Armor 3.0 With Mathematical Solutions Included (Idea Dump Series)

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

Table Of Contents:

Armor 3.0; Variations & Permutations (Idea Dump Series)

START HERE

Armor scaling sucks. But don't worry, through the omnipotent power of MATH, I attempt (because someone may disagree) to solve the problem.

Let's start with the formula for armor:

A/(A+300)=R        This is damage reduction displayed as a decimal.

And the inverse:

300R/(1-R)=A        This is raw armor value. This is the value we see in game.

Coincidentally, this is also how level scaling affects health, armor, & shields. Exponentially.

Let's introduce initial damage as 'D', nerfed damage 'd', maximum health 'H', & damaged health 'h':

D(1-A/(A+300))=d OR D(1-R)=d        This is a single instance of damage.

H-D(1-A/(A+300)=h OR H-D(1-R)=h OR H-d=h        This is resulting health after a single instance of damage.

This is everything we know about armor in the game besides how certain status, mod, ability, & augment effects change it up.

Still easy right? Well, I hope so, because this is the only way I can adequately describe my solution. Notice something? Hold on. Besides Corrosive, a couple mods, & some abilities & augments, armor value doesn't change.

Let's make a teensy weensy change to the formula that determines damage that reaches health:

DR=d        This can be expanded back out as well using the previous formulas.

If you got this far. CONGRATULATIONS.

Time to analyze the significance of this. 'D' is a single instance of initial damage from a weapon. 'R' is the damage reduction as a decimal. But we took out that pesky "1-". This means something. Suppose a rifle does 100 'D'. If 'R' is .8, or 80%, the damage that gets through is 80. But if we increase 'R', the damage that gets through is also increasing. This can't possibly affect health. That'd be stupid. More armor gets you killed faster??? LOL. No. So what will it affect?

Sorry, I'm teasing. I hope it's clear now. This will affect armor. If damage reduction is 60%, which will have an armor value of 450, then using DR=d, a single instance of 100 damage will reduce armor value by 60. That 450 armor has become 390 after that shot of 100 damage. Health of course will be protected normally, taking only 40 of that 100. However, armor is now more fluid.

It also makes a lot more sense & is much more realistic.

Armor isn't some proto-immortal material. It is a normal physical object that degrades over time. The damage that armor keeps away from the body doesn't just disappear into The Void. The armor took one for the team & had to actively resist, absorb, & halt the kinetic, chemical, &/or raw directed energy of the projectile.

It would also give DE the opportunity to properly distinguish the strengths & weaknesses of armor & health separately.

WHY THIS WORKS.

DISCLAIMER: The formulas that follow from this point on are not entirely accurate, but they are still a very close approximation as to how this mechanic will function in game. In a practical sense, they are correct in principle & utility. The inaccuracies involve the fact that the rate of decrease in armor & damage resistance are supposed to have the same steepness in the slope, & that damage would actually decrease both values faster than the graphs display.

The mathematical explanation is going to get more complicated now. Below is the simplified version of the formula.

A-DtR+DtR(1-r)=a

This is reduction of armor value over time, preferably perceived in seconds. This can't be graphed because there are too many variables. Basically, 'Dt' is damage per second, but because armor is changing now, we have to add some armor back in the form of DtR(1-r). This is because as armor goes down, less damage is affecting it.

There are two versions of this formula that can be graphed.

Here is the first:

A-DtR+DtR(1-a/a+300)=a

For a given armor, resistance, & damage value, 't' as 'x' & 'a' as 'y'. Same formula. Reduction of armor value over time. Min margins are 0. Max margins depend on the values entered for 'A', 'D', & 'R'.

Let's see it in action:

1200 armor, 80% resistance, 100 damage per second. Looks modest? Try this:

Try to remember that we haven't even included health, & also, 300 armor still gives 50% protection because of the formula mentioned way back up top.

Here's a comparison:

Here is the second version:

A-DtR+DtR(1-r)=300r/(1-r)

Again, entering values for armor 'A', damage 'D', & resistance 'R', 't' as 'x' & 'r' as 'y'. This is reduction of protection over time. Min margins are 0. Max 'y' is 1, always, because 1 = 100% resistance. Max 'x' still depends on the plugged in values.

Here are the same two equations from before:

First one still looks modest, but the second... develops a hill. This means that high armor values will still result in enemies that are gosh darn flipping tanky. Player damage is still forced to go over the hill.

Another comparison:

The difference between this change & what we have now? This way, it's actually possible to kill a Corrupted Heavy Gunner Eximus with more than just Abating Link, or Covert dagger finishers, or Corrosive, or a team of damage milking buffbois.

Level scaling will still bite us all in the *redacted*, but maybe some day that can be fixed too.

Edited December 7, 2019 by (PS4)VagueWisdom

[InDueTime-EN-]

That's a lot of math just to suggest that we give all weapons the corrosive status effect. 

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

7 minutes ago, (NSW)KentInkOVanheim said:

That's a lot of math just to suggest that we give all weapons the corrosive status effect. 

Well, the Corrosive effect is percentage based. Even Shattering Impact is percentage based. This is based on raw damage. I had to use math because of that to show that the other armor stripping methods were still valid, just not as mandatory. I'll try to add the actual graphs soon so that I'm not asking so much.

[DarthIronclad]

Agreed that armor should be reduced on hitting enemies,maybe making puncture damage itself remove more armor would be a good thing do do as well,while corrosive procs can still stay the same,this should somewhat tone down the bullet sponges of high level grineer,but still not a permanent solution like reworking enemy scaling.

Edited November 13, 2019 by DarthIronclad

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

29 minutes ago, DarthIronclad said:

Agreed that armor should be reduced on hitting enemies,maybe making puncture damage itself remove more armor would be a good thing do do as well,while corrosive procs can still stay the same,this should somewhat tone down the bullet sponges of high level grineer,but still not a permanent solution like reworking enemy scaling.

Exactly. I mean everyone has been saying this for years now, but we haven't been getting anywhere. So I figured it would be a good idea to lay out how stupid simple the solution could be. I'm about to add in graphs as well.

[DarthIronclad]

Already messed around in the  simulacrum enough,taking a level 100 Corrupted Heavy Gunner for example,they can take a beating...but once you fully strip their armor,a weapon modded for viral damage just shreads them like tissue paper,endless scaling armor is basically giving them an insane amount of ehp

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

6 minutes ago, DarthIronclad said:

Already messed around in the  simulacrum enough,taking a level 100 Corrupted Heavy Gunner for example,they can take a beating...but once you fully strip their armor,a weapon modded for viral damage just shreads them like tissue paper,endless scaling armor is basically giving them an insane amount of ehp

Yep. I use Corrupted Heavy Gunners to ruthlessly test my builds. Sometimes even the Eximus.

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

NPC armor values shouldn't scale and NPC should have higher base values.

Tune NPC HP values to keep same eHP for lvl 1-50

Cap player and NPC armor at 2700 (i.e. 90% damage reduction)

Then once this is done DE could work on  shields and rebalance of damage types.

Edited November 13, 2019 by MonsterOfMyOwn

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

34 minutes ago, MonsterOfMyOwn said:

NPC armor values shouldn't scale and NPC should have higher base values.

Tune NPC HP values to keep same eHP for lvl 1-50

Cap player and NPC armor at 2700 (i.e. 90% damage reduction)

Then once this is done DE could work on  shields and rebalance of damage types.

Yeah. This is mostly an intermediate step that could be implemented in as short as a hotfix. Gotta make small steps.

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

Hey all. I realized that the modified formulas that I presented were inaccurate & that I couldn't reasonably correct for it without the use of calculus or manually plotting every single increment of damage, neither of which I'm willing to spend the time on (though I still think that I'm probably just screwing up the math). So I added a disclaimer just before the introduction of the respective formulas that this applies to.

Edited December 3, 2019 by (PS4)VagueWisdom

[GruntBlender]

This smells a lot like enemies one-shotting away all our armor. Say I have 1200 armor. A 1500 damage shot will take off only 300 health, but completely strip off my armor.

If before with 1000 health and 1200 armor I had 5000eHP, with this I'd have around 2200 eHP. The problem isn't with how armor works, but with how much of it the enemies have.

[Uthael]

"A team of damage milking buffbois" would be happy with the changes.

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

12 hours ago, GruntBlender said:

This smells a lot like enemies one-shotting away all our armor. Say I have 1200 armor. A 1500 damage shot will take off only 300 health, but completely strip off my armor.

If before with 1000 health and 1200 armor I had 5000eHP, with this I'd have around 2200 eHP. The problem isn't with how armor works, but with how much of it the enemies have.

To be fair, Warframes are supposed to be nanotech constructs derived from infested biology. That means that, ideally, Warframes, along with other select enemies, such as Sentient & Orokin, would have regenerative armor. While most* everyone else has permanently degrading armor, like normal. Furthermore, since shielding is currently a joke, I have a litany of buff ideas to apply to it such that armor & shields achieve parity.

7 hours ago, Uthael said:

"A team of damage milking buffbois" would be happy with the changes.

Lol. Chroma, Octavia, Nova, & Total Eclipse Mirage. Sounds fun to me. I usually end up seeing at least one dedicated armor stripper currently.

Edited December 5, 2019 by (PS4)VagueWisdom

[GruntBlender]

9 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Warframes [...] would have regenerative armor.

That's just shields with DR then.

Furthermore, regenerating armor still wouldn't address the issue of enemies stripping all our armor in a burst, reducing our eHP against burst damage.

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

9 minutes ago, GruntBlender said:

That's just shields with DR then.

Furthermore, regenerating armor still wouldn't address the issue of enemies stripping all our armor in a burst, reducing our eHP against burst damage.

I highly discourage cherry picking snippets of my replies.

As for that burst damage, that's only truly possible because of level scaling. As for sniper, shotgunner, melee, & other similar burst damage units, if you get hit by them, you deserve it.

The comparing of armor to shields won't hold up when tested against the possibility of utilizing game mechanics to differentiate their purpose.

Edited December 5, 2019 by (PS4)VagueWisdom

[GruntBlender]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

I highly discourage cherry picking snippets of my replies.

As for that burst damage, that's only truly possible because of level scaling. As for sniper, shotgunner, melee, & other similar burst damage units, if you get hit by them, you deserve it.

Oh get off it, there was no context lost in that quote and brevity isn't cherry-picking.

"Burst damage units" isn't a thing, getting hit repeatedly by a number of sources is. The dichotomy is between burst and sustained. Shields are supposed to save against burst damage but be terrible against sustained as they have a recharge delay. Armor is geared towards sustained damage by providing a flat DR to health no matter how long you're being shot. That's also why you get health regen abilities that heal you while getting shot, but shield regen abilities are either an instant addition or a recharge that gets interrupted by damage.

The suggestion in OP would change Armor to guard against burst damage only, and decrease even eHP for even that. There would be no sustained resistance, making Adaptation mandatory, and it's a straight nerf to armor. This isn't Armor 3.0, it's an unnecessary armor nerf. We already have more effective ways of dealing with enemy armor, but the nerf to warframe survivability is horrendous and makes armor useless. It makes all armor mods useless as the maximum one, Umbral Fiber on a Valkyr Prime, only gives an additional 2047.5 eHP while the 70% flat damage reduction loss would sacrifice 2566eHP with just a regular vitality.

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

1 hour ago, GruntBlender said:

Oh get off it, there was no context lost in that quote and brevity isn't cherry-picking.

"Burst damage units" isn't a thing, getting hit repeatedly by a number of sources is. The dichotomy is between burst and sustained. Shields are supposed to save against burst damage but be terrible against sustained as they have a recharge delay. Armor is geared towards sustained damage by providing a flat DR to health no matter how long you're being shot. That's also why you get health regen abilities that heal you while getting shot, but shield regen abilities are either an instant addition or a recharge that gets interrupted by damage.

The suggestion in OP would change Armor to guard against burst damage only, and decrease even eHP for even that. There would be no sustained resistance, making Adaptation mandatory, and it's a straight nerf to armor. This isn't Armor 3.0, it's an unnecessary armor nerf. We already have more effective ways of dealing with enemy armor, but the nerf to warframe survivability is horrendous and makes armor useless. It makes all armor mods useless as the maximum one, Umbral Fiber on a Valkyr Prime, only gives an additional 2047.5 eHP while the 70% flat damage reduction loss would sacrifice 2566eHP with just a regular vitality.

Solution.

A/(A+300)

VS

A/(A+600) ***Or whatever is high enough for you.***

Just increase all baseline armor values to maintain consistent DR. Prest-o change-o, sustainability achieved.

Edited December 6, 2019 by (PS4)VagueWisdom
Removed a misunderstanding.

[GruntBlender]

26 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Solution.

A/(A+300)

VS

A/(A+600) ***Or whatever is high enough for you.***

Just increase all baseline armor values to maintain consistent DR. Prest-o change-o, sustainability achieved.

Or, change one or more parameters in the following equation:

Current Armor = Base Armor × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )^1.75 × 0.005 )

Then you can get less armor on high level enemies while not having to touch the values on any warframe.

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

1 minute ago, GruntBlender said:

Or, change one or more parameters in the following equation:

Current Armor = Base Armor × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )^1.75 × 0.005 )

Then you can get less armor on high level enemies while not having to touch the values on any warframe.

I think we both know DE isn't going to do that overnight.

[GruntBlender]

54 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

I think we both know DE isn't going to do that overnight.

They're also not going to implement a hude armor nerf with regenerative armor, so it's moot.

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

26 minutes ago, GruntBlender said:

They're also not going to implement a hude armor nerf with regenerative armor, so it's moot.

Maybe, but I was hoping it would be more likely.

1. Make endless easier.

2. Make endless possible, with trade-offs.

I'd say 2. is more likely.

Edited December 6, 2019 by (PS4)VagueWisdom

[GruntBlender]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Maybe, but I was hoping it would be more likely.

1. Make endless easier.

2. Make endless possible, with trade-offs.

I'd say 2. is more likely.

Tradeoffs are NOT worth it. I don't want this change, it would be a huge nerf to most warframes, and you wouldn't hear the end of complaints from players.

[(PSN)VagueWisdom]

8 minutes ago, GruntBlender said:

Tradeoffs are NOT worth it. I don't want this change, it would be a huge nerf to most warframes, and you wouldn't hear the end of complaints from players.

It's not like this change is gonna prevent anyone from steamrolling Mot for the first hour, at least. You are being inordinately defensive.

The point of this change IS NOT to make the game "easier". It is to make more diverse play styles ****POSSIBLE****. Possible =/= easy. I NEVER stated that the purpose of the change is to make the game easier, but go ahead & quote me so I can delete that mistake.

You like the game easy. Throngs of other players feel the same. Then turn around & complain that the game "isn't challenging enough". Then when DE releases something that is legitimately difficult to overcome, an actual challenge staring you all plain in the face, you complain some more. It's two-faced, & insulting.

There's no winning with you.

Your first point of making armor unsustainable, I solved.

2 hours ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Solution.

A/(A+300)

VS

A/(A+600) ***Or whatever is high enough for you.***

Just increase all baseline armor values to maintain consistent DR. Prest-o change-o, sustainability achieved.

Your second point means to make all high level content objectively easier by reducing the level scaling coefficient(s) as they affect armor.

2 hours ago, GruntBlender said:

Or, change one or more parameters in the following equation:

Current Armor = Base Armor × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )^1.75 × 0.005 )

Then you can get less armor on high level enemies while not having to touch the values on any warframe.

& now you're suggesting with hyperbole that my idea will make the game "too hard".

We survived super cheesy power nullifying/immunity mechanics up until now. I think we can survive this too.

Come up with a better argument than, "THIS IS TOO HARD".

Unless you honestly believe that this suggestion will actively kill the playerbase & Warframe's revenue along with it, I don't want to hear it.

[GruntBlender]

24 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

It's not like this change is gonna prevent anyone from steamrolling Mot for the first hour, at least.

Nobody cars about Mot. How will it affect 1hr+ Arbitration runs?

 

29 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

The point of this change IS NOT to make the game "easier". It is to make more diverse play styles ****POSSIBLE****. Possible =/= easy. I NEVER stated that the purpose of the change is to make the game easier, but go ahead & quote me so I can delete that mistake.

On 2019-11-13 at 5:29 PM, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

This way, it's actually possible to kill a Corrupted Heavy Gunner Eximus with more than just Abating Link, or Covert dagger finishers, or Corrosive, or a team of damage milking buffbois.

You presented 4 ways to kill one, and forgot about viral+slash combo. But that's not enough, you want to nerf them so you don't have to use the right tools. You want to reduce their eHP significantly to make them easier to kill. At least that's what we can deduce from your post since you DIDN'T OUTLINE THE PROBLEM YOU'RE TRYING TO SOLVE!

33 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

You like the game easy. Throngs of other players feel the same. Then turn around & complain that the game "isn't challenging enough". Then when DE releases something that is legitimately difficult to overcome, an actual challenge staring you all plain in the face, you complain some more. It's two-faced, & insulting.

Your strawman is insulting. I want the game to be more challenging. I don't want that challenge to come from nerfing player armor and eHP. Effectively, your "challenge" is equivalent to throwing harder hitting but less durable enemies at us. That's asinine.

37 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

There's no winning with you.

Not when your suggestions are so unreasonable and you refuse to listen to explanations as to why.

38 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Your first point of making armor unsustainable, I solved.

3 hours ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Solution.

A/(A+300)

VS

A/(A+600) ***Or whatever is high enough for you.***

Just increase all baseline armor values to maintain consistent DR. Prest-o change-o, sustainability achieved.

Nope, that doesn't solve anything. In fact, that makes things much worse. The bigger number menas there's less resistance, but that's irrelevant since that wouldn't really change the eHP under your system, just alter how fast the armor is ablated away. At that point, the actual armor effect is IRRELEVANT because the eHP will always be health+armor unless armor is significantly higher than health.

42 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Your second point means to make all high level content objectively easier by reducing the level scaling coefficient(s) as they affect armor.

As opposed to your suggestion of making high level content objectively easier by adding huge armor stripping to all damage? What exactly is your problem with current armor scaling again? That you have to specialise instead of using the same tools against everything?

46 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

& now you're suggesting with hyperbole that my idea will make the game "too hard".

We survived super cheesy power nullifying/immunity mechanics up until now. I think we can survive this too.

Come up with a better argument than, "THIS IS TOO HARD".

It's not too hard, it's stupid. It invalidates armor as a concept and significantly undermines survivability of most frames. What is your purpose with this? To make corrupted heavy gunners easier to kill when you haven't bothered bringing an anti-armor setup?

52 minutes ago, (PS4)VagueWisdom said:

Unless you honestly believe that this suggestion will actively kill the playerbase & Warframe's revenue along with it, I don't want to hear it.

I do. A stupid move like this would make a lot of people quit or at least take a break until it's reverted.

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

Couldn't we just make each enemy's armor value static and give them each a set amount of damage resistance, rather than scaling amounts of it?