Weapon Balance? **poll Inside**

[Madfriar]

Do you think Warframe's weapons are in a good state of balance? Cast your vote here: http://strawpoll.me/476098

My personal opinion is that the weapons have absolutely no sense of balance. The Latron Prime for example is not even worth building, yet it is a weapon difficult to obtain.

Is it fair to make exclusive weapons like the Strun Wraith and Snipetron Vandal so strong when they were only obtainable for a brief window of time? I certainly do not think so considering this gives everyone else who was not able to participate the middle finger. Shouldn't you be incentivized to work hard to build the best weapons in the game instead of being available by happenstance on the right weekend when the developers decide to give out crazy loot practically for free?

Are Prime weapons supposed to be useful or just showpieces? Why waste my time farming for them?

Are Clan weapons supposed to be the strongest weapons in the game based on resources required to craft them? Why then build a Dera instead of a Supra, it would make more sense to save your resources for the MOST powerful weapon.

In my opinion we need a clear sense of purpose for crafting and farming weapons. I have no idea what will be buffed or nerfed or why because right now there is no logic to the way weapons are balanced.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Madfriar

[Wahooo]

A better question might be does weapon balance even matter in a game like this?

[Madfriar]

A better question might be does weapon balance even matter in a game like this?

Sure it does. I bet if you made a straw poll for that you'd find a majority of people say that they care about weapon balance as well.

[PsychedelicSnake]

There needs to be a middleground option.

[Madfriar]

There needs to be a middleground option.

I see no need for a half satisfied option, and I don't think being half satisfied about the state of weapon balance tells us anything important. You are either happy with the current state of balance or you are not.

[PsychedelicSnake]

I see no need for a half satisfied option, and I don't think being half satisfied about the state of weapon balance tells us anything important. You are either happy with the current state of balance or you are not.

Not true. I am happy with some things done, while unhappy with others. The less answers there are, the less detail DE can use as feedback. The more detail, the better.

[Madfriar]

Not true. I am happy with some things done, while unhappy with others. The less answers there are, the less detail DE can use as feedback. The more detail, the better.

If you are unhappy about some things then you are unhappy about the current state of weapon balance.

It was not a specific question, I'm not asking whether you think everything is fine except Latron Prime is underpowered for example.

I'm asking a very general question to gather an opinion on a very wide subject, not a narrow one. The yes/no answer limitation is the best choice for such a question.

[Tyrian3k]

A better question might be does weapon balance even matter in a game like this?

 

Of course it matters. Without any sort of balance everyone will just use that one overpowered gun and not care about the rest.

 

 

 

On the matter of exclusive weapons I'd say it's okay so long as there is an alternative that can be obtained.

 

Prime weapons are problematic, as they were balanced to the weapon they are based off, so they naturally vary in strength, but not in difficulty to obtain.

 

All other weapons should be balanced around the effort they take to get and the mastery rank required.

[Jandor]

There should be both direct upgrades (very few) and sidegrades (absolutely loads.)

In my mind, tiers should look like: Grineer/Corpus weapons > Tenno Weapons > Vandals/Wraiths > Primes/Clantech.

 

The difference shouldn't be huge between tiers, but I think it should exist. Tenno weapons should be upgradeable into their prime version.

 

Currently balance is all over the place, the "tiers" that do exist don't make sense, and I'd say over half the weapons in game are virtually useless.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Balance is supposed to be based around acquisition difficulty (whether it be by resources or mastery requirement).  Who knows, maybe some day, I'll take a day and really write a full report on the weaponry of this game similar to what I did for warframes.

 

I'm not entirely sure why you took a poll.  Polls are terrible ways of deciding who's right.  It just finds the majority opinion and even then, it only does of the sample.  Forumites are likely to be a lot more educated on mechanics and angry than your general playerbase.

 

As far as exclusive content goes, I assume it is supposed to be stupidly powerful because it allows a player to keep using the weapon because they like the art or something.  Actually... that just gave me an idea which is going in a new thread...  Also, I never feel offended by seeing someone with a Snipetron Vandal.  I was in Yellowstone National Park that weekend lol. Yellowstone > Vandaltron.

 

 

A better question might be does weapon balance even matter in a game like this?

It does matter.

 

Balance needs to happen.  I'm one of the people that still wishes for everything being a sidegrade of everything else and higher mastery guns just being more specialized (though for the record, I have accepted defeat in that regard and if we are to have tiers, I shall do my best to assist them).

 

Tiers based on mastery are about the only reasonable way to do tiers in this game, but even then, that's a messy system.  To be perfectly honest, the mastery system punishes more than it helps by forcing a player to use weapons they otherwise wouldn't.  I guess that's part of the point though: base progression in the game around what percentage of the material has been used.  I suppose it does lengthen gameplay time.

 

Despite its shortcomings though, mastery provides a framework within which balance can occur.  It does reward grinding (as well it should) in the sense that it gives you better guns as you rank up.  There are obvious broken-OP exceptions to this (I'm looking at you, Soma), but those are the things that need to be adjusted.

 

Let's consider a player's options.  A new player has the Mk-1 Braton.  Following this, if they are informed, they are going to go for the Akbolto as a pistol and the Braton as a primary unless they happen to have a bunch of awesome mods by chance at which point they'll go for the Soma.  In other words, they're going to grab the best weapons they can find that they know of.  Normal human beings aren't going to gimp themselves deliberately unless they have a reason to.

 

For instance, I have almost all pistols maxed, and because my mastery is already nearing 10, I have no desire to ever even touch the Spectra.  It's just too weak.  On the other hand, because I would like to hit mastery 10 at some point, I am currently working on ranking up my Dread despite already having a maxed Soma, Flux, Ogris, Lanka, Boltor, Supra, Dera, etc because it's not so much of a gimping that it I don't mind it because it's actually decent.

 

Let's say the Synapse was as good as we originally thought (there was a time where some believed that >100% crit would have a chance for a crit on top of a crit, causing stupidly high damage output, though we now know it to be effectively just multishot) and was mastery 11.  Would I be willing to use the Spectra then?  Maybe.  I'd be able to get to 11 plenty of ways without it.

 

You see, people will go for the best they can get, gimping themselves as little as possible along the way to do so.  This is why we need balance within tiers.  If people have sudden stupid jumps in power (Mk-1 Braton to Soma for instance), then they won't want to touch anything else.  You shouldn't be able to get the best gun in the game until you've had the chance to get the second best, and the second after the third, and so forth.  If players are given access to content that is too powerful, they will avoid content and inevitably something more powerful than the Soma will come out and then they'll be left at mastery 1 while the new gun is mastery 10 and that's a long row to hoe considering they've just gotten used to the best in the game.  This is why nerfs can be useful.  They prevent sudden jumps in power that eclipse other content.  Nerfs should be used to bring weapons that are above the median power level of a given tier back in line or when thought of from a different perspective be used to increase acquisition difficulty (either through cost, rarity, or mastery rank required) by bumping it up to a higher tier where that power level is acceptable.

 

Now for buffs.  Some will say "just buff everything to X-level," where X is some overpowered gun.  The problem with that is that it forces a massive rebalance of every other weapon in the game which will probably be worse once complete with new overpowered guns so in the end, it is a simple waste of time for the devs when they could be doing better things with their resources.  That said, buffs are still useful.  They are ideally used to bring content in line with the median power of other content in that tier.  Should the Spectra and Embolist get buffed?  Absolutely!  They both need it very very badly.  Why?  Because as I said before, they are below the threshold of what players deem "acceptable gimping" when going through mastery.

 

Buffs and nerfs both have their place.  Balance ultimately is to make all content equally viable, which in Warframe means "for all tiers, make all content within a given tier equally viable."  Each should have pros and cons.  A Dera is very different from a Hek, but both are mastery 4 and are good, solid weapons.  We don't need things like the Soma eclipsing all other content in the game.  We just don't.  Personally, I'd rather see the Soma mastery 8 and super-high costs rather than have its power reduced, but that's just me.  I'm not trying to advocate nerfing everything into the ground.

 

The problem is though, some people don't have the appropriate perspective and come in when their favorite X got nerfed and now they're mad because it takes them a reasonable amount of time to kill things.  Instead of thinking of the big picture where buffs and nerfs need to happen to keep things relatively close to the median of the tier, all they see is the fact that they got gimped by the system.  The irony is that had they tried to advance in mastery (which is inevitable as higher and higher rank equipment is released), they would have had to have been gimped by the system anyways.  At least by nerfing, we can prevent future players from suffering the same fate.

 

 

Now, onto the issue of higher rank players making lower-rank players irrelevant by dealing all the damage.  Higher mastery players should be rewarded somehow as I detailed above.  The game already separates players by mastery though.  It will whenever possible, match you with players within three mastery ranks of yourself.  Though, honestly, the situation described where one person gets all the kills is more about warframes and their 4's than anything else which is a balance issue which needs addressing and has for a very long time.  People who advocate 4's not getting changed love to claim that people are complaining about kill-stealing which makes no sense in a PVE game, so they should be left as-is.  It's not an issue of kill-stealing though.  It's an issue of players being forced to be inactive and not useful.  Players enjoy contributing to their team and denying a player that is the heart of the issue.  People don't like it when a teammate forces them into inactivity.  Yes, sitting idly by and watching the mastery roll in gives you some sort of compensation, but you'll get mastery whether you contribute or not.  People want to contribute and that is being denied.

 

 

In the end, balance needs to happen.  Without it, we get content that gimps players, eclipses other content, and can force allies into a position where they can no longer meaningfully contribute to the team.  In all three situations, the fun of the game is reduced.  Balancing within, or in severe cases between, tiers is how we combat this.  So yes, weapons do need to be balanced.

 

Edited September 26, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[Madfriar]

Balance is supposed to be based around acquisition difficulty (whether it be by resources or mastery requirement).

 

As far as exclusive content goes, I assume it is supposed to be stupidly powerful because it allows a player to keep using the weapon because they like the art or something. 

How can you say balance is supposed to be based around acquisition difficulty, and then proceed to say that the exclusive content is supposed to be stupidly powerful when it takes 0 effort to obtain? If exclusive one time content is more powerful than difficult to obtain "top tier" loot then we have a serious issue.

Having exclusive weapons perform "adequately" and look unique or fashionable is perfectly fine and I don't think anyone would argue against that.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

How can you say balance is supposed to be based around acquisition difficulty, and then proceed to say that the exclusive content is supposed to be stupidly powerful when it takes 0 effort to obtain? If exclusive one time content is more powerful than difficult to obtain "top tier" loot then we have a serious issue.

Having exclusive weapons perform "adequately" and look unique or fashionable is perfectly fine and I don't think anyone would argue against that.

My point was that the devs want players to always be able to justifiably use exclusive weaponry.  I suppose I was unclear.

 

I do want them to perform adequately at all masteries.  I'm saying in their current implementation, they're stupid OP in all but the highest of tiers.  I want them to scaled instead so they aren't stupid OP.  If you're mastery 10, It seems fine to me for your Strun Wraith to be its current power.  But if you're mastery 3, it shouldn't be as powerful as it is now.

[Numot]

I'm asking a very general question to gather an opinion on a very wide subject, not a narrow one. The yes/no answer limitation is the best choice for such a question.

The question is too broad, and thus, useless. The information gathered helps no one. Not happy? fine, but not happy with what? Happy with, okay, but what was done right? If I were a developer the results wouldn't help me improve the game.

[Brynslustafir]

A better question might be does weapon balance even matter in a game like this?

Because a lot of people want to be able to survive PVP without having to use top-tier gear. 

[Brynslustafir]

Well that was decisive. 

[Wahooo]

Because a lot of people want to be able to survive PVP without having to use top-tier gear. 

Well when I say "a game like this" I don't really have PVP in mind.  I don't see pvp ever really being more than a fun side diversion and not much more than a place to dual.  The warframes are not balanced for PVP and I personally don't want them to be.  Weapon balance is critical in a pvp game in my opinion.  in warframe?  meh.  People are going to gravitate toward 'the best' of whatever is there whether that is needed to 'win' anything or not.  Having something that is top tier and some kind of gear goal is, again my opinion what players in a game like this, actually want.

[Madfriar]

The question is too broad, and thus, useless. The information gathered helps no one. Not happy? fine, but not happy with what? Happy with, okay, but what was done right? If I were a developer the results wouldn't help me improve the game.

I am getting exactly what I wanted by asking this question. If you want to ask a detailed question on weapon balance where you compare the stats of multiple weapons through research and have thoughtful and tiered responses in order to give comprehensive feedback then why don't you go an make a post yourself instead of complaining about my poll.

I shouldn't have to explain my poll again and I'm not going to, it's doing its job just fine. Go make your own post and poll, it's a waste of time to complain on mine.

[PaperAlien]

A better question might be does weapon balance even matter in a game like this?

Oh that's right, this is a PvE game, and therefore it's perfectly fine to make one mechanic/strategy make everything else redundant! I mean, anyone disagreeing is just butthurt at getting their kills stolen, what a joke!

[Davoodoo]

There needs to be a middleground option.

Either you want to change anything or want no changes at all. As simple as that.

You think that acrid, soma, ichors, despairs, aklatos or anything else is op?? then you want rebalance and you should click no, if you think that everything is balanced and have same or nearly same power as other weapons of same tier then you should click yes. 

 

And if i struggle to overcome some challenge with my favorite weapons and some other guy does it without any problem cause he used op weapon then it doesnt seem fine to me. I dont want to be forced to play with 1 weapon cause its better than others. 

Edited September 28, 2013 by Davoodoo