Balance Requires a Damage Ceiling

[Arcira]

I think damage ceiling results in stagnation at some point. Sure there is the collecting aspect but I doubt it will be very motivating in the long term. In it´s core warframe is a looter shoot which means you are fighting in order to become stronger.

The thing warframe needs in my opinion is a sustainable infinite scaling system. Unless they want to implement constant mission and campaign updates and turn warframe into a story driven game I don´t see how they want to keep players engaged.

[zekkzekk]

2 hours ago, 000l000 said:

Crit weapons on the other hand, and that's why i don't agree with you, have infinite scaling - which means that with enough starting critical chance and the right gearing - in the end are dealing insane damages no matters what.

They don't have infinite scaling. Even in a vacuum where the instance of critical damage is to a resistance type that is neutral or even positive there is a mathematically calculateable plateau. That means finite.

 

2 hours ago, 000l000 said:

No one cares about slash or anything, there's absolutely no full status slash weapon in the entire game that can compete with a full red crit. build with Hunter munitions. Even tons of dots won't do much if they aren't critical hits - and they'll even suck more if not past reds.

Slash procs ignore all resistances and do true damage. Saying people don't care about slash damage is nonfactual and malicious to anyone who doesn't know about it. Crit weapons rarely have the benefit of a high enough status chance to produce both slash and viral procs necessary to receive the benefits of both critical hits' burst damage and the sustained damage from status procs. Critical hits are the best tool for burst damage, this is indisputable. Status procs not having purpose also is indisputable.

 

2 hours ago, 000l000 said:

What doesn't make sense is that WF crit mechanics is infinitely scaling, there's no ceiling at all and it goes up and up and up until it's damn broken. Why do you think that most people are going for critical based kitguns, critical Zaws along with anything that can buff them through combo ? Blood rush alone shows how critical isn't well balanced along once you reach 3x or 4x combo.

Kitguns and all other firearm weapons in this game for that matter are hard limited to how much modification in critical hits they can be equipped with. There isn't any infinite scaling because players are locked to eight total slots for mods and not all of them can be filled by critical hit enhancing mods. The ceiling to critical hits is the fact that for any firearm type there are at most three mods that increase critical hit chance and critical hit damage. Even in the event that a player stacks these bonuses there's absolutely no reason to punish the player for doing so. Hitting 2,147,483,647 damage isn't ruining the experiences of anyone because doing so in a public mission is so improbable it's impossible. A single player cannot achieve that number of damage alone. This means that whenever someone does this they're doing so as a team.

Zaws and melee weapons as a whole. Bloodrush isn't a problematic mod. Melee weapons are capable of out dpsing firearms after a massive and tedious gameplay investment. It's technically possible for a Gram Prime to reach 1,000,000+ dps after maintaining 3x Berserker stacks, a 4x combo (this is the first dream killer), last and most crucially 6 status effects on a target for Condition Overload to benefit from. Here's the ultimate reason why a melee weapon being capable of doing that much damage per second is impractical; you have to be in melee range with everything you're killing. This would most likely be infeasible if your proposed diminishing returns on crowdcontrol were to be adopted. Your warframe will die faster than you get set up the situation where the stars have aligned to grant your melee weapon with over one million damage per second.

 

2 hours ago, 000l000 said:

I don't mind some better critical mechanics but in most games you don't have that. You deal a critical or you don't. Here once you can get past the red crit. thread, game is basically broken. I never said diminishing return would solve this but as OP said, no ceiling in any kind of game means there's no balance at all.

Having crit-tiers is what many people who have sunk their time and brains into understanding this game's damage system enjoy. It makes warframe unique because not many other games have allowed for players to have and answer to the question, "what happens when all my attack are crits and my crit chance is over 100%?". The answer being, "Your crits can crit."

This game has balance. Saying otherwise is a lie and at minimum hyperbole. Warframe's balance comes from enemies being a high enough level the players are overwhelmed and thus loose. Any player hitting the 32bit integer limit most likely isn't doing so in an aoe. They're susceptible to all of the variables that would cause them to die and fail the mission. The game will eventually win when the player pushes deep enough.

 

2 hours ago, 000l000 said:

Just get a Synpase with HM and a riven with critical, gear it on a Nidus with Teeming Virulence augment along with an Adarza and some avenger arcane. That's quite common stuff and see how no damage ceiling is working fine atm.

Critical is damn broken, status on the other hand isn't scaling at all, physical and elemental damages aren't consistent at all, armor scaling isn't working either, and two factions don't even have viable defense mechanics (shield & health). Tbh the whole damage system needs some serious overhaul, lack of balance is real.

Your kavat will die early in the mission. Stacking bonuses to critical hit chance is not a crime.

Status is scaling in the fact that is actually descales enemies better than critical hits ever will. Status effects actively debuff enemies resistances making them weaker and less scaled up than they would otherwise be naturally.

Elemental damage is often an additive of base physical damage which can and often does surpass 100% of base physical damage on a weapon. This inconsistency is planned and working as intended. Armor scaling is working fine. The one problem is that it is capable of surpassing 90% damage reduction meaning that an armored target at a high enough level is capable of having more damage reduction than what is supplied as a buff from Eximus and Infested Ancients. Corpus and Infested both have Eximus types which grant 50% damage resistance. Those Eximus types being; Blitz, Energy Leech/Parasitic, Arson/Caustic, Guardian, Arctic, Leech/Sanguine, Shock, and Venomous. Those are viable defense mechanics. The Infested have ancient healers which will project an aura which grants 90% damage reduction, status and knockdown immunity to all Infested units under the aura. That aura stacks with Eximus effects.

The damage system as a whole doesn't need an overhaul, you need to spend more time studying it. The game provides many options to addressing the obstacles you will encounter in gameplay.

Radiation statuses will dispel the aura. " An Ancient under the effects of Confusion will turn hostile to nearby units and stop applying its mitigation aura for the duration of the proc. This in turn prevents the Healer from generating health through allies, and makes said allies more vulnerable. "

... Please stop talking about this like as if you're a knowledgeable authority.

[ikkabotz]

Another conversation on modifying the combat yet again. Don't hold your breath. Development has done nothing but ignore the problem beyond writing it down as a whiteboard topic and the community carebears get triggered with any idea of change. This game has been pandering to a lame "safe space" strawberry donut audience for ages now. If you can't play with one hand and the other eating a donut your idea must be terrible. The resistance to any needed change in this game for long term health and improvement is baffling. 

Edited August 20, 2019 by ikkabotz

[(XBOX)GodMasterTP]

Warframe is a game like Diablo, in the way that you're doing what you're doing to get stronger and kill things faster. "Enjoying" the content usually is not part of the fun. 

If you're not getting this concept, maybe Warframe is not the game for you. Not trying to be rude or anything, but a lot of people seem to misunderstand whats the proposal of this game, just like they do with Diablo.

[George_PPS]

1 hour ago, ikkabotz said:

Another conversation on modifying the combat yet again. Don't hold your breath. Development has done nothing but ignore the problem beyond writing it down as a whiteboard topic and the community carebears get triggered with any idea of change. This game has been pandering to a lame "safe space" strawberry donut audience for ages now. If you can't play with one hand and the other eating a donut your idea must be terrible. The resistance to any needed change in this game for long term health and improvement is baffling. 

Everyone certainly welcomes changes if it’s positive. For Warframe, it is NOT damage ceiling. We and 99% players play this game to enjoy the amazing abilities of Warframes and their great and all powerful weapons. Why would anyone want a cap on how much they can damage? This proposal is suicidal to the game. This game is not just for power spoiled MR27 veterans like me, you or the OP. It’s for all. If a damage ceiling is implemented, there will be a riot among many players and many new players will quit.

If a player has reached total end game, done all Quests, MR27, owns all weapons/warframes, has done more than 1000 sets of Eidolon captures under the belt and wants to enjoy the early game feeling, the player can always equip just 7 Mods and no Rivens in all loadouts. No one is stopping anyone from doing that. 

PLEASE STOP talking about nerfing others gears, dispositions, or this non-sense trash talk about damage cap. We need more good buffs and more damage. That’s progress. 

Edited August 20, 2019 by George_PPS

[Duduminador]

On 2019-08-09 at 2:39 PM, Jareson said:

On the flip side, looking at the general feedback area, it seems like my request is not alone.

There is also a S#&$ ton of people (raises hand) who simply got sick tired of stating how much new content will get washed off by the meta, and... we simply stopped doing it. Doesn't mean that we changed our oppinions at all, we just got sick of trying to voice it.

I used to say this long before PoE even droped: "People are just gonna run ahead of the team with the biggest aoe they can, like they do everywhere else" and it got so much worse since then...

Key problem imo is scaling. Buffing other weapons aint gonna solve anything, nor buffing mobs. It's literaly ONLY GOING TO MAKE IT WORSE. Because, well, scaling. I don't understand how can people look at frames that can do over 10x the damage of another and think that's ok. Meanwhile on other games a character with 30% dmg above the others is considered a dps or carry.
Also, buffing older mods/abilities/mobs has been done long enough to prove it's not helping.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Duduminador

[zekkzekk]

5 hours ago, Duduminador said:

Buffing other weapons aint gonna solve anything, nor buffing mobs.

I don't think you understand how Warframe and other RPGs function. As a player increases in power output their opposing enemies do too to ensure that the core gameplay loop doesn't become lopsided in any direction on the spectrum of "too easy" or "too challenging".

Buffing mobs, through giving players the ability to choose what level they start spawning at during a mission, is undeniably the fastest applicable solution to addressing the problem armchair developers all over the forums and subreddit claim is killing the game; powercreep.

Let's reestablish this principle for this conversation. Powercreep is a mandatory feature of RPGs and without it the game will eventually become a bore as players reach the plateau of itemization. Without Powercreep a maximum in player power output is hard established and once reached all progression by the player ceases to be vertical and instead abruptly transitions to be lateral. This is catastrophic where the game's macro philosophy is, "get strong at all costs." becomes "change everything about yourself in a moment's notice to counter what you're currently fighting.". RPGs with lateral progression itemization are dress up color matching games with extra steps. Here's an analogical example.

You're playing an RPG and have spent tens of hours progressing through the story and just before you can fight the boss that rewards the "The End" cutscene your character's power has reached its general maximum with the only possibility to be more efficient is to play around a zone's monsters' weaknesses. This means using Water elemental stuff against Fire monsters, and Earth elemental stuff against Air. But you don't have any of that stuff because you've never been encountering these elemental monsters during the early game. Now you've got to go through and collect full sets of gear from all the different elemental types to use as counters because without doing so you're stuck doing the same amount of damage to all the elemental monsters with zero room to improve. The RPG you've spent hours playing trying to get stronger and better than you were last play session has come to a screeching halt forcing you to either accept that you're at the highest possible field or start specializing. This goes against core RPG principles that have existed longer than many of the people who are registered to this forum have been alive.

Let's take a look back at warframe and what's gone wrong. A player spends tens of hours completing the starchart junctions and quests. After they've unlocked Mot in the fourth leg of The Void they're more than ready to participate in Sortie and Elite Sanctuary Onslaught. These game modes cap out at enemy levels of 120. That's assuming Sortie mission three is an endless mission where the players still have the ability to control when the extraction happens. Most would be endless mission types as sorties autocomplete once the criteria is met. Elite Onslaught has extreme efficiency diminishing returns preventing public squads from surpassing zone 8. Warframe doesn't allow players to easily access missions with enemy levels that provide mathematical balance to their built loadouts. There are a few options for players to access enemies levels 120+; go to the simulacrum (which is by far the most popular because it's fastest.), Play in the fourth leg of The Void (because t4 enemies have damage and effective health multipliers.), last and least popularly a player can spend hours in an endless mission of their chosen tileset patiently waiting for enemies to scale in level to eventually provide a mathematical challenge.

[AkyFenrir]

Le 09/08/2019 à 19:20, Jareson a dit :

Yeah I don't really like the idea of limiting players in how much damage they are able to do, but Warframe definitely takes this to a new degree and it, honestly, has made pubs a worse experience for me in new content. I tend to go into pubs with a more rounded build so I experience the content without obliterating it, but others do not do that and it ends in some content just feeling super meh. Theres no line drawn of any kind really, and it can actually result in a worse experience for others. Just having a range alone would be leaps and bounds better than having no limit at all. Frankly, I feel that if someone is to do insane amounts of damage, it should be situational, as in buffed by players and mods like the ones that on headshot give you a bonus. 

This is not just a damage problem, it's an ennemy problem, an AI problem. limiting our damage to make dull bullet sponge won't make the game as great as you think.

You're not talking about Profit taker when you're discussing about limited power, can take up to 10 minutes to kill it, if you play chroma... If you play anything else you're going to have a terrible time. It's not just about damage, it's about how ennemies are designed. Profit taker is annoying because  adds CC us, cc we can't dodge or do much about.

i wouldn't want to stay stucked on such fight for 30 Minutes or more because we don't have the best "limited damage" option with us.

Le 09/08/2019 à 19:32, Jareson a dit :

I think this is overall the hardest part for DE, but I really feel like the people who chase damage do it because it is, currently, the meta. This meta is shoving other content to the wayside, and it really comes down to DE asking themselves if they need to fix the other content, or fix damage. I suggest the latter, obviously, and while I know the backlash that will happen if they do do it, for the health of the game in the future, I think it would be the best course of action. Those new players from Plains and Vallis will start reaching the end game sooner or later, and when they do, they will start to complain like many of the veterans already do about how nothing is hard anymore and it is boring. This is probably a more damaging scenario than telling people that damage is going to be overhauled, them getting mad for a bit, then coming back with the new content and experiencing a game where skill and tactics can actually start to matter because damage isn't the end all be all. Least thats my take. 

Why break dps if you can make missions start at higher levels for veteran? A slider kind of thing in premade. You would have the difficulty you want without adding a cap.

Le 09/08/2019 à 19:35, Aldain a dit :

Backlash is putting it lightly...check through that "Can something be done about Sayrn" thread that got moved to the Warframe Feedback section, it is a warzone in there.

Just relayed an idea said by the dev being better than anything said here or in that post.

Le 09/08/2019 à 19:39, Jareson a dit :

Yeah I've seen that kinda stuff. I do feel like it is a vocal minority, especially on the forums being this is probably less used than reddit, and a large swathe of players probably don't even touch the forums or reddit at all. They just are loud and do not like to be quiet at all. 

On the flip side, looking at the general feedback area, it seems like my request is not alone. I've already read through 3 topics in general that seem to be of the same camp in asking for some sort of balancing to make the game feel more fluid in some sort of way, although theres a variety of suggestions. It definitely doesn't seem like this is a lonely thought at least, its just an opposed on by a very specific group.

You're a vocal minority too... You're very loud too, you don't like to be quite either.

So you've seen people talking about the same subject and you decided to make your own ? You're not adding anything. 

Le 09/08/2019 à 19:45, (XB1)Zweimander a dit :

I like my power fantasy so this gets a big fat no from me.

This dev solution don't destroy that.

Le 09/08/2019 à 19:54, Jareson a dit :

I'm curious, I don't see how reining in damage is going to kill the power fantasy. Frankly, I didn't touch on Rivens because I don't believe they should be touched on, I think those should remain, as their primary value is bringing weak weapons higher up, and giving higher up weapons a little more of a boost. The power fantasy doesn't need to go away, it just also shouldn't be in the millions of damage range, or in such a way that other players experience is detracted from because one player is godly in comparison. 

Recently, I've been playing with my friends who are just getting into the game, and they expressed to me how they would prefer it if I let them be able to actually get kills after our first time together, because my build is so powerful in comparison that I essentially am soloing the content for them. I stepped my build back, decided to play around with some of the more one-off mods, and ended up having dramatically more fun than I have in the game for a long time. Having enemies that aren't just a simple hit marker has been a more engaging experience, as well as allowed my friends to play and learn the game alongside my help, without detracting from any of us. I'm also finally seeing all the mods that seemed so worthless before as fun and interesting new ways to play the game, which makes me think with the release of the amalgam mods that DE actually wants us to diversify our mod setups, but we can't because damage is meta. Giving us more options seems like a logical solution, especially being we are still godly warframes with insane power compared to the peons of the grineer and corpus.

Because if you can't kill a full room of ennemies, you're not powerful as you used to be, you become random soldier with futuristic guns. Well some rivens would be affected by your damage caps. The ones making strong weapons stronger ?

Power fantasy is not about damage it's about destroying ennemies... So let's destroy damage right ?

So you're saying "I liked beginner experience with weak stuff", you can do this at all time litterally, there's no need to break damage for you to get enjoyment from the game. At this point you just want to make noise for fun.

Le 19/08/2019 à 21:23, George_PPS a dit :

You can create your own damage ceiling by removing one Mod from each and every frame and weapon in your inventory. PLEASE. 

The majority of us like to be powerful space ninjas without any power caps.

Funny thing is... He did that and enjoyed it... Yet want to limit everyone else power after rediscovering this.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

By far my favorite enemies in the game are the orb vallis ones

They're low level...but they have increased stats compared to normal enemies and a lot of creative CC abilities 

With warframes that have no easy low effort damage reduction abilities it's really challenging