The AOE changes feel kind of spiteful.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

AOE weapons like the Tombfinger and Astilla didn't get any kind of benefit from the self-damage removal, and yet for zero reason, still had to feel the wrath of the Monkey's Paw BS that always gets pulled where any benefit always comes with an unforeseen nerf.  

This always happens.  They "listen" and then always tack on something that made them listening not worth it.  It feels spiteful at this point, like revenge for the complaints that got them to change things they didn't want to change.  

The stagger on the large, powerful AOE weapons like the Bramma was fine.  The damage falloff was uncalled for and adding all those changes to weapons that did not previously have self-damage without a significant buff to them to compensate for the nerf was completely ridiculous.

[Yasha-7HS]

1 minute ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

This always happens.  They "listen" and then always tack on something that made them listening not worth it.  It feels spiteful at this point, like revenge for the complaints that got them to change things they didn't want to change.

While I have complained about this in the past, you're blowing this massively out of proportion. 

The AoE's on the Tombfinger and Kuva Seer are essentially nothing, the only times I've actually "staggered" myself with them are when I've literally shot at my feet. Regardless of that, it stops me for a total of 250 ms, which is next to nothing for me actually aiming at my own toes. 

[Drachnyn]

All the AoE weapons that didnt have self damage just got nerfed by this for no reason. The damage fall off is a really bad idea, we wanted those weapons to finally be able to compete with melee weapons atleast a little bit but that went straight out the window and into the trashcan.

[(NSW)Greybones]

I can... sort of see where you’re coming from, @(XB1)TehChubbyDugan, I think.

I have to ask though; are you trying to convince me (one of the readers of this topic) that DE spits in the face of its players, and that the self stagger thing is the vehicle with which you convey the sentiment? I can tell you where I stand on said sentiment, if you’re curious.

Edited March 16, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[Steel_Rook]

They're going for consistency. One of the major criticisms at least I had was that there was no rhyme or reason why some weapons had self-damage and others didn't. I'm personally willing to take a performance hit as long as I can have some kind of logical order - something I can remember without having to constantly look it up. My impression of the self-damage changes was that the discussion surrounding it got DE to look at and re-examine AoE in Warframe as a whole. The change wasn't "to remove self-damage," but rather "AoE weapons almost universally suck, let's give them more damage at the centre, less damage on the sides and bring them up to speed... Oh, and we can get rid of self-damage while we're at it."

Players are generally good at pinpointing problems and generally pretty bad at proposing solutions. This is why it can sometimes feel like "they don't listen." They do, but the solutions they come up with aren't necessarily the same as what the players proposed. This is one such example.

[CopperBezel]

Yep. The lesser penalty of self-stagger did not exist until it was introduced as a replacement for self-damage. That meant that a long list of weapons had been introduced with AoE, but weren't seen as warranting killing the player if used wrong and that was the only penalty at hand, so they got no penalty at all. And the Staticor is the star example as a weapon that spent most of its life with no penalty but had self-damage twice, both initially and for a day after a much later update in the midst of changes to how its charge shot operated. And then there's the Corinth and the handful of recent AoE guns that did self-damage but had a range-based safety trigger on the explosive as a mitigation to reduce the chance of killing yourself, which resulted in really neat behaviors for the guns in question but didn't actually work very well as a middle position of penalty level.

Previously these weapons had to be sorted into two arbitrary piles, now they don't, and you always know where not to step based on what you see on the screen. It's not obvious whether this has actually solved any balance problems with individual weapons, which might still need tuning, but it's a better foundation for overall game design.

[(PSN)Spider_Enigma]

1 hour ago, CopperBezel said:

Yep. The lesser penalty of self-stagger did not exist until it was introduced as a replacement for self-damage. That meant that a long list of weapons had been introduced with AoE, but weren't seen as warranting killing the player if used wrong and that was the only penalty at hand, so they got no penalty at all. And the Staticor is the star example as a weapon that spent most of its life with no penalty but had self-damage twice, both initially and for a day after a much later update in the midst of changes to how its charge shot operated. And then there's the Corinth and the handful of recent AoE guns that did self-damage but had a range-based safety trigger on the explosive as a mitigation to reduce the chance of killing yourself, which resulted in really neat behaviors for the guns in question but didn't actually work very well as a middle position of penalty level.

Previously these weapons had to be sorted into two arbitrary piles, now they don't, and you always know where not to step based on what you see on the screen. It's not obvious whether this has actually solved any balance problems with individual weapons, which might still need tuning, but it's a better foundation for overall game design.

staticor started with self damage and no one used it, then it got removed

Edited March 16, 2020 by (PS4)Spider_Enigma

[Voltage]

Let's not dismiss what they did to Amps as well. 😕

[taiiat]

6 hours ago, ShichiseitenYasha said:

While I have complained about this in the past, you're blowing this massively out of proportion. 

not really. so many of the Weapons that ended up getting changes got nerfed for literally no reason - Weapons that either didn't have a large AoE to begin with, weren't widely popular, didn't have high Damage AoE's, Et Cetera

so many of those Weapons got nerfed for no real reason at all.

• Mutalist Quanta
• Acceltra (in regards to having a small AoE to begin with)
• Corinth
• Ogris
• Penta
• Simulor
• Ferrox
• Javlok
• Astilla
• Zhuge Prime
• Stug
• Scourge, especially Scourges' Throw
• Archguns
• any AoE Amp or Thrown Melee

just to name a few.
(even Bramma has too much Falloff frankly, having such sharp basically Exponent2 Falloff on an AoE effectively makes it so that it doesn't have any AoE)

Lenz has less Falloff than friggin' Ogris does.
but yeah, it's totally unwarranted complaints of doing things that make literally no sense at all.

 

and this doesn't even get into adding Stagger/Knockdown to some AoE things in the game that also didn't qualify in the Category of having a large AoE, being highly popular, or having high Damage AoE's
and yet still will Stagger you because reasons.

 

 

but yeah, Scourges' Throw, Mutalist Quantas' Explosions, Corinths' Airburst, Ogris, Simulor, Stug, any Archgun, any AoE Amp...
yeah those were just sweeping through the game, preventing anybody else from playing, mapclearing before people even loaded into the Mission, totally.

k.

Edited March 16, 2020 by taiiat

[Teridax68]

While DE has in fact acted spitefully towards its own players in the past, and while the current situation with AoE weapons isn't perfect, I don't think the changes were malicious per se. It seems like DE simply has this idea of how explosives should work that generally differs from the way players view them, which is why they're still implementing punishment systems and balancing methods that aren't particularly necessary or helpful in tuning those weapons. I do, however, agree that the implementation of damage falloff wasn't a great idea, as I think that defeats the purpose of AoE weapons: the entire point to a weapon capable of hitting multiple targets at once is that the player is meant to be able to damage crowds of enemies at a time, a purpose defeated by a damage falloff system that does nothing but make those weapons less effective against groups. As much as I dislike the self-stagger system, I'd gladly take the hit and self-stagger at maximum intensity with every danger close situation if it meant removing damage falloff from explosives, and tuning them based on that principle (and, ideally, eventually balancing them without relying on self-staggering either).

Edited March 16, 2020 by Teridax68

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

On 2020-03-15 at 11:52 PM, CopperBezel said:

Yep. The lesser penalty of self-stagger did not exist until it was introduced as a replacement for self-damage. That meant that a long list of weapons had been introduced with AoE, but weren't seen as warranting killing the player if used wrong and that was the only penalty at hand, so they got no penalty at all. And the Staticor is the star example as a weapon that spent most of its life with no penalty but had self-damage twice, both initially and for a day after a much later update in the midst of changes to how its charge shot operated. And then there's the Corinth and the handful of recent AoE guns that did self-damage but had a range-based safety trigger on the explosive as a mitigation to reduce the chance of killing yourself, which resulted in really neat behaviors for the guns in question but didn't actually work very well as a middle position of penalty level.

Previously these weapons had to be sorted into two arbitrary piles, now they don't, and you always know where not to step based on what you see on the screen. It's not obvious whether this has actually solved any balance problems with individual weapons, which might still need tuning, but it's a better foundation for overall game design.

Being able to sort them into one pile because they nerfed a bunch of them is not a good thing.  "Some weapons are good, some are bad and there's no reason for why.  We nerfed everything so now it's all in the bad pile so everything is good again!"  Enemies outnumber us hundreds to 1 and have constant crowd control and AOE attacks, none of which will ever get addressed because DE and their fanboys don't think it's an issue.  They face zero penalty for homing AOE rockets and grenades.  Meanwhile, DE nerfed every AOE weapon we have in a game about killing hoards of enemies, not tactically shooting them one by one like a ninja (since they also keep nerfing stealth.) and they did it "for consistency."  #*!% consistency if this is where it gets us.  

This is not fun.  That's what games are about.  Fun.

[CopperBezel]

What I'd personally like to see is more individual tuning. I don't think the Staticor needs to have the full knockback effect over its entire radius, for instance, and now that it's competing directly with the Akarius, the difference in their DPS is unjustified. They're two very different-feeling guns with unique mechanics but enough on-screen consistency to make sense in the same game, and Staticor gets to choose between RoF and potentially self-derping AoE, while Akarius has one AoE and one RoF all the time. The trouble is that right now, it feels like the Staticor is getting to choose between either the RoF or the AoE of the Akarius with no benefit thanks to its somewhat higher damage having massively higher falloff and more or less canceling out. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

On 2020-03-16 at 3:05 AM, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

This always happens.  They "listen" and then always tack on something that made them listening not worth it.  It feels spiteful at this point, like revenge for the complaints that got them to change things they didn't want to change.  

Remember that time when DE added "universal vacuum" with 6 meter range? Yeah, that's what this looks like.

[(NSW)Greybones]

8 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Remember that time when DE added "universal vacuum" with 6 meter range? Yeah, that's what this looks like.

I’m not sure what’s implied by this. I note that Universal Vacuum is in quotes (not sure what to make of that), but is it about the “Universal Vacuum” or the 6 meter range? And what’s the issue?

Edited March 18, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[George_PPS]

On 2020-03-15 at 5:05 PM, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

AOE weapons like the Tombfinger and Astilla didn't get any kind of benefit from the self-damage removal, and yet for zero reason, still had to feel the wrath of the Monkey's Paw BS that always gets pulled where any benefit always comes with an unforeseen nerf.  

This always happens.  They "listen" and then always tack on something that made them listening not worth it.  It feels spiteful at this point, like revenge for the complaints that got them to change things they didn't want to change.  

The stagger on the large, powerful AOE weapons like the Bramma was fine.  The damage falloff was uncalled for and adding all those changes to weapons that did not previously have self-damage without a significant buff to them to compensate for the nerf was completely ridiculous.

The game has earned the nickname, Nerf Frame. I and many players have protested this since last year but it has not been heard. Save your time. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

16 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

I’m not sure what’s implied by this. I note that Universal Vacuum is in quotes (not sure what to make of that), but is it about the “Universal Vacuum” or the 6 meter range? And what’s the issue?

People been asking for UV on all companions for years, and they gave it for sentinels, but then (at the beginning) nerfed the vacuum range to 6 meters. Which reminded me of this damage fall-off change. They add a good thing and then they nerf the sh't out of the positives so you wouldn't have the cake and eat it too. They only reverted the 6m nerf to all vacuum after people raised a hailstorm complaining about it. It was a disgusting change.

Edited March 18, 2020 by AperoBeltaTwo

[(NSW)Greybones]

3 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

People been asking for UV on all companions for years, and they gave it for sentinels, but then (at the beginning) nerfed the vacuum range to 6 meters. Which reminded me of this damage fall-off change. They add a good thing and then they nerf the sh't out of the positives so you wouldn't have the cake and eat it too. They only reverted the 6m nerf to all vacuum after people raised a hailstorm complaining about it. It was a disgusting change.

Huh. Was 6 meters really that bad? In my mind it’s playing out like “See stuff. Bullet jump to stuff. Land in general proximity and stuff gets sucked towards player, freeing player to not have to scrounge around too much”. Are you able to find some good example posts of people complaining? It sounds like you might have one of your own, and it’d be cool to read it

[Rul1n]

I am not sure how much my tombfinger viability relies on its aoe, but I much rather have its range lowered then constant knockbacks. The whole knockback mechanic isn't really fun when there is no solid reason to interrupt your half-god frame for 2 seconds on a regular basis. Sure, tombfinger probably has a smaller knockback effect but there are also all the other knockbacks that are hurting the fluidity of combat.

 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

18 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Huh. Was 6 meters really that bad? In my mind it’s playing out like “See stuff. Bullet jump to stuff. Land in general proximity and stuff gets sucked towards player, freeing player to not have to scrounge around too much”. Are you able to find some good example posts of people complaining? It sounds like you might have one of your own, and it’d be cool to read it

It happened more than 4 years ago. The posts are buried. But you can start looking here if you're interested:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/search?q=the+vacuum+within&restrict_sr=on 

And my posts you can see in my profile. There isn't an awful lot of them.

Edited March 19, 2020 by AperoBeltaTwo

[Steel_Rook]

On 2020-03-16 at 2:21 PM, Teridax68 said:

It seems like DE simply has this idea of how explosives should work that generally differs from the way players view them, which is why they're still implementing punishment systems and balancing methods that aren't particularly necessary or helpful in tuning those weapons.

If you ask me (and keep in mind that my opinion may be biased on the matter), DE only have this idea of AoE weapons because histrionics from the community pushed it to the forefront. When talk of removing self-damage came to the forefront, people who wanted to keep it started spinning this tall tale about how AoE explosive weapons are these absurdly powerful things which, if self-damage were removed, would totally dominate the meta and displace all other weapons. I'm not exaggerating, this exact thing (though not in those exact words) was said to me directly multiple times by multiple people. Indeed, DE initially intended to buff the damage of AoE weapons across the board by 20%, but reneged when people kept insisting that this would make AoE weapons totally overpowered. As far as I'm concerned, the whole reason AoE weapons are regarded with such caution is because people falsely claimed them to be overpowered in a misdirected attempt to defend self-damage when their actual reasons for defending it weren't resonating with the broader community.

In truth of fact, AoE weapons are not overly powerful. The Kuva Bramma may be an exception to this, but the majority of other AoE weapons are not remarkably more powerful than their single-target counterparts. The ones which are legitimately powerful - like the Opticor, the Chakkhur, etc. - draw most of their power from the actual projectile/ray direct hit, and a fairly small amount if from the additional AoE. The simple fact of the matter is that AoE weapons do not scale well up to the levels which DE have now made common with Liches and Railjack, which is to say ~100. They don't NEED any kind of penalty or counter-balance because their current design already balances them well enough against single-target weapons.

I agree with you that DE's intent wasn't malicious. I'd further argue that their intent wasn't even to "compensate for the removal of self-damage." Rather, I feel DE took the opportunity of Warframe Revised to wholesale redesign their AoE implementation. Their original idea, it seems, was to push AoE weapons a bit closer to single-target weapons by boosting their damage at the centre but reducing their damage at the periphery. Their original idea was driven for a desire for standardisation - that all AoEs would be treated equally. And I'm honestly not necessarily opposed to this approach. Linear damage falloff is, of course, always a bad idea but you could still implement falloff quadratically, boost AoE damage and make these things usable across all levels. If we'd let DE actually follow through with their original design, that might have actually happened. Instead, we got the damage boost change rolled back and I doubt we'll ever see it brought up again.

This is why I believe that it's worth filtering feedback. Players are very good at identifying problems, but very rarely any good at offering solutions. In this case, DE took a bit too much of their solutions from the playerbase, and this is where we ended up because of it.

[(NSW)Greybones]

On 2020-03-20 at 3:30 AM, AperoBeltaTwo said:

It happened more than 4 years ago. The posts are buried. But you can start looking here if you're interested:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/search?q=the+vacuum+within&restrict_sr=on 

And my posts you can see in my profile. There isn't an awful lot of them.

Cool. Thanks for taking the time providing those links. I’ll have a look through for additional perspectives

edit: Um. Hmmmm....😐

additional edit: 6 meters is fine in my opinion

Edited March 21, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[AperoBeltaTwo]

On 2020-03-20 at 12:46 AM, (NSW)Greybones said:

edit: Um. Hmmmm....😐

See.