Warframe is stupidly unbalanced

[AlfredDean]

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but level scaling needs to change

Fully balancing warframe is an impossible task, but to even start we really need to match player progression to enemy progression

The biggest problem with the system is that everything's exponential, warframes have extreme variance in power and a very high power cap, but there is a cap due to mods only giving so much range, power strength... ect. Not so with the enemies. If enemies began to outpace players slowly and give them time to adjust their playstyle and precision to match it'd be fine, it'd make high level content require skill just as well as it does power and optimal builds

If you think about this mathematically, most effective through the lens of population growth in biology (i'm serious) you see that player power/ability increases with a rough approximation of a logistic curve

Spoiler

For the majority of you who forgot 90% of what you learned in highschool bio, a logistic curve is used to show population size overtime, increasing exponentially at first as every new member increases the amount of members that can be added in the next generation (much like how every new mod/weapon/frame you get makes it a little easier to get the next) before leveling out as the pool of resources hits its maximum (similar to hoe an mr 28 who has 95% of the mods in the game only has so far to go power-wise and takes longer to get what they don't have because of how few and far between it is)

The reason that the transition from lvl 140-150 enemies to lvl 150-160 enemies results in you suddenly being unable to kill anything whereas a noob going from lvl 10-14 enemies to lvl 20-24 enemies can still hold their own is because of this structure, they're still on the exponential side of the track, the graphs still match

level 165 corrupted heavy gunners are the 'simulacrum warrior standard' for if something works at high levels, these enemies have just short of 16 mil EHP 

Spoiler

I assume that everyone knows that EHP stands for Effective Health Points, which is the unarmored health-equivalent after accounting for armor's dmg reduction

if 16 mil EHP is the point at which pros need to put all of their effort into every aspect of their build and the difference between levels 164 and 165 is about .3 mil, with any levels after that increasing ever faster it'll only take a few levels until the enemies completely outclass the player's ability to increase their dmg output

Of course heat, corrosive, slash and saryn (as well as a few other sources) have the ability to destroy or circumvent armor, the problem with that is that for example, until the heat rework, corrosive was required, and slash practically still is. 

I've got no issue with armor reduction and avoidance being rewarding, I hate that it's required, giving enemies 99.999% dmg reduc against anyone who likes the CC granted by blast is insane. 

 

Now that my argument for change is set, here's my proposal.

Make the graphs match, make the enemies follow the same rules of biology that players do. Cap armor at 10k(about 97% dmg reduction) so that things like corrosive and slash are still powerful, but not nearly as required and make the EHP curve logistic.

Have enemy EHP increase at an exponential rate up until 10mil then have it become logarithmic and slow until it eventually hits 20mil and stops scaling much if at all.

This would prevent that 2 minute span in survivals where you go from shredding everything in a 15m radius to taking 5 seconds to kill a single enemy.

The same thing, of course, applies to the dmg that enemies do, at early game they're a threat, but not a big one, in midgame they can't kill you for the life of them and in (actually) high level content a max EHP inaros with adaptation goes from taking 100 dmg from bombard hits to getting 1 shot by a kitty in minutes

 

 

tldr: enemy power scaling is exponential the whole way, whereas player power scaling is logistic (exponential at first and logarithmic later) making the transition from lvl 100-110 enemies to 110-120 enemies nearly impossible in comparison to the jump from lvl 10-20 enemies to 20-30 enemies. This results in players going from gods to a wet piece of tissue paper over the course of a few minutes in endurance runs and the transition in to 'endgame' more frustrating than anything else

[mraz641]

12 minutes ago, AlfredDean said:

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but level scaling needs to change

Fully balancing warframe is an impossible task, but to even start we really need to match player progression to enemy progression

The biggest problem with the system is that everything's exponential, warframes have extreme variance in power and a very high power cap, but there is a cap due to mods only giving so much range, power strength... ect. Not so with the enemies. If enemies began to outpace players slowly and give them time to adjust their playstyle and precision to match it'd be fine, it'd make high level content require skill just as well as it does power and optimal builds

If you think about this mathematically, most effective through the lens of population growth in biology (i'm serious) you see that player power/ability increases with a rough approximation of a logistic curve

  Reveal hidden contents

For the majority of you who forgot 90% of what you learned in highschool bio, a logistic curve is used to show population size overtime, increasing exponentially at first as every new member increases the amount of members that can be added in the next generation (much like how every new mod/weapon/frame you get makes it a little easier to get the next) before leveling out as the pool of resources hits its maximum (similar to hoe an mr 28 who has 95% of the mods in the game only has so far to go power-wise and takes longer to get what they don't have because of how few and far between it is)

The reason that the transition from lvl 140-150 enemies to lvl 150-160 enemies results in you suddenly being unable to kill anything whereas a noob going from lvl 10-14 enemies to lvl 20-24 enemies can still hold their own is because of this structure, they're still on the exponential side of the track, the graphs still match

level 165 corrupted heavy gunners are the 'simulacrum warrior standard' for if something works at high levels, these enemies have just short of 16 mil EHP 

  Reveal hidden contents

I assume that everyone knows that EHP stands for Effective Health Points, which is the unarmored health-equivalent after accounting for armor's dmg reduction

if 16 mil EHP is the point at which pros need to put all of their effort into every aspect of their build and the difference between levels 164 and 165 is about .3 mil, with any levels after that increasing ever faster it'll only take a few levels until the enemies completely outclass the player's ability to increase their dmg output

Of course heat, corrosive, slash and saryn (as well as a few other sources) have the ability to destroy or circumvent armor, the problem with that is that for example, until the heat rework, corrosive was required, and slash practically still is. 

I've got no issue with armor reduction and avoidance being rewarding, I hate that it's required, giving enemies 99.999% dmg reduc against anyone who likes the CC granted by blast is insane. 

 

Now that my argument for change is set, here's my proposal.

Make the graphs match, make the enemies follow the same rules of biology that players do. Cap armor at 10k(about 97% dmg reduction) so that things like corrosive and slash are still powerful, but not nearly as required and make the EHP curve logistic.

Have enemy EHP increase at an exponential rate up until 10mil then have it become logarithmic and slow until it eventually hits 20mil and stops scaling much if at all.

This would prevent that 2 minute span in survivals where you go from shredding everything in a 15m radius to taking 5 seconds to kill a single enemy.

The same thing, of course, applies to the dmg that enemies do, at early game they're a threat, but not a big one, in midgame they can't kill you for the life of them and in (actually) high level content a max EHP inaros with adaptation goes from taking 100 dmg from bombard hits to getting 1 shot by a kitty in minutes

 

 

tldr: enemy power scaling is exponential the whole way, whereas player power scaling is logistic (exponential at first and logarithmic later) making the transition from lvl 100-110 enemies to 110-120 enemies nearly impossible in comparison to the jump from lvl 10-20 enemies to 20-30 enemies. This results in players going from gods to a wet piece of tissue paper over the course of a few minutes in endurance runs and the transition in to 'endgame' more frustrating than anything else

wut? i can one shot level 200. never had time to read the whole thing but lvl 10-20,110-130,1-280. doesnt matter if you know how to kill and use your frames of death correctly

[Gypsy_Goat]

More players need to run corrosive projection.  Stop going into high level missions with energy siphon, rejuvenation, and physique.  Those mods are for new players.

[Skaleek]

4 minutes ago, Gypsy_Goat said:

More players need to run corrosive projection.  Stop going into high level missions with energy siphon, rejuvenation, and physique.  Those mods are for new players.

CP is woefully ineffective if you are the only one in your squad using it.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

12 minutes ago, AlfredDean said:

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but level scaling needs to change

Fully balancing warframe is an impossible task, but to even start we really need to match player progression to enemy progression

The biggest problem with the system is that everything's exponential, warframes have extreme variance in power and a very high power cap, but there is a cap due to mods only giving so much range, power strength... ect. Not so with the enemies. If enemies began to outpace players slowly and give them time to adjust their playstyle and precision to match it'd be fine, it'd make high level content require skill just as well as it does power and optimal builds

If you think about this mathematically, most effective through the lens of population growth in biology (i'm serious) you see that player power/ability increases with a rough approximation of a logistic curve

  Hide contents

For the majority of you who forgot 90% of what you learned in highschool bio, a logistic curve is used to show population size overtime, increasing exponentially at first as every new member increases the amount of members that can be added in the next generation (much like how every new mod/weapon/frame you get makes it a little easier to get the next) before leveling out as the pool of resources hits its maximum (similar to hoe an mr 28 who has 95% of the mods in the game only has so far to go power-wise and takes longer to get what they don't have because of how few and far between it is)

The reason that the transition from lvl 140-150 enemies to lvl 150-160 enemies results in you suddenly being unable to kill anything whereas a noob going from lvl 10-14 enemies to lvl 20-24 enemies can still hold their own is because of this structure, they're still on the exponential side of the track, the graphs still match

level 165 corrupted heavy gunners are the 'simulacrum warrior standard' for if something works at high levels, these enemies have just short of 16 mil EHP 

  Hide contents

I assume that everyone knows that EHP stands for Effective Health Points, which is the unarmored health-equivalent after accounting for armor's dmg reduction

if 16 mil EHP is the point at which pros need to put all of their effort into every aspect of their build and the difference between levels 164 and 165 is about .3 mil, with any levels after that increasing ever faster it'll only take a few levels until the enemies completely outclass the player's ability to increase their dmg output

Of course heat, corrosive, slash and saryn (as well as a few other sources) have the ability to destroy or circumvent armor, the problem with that is that for example, until the heat rework, corrosive was required, and slash practically still is. 

I've got no issue with armor reduction and avoidance being rewarding, I hate that it's required, giving enemies 99.999% dmg reduc against anyone who likes the CC granted by blast is insane. 

 

Now that my argument for change is set, here's my proposal.

Make the graphs match, make the enemies follow the same rules of biology that players do. Cap armor at 10k(about 97% dmg reduction) so that things like corrosive and slash are still powerful, but not nearly as required and make the EHP curve logistic.

Have enemy EHP increase at an exponential rate up until 10mil then have it become logarithmic and slow until it eventually hits 20mil and stops scaling much if at all.

This would prevent that 2 minute span in survivals where you go from shredding everything in a 15m radius to taking 5 seconds to kill a single enemy.

The same thing, of course, applies to the dmg that enemies do, at early game they're a threat, but not a big one, in midgame they can't kill you for the life of them and in (actually) high level content a max EHP inaros with adaptation goes from taking 100 dmg from bombard hits to getting 1 shot by a kitty in minutes

 

 

tldr: enemy power scaling is exponential the whole way, whereas player power scaling is logistic (exponential at first and logarithmic later) making the transition from lvl 100-110 enemies to 110-120 enemies nearly impossible in comparison to the jump from lvl 10-20 enemies to 20-30 enemies. This results in players going from gods to a wet piece of tissue paper over the course of a few minutes in endurance runs and the transition in to 'endgame' more frustrating than anything else

I'll have you know that i read all that and i understood it all (even though i've never too a logistic curve in biology because different country, different highschool, different education)

 

I agree...enemy scaling is abysmal at the moment 

Currently warframes like Volt or banshee...make the current lich content 10 times slower due to being stupidly challenging

I love challenge, but i love a balance between challenge and a fighting chance 

 

SO

With your suggestion i would like to add another way of dealing with enemy scaling...scaling returns on both enemy damage and armor

Example enemy damage and armor start at 50% their normal value 

The more you damage them the more that they gain back part of their original armor 

And if they keep damaging the same target repeatedly their damage scale back to it's original state

 

This to give player the "fighting chance" i'm talking about...

Let's not forget that DE stealth buffed enemy accuracy and awareness...so it's fair that they nerf their survivability and dps

 

[Aldain]

In other news, water causes the sensation of wetness, the sky is blue, grass is green and fire is hot.

Really the issue is a hard one, because it would require a near total rework of all damage and calculations of every single stat to the point where it would be like developing a new game.

That said I'm all for a more rational and logical growth curve to the scaling system.

[Gypsy_Goat]

Just now, Skaleek said:

CP is woefully ineffective if you are the only one in your squad using it.

Which is why I want more players to run it.

 

 

[DarthIronclad]

Hard to do 4CP unless you are in a pre made via recruit chat or playing with friends/clanmates

Only even ran into 4CP in pubs 2 times,and it is not great too,as it being a pub i am running corrosive on my weapons.

As a proper coordinated 4CP pre made will prob have everyone run viral heat on their weapons,both damage types doing more damage vs cloned flesh.

 

Also scaling in general is a thing that needs to be looked at...the equation relating to scaling needs to be changed to a linear or logarithmic equation.

Edited December 6, 2019 by DarthIronclad

[(XBOX)WolfKingLeo]

That forma reward needs to be 3 instead of 1

[Skaleek]

1 minute ago, Gypsy_Goat said:

Which is why I want more players to run it.

Right but its tough. If your whole team doesnt run it, you've wasted your aura slot. Personally I think swift momentum is the best aura choice right now. Armor stripping effects are just a necessity. Running corrosive/heat, warframe powers, power augments, kavat shred, or anything else that strips armor is a necessity it seems, I can count the times on one hand I've been in a public group with 4 CP.

[Chaemyerelis]

They know. They just don't feel like fixing it since its quite the task.

[(PSN)ChaosTheNerd]

12 minutes ago, Gypsy_Goat said:

Which is why I want more players to run it.

 

 

You cant force players to use what ever you want, there are othe auras like GP or enemy radar, or steel charge, 

 

I like using physique and energy siphon at times and I'm mr 18 lol

[Firetempest]

Yup. Known. For years now. 

The game has lasted far longer than any of the devs could have hoped for. And they have long since dug themselves a hole, or rather built the sand castles too high with no easy way to rescale everything in any acceptable timeline and redoing it right in one attempt doesn't seem likely. It's more than just enemy scaling. It's everything the player uses as well. 

That's one reason they have removed typical modding from railjack. They are trying a different scaling and power progression.

But player outrage tends to be why typical "Warframe" mode will likely never change much because that's just the way the game has sold itself for 7 years now. Melee got a big shake up... But did it really change anything? Other than the gameplay feel, just a little, it hasn't.

They are going to push progression into new, fresh systems where our God frames have to make due with skill using finite equipment such as the railjack and the still heavily undermodded archwing system. Which, out of all the other systems, could be rebooted from scratch with minimal losses.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

35 minutes ago, AlfredDean said:

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but level scaling needs to change

Fully balancing warframe is an impossible task, but to even start we really need to match player progression to enemy progression

The biggest problem with the system is that everything's exponential, warframes have extreme variance in power and a very high power cap, but there is a cap due to mods only giving so much range, power strength... ect. Not so with the enemies. If enemies began to outpace players slowly and give them time to adjust their playstyle and precision to match it'd be fine, it'd make high level content require skill just as well as it does power and optimal builds

If you think about this mathematically, most effective through the lens of population growth in biology (i'm serious) you see that player power/ability increases with a rough approximation of a logistic curve

  Reveal hidden contents

For the majority of you who forgot 90% of what you learned in highschool bio, a logistic curve is used to show population size overtime, increasing exponentially at first as every new member increases the amount of members that can be added in the next generation (much like how every new mod/weapon/frame you get makes it a little easier to get the next) before leveling out as the pool of resources hits its maximum (similar to hoe an mr 28 who has 95% of the mods in the game only has so far to go power-wise and takes longer to get what they don't have because of how few and far between it is)

The reason that the transition from lvl 140-150 enemies to lvl 150-160 enemies results in you suddenly being unable to kill anything whereas a noob going from lvl 10-14 enemies to lvl 20-24 enemies can still hold their own is because of this structure, they're still on the exponential side of the track, the graphs still match

level 165 corrupted heavy gunners are the 'simulacrum warrior standard' for if something works at high levels, these enemies have just short of 16 mil EHP 

  Reveal hidden contents

I assume that everyone knows that EHP stands for Effective Health Points, which is the unarmored health-equivalent after accounting for armor's dmg reduction

if 16 mil EHP is the point at which pros need to put all of their effort into every aspect of their build and the difference between levels 164 and 165 is about .3 mil, with any levels after that increasing ever faster it'll only take a few levels until the enemies completely outclass the player's ability to increase their dmg output

Of course heat, corrosive, slash and saryn (as well as a few other sources) have the ability to destroy or circumvent armor, the problem with that is that for example, until the heat rework, corrosive was required, and slash practically still is. 

I've got no issue with armor reduction and avoidance being rewarding, I hate that it's required, giving enemies 99.999% dmg reduc against anyone who likes the CC granted by blast is insane. 

 

Now that my argument for change is set, here's my proposal.

Make the graphs match, make the enemies follow the same rules of biology that players do. Cap armor at 10k(about 97% dmg reduction) so that things like corrosive and slash are still powerful, but not nearly as required and make the EHP curve logistic.

Have enemy EHP increase at an exponential rate up until 10mil then have it become logarithmic and slow until it eventually hits 20mil and stops scaling much if at all.

This would prevent that 2 minute span in survivals where you go from shredding everything in a 15m radius to taking 5 seconds to kill a single enemy.

The same thing, of course, applies to the dmg that enemies do, at early game they're a threat, but not a big one, in midgame they can't kill you for the life of them and in (actually) high level content a max EHP inaros with adaptation goes from taking 100 dmg from bombard hits to getting 1 shot by a kitty in minutes

 

 

tldr: enemy power scaling is exponential the whole way, whereas player power scaling is logistic (exponential at first and logarithmic later) making the transition from lvl 100-110 enemies to 110-120 enemies nearly impossible in comparison to the jump from lvl 10-20 enemies to 20-30 enemies. This results in players going from gods to a wet piece of tissue paper over the course of a few minutes in endurance runs and the transition in to 'endgame' more frustrating than anything else

Level scaling harkens back to Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, and Centipede...DE has a staff that predates many active members.  They have stated that they are not going to focus on balancing the game past a certain level of enemy.

Endgame is different for everyone.

Your complaint stems from the point where you go from the nearly invincible power fantasy of tanking everything to becoming vulnerable to dieing.

Even if DE somehow stretched that transitional curve (your complaint is simple; for you it is too abrupt/steep), the complaint would still exist for the new transition point of vulnerability to death from a single hit.

 

[White_Matter]

Yeah you basically go from doing 100k damage to 5-10k after a few levels in the lvl 90+ mark, but I don't think there is a way around it unless they prevent armor from scaling after a certain point.  So corrosive, or other armor strip methods(like Corrosive projection ) are required to deal damage. It is pretty frustrating if one on in the group has CP at lvl 120+ and you are trying to hit grinner with viral or slash. 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2019 by White_Matter

[trst]

Sure, after we get reworks to the damage system, our abilities, and several mods.

When it comes to the other side of the argument where players with most of the progression finished (call them old or veteran if you want, the point is progression) have nowhere to utilize the progression we have. Nothing in this game simultaneously requires fully formaed framed, weapons, and companions with maxed out Operators and full access to the best frames, weapons, and mods. We become so overpowered at this point that the only way to find content worth putting ourselves up against is going through endurance missions which are both self-imposed challenges and are a minuscule fraction of the game's content.

Nerfing enemy scaling in such a way would help out mid to mid-late players continue progressing in certain aspects but also makes them hit the point of just being overpowered sooner. It does make more sense for enemy scaling to function any way but exponentially but we need to have an outlet for our existing power or at least have said power tuned down to the enemies we actually fight.

[Violet_Xe]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

Level scaling harkens back to Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, and Centipede...DE has a staff that predates many active members.  They have stated that they are not going to focus on balancing the game past a certain level of enemy.

Endgame is different for everyone.

Your complaint stems from the point where you go from the nearly invincible power fantasy of tanking everything to becoming vulnerable to dieing.

Even if DE somehow stretched that transitional curve (your complaint is simple; for you it is too abrupt/steep), the complaint would still exist for the new transition point of vulnerability to death from a single hit.

Well it's not a complete balance is it? Health still increases and becomes multiplied into EHP. It's just this way we don't have 2 scaling things continuing to multiply each other to unbelievable levels. Putting a hard cap on armor isn't a hard cap on everything an enemy does.

There are also enemies like the nox with innate damage reduction even without armor. Plus were about to get sentient soon who use armor too. if there are any high end missions with sentient then were going to have another issue with their adaptability. Damage reduction on damage reduction armor, on health. Atleast armor should be dealt with relatively soon don't you agree?

Enemy damage can be dealt with at a somewhat later point if DE wants but I feel armor at least should be addressed within the year... or however long it takes for sentient faction sectors to be released.

[Helch0rn]

2 hours ago, Gypsy_Goat said:

More players need to run corrosive projection.  Stop going into high level missions with energy siphon, rejuvenation, and physique.  Those mods are for new players.

*laughs in Spore*

I'll keep my rejuvenation, thank you

[(NSW)Linntheque]

2 minutes ago, Helch0rn said:

*laughs in Spore*

I'll keep my rejuvenation, thank you

*Laughs in Pablo's inevitable nerf*

[Helch0rn]

19 minutes ago, (NSW)Linntheque said:

*Laughs in Pablo's inevitable nerf*

a nerf talked about on pablos private stream while he was off work

I'll believe the nerf is coming once they talk about it on a dev stream or post it on the forums

Edited December 6, 2019 by Helch0rn

[AlfredDean]

3 hours ago, Gypsy_Goat said:

More players need to run corrosive projection.  Stop going into high level missions with energy siphon, rejuvenation, and physique.  Those mods are for new players.

That's exactly the problem, if you 'need' to run 1 of 10+ mods, then there's nor reason to use aura forma, there's no room for creativity, for example, I love to run melee volt, blitzing through hordes of enemies with a lightening fast hammer, but if I 'need' corrosive projection then I can't use steel charge, or if I don't want to run zenurik and take energy siphon, then it's a problem because I 'need' to have cor-pro if armor scales infinitely at an ever increasing rate, which it does, and health does the same then why try to play how you want to when everything fun isn't viable?

[Loza03]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

Level scaling harkens back to Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, and Centipede...DE has a staff that predates many active members.  They have stated that they are not going to focus on balancing the game past a certain level of enemy.

Even so, OP has a point.

Level scaling isn't fundamentally broken as a concept, but it goes downhill fast if something goes wrong. In Warframe's case, it's varience in EHP and damage. Melee 3.0 was a part of that, rebalancing melee DPS to be somewhere closer to the standard of other weapons. However, there are still instances, in particular with enemy EHP.

To illustrate: Ancient Healers at level 100 (well within level range) have an EHP of 59,000. Scrambus and Combas have an EHP of about 159,000. Elite Lancers have an EHP of around 157,000. The former two units are rarely-spawning elites, heavy units in their respective factions. Elite Lancers are your bog-standard Goomba of the Grineer. Yet it eclipses the Healers and scrapes close to the Scrambus/Comba unit's EHP despite being many, many times more common than either of them.

Yes there are ways to brute-force Lancers and avoid armour which makes them much less of an issue, but bear in mind many of those also apply to Corpus and Infested - most notably, viral/slash/crit builds. That means that even within Warframe's 'balance between these levels' range, there is a major case of imbalance. It is considerably harder to balance weapons when they need to be balanced for two different EHP ranges.

[(PSN)CrazyBeaTzu]

4 hours ago, Aldain said:

In other news, water causes the sensation of wetness, the sky is blue, grass is green and fire is hot.

Really the issue is a hard one, because it would require a near total rework of all damage and calculations of every single stat to the point where it would be like developing a new game.

That said I'm all for a more rational and logical growth curve to the scaling system.

Yea that's what I assumed too, and why despite everyone's pleas, nothing will happen.

I dont think this is a case of some dev going to a computer and changing a few formulas around lol.

I've seen things like this happen on other games and nothing ever really seems to be done about it. 

They can buff and nerf specific moves, but not an entire system rework.

[StinkyPygmy]

4 hours ago, Gypsy_Goat said:

More players need to run corrosive projection.  Stop going into high level missions with energy siphon, rejuvenation, and physique.  Those mods are for new players.

*goes never uses corrosive projection, does just fine*

Sure thing bud. Would rather not waste an aura slot on a mod that is pointless unless an entire squad is running it and if you facing any faction not grineer

[(NSW)Linntheque]

5 hours ago, Helch0rn said:

a nerf talked about on pablos private stream while he was off work

I'll believe the nerf is coming once they talk about it on a dev stream or post it on the forums

Yes, that's the one.