How to (not) balance; A case study with DE

[ligonare]

I've experienced my fair share of DE shenanigans for the past 6-7 years of this game's lifetime and I am here to detail what is wrong with DE's philosophy in balancing in-game mechanics.

This will cover what I think are 3 noteworthy cases where DE truly messed up (and will mess up):

1) Update 15.0: Syndicate introduction - Vivergate

2) Update 27.2.0: Warframe Revisited - Explosive Weapon Changes

3) Update ?: Upcoming Defense Objective Heal revisions

Let's delve straight to the ugly.

1) Update 15.0: Syndicate introduction - Vivergate

TL:DR Incredibly stingy affinity-to-reputation leads to a meta of frames that can decimate armies of corpus with their ultimates for a somewhat tolerable progression. DE 'balanced' the culprit frames with game-changing mechanics that had the community in uproar. Changes are later revised with DE Steve apologizing in forums for their actions.

This case is one that will live with many veterans of Warframe. Infamously dubbed 'Vivergate' by many vets, this is a interception node comprised of corpus where it quickly gained a reputation for farming reputation for the newly added syndicates. The affinity-to-reputation ratio is not pretty: 1/6 of present with no daily cap implemented whatsoever. Hence, vets do what vets do best which is to rush the content for those sweet, sweet rewards. A meta has formed and corpus families have lost countless husbands, children to this as a result. Press 'F' to pay respects.

The meta consists of the following:

1) Excalibur 4th: Radial Javalin - Those days, exalted blade has not been introduced yet. It worked like present 3 of the current excal. Modded with Range and Strength, it will kill corpus without LoS in the effective range.

2) Mag 2nd: Shield Polarize - This ability was potent back then. There was no travel wave, worked instantaneously and strips 100% of shield for conversion into pure magnetic damage in the effective range when modded correctly

3) Trinity 2nd and 4th: Energy Vampire and Blessing - Energy on demand for 2. FULL invulnerability with 4 albeit with a lengthy cast time

Players used the mechanics of interception back then to drag out the mission, effectively turning it into an endless type of mission. Interception nodes back then had a neutral control state designated as white. So players just capped 1 while denying the enemy by using their powers. By the first day, some vets have reached rank 2 with their syndicates. A progress deemed too fast for the developers.

What DE followed up with was borderline asinine. A LoS requirement for all the culprit abilities that neutered the effectiveness of said abilities. It worked as buggy as one could hope. If there was a waist height box in front of your target and you could still see the torso, the engine would still register the target as 'obstructed'. Naturally, the community voiced their displeasure. Loudly.

The aftermath saw the reversion of said changes, a personal apology from DE Steve, the change of interception mechanics to the current iteration, Viver being changed from a corpus interception to infested instead and the introduction of a controversial anti-power spam unit: the Corpus Nullifier.

2) Update 27.2.0: Warframe Revisited - Explosive Weapon Changes

TL:DR The introduction of a powerful Explosive Bow: Kuva Bramma saw the community heated in debate about the nature of the explosive weapon class, most notably the hazards of self damage. DE heard and relented: no more self damage. But the change came with many cavaets; blanket explosive damage falloff to the entire family and unwarranted self stagger to weapons not considered problematic. Till today, its legacy continues to be partially resolved.

The Kuva Bramma was introduced as wave 2 of the lich weapons and quicky became a favorite due to its stats. One problem that plagues it is the one that is inherent to its nature; the explosive weapons category always have self-damage, including the tonkor that used to have a failsafe is not spared. Players wanted the self-damage gone and DE delivered.

Not without nerfing the other explosive launchers in the process with steep damage falloff. And the introduction of self-stagger on weapons previously with no such drawbacks. Some are debatable based on their nature and stats: staticor. Others were downright absurd: cyanex, zakti.

For now, DE relaxed the falloff for some of the weapons but the matter remains unresolved for most.    

3) Update ?: Upcoming Defense Objective Heal revisions

TL:DR Operation Scarlet Spear is first major event for 2020. In a attempt to squash exploits, DE removed Khora's ability to heal the Oplink with her 3. This included a change to her 3 healing defense objectives as a whole. One feature which was included as a tip for Khora's ability playstyle. Obviously, the fallout ensued with obtuse decision which is DE's balancing. Now, they cast their gaze onto healing defense objectives as a whole... Will history repeat itself?

My Solution to Scarlet Spear

With Operations Scarlet Spear, one would have just coded such that the Oplinks would belong to a new category of object that cannot be affected by healing, etc. What DE does is to double down and do the unnecessary; nerf the frames that will universally affect the functions of said frame in the game and opening more cans of worms in the process. Repeat the process with said cans of worms and you will have a perpetual loop. This is why DE struggles; they like to over complicate their ideas/ solutions.

My Thoughts and Conclusions

These cases are very illuminating. They clearly show how DE works when it comes to balancing mechanics in their game.

• They prefer to neuter/change OLD and/or tried-and-true mechanics to fix problems plaguing new content instead of fixing newly introduced content alone. Probably to promote sales/ consumption of new content. Cough.
• They are usually extremely reactive, using data with time-frames of less than 1 mth or so. Riven disposition anyone?
• They are too data-centric. Their love of numbers will be their undoing for the health of the game. Devstreams have mostly become corporate presentations; with graphs, bars, data and such.
• Their lens of balance is not centered on the 'free-to-play' player, but the new player who has bought plat. Sense of progression is completely flawed when it comes to sustainability to retain/ engage all types of players in the long run. Player retention has always been an issue with warframe.
• The balancing team clearly does not play the game enough. And even they did, they are not playing at the difficulty levels that most of the playerbase consider norm based on time/reward basis. Without their cheats/injections anyway.

I say this openly to DE. History has shown your ineptness when it comes to balancing mechanics. I've supported your work and I applaud your vision of the game, but I must voice concern that your new Dev Workshop shows that you have clearly learnt nothing when it comes to how your game rewards progression and smart usage of game mechanics. Has any decision-making developer played the game in a fresh account habitually to get a sense of the progression? Right now, you are playing in your controlled sandbox environment shifting sand while throwing spanners at sandcastles hoping that it rebuilds itself in time. It will, but not without sacrifice. An exodus will happen soon at this current direction. A tsunami is coming and you are asking us what swimsuits we are wearing.

Scarlet Spear shown me your colors, DE. And color me not impressed.

"We made you, and just as easily, we can take it all away" - a certain Queen, all too relatable.

Edited April 7, 2020 by ligonare

[VanFanel1980mx]

Posts like these are the reason they removed clapping upvotes.

[Marine027]

The Tonkor tho started as non self damage weapon tho and bounced you instead and had at best a non noticeable selfdamage, it was a heavy meta that way.

The selfdamage gone is in my eyes a good tihng becasue the greates skill not helps you if your teammate or pet jumps in the way.

The stagger you can debate and counter against but i find it less worse then self damage.

The Bramma itself is a real problem i say due it goes against any concept of a bow, same for the Lenz, why doesa mere bow overpower a real rocket or grenade launcher?

Only a game and such but i rather had them finally balance older weapons instead of pwoer creep like this, Rivens are also a big ass bandaid.

[GreyDeath789]

37 minutes ago, ligonare said:

I've experienced my fair share of DE shenanigans for the past 6-7 years of this game's lifetime and I am here to detail what is wrong with DE's philosophy in balancing in-game mechanics.

This will cover what I think are 3 noteworthy cases where DE truly messed up (and will mess up):

1) Update 15.0: Syndicate introduction - Vivergate

<snip>

3) Update ?: Upcoming Defense Objective Heal revisions

Let's delve straight to the ugly.

1) Update 15.0: Syndicate introduction - Vivergate

TL:DR Incredibly stingy affinity-to-reputation leads to a meta of frames that can decimate armies of corpus with their ultimates for a somewhat tolerable progression. DE 'balanced' the culprit frames with game-changing mechanics that had the community in uproar. Changes are later revised with DE Steve apologizing in forums for their actions.

<snip>

The aftermath saw the reversion of said changes, a personal apology from DE Steve, the change of interception mechanics to the current iteration, Viver being changed from a corpus interception to infested instead and the introduction of a controversial anti-power spam unit: the Corpus Nullifier.

3) Update ?: Upcoming Defense Objective Heal revisions

TL:DR Operation Scarlet Spear is first major event for 2020. In a attempt to squash exploits, DE removed Khora's ability to heal the Oplink with her 3. This included a change to her 3 healing defense objectives as a whole. One feature which was included as a tip for Khora's ability playstyle. Obviously, the fallout ensued with obtuse decision which is DE's balancing. Now, they cast their gaze onto healing defense objectives as a whole... Will history repeat itself?

So...it sure sounds like Scarlet Spear and the Limbo/Khora nerfs are a copy of Vivergate all over again...should we expect another heartfelt apology from DE_Steve?

Better yet...here is the start of DE_Steve's original Vivergate post to save him and us time for an apology.

"[DE]Steve

Warframe Staff

Honored Tenno,

Well, we screwed that one up, didn’t we? In our panic to address exploits we’ve rolled out some half-baked changes, and didn’t test them nearly enough. Worse - we didn’t communicate the changes and explain the rationale.

We’ve plugged some holes and we’re running out of fingers. I’m sorry you had to see all of this, its quite embarrassing. I’m sure you’re frustrated. I am deeply sorry for messing up your game."

Edited April 7, 2020 by GreyDeath789
Got rid of images from old post to make it more readable

[DrivaMain]

I have to agree on this one. The nerfs that happened recently seems to show signs of DE going full panic mode. 
 

1. DE Worker : Oh crap, we found an exploit that involve this frame/item/weapon

2. Higher ups : Crap we don’t have time to implement a new interaction mechanic, drop the nerf hammer for now. We’ll fix this later.

 

[kyori]

If people doesn't change last time, they won't change even now or future.

This thread among many similar ones recently will get deleted soon.

[kapn655321]

1 hour ago, DrivaMain said:

drop the nerf hammer for now. We’ll fix this later.

We get restless because we know, there's no later. ...or not for 1-4 years.

The way I'd advise, is by doing lots of tweaks live to counter balance problems in other arenas, before nerfing with a scalpel, not a hatchet. Then again, my method is just power creep, and involves a lot more incredibly minor hotfixes. Personally, I'd rather see a hotfix that says, "we just bumped up this base value of this one thing by X. your thoughts? If it's good, good.. if not, another hotfix in 20min depending response." I'm sure this wouldn't be welcome to it's own chunk of the community, either.. but it feels right to me, at least.

In the case of Scarlet Spear CC imbalance, find out why no other CC was comparable to Limbo, and what threshold feels right enough to players across all other CC frames, Before leaning away from Limbo having total permanent impunity against sentients... and when you do, make sure it's a delicate and nuanced fix that doesn't compromise the core intent or execution of the cheese method.

Weapon balance Wednesday,
Frame balance Friday... whatever eases the game into changes, or at least gives us enough hope and sense of agency to withstand them rocking the boat.

Turning these tedious time and money sinks into a live, real time community engagement activity, may make it worth while.. and blow out that stagnant impression that any mistake or imbalance will inevitably sit languid for years at a time, falling ever further behind the curve.

You ever watch a streamer, and they ask whether the volume's good on something? Then everyone can give a live response to let them know how it feels to them? ...Like that. Say for instance.. Tomorrow, they open a hotfix for Wukong's Exalted, to strike a better balance. "Slight improvement to damage, increase in range. Does it feel right? Better? Worse? Why, and which scenario makes you feel this way?" *tweak tweak tweak* ...one a day. If we on PC are the playtesters, use that resource, for all of our sake's. If anyone disagrees with a deluge of hotfixes, by all means.. *tweak* slightly fewer, expanding length and depth of feedback phases.. which days or times work best, etc. But, this is just my opinion.

Edited April 7, 2020 by kapn655321

[Xaero]

1 hour ago, ligonare said:

A LoS requirement for all the culprit abilities that neutered the effectiveness of said abilities.

Radial Javelin is not an LoS ability. It uses much more stupid system of "awareness" which means you can hit some enemies behind the walls after they've seen you but it also may not work on enemies standing right in front of you because for some reason they are not aware of your existence.

[Lazarow]

I really HATE how they come back to fixing content year(s) later. There is no balance and every new weapon is meta, their dev workshops are just promises not to come soon, look at liches, look at all those weapons that have been out for years and are not usable, look at warframes with no purpose

[NekroArts]

56 minutes ago, ligonare said:

They prefer to neuter/change OLD and/or tried-and-true mechanics to fix problems plaguing new content instead of fixing newly introduced content alone. Probably to promote sales/ consumption of new content. Cough.

Not as one-sided as this statement makes it look. Plenty of the old mechanics would've made it hard to balance the game around, making the game trivial or the ability absolutely mandatory. This would make situations where the player(s) needed to use, not just the Warframe, but also a very specific setup to have a chance. This is the fear that's making up most of the complaint with Vazarins "planned" nerf.

Current Vazarin allows players to bring whatever setup they want to high defense-style missions (Arbitration, Sortie Radiation Hazard, etc) giving them freedom of playstyle. Should the nerf go through as what is posted, players will be pushed to play frames they don't like. The planned removal of the invulnerability for defense targets from Protective Dash I support, but the healing value does need to be better. However, if it remains the way it is, DE would be making content that felt trivial like Limbo with Scarlet Spear or we get something that would make us do this - constantly having to protect the target with very little freedom to "play".

 

[SenorClipClop]

I love how people criticize the game "because they want it to be the best it can be", while at the same time likening the removal of afk strats to slaps in faces. Are these people defending afk gameplay or...?

[SordidDreams]

1 hour ago, ligonare said:

They are too data-centric. Their love of numbers will be their undoing for the health of the game. Devstreams have mostly become corporate presentations; with graphs, bars, data and such.

That is the biggest problem I have with DE by far. The Catchmoon nerf brought this to stark contrast. When they gave their reasoning for it, not a single word was spoken about trying to make the gun or the game in general more fun, it was all about usage numbers. Too many people use this gun, so we have to nerf it.

Well guess what, it's a videogame gun. People play games because they're fun, and they choose their guns because they're fun. So "Catchoom is the most used gun" is the same thing as "Catchmoon is the most fun gun". Which means that DE's reasoning of "Catchmoon needs to be nerfed because it's used too much" is really "Catchmoon needs to be nerfed because it's too fun".

Now I appreciate the idea of encouraging a variety of playstyles, but making popular weapons less fun to try to drive players away from them is exactly the wrong way to go about it. That's like a chef in a restaurant deliberately making a popular meal worse to 'encourage' patrons to try other ones, instead of improving those. That's obviously stupid, all that's going to do is drive people away from the restaurant as a whole, yet that's exactly what DE did. Making a fun weapon less fun doesn't make the others any more fun, so all it does is make the game less fun overall.

12 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

Are these people defending afk gameplay or...?

When the content is boring and tedious, making you focus on it is a bad thing. AFKing allows you to avoid that, so yeah, it can be a plus. I wouldn't have all the beach balls if the Dog Days event wasn't possible to AFK, for instance. That's part of the reason why I resent the recent Ember rework. DE made her unable to speedrun low-level mission, but that didn't make those missions any less unfun, all it did was make them take longer, increasing the amount of boredom and tedium you experience in the game.

Edited April 7, 2020 by SordidDreams

[Marine027]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb SenorClipClop:

I love how people criticize the game "because they want it to be the best it can be", while at the same time likening the removal of afk strats to slaps in faces. Are these people defending afk gameplay or...?

People defend it because it had to of coruse happen in a already borign grindfest event, making there life simply easier with it if they have ot repeat it already over and over, sure it is boring but AFK? You sitll have to recast it and keep it up somehow, same for stasis. I rather mroe ask why people hate on Limbo which whole purpose is to CC, what difference is it to other CC frames really?

The whole point is that DE decided to "fix" it right now as the event is happening, the event is the problem with is boring repetetive gameplayy no challange even without Limbo, it make it simply easier ot bear it.

[kapn655321]

1 hour ago, Marine027 said:

People defend it because it had to of coruse happen in a already borign grindfest event, making there life simply easier with it if they have ot repeat it already over and over, sure it is boring but AFK? You sitll have to recast it and keep it up somehow, same for stasis. I rather mroe ask why people hate on Limbo which whole purpose is to CC, what difference is it to other CC frames really?

The whole point is that DE decided to "fix" it right now as the event is happening, the event is the problem with is boring repetetive gameplayy no challange even without Limbo, it make it simply easier ot bear it.

You are right about that. The reason given is that, "the grind is tedious, and this is the only way I can get through it."

However, perhaps those players are always going to feel like that? Like.. that rationale could be used for people being legit AFK, too. "The method of obtaining these things is stupid, so if I'm going to enjoy the game at all, it will be with this exploit." I can't quite tell where the line is. Perhaps they can strike a balance where the grind feels right... but maybe the goal of these players is to knock off a check list, feast on easy loot, and leave.. and not play the game for it's mechanics for any meaningful amount of time. They just might, and that's their right, but is that the experience DE intends to curate? Can those players ever truly be players, and sated at the same time?
 

[UdsUds]

1 hour ago, VanFanel1980mx said:

Posts like these are the reason they removed clapping upvotes.

I was wondering where are the other "Upvote Type" goes.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

2 hours ago, UdsUds said:

I was wondering where are the other "Upvote Type" goes.

Back when one of their recent updates (March-ish? Or February?) got negative feedback on the forums, DE decided to remove all the reactions leaving only the "like" button available. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by (PS4)DoctorWho_90250

[SenorClipClop]

2 hours ago, SordidDreams said:

"Catchmoon needs to be nerfed because it's used too much"

This was never their reason for the nerf, though.

Reb and Pablo repeatedly said that the Catchmoon nerf came about because it was a significant power outlier. That it was so much stronger than everything else in its class, it made every other secondary a virtual non-option. They only brought up its usage statistics as evidence of this point.

Argue about the fairness of the nerf all you like, but "it was popular" was not why Catchmoon was nerfed.

2 hours ago, SordidDreams said:

When the content is boring and tedious, making you focus on it is a bad thing. AFKing allows you to avoid that, so yeah, it can be a plus.

I understand the perspective, but criticizing the game and wanting it to improve, while also defending afk strats, is really shortsighted. If someone does this, they are defending a problem in the game because it's a bandaid on another problem.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

1 minute ago, SenorClipClop said:

This was never their reason for the nerf, though.

Reb and Pablo repeatedly said that the Catchmoon nerf came about because it was a significant power outlier. That it was so much stronger than everything else in its class, it made every other secondary a virtual non-option. They only brought up its usage statistics as evidence of this point.

Argue about the fairness of the nerf all you like, but "it was popular" was not why Catchmoon was nerfed.

DE: MR 27 players use it a lot. Nerfed. 

That's the reasoning that was given. 

[SenorClipClop]

1 minute ago, (PS4)DoctorWho_90250 said:

DE: MR 27 players use it a lot. Nerfed. 

That's the reasoning that was given. 

Except it wasn't. Correlation, not causation.

It was used a lot because it was OP, and nerfed because it was OP, not because it was used a lot.

[SordidDreams]

12 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

This was never their reason for the nerf, though.

Reb and Pablo repeatedly said that the Catchmoon nerf came about because it was a significant power outlier. That it was so much stronger than everything else in its class, it made every other secondary a virtual non-option. They only brought up its usage statistics as evidence of this point.

Argue about the fairness of the nerf all you like, but "it was popular" was not why Catchmoon was nerfed.

Watch the damn stream, there's a vod of it.

12 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

I understand the perspective, but criticizing the game and wanting it to improve, while also defending afk strats, is really shortsighted. If someone does this, they are defending a problem in the game because it's a bandaid on another problem.

I agree, however I'd rather have a problem with a band-aid than a problem without one. We know damn well DE is not going to do anything about the underlying problem, so I'll take the next best thing.

[(PSN)connort54321]

For that last part about the cheats/injections, wasn’t there a dev stream when they tried to fight an eidolon and failed miserably and decided all of a sudden that it needed balancing? Clearly shows that they do not test things AT ALL and are just as surprised as we would be when they get completely destroyed by their own content

[xMarvin732]

22 hours ago, SordidDreams said:

That's part of the reason why I resent the recent Ember rework. DE made her unable to speedrun low-level mission, but that didn't make those missions any less unfun, all it did was make them take longer, increasing the amount of boredom and tedium you experience in the game.

Negative Part of the Rework, they removed her World on Fire Speed Run Ability.
Positive Part of the Rework, they made her a viable frame, being able to combine her abilities instead of focussing mostly on WoF.
(I used the pre reworked Embers second and third ability aswell, instead of only keeping WoF on)

[TheLexiConArtist]

2 hours ago, xMarvin732 said:

Negative Part of the Rework, they removed her World on Fire Speed Run Ability.
Positive Part of the Rework, they made her a viable frame, being able to combine her abilities instead of focussing mostly on WoF.
(I used the pre reworked Embers second and third ability aswell, instead of only keeping WoF on)

Debatable.

They axed the majority of her firepower (or more specifically, her Fire power, i.e. having up to three multipliers of heat output, now just 0-1). It was odd to make the 'burn the world caster' more of a buffer/debuffer to scale but it was an option, at least.

They gave her a self-defeating energy economy where you have to spam spending energy to stave off losing energy through drain. Lose-lose situation there.

They gave her scaling damage resistance on something that cannot be maintained, making it effectively unreliable to expect anything above the baseline DR of 50% (which is useless when other warframes with DR abilities are generally boasting 5 to 10 times more effective health multiplier at a completely reliable state).

And the benefit of total armour strip exists only when you're in the critical overheat level, insinuating more drain, while also being on the ability that reduces heat level, meaning you have to let it re-heat before you can do your job again.

 

It's a complete mess, honestly. Just having WoF as it was before the range nerf, and having the Heat proc changes to date, would have actually made Ember quite potent.

[George_PPS]

Also Update 26 that killed the best ranged meta melee weapons and replaced them with limited scaling. And more... the nerf list is endless, never seen a game dedicating a large amount of resources to balance(nerf) the * out of everything. Every update now has something to be nerfed or destroyed. 

Edited April 8, 2020 by George_PPS

[xMarvin732]

1 hour ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

It's a complete mess, honestly. Just having WoF as it was before the range nerf, and having the Heat proc changes to date, would have actually made Ember quite potent.

Sadly that still would make her the same old boring Warframe since her WoF was the most of the abilities that i used, i really like her new 2nd Ability and the 1st ability to be able to charge

Edited April 8, 2020 by xMarvin732