba/Scrambus), to make him harder to hit and maybe even roller skate on the walls? (Which could be added to comba/scrambus to fill the void for those mobility I'd like some enemies to have.. DE). 

 

Just an example, but I think it could work, at the very least it would make them harder to hit, which is how it should be. Yes, we're all powerful Demi-Gods and can spank anyone, but the NAMED individuals we're fighting (Regor, Hek, Vor, Alad V etc) should pose a challenge to us, and while maybe not equal, should be at least 70-80% of what we are, just in a different capacity. It doesn't need to be raw power and health vs raw power and health. It could be Power vs mobility or any combo of things.

but...they do have invincibility portions and ability immunity? it's like an extremely key part of what makes them as involved as they are and not instant one shots, which is sort of my entire point, without those exceptions they wouldn't be half the fight they currently are if even that, and they'd just wind up as flashier insta-big fodder. 

Edited July 28, 2019 by Cubewano

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, Cubewano said:

Is that not what recent bosses have done? Eidolons, Orb Mothers, the Ropalolyst, they all are more mechanically driven fights whose duration is more tied to practical play and knowledge of combat

uhhh, Eidolons i would say yes. Spiders sooooooooooorta? unlike Eidolons though, Profit-Taker is basically a binary situation. either an Organized Squad that adjusted their Mods ahead of time, or didn't. it doesn't scale smoothly with the knowledge and effort you put in, perse.
Exploiter just lies to us, it's just a Cutsene in disguise. it literally plays itself, you're just there to look at it (fight progress in stage 2 is..... automatic, determined more by a Timer rather than what you do). it starts going somewhere but then it kinda falls apart by 95% of Abilities having no usewhatsoever (talk about forcing a 'meta'), or just stacking EHP like everything else. it looks cool but it was somewhat underwhelming. 10/10 voice lines, though.

the ropalapalapa...... is just a Zelda cutscene. Zorah Magdaros is more fun than that, and that isn't even an Enemy. 

 

so basically, the pieces that do well here, is...

• exploiter had a good idea of making some unique mechanics (though dropped the ball after that).
• Eidolons are successful at rewarding Players for putting in effort and knowledge, directly rewarding them in performance. which, isn't a tangible thing so it doesn't disrupt Mission Rewards to reward effort.
• Profit-Taker remembered that having some Trash Units around is nice to have in Warframe, an empty room means that some Abilities can't really be used and when you do have those Enemies to give some extra pressure, the number of viable choices goes up. neat!

those are the major pieces with each of these things that is successful, IMO. if those pieces were put together there could be something pretty nice.

1 hour ago, Cubewano said:

Do you think Eidolons would be more mechanical if you could press 4 and peacemaker them to death in several seconds? If you could perma juggle them with bastilles?

Abilities don't need to have the same results on Bosses. there's a difference between Bosses being immune to Abilities flat out, and resistant like Solar Map Bosses. Bosses could even be affected by Abilities differently - and still provide something useful for the engagement. preferably not just suddenly changing the rules (as consistent rules is a very important part of Video Games, rules should be consistent).

 

reinforcing the 'meta' that Digital Extremes is trying to force on the game (full EHP 'meta' becuse everything else is getting deleted from the game, basically) is not making any of the content more compelling. all it does is make sure that the content hits whatever timegate that Digital Extremes has decided there should be. so that way you're there for a pre-determined amount of time, every time. sooo..... you're just there to wait for the clock.

i can't ever say it enough times - restricting what Players are allowed to use, is exactly what creates the 'metas' in the first place. Digital Extremes is causing the exact problem they're trying to 'solve'.

[Cubewano]

3 minutes ago, taiiat said:

uhhh, Eidolons i would say yes. Spiders sooooooooooorta? unlike Eidolons though, Profit-Taker is basically a binary situation. either an Organized Squad that adjusted their Mods ahead of time, or didn't. it doesn't scale smoothly with the knowledge and effort you put in, perse.
Exploiter just lies to us, it's just a Cutsene in disguise. it literally plays itself, you're just there to look at it (fight progress in stage 2 is..... automatic, determined more by a Timer rather than what you do). it starts going somewhere but then it kinda falls apart by 95% of Abilities having no usewhatsoever (talk about forcing a 'meta'), or just stacking EHP like everything else. it looks cool but it was somewhat underwhelming. 10/10 voice lines, though.

the ropalapalapa...... is just a Zelda cutscene. Zorah Magdaros is more fun than that, and that isn't even an Enemy. 

 

so basically, the pieces that do well here, is...

• exploiter had a good idea of making some unique mechanics (though dropped the ball after that).
• Eidolons are successful at rewarding Players for putting in effort and knowledge, directly rewarding them in performance. which, isn't a tangible thing so it doesn't disrupt Mission Rewards to reward effort.
• Profit-Taker remembered that having some Trash Units around is nice to have in Warframe, an empty room means that some Abilities can't really be used and when you do have those Enemies to give some extra pressure, the number of viable choices goes up. neat!

those are the major pieces with each of these things that is successful, IMO. if those pieces were put together there could be something pretty nice.

Abilities don't need to have the same results on Bosses. there's a difference between Bosses being immune to Abilities flat out, and resistant like Solar Map Bosses. Bosses could even be affected by Abilities differently - and still provide something useful for the engagement. preferably not just suddenly changing the rules (as consistent rules is a very important part of Video Games, rules should be consistent).

 

reinforcing the 'meta' that Digital Extremes is trying to force on the game (full EHP 'meta' becuse everything else is getting deleted from the game, basically) is not making any of the content more compelling. all it does is make sure that the content hits whatever timegate that Digital Extremes has decided there should be. so that way you're there for a pre-determined amount of time, every time. sooo..... you're just there to wait for the clock.

i can't ever say it enough times - restricting what Players are allowed to use, is exactly what creates the 'metas' in the first place. Digital Extremes is causing the exact problem they're trying to 'solve'.

You can preplan your arsenal and elemental distribution to cover near all elemental weaknesses, so I wouldn't call it very reliant on an organized squad. I can solo carry groups in a handful of minutes through a profit fight, it is entirely a matter of utilizing your own tools and knowledge of the fight, and when you do so it winds up fairly easy imo. 

As for Exploiter, it relies on the entire cannister system and overheating to combat, that's mechanics, yes there is a cutscene as well several times for some flash (apparently to make us still feel our power fantasy without one shotting it) but it's a nuanced fight all the same. 

Same with the Ropalolyst, it's the simplest of the bunch sure, but it utilizes operator shield depletion, with maneuvering so you can redirect its attacks, timed map activations, etc, it's a mechanic based boss fight. 

And what do all those fights have in common? Stages of invincibility, and a large dose of ability immunity. And what would happen without those? They'd likely die instantly and all these mechanics would be completely circumvented / made irrelevant. 

Making ability interactions from frames to bosses unique to traditional interactions I won't say is a bad idea in theory, but balancing that across all bosses, delivering to players what those differences all are, and just the sheer feat of making these unique interactions, over a very large (and constantly growing roster) of abilities doesn't seem like a feasible solution. Not to mention how sizable those shifts would have to be given our current ceiling of power. DE tried diminishing returns at one point and apparently that failed to achieve the kind of experience they were looking for, but I'm just not confident how well or realistically obtainable it would be to make more or less custom ability interactions for bosses, or how well that would actually balanced with the scope of boss interactions DE might want.

Recent boss fights have been a decent improvement from older boss fights in my experience/opinion, even amidst their immunities, sure they take longer but I don't really care so long as they're interesting. I'd rather a fight with Eidolons or Profit taker that keeps me on my toes and involved, that someone like Alad V who I curb stomp in half a second then move on with, if that comes at those cost of me not being all supreme with a meta frame so be it, I'll gladly take that trade. 

And I can only strongly disagree here, metas are a result of imbalanced tools, no amount of freedom is going to end them and you are lying to yourself if you think otherwise. Metas existed long before this design direction began, and wouldn't go anywhere with its removal. 

[taiiat]

18 minutes ago, Cubewano said:

You can preplan your arsenal and elemental distribution to cover near all elemental weaknesses, so I wouldn't call it very reliant on an organized squad.

you're missing the point. it's about being able to put in more effort and whether you get more out of the content by doing so. you hit a 'wall' pretty quickly yourself as a Player and the only way to go past that is adding organized Players that will be taking Damage Types you didn't and everyone sharing Damage Buffs that the others didn't bring.

18 minutes ago, Cubewano said:

As for Exploiter, it relies on the entire cannister system and overheating to combat, that's mechanics, yes there is a cutscene as well several times for some flash (apparently to make us still feel our power fantasy without one shotting it) but it's a nuanced fight all the same. 

you're again missing the point. stage 1 is alright, but stage 2 is literally just a Timer. everything that you do in stage 2 means nothing, you're just being kept busy while a Timer ticks along.
the only extra effort you can put in, is having extra Players so that some people can be dedicated to beyblading around or standing on a hill sniping to Kill the Coolant Raknoids, while someone else throws a Canister on the Spider once in a while. and that can offer potentially better performance, but it's determined more by the existence of more Players, rather than what the Players do.

18 minutes ago, Cubewano said:

Same with the Ropalolyst, it's the simplest of the bunch sure, but it utilizes operator shield depletion, with maneuvering so you can redirect its attacks, timed map activations, etc, it's a mechanic based boss fight. 

ropalapalapa isn't... really mechanics based. you hold W and walk to a few points on the map, stand around and wait, then interact with it and hold W. stage 2, is click on it once or twice and then press a button.

that's the entire fight.

 

18 minutes ago, Cubewano said:

And what do all those fights have in common? Stages of invincibility, and a large dose of ability immunity. And what would happen without those? They'd likely die instantly and all these mechanics would be completely circumvented / made irrelevant. 

 

And I can only strongly disagree here, metas are a result of imbalanced tools, no amount of freedom is going to end them and you are lying to yourself if you think otherwise. Metas existed long before this design direction began, and wouldn't go anywhere with its removal. 

Eidolons aren't really ever invulnerable except right before the last phase. at every time before that you can always be attacking it (i don't consider the few seconds of the Magnetic Pulses to really count here, it's just a few seconds)
the rest aren't quite as nice there though.

but being immune to most Abilities isn't making these Enemies better, because that forces Players to use whatever Abilities that they aren't immune to. 

 

that's nonsense. removing all of the choices Players have literally IS a 'meta' itself. perhaps you're forgetting what the definition of the term is. you can't get Equipment diversity when you prevent anyone..... having any diversity.
which is why Eidolons and Profit-Taker are still ok, because while they are immune to a lot of Abilities, atleast there are still some that we can use and that does leave SOME variety choices left. but since those Bosses, Bosses since then have only doubled down on restricting choices. it's fully impossible to 'stop the meta' by restricting choices. it is however, possible while difficult to do so when not restricting choices. one is a cloudy road sure, but the alternative that the game is taking recently instead, is a very clear road. but it's not a road that goes anywhere, it's just a cliff.

Edited July 28, 2019 by taiiat

[Tinklzs]

1 hour ago, Cubewano said:

but...they do have invincibility portions and ability immunity? it's like an extremely key part of what makes them as involved as they are and not instant one shots, which is sort of my entire point, without those exceptions they wouldn't be half the fight they currently are if even that, and they'd just wind up as flashier insta-big fodder. 

Whiiiiiiiiiiiich is why we need to have our damage scaled down a BIT and in turn that gives more wiggle room for DE to redesign some boss fights and enemy types to be more interesting than "oh.. that one takes ONE + more shot to kill".   We can still be powerful, and have some balanced fun at the same time.

 

[RX-3DR]

Just divide down all the damage mods by 2 and get rid of multishot as a exponential multiplier and balance the enemies around that after. All big numbers do is complicate balancing. Using the average between 100% and 1000% as a benchmark means 100% is useless and 1000% breaks the game.

If this was your standard RPG where you go from level 0 to 1000, it can exist without causing too many problems but because this is a game where progression is tied to customization, having the benchmark revolve around bigger and bigger numbers just means making the requirement to get to those numbers mandatory like with Damage and Multishot.

Edited July 28, 2019 by RX-3DR

[Cubewano]

35 minutes ago, Tinklzs said:

Whiiiiiiiiiiiich is why we need to have our damage scaled down a BIT and in turn that gives more wiggle room for DE to redesign some boss fights and enemy types to be more interesting than "oh.. that one takes ONE + more shot to kill".   We can still be powerful, and have some balanced fun at the same time.

 

It'd probably take more than a bit, maybe even the redesign of some abilities, but agreed. We could use some downward tuning for sake of a more pleasant general gameplay experience.