Warframe Difficulty defenses from community

[Amazerath]

If you really want to talk about why Warframe is easy and what makes it hard to balance then you need to look at something completely different. And that's "warframe powers".

I've played plenty of games where your character has incredibly powerful attacks that could instantly stun, kill, freeze, explode or melt down everything around you. Games where you basically play as a moving nuclear warhead. However, in each of those games there was a limiting factor. Some games had cooldowns, others limited the amount of times you could use these attacks and other games required you to do something like filling a meter before you could unleash mayhem.

What about Warframe? Well, in Warframe you need energy. But guess what, you can fabricate energy with your Zenurik operator, gear items and there are also energy drops you can pick up. Essentially, Warframe does not limit how often you can use your most powerful attacks. That is what breaks the game. Unlimited invulnerability, invisibility, crowd control and things like that.

 

For anyone claiming parkour is OP and needs to be nerfed, here is a challenge for you: go play Elite Onslaught solo with a warframe that can't rely on maximum duration builds or low tier power spamming. In other words, pick a warframe that cannot bypass the power limitations created by Simmaris. See how far you can get relying mostly on parkour. No power spamming, no exploits, no hiding behind boxes, etc.

[Darklord_Tou]

Whenever DE talks about the idea of nerfing anything there is always been a strong animosity against it. So DE has to follow up with something like "its not a big nerf" or maybe buffing something else. And thats fine warframe do have alot of underpowered stuff that needs buffing but why does it have to together to lower the community backlash? If something is 130% more effective then other stuff shouldnt it be nerfed to a balanced state? Why cant they just nerf something on there own without a huge community backlash?

At this point it feels like DE is too scared to nerf anything cause of backlash and thats a bad thing. You cant have your developers scared to make necessary changes to game.

Edited February 29, 2020 by Darklord_Tou

[(PSN)CrazyBeaTzu]

I've never seen a more op game in my life. The way some gaming communities work, it's a constant battle between conservative and liberal players. So it's only natural this'll be exacerbated in a place like this.

Look at the camps: you have 

"Freedom and power fantasy"

Vs.

"People have too much freedom and power fantasy"

More adjustments will continue to happen. Just enjoy the show. Just another day in an MMO world lol

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

The problem lies with people have things they enjoy, and they don't like seeing it nerfed. 
It also seems DE only nerfs things/frames that are popular. So people, like myself admittedly, become unwilling to invest forma and catalysts/reactors into things we find interesting because it'll be fun and popular so of course it'll get nerfed. I'm awaiting the nerfs to the bramma after investing time with it and enjoying it because, without the self damage, players will use it a lot. After the increase in player usage it'll get nerfed...because removing self damage made it more popular...and DE nerfs popular things/frames. 

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

Well, can't be too cautious since their good PR image relies on player trust. But still, a firm hand is required in these situations, and people just have to accept change in some situations regardless of they liking it or not. Or they leave.

See, this isn't new at all. Group A is against the status quo, they fight and scream for change. Group B is silent because they are fine with the status quo. Now Group A is heard, and stuff changes, and Group B suddenly shows signs of life and screams to keep the status quo.

Just watch how people for years asked for no self damage and only now, suddenly, there is an outcry, another loud minority, to keep it. Now aplly this logic to all other changes, big or small, and realize how you can't please everyone, just select the biggest and better group and pray it turns out to be the right decision in the long run.

[Morthal]

17 minutes ago, Darklord_Tou said:

Whenever DE talks about the idea of nerfing anything there is always been a strong animosity against it. So DE has to follow up with something like "its not a big nerf" or maybe buffing something else. And thats fine warframe do have alot of underpowered stuff that needs buffing but why does it have to together to lower the community backlash? If something is 130% more effective then other stuff shouldnt it be nerfed to a balanced state? Why cant they just nerf something on there own without a huge community backlash?

At this point it feels like DE is too scared to nerf anything cause of backlash and thats a bad thing. You cant have your developers scared to make necessary changes to game.

IMAGINE: Nerfing an anti-tank cannon, because it destroys tanks TOO GOOD.
Sorry but there's just no logic behind most of what DE does these days.
There are bugs that still need fixing, far more important base game mechanics that have been neglected for years now...

Edited February 29, 2020 by Morthal

[Obviousclone]

The entire game is founded on a power growth progression system

 

Every mission earns players more endo and credits to fuse into their mods which make them do more damage or have more survivability. Players are constantly leveling up from every fight and even when they hit the level cap, they continue to grow through focus exp. Players also constantly run missions seeking to get new (stronger) weapons or warframe blueprints and/or the resources to craft them.

 

Everything about the game pushes the players into idea that they are getting stronger.

And when they get told "we're making you weaker" then it conflicts with everything they've been doing. No one wants to have their progress undone. And people are very protective of what they have. It's within the nature of the game for closeminded individuals to be upset when they've been trained into the idea, that in a game where all you do is get progressively stronger, that every change to the game should also further that progression. And they'll use any excuse they can do justify it.

[Sahfiel]

<snip deleting old ranty dumb posts>

Edited February 17, 2022 by Sahfiel
Removing all my old salty posts or updating.

[George_PPS]

31 minutes ago, Darklord_Tou said:

Whenever DE talks about the idea of nerfing anything there is always been a strong animosity against it. So DE has to follow up with something like "its not a big nerf" or maybe buffing something else. And thats fine warframe do have alot of underpowered stuff that needs buffing but why does it have to together to lower the community backlash? If something is 130% more effective then other stuff shouldnt it be nerfed to a balanced state? Why cant they just nerf something on there own without a huge community backlash?

At this point it feels like DE is too scared to nerf anything cause of backlash and thats a bad thing. You cant have your developers scared to make necessary changes to game.

Warframe's main theme is OP and everything had been OP and therefore FUN for many players until this wreck train of nerfing started to move with great momentum from late 2018. Nerfing what this game has always been is the worst idea ever. If the community is against the nerfs, then it shouldn't be nerfed. Just look at the lost players. If DE had not nerfed this so much, the game would have been at No.5 spot on the chart and surpassed many other games already. I lost at least 50% friends who are strongly against nerfing and you'll never see or hear them again because they already left the game. 

[George_PPS]

13 minutes ago, Obviousclone said:

The entire game is founded on a power growth progression system

 

Every mission earns players more endo and credits to fuse into their mods which make them do more damage or have more survivability. Players are constantly leveling up from every fight and even when they hit the level cap, they continue to grow through focus exp. Players also constantly run missions seeking to get new (stronger) weapons or warframe blueprints and/or the resources to craft them.

 

Everything about the game pushes the players into idea that they are getting stronger.

And when they get told "we're making you weaker" then it conflicts with everything they've been doing. No one wants to have their progress undone. And people are very protective of what they have. It's within the nature of the game for closeminded individuals to be upset when they've been trained into the idea, that in a game where all you do is get progressively stronger, that every change to the game should also further that progression. And they'll use any excuse they can do justify it.

Exactly, DE again and again resets players' progress and time/efforts invested in the game. That's a big no-no in game design and drives many players away. 

Edited February 29, 2020 by George_PPS

[Darklord_Tou]

4 minutes ago, George_PPS said:

Warframe's main theme is OP and everything had been OP and therefore FUN for many players until this wreck train of nerfing started to move with great momentum from late 2018. Nerfing what this game has always been is the worst idea ever. If the community is against the nerfs, then it shouldn't be nerfed. Just look at the lost players. If DE had not nerfed this so much, the game would have been at No.5 spot on the chart and surpassed many other games already. I lost at least 50% friends who are strongly against nerfing and you'll never see or hear them again because they already left the game. 

OP doesnt necessarily mean fun. There are many games where you feel weak compared to enemies yet they are still alot fun. Also i dont think anyone quits a game because of a needed nerf but obviously there are exceptions.

[trst]

Some want a game to be a power fantasy, others want to be presented with a challenge to overcome.

Neither group is wrong in their desires but changes made for one group are often in direct opposition of the other. And especially on the end of creating challenge DE has yet to account for the sheer amount of power we're capable of having which has often resulted in neither group being pleased.

The game was once anything but a power fantasy but years of powercreep have eliminated that entirely, now the only challenge the game has to offer is to choose not to use overpowered gear. Which isn't a satisfying solution to anyone.

 

Personally I'm not here to play the shooter equivalent of Minecraft Creative mode and as such I'd love if the game could get some semblance of balance to at least try and equalize the power difference between us and the rest of the game.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

2 minutes ago, Darklord_Tou said:

OP doesnt necessarily mean fun. There are many games where you feel weak compared to enemies yet they are still alot fun. Also i dont think anyone quits a game because of a needed nerf but obviously there are exceptions.

Me with Overwatch when they kept changing abilities. 

[Aldain]

Some people just frame every nerf as a bad thing and would rather the balance of the game not exist, the ironic thing is that several of them also attempt to request/demand endgame which with the current power creep would just be "Everything is Status/Crit immune and has 99% DR".

Balance goes both ways, buffs cannot exist without nerfs, the same is true in reverse.

This game also cannot be an unbridled power fantasy or a "I Wanna be the Dark Souls" style hard game either, Warframe needs to be Warframe.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

1 minute ago, Aldain said:

Some people just frame every nerf as a bad thing and would rather the balance of the game not exist, the ironic thing is that several of them also attempt to request/demand endgame which with the current power creep would just be "Everything is Status/Crit immune and has 99% DR".

Balance goes both ways, buffs cannot exist without nerfs, the same is true in reverse.

This game also cannot be an unbridled power fantasy or a "I Wanna be the Dark Souls" style hard game either, Warframe needs to be Warframe.

I don't like nerfs and even I know endgame doesn't exist in Warframe, nor do I ask for it. 

I know you said several and not all. 

[Sagittarix]

I am not against nerfs in particular.
For me it would cross a line when I have invested, let's say one or two Umbral Formas, in a particular Warframe and then they decide to nerf it for some unjustifiable reason to the point were this Warframe is not usable.
I would feel like I need to be compensated in some form because the investment was quite steep and is not reusable on other gear.

Slight nerfs or adjustments accompanied with buffs to underpowered gear for the sake of build diversity is on the other hand nothing anyone should worry about.

So, the question regarding how reasonable a nerf is would be determined, in my opinion, by the following points:

1. Is the post-nerf gear (Warframe, weapon, arcane, ...) still usable?
2. How expensive was the acquisition of the gear?
3. How high are the sunk costs? (Forma, anything else actually?)
4. How much other gear is made usable by the nerf?
   (You can look at the self damage removal for this: Sure, Chroma can't damage himself anymore, but that's kind of a minor issue and the benefit should outweigh it by making a whole class of weapons more viable in the best case.)
5. Assuming that the gear is "busted", is it accompanied by high usage?
   (DE justified the Catchmoon nerf by pointing out that everybody and their mom used it. I would bet the Catchmoon wouldn't have been nerfed if it was a niche weapon.)

Anyone can ask themselves those questions and under certain circumstances, outrage is maybe justified. But I feel that it isn't for the most part.

Furthermore, a lot of the "complain threads" are obsolete if people would listen and read more carefully.
(E.g. the misinformation in some threads regarding """arcane nerfs""".)

Edited February 29, 2020 by Sagittarix
added 5)

[Fire2box]

2 hours ago, Darklord_Tou said:

Whenever DE talks about the idea of nerfing anything there is always been a strong animosity against it. So DE has to follow up with something like "its not a big nerf" or maybe buffing something else. And thats fine warframe do have alot of underpowered stuff that needs buffing but why does it have to together to lower the community backlash? If something is 130% more effective then other stuff shouldnt it be nerfed to a balanced state? Why cant they just nerf something on there own without a huge community backlash?

At this point it feels like DE is too scared to nerf anything cause of backlash and thats a bad thing. You cant have your developers scared to make necessary changes to game.

I'm thinking it has to do with sinking hours, dozens sometimes hundreds getting something that's really good. For example these arcane changes...

Arcane energize the rarest arcane in the game get's cooldown + no more double stacking, you have to combine two level 3's to get the new max effect and it might not work with channeling skills which was a primary drive to obtain it. if that's the case energy restores are going to be far and away better and way, way way way more easier to obtain with the new 100x blueprint which you can just craft from your phone.

 

If someone was just farming it via eidolons it'll take dozens maybe hundreds of hours to reacquire 20 of them in a game mode that's heavily time gated. Paired with some of the most salty, toxic players because they are already angry they only have 50 mins to hunt for said arcane. 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Fire2box

[(XBOX)ERICK001BC]

Like all other games I am against Nerfs. Not because of how bad nerfs hurt games but because more developers should focus on balance toward positive buffs. When there is a nerf it means something is working too well, and in a game like warframe where the "meta" seems to be the only thing people do, others just pick their favorite and turn that into the meta. Developers should focus on buffing to balance instead of nerfing something   (except if exploited). I thought when Rivens arrived it would fix this issue and keep everything balanced, but it was mostly only a band-aid. 

[Darklord_Tou]

13 minutes ago, Sagittarix said:

I am not against nerfs in particular.
For me it would cross a line when I have invested, let's say one or two Umbral Formas, in a particular Warframe and then they decide to nerf it for some unjustifiable reason to the point were this Warframe is not usable.

Orite let me ask you one question. If you are a Trinity main and she gets nerfed would you think its crossing the line? Cause lets be honest she is pretty busted and with shield gating coming soon she is gonna be even more broken.

[Sagittarix]

1 minute ago, Darklord_Tou said:

Orite let me ask you one question. If you are a Trinity main and she gets nerfed would you think its crossing the line? Cause lets be honest she is pretty busted and with shield gating coming soon she is gonna be even more broken.

It would cross the line for me if I had invested a lot of resources into her and post-nerf Trinity wouldn't even perform reasonably well.
But there is a lot of space between "busted" and "unusable". I'll leave it to DE to explore that space.
Using Brozimes metric a nerf from S to A should be fine but from S straight to C or D would cross it if I had any investment in Trinity. (Which I don't.)

[TARINunit9]

13 hours ago, Darklord_Tou said:

Why cant they just nerf something on there own without a huge community backlash?

Because this is a game all about grinding for power. I'm not going to copy-paste my thesis for the fiftieth time in a barely related thread, but the short version is we don't and can't beat missions by only being skillful. This isn't like Dark Souls where you can win with a backpack full of torches; our success is heavily, heavily dependant on grinding for mods, resources, etc. Tenno get more powerful by grinding.

When things get nerfed, it can feel like our grinding has been for nothing

EDIT: well the thread got merged into a different thread anyway, so now it's a lot more relevant. So to quote myself:

On 2020-02-02 at 9:10 PM, TARINunit9 said:

Lemme tell you how I've worked it out as best I can:

The reason Warframe has no difficulty is because it doesn't test skill. It's just a giant gear check

Look at Dark Souls and Monster Hunter, those are hard games. Because they test patterns, reaction times, proper counterplay against the enemies. Look at Surface Tension from Black Mesa, that can be a really hard level because you need to manage aiming properly and taking out the biggest threats first without wasting all your ammo. These are all games that test your skill, therefore they are hard

Warframe never tests your skill. Once you've mastered the game beyond "swing your melee weapon like a maniac while forgetting your abilities even though you're a Wukong Prime with a potato and maxed Umbral mods" (which is why my clanmate keeps dieing, but that's another thread) you don't need any more skill, you just need to grind until you hit the power ceiling. The way the enemies scale means that you can NEVER defeat them with skill along. This isn't like Dark Mesa World where you can come up with some "torch only with no mods without picking up any batteries or paratoads" challenges, because in those games the powerful gear is there to make it easier but can't win the game for you. In Warframe the powerful gear is a necessity to win at all, because the enemies scale in health and damage, and will just spawn behind you and surround you, and will shoot you until you're dead unless you kill them all first

That is the difference between difficulty, and gear check

Again, this makes nerfs to our gear feel sour because grinding for that gear was the ONLY way to progress, and now the grind was less meaningful or even wasted

Edited February 29, 2020 by TARINunit9

[Corvid]

1 hour ago, (XB1)ERICK001BC said:

more developers should focus on balance toward positive buffs.

As if DE hasn't done this as well. If you actually look at the balancing changes, DE have buffed a lot more weapons than they've nerfed, it's just that the nerfs tend to get more recognition due to people not wanting to give up their precious power.

Besides, "Buff only" just leads to damage inflation, and more effort overall to reach the same goal. Why buff not only all weapons, but also every enemy's health level to line up with the intended output of one outlier, when you can just bring the one down?

[(PSN)robotwars7]

7 hours ago, Darklord_Tou said:

Why cant they just nerf something on there own without a huge community backlash?

people don't like being weaker, in any regard. in other news, the sky is blue.

the concept of a nerf itself isn't bad, it's the implementation - the way it is carried out - that decides whether it's good or bad. if a proposed nerf is too heavy handed, then yes, we should speak up about it, but generally speaking DE have always tried to take with one hand and give back something else with the other. a good example is the proposed self-damage changes: self damage Chroma builds will be scrapped, but they're making explosive weapons outright more powerful, with ~20% more damage and an even bigger radius.

until changes actually roll around, people need to chill out and if there's something they take issue with, actually discuss it rather than just post "OMG DE WTF?"

[Jarriaga]

I'm generally fine with nerfs as they are often needed for balancing things. 

For the record, the proposed Arcane changes will nerf my Arcane Fury stack from 240% damage to 180%, which is something reasonable. Particular so when the entire system is being adjusted. 

However, I don't like it when nerfs stick out like a sore thumb due to inconsistency. For example, I'm not happy at all with the proposed change for Arcane Guardian. I'd be more accepting of it if it followed the same reasoning of a 1.5 target. 

[Nezha_Rose]

DE at the very least could compensate players afflicted by nerfs like they usually do. 

That includes rivens, why cant they just give say, 10k kuva for every weapon that had their despacito lowered? I want Kuva.

How about "event mcguffin" currency for every energize owned so you can recoil?

Alteast give us a forma. Or three.