The Implications Of Making Crit And Charge Builds Optional

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Right now, there is an optimal build for everything.  There is a build that will give you the most bang for your buck.  Many people are unsatisfied with this as it limits personalization.  People aren't going to sacrifice DPS for much outside of ammo efficiency, TTK, or ammo replenishment.

 

Builds are not variable.  Now, I've gone into more detail about that before and have even made a giant https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlWVt6vp3-YWdHZJRTBvRTBrNGNrb3dNbEZsc0tZVHc#gid=0'>spreadsheet on the subject, but here I'd like to focus on what it would take to make crit and charge builds something that isn't predetermined by the stats of the weapon.

 

For the record, I am not advocating nor discouraging the changes listed below.  I am merely trying to point out the implications of making these things optional.

 

 

Optionalization of Critical Strike Builds

Crit builds turn the weapon into a slot machine.  You sacrifice reliability for the chance to kill the target in a much shorter time span.  As such, this works out well for high-damage weapons like the Lanka or Galatine, but is more or less raw DPS for things like the Dual Zoren, Grakata, or even Soma.  The point of a crit is that when it happens, you have dramatically decreased your TTK, whether by an instagib or by removing a huge chunk of the target's health.  On high-RoF weapons, Crit is raw DPS.  The sheer number of attacks will average out reasonably close to a simple DPS boost.

 

As such, there is no point to making rapid-fire weapons slot machines unless crits do something special like proc elemental bonuses as advertised in Armor 2.0.  Notionphil made a great thread on why they should be based on an independent proc rate and addresses the fact that basing elemental proc'ing on crits will just make crits the new dominant stat in Warframe instead of armor-ignore.

 

The following is likely going to make several people uneasy/unhappy, but I see no other way.  If you want critical builds to be a viable but not mandatory option on all weapons, you need to make every weapon have the same critical rate and damage.  The problem stems from the fact that it is based on two mods which are multiplicative with each other but also all other damage statistics of the weapon.  Following the normalization of critical chance and damage, critical hit mods must be balanced in such a way as to make Crit builds have a slightly lower (I'm thinking in the ballpark of 10-12%) DPS than raw damage builds because they can dramatically reduce TTK on high-damage weapons and on all weapons they amp the damage of selected elemental effects like AP.  If Notionphil's thread of warnings is not heeded, they'd likely need to be further down, perhaps around 25-30% lower than raw damage builds because of the additional utility.  Obviously this would need to come with a balance pass to several weapons such as the Soma or Grakata that are crit-based DPS weapons.

 

Optionalization of Charge Damage Builds

Charge damage suffers in a similar way to Crit.  Like Crit, it uses two mods two mods, but it also drops one: Pressure Point.  Luckily though, there is a simple solution to this dilemma and one that I don't think many people will be terribly displeased with.

 

What must be done is to make the charge damage and time be multiples of the base damage and rate with exclusive use of charge attacks having somewhere around 5-7% higher DPS.  That way, it is technically numerically superior to charge attack targets, but in practice due to chance of knockdown, it may not always be ideal.

 

What should be done with existing mods that deal with charge builds then?  Convert them so that they scale the appropriate multiple in such a way as to maintain the aforementioned 5-7% difference.

 

Once again, I am not suggesting that we go through with these suggestions, I am merely pointing out what the devs would have to do if these desires were to be fulfilled.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[BoomyGordo]

less raw dps for the soma by going crit? so you would rather just go full elemental build with 10 base damage and 7 extra damage from each element?

 

i get what you are trying to do and its a good idea but still your facts are just a little wonkey in this post

[Grandarex]

Right now, there is an optimal build for everything.  There is a build that will give you the most bang for your buck.  Many people are unsatisfied with this as it limits personalization.  People aren't going to sacrifice DPS for much outside of ammo efficiency, TTK, or ammo replenishment.

 

This is true, and will always will be. This statement applies in almost all games that allow certain amount of customization (e.g. skill builds in RPG games). 

 

But it is those who are willing to give up bit of DPS to make their own builds to their taste or playstyle, that deserve the satisfaction of personalization and uniqueness. 

 

I hope I didn't lose you there.

 

 

Builds are not variable.  Now, I've gone into more detail about that before and have even made a giant spreadsheet on the subject, but here I'd like to focus on what it would take to make crit and charge builds something that isn't predetermined by the stats of the weapon.

 

For the record, I am not advocating nor discouraging the changes listed below.  I am merely trying to point out the implications of making these things optional.

 

[snip]

 

Once again, I am not suggesting that we go through with these suggestions, I am merely pointing out what the devs would have to do if these desires were to be fulfilled.

 

We have to pick the lesser of two evils:

1. Allow multiple mod builds on multiple guns be just as efficient as another, at the price of having every weapon be very similar in damage output, resulting in a large arsenal of this-gun-feels-like-that-other-gun-I-had-for-awhile.

 

2. Have variety of weapons that excels in different things, such as raw damage or high crit rates and crit damage, but make it blatantly obvious which mod build is the best, resulting in one or two load-out for each gun. 

 

DE has obviously chosen #2, and I'm perfectly fine with that. 

 

There IS a game that goes with the principle of #1, however, and I can tell you that the game has failed horribly. 

 

That game is known as Diablo 3. 

In that game, there is no such thing as "skill points" to upgrade and customize your skills. But rather, "Rune" system where you can select (at any time) how your skill performs, with little impact to damage output. 

Theoretically, that game has nearly limitless combination of skills and runes. But because every skill and every rune has similar impact, you are left with an illusion of choice and customization. 

 

I hope I made some amount of sense.

It's rather difficult putting all of these ideas into words...

[Volt_Cruelerz]

less raw dps for the soma by going crit? so you would rather just go full elemental build with 10 base damage and 7 extra damage from each element?

 

i get what you are trying to do and its a good idea but still your facts are just a little wonkey in this post

It was implied that everything would get a rebalance accordingly.  I'll edit it to be explicit.

 

 

-snip-

I don't disagree with you.  Like I said twice in the OP, I'm simply stating the implications of making them options.

[Saenol]

People aren't going to sacrifice DPS for much outside of ammo efficiency, TTK, or ammo replenishment.

 

Other than the best DPS usually coming from one element (AP), I don't see a real problem with this. Weapons exist to kill and the weapon/configuration that kills best/most/fastest is the one you want.

 

The real problem is that missions rarely make ammo consumption, accuracy, or silence, a serious concern. There needs to be more depth before most of these trade-offs become relevant.

 

I took a Soma to a T3 Defense earlier today, and despite it's main weakness being it's damage per shot and resulting ammo inefficiency, I was only forced to use my secondary for ~5 out of 20 waves to have enough ammo from drops to not worry about dumping an entire 100 round mag at a time.

 

We have to pick the lesser of two evils:

 

I disagree.

 

I'd prefer #3: a game with enough depth (variety in foes and combinations of environments and other circumstances) that different situations could favor very different builds for the same weapons, in addition to favoring some weapons over another.

[LazyKnight]

We have to pick the lesser of two evils:

1. Allow multiple mod builds on multiple guns be just as efficient as another, at the price of having every weapon be very similar in damage output, resulting in a large arsenal of this-gun-feels-like-that-other-gun-I-had-for-awhile.

I agree, with this option makes the game feel empty.

 

 

I'd prefer #3: a game with enough depth (variety in foes and combinations of environments and other circumstances) that different situations could favor very different builds for the same weapons, in addition to favoring some weapons over another.

Only game that I have seen that pulled of is Armored core, DE is not on the same league as FromSoftware when in comes to gameplay design incorporating numerous paths to the same goal. If they pull off 3 badly(seen many games do this) people will quit because the game has no depth, it is the hardest path bar none to pull off.

Edited September 30, 2013 by LazyKnight

[Grandarex]

I'd prefer #3: a game with enough depth (variety in foes and combinations of environments and other circumstances) that different situations could favor very different builds for the same weapons, in addition to favoring some weapons over another.

 

You're playing a wrong game, I'm afraid.

 

The only time your ideology would apply is equiping elemental mods based on faction weakness... and people generally equip all elemental mods they have slots for to avoid tedious procedure of unequiping and re-equiping different elemental mods. 

 

But anyhow, we're talking about this in the scope of weapon customization. Our enemies and whatever is at the receiving-end of the barrel is an outlying factor.