Warframe Conclave - The Old Blood Experience

[Tyreaus]

1 minute ago, (XB1)The Repo Man151 said:

Out of curiosity, do you know how conclave 2.0 began? I mean, in terms of gear available.

I do not.

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

Just now, Tyreaus said:

I do not.

Well, here is a history lesson. Conclave started out with only a few weapons and frames available. I think it was maybe 10 of the most basic primaries (those being latron, braton, soma, paris, etc.), fewer than 20 secondaries, and fewer than 20 melees. Only 6 frames were available to use. Conclave was limited but it was unbalanced as hek, Rhino's 1 was an instant kill. Volt's 4 was nuking entire rooms, you know that sort of thing. DE did a very good job of fixing these issues as they popped up.

Over the next few years(I would say until about late 2017), Conclave would slowly see the frames and weapons added in as they were balanced in-house by DE. DE mostly did a good job of sending these to us in a good state, although several times certain imbalanced options slipped through. They did balance these, however, as DE was still putting work into conclave at this point. Overall, Conclave was in a very good state. This all changed when PoE released. DE no longer put ANY resources into conclave. So when things were made powerful in PvE, the changes carried over into conclave and those issues weren't fixed for months. Zaws weren't removed until early 2019, as a change that wasn't even listed in the patch notes. All the huge melee changes that came, like 100% DR on block. The Staticor is another great example of something that was greatly benefited in PvE through an update, but it wasn't balanced in conclave.

For context, Conclave has its own balance seperate from PvE that DE can alter without it bleeding over into PvE. However, PvE changes can bleed over into conclave. So, with no serious balance passes in more than two years and constant PvE changes being added into conclave, what happens? What happens when the Telos Boltace Ragdolls? What happens when the Staticor has an 8m aoe?
 

The solution isn't for DE to remove everything that makes conclave unique, the solution is for them to do their darned jobs.

 

[Tyreaus]

2 minutes ago, (XB1)The Repo Man151 said:

The solution isn't for DE to remove everything that makes conclave unique, the solution is for them to do their darned jobs.

I did not, however, say that the solution is to simplify things. I said, mainly, that it could help future processes and assist in player cognition / understanding.

I would also wager among the big things of "what makes Conclave unique" isn't an overabundance of weapons. Or, at least, if it is, it's far from topping the list. That would likely go to the unique style of gameplay and the fast pace, both of which aren't all that affected by weapon variety (or a lack thereof). So is it not a bit of an exaggeration to say that one facet of over-the-top weapon variety is "everything that makes Conclave unique"? Moreover, is "generating uniqueness" really the best standard to go by? Being able to slide attack instant-kill with one kind of melee weapon could be classified as unique, but I don't think many would agree that's good.

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

3 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

I did not, however, say that the solution is to simplify things. I said, mainly, that it could help future processes and assist in player cognition / understanding.

I would also wager among the big things of "what makes Conclave unique" isn't an overabundance of weapons. Or, at least, if it is, it's far from topping the list. That would likely go to the unique style of gameplay and the fast pace, both of which aren't all that affected by weapon variety (or a lack thereof). So is it not a bit of an exaggeration to say that one facet of over-the-top weapon variety is "everything that makes Conclave unique"? Moreover, is "generating uniqueness" really the best standard to go by? Being able to slide attack instant-kill with one kind of melee weapon could be classified as unique, but I don't think many would agree that's good.

Which weapons would you remove? 

[Tyreaus]

2 hours ago, (XB1)The Repo Man151 said:

Which weapons would you remove? 

I'm not a game developer. I can, however, say that Despair and Kunai are so similar that, in an open arsenal system, both don't need to exist (see also: Dakra Prime and Broken War, Pangolin Sword and Heat Sword). And that a number of weapon variants can likely be set aside, the differences between so many of them being so minute that weapon modding can do the job. I can also say it'd be controversial to have weapons like Lato and Vasto or Stubba and Azima in the same set. And I can say Marelok and Lex are likely to be just fine because of their super high lean toward shield / health damages.

That's as a baseline, at least. In my ideal world, I'd see it as weapons filling major niches—a heavy pistol, an auto rifle, a beam weapon—in a way that skill with a weapon, not selection of a weapon, is the primary determinant. I.e., one picks a Lex not because of high puncture damage being able to one-tap unshielded targets, but because it hits slow but hard and that fits the player's style. That'd allow for a lot more simplification. I know that kind of damage simplification won't ever fly, but if it were up to me...

[sanghije]

A simplification to weapon options available to conclave would help with many balancing issues and free up a lot of weapons to not be direct upgrades to another. How would I do it? Following my favorite design philosophy "less is more", I would break down weapon specific families to match in stats. Example: Braton Family (Mk-Braton, Braton, Braton Vandel, Braton Prime) should only differ in appearance while all their stats are locked to be the same. This would allow other weapons to have more opportunities to be tweaked to fill more coherent rolls based off their respective stats and functionality. 

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

1 hour ago, Tyreaus said:

in a way that skill with a weapon, not selection of a weapon, is the primary determinant

It is also true, however, that similar weapons may have different uses. For example, the Rubico and Snipetron are both sniper rifles with high damage, yet one is impact based and one is puncture based. I think diversity along IPS stat lines among weapon categories should be maintained.

[Tyreaus]

4 hours ago, (XB1)The Repo Man151 said:

It is also true, however, that similar weapons may have different uses. For example, the Rubico and Snipetron are both sniper rifles with high damage, yet one is impact based and one is puncture based. I think diversity along IPS stat lines among weapon categories should be maintained.

As I said: that's just talking about my ideal world. I know next to nobody here would agree with it so I'm not going to push that point.

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

6 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

As I said: that's just talking about my ideal world. I know next to nobody here would agree with it so I'm not going to push that point.

I've given it some thought and I like the idea. Sacrificing some weapon diversity so DE can balance the game easier makes sense. 

[Kontrollo]

Here's another one for the pile. Pretty clear this one slipped through the cracks, just like Tatsu did:

 

 

P.S. You should really update your templates to disable weapons by default, if you're not going to spend the 5 minutes to bring that multiplier somewhat in line.

[Tyreaus]

On 2019-12-20 at 9:48 PM, Kontrollo said:

Here's another one for the pile. Pretty clear this one slipped through the cracks, just like Tatsu did:

 

 

P.S. You should really update your templates to disable weapons by default, if you're not going to spend the 5 minutes to bring that multiplier somewhat in line.

At this point, if they're so unable to do basic checks like this, it's hard not to say "just give us PvE stats and disable mods and respawn timers". It'd probably be broken as all get out but good lord...give us a Pollock if you're going to ruin a Da Vinci.

[Kontrollo]

9 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

At this point, if they're so unable to do basic checks like this, it's hard not to say "just give us PvE stats and disable mods and respawn timers". It'd probably be broken as all get out but good lord...give us a Pollock if you're going to ruin a Da Vinci.

No thanks. I don't want to go back to Dark Sector Conflict style aimbot face-offs, either.

[Tyreaus]

30 minutes ago, Kontrollo said:

No thanks. I don't want to go back to Dark Sector Conflict style aimbot face-offs, either.

T'is not a wholly serious suggestion. Besides, at this rate and in this direction, we'll probably end up there by the start of 2021.

[(PSN)Xx-Ribbium-xX]

this needs to be seen by everyone 

[Loxyen]

I've encountered another strange abomination.

Doubled hit feedback (sound and damage numbers at least) on Grinlok, a single shot semi-automatic primary.

Spoiler

 

Both of these happened in a private hosted (friends only or invite only) lobby. The contributed damage seemed to be normal, just the visual and audible hit feedback on my end got doubled these times.

 

Edit: I think its not caused by the weapon itself, but some client-host connection stuff going on there.

 

Oh right and before I forget.

• Seems like Nasa has a new space ninja now

 

Spoiler

 

as soon as I stood up from that slam knockdown the game elevated me, so I had to face tackle the sky box and stuck there for a while due to that inherit momentum.

 

 

• One can spam the heavy charge attacks by canceling the charge with holding the default rmb blocking in melee mode (thats most likely already known throughout the pve playerbase)

 

Spoiler

 

The first charge attack is charging but the following are getting canceled.

This isn't really a problem in pvp yet, because the combo counter or heavy attack mods don't exist in Conclave. Also I'm not so sure if DE even considers that as a bug or something that has to be fixed.

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Loxyen
Edit added