Soma; I Was Going To Save This...

[LukeAura]

as a community, we just need to stop having this discussion about the Soma and Galantine. The horse has been killed, beaten, run over by a truck and mauled.

 

I wish there were a sticky that said:

 

'Yes Player #1928833993, The Soma and Galantine are way, way too easy to get for their level of power. This is a known issue that DE may or may not address, potentially with proc rates in Armor 2.0. Have a nice day.'

no one who would be a potential poster for the next 'SOMA OP OMFGWTFHAXXORSLULNERF' thread would read it though. because they clearly don't bother looking down a single page to see the other threads saying the same thing. 

Seriously, I'm staring at his thread in the weapons feedback. It's fourth from the top. The first is a brand new thread of the same issue. 

 

[LikeABawsh]

The weapon's mastery rank is being raised, and damage 2.0 may make other weapons more appealing.

 

I do not agree you with, OP. Not because of the two points stated above, but because you seem be crying for a "nerf on this one effective weapon" rather than a "Buff to make others able to compete with it".

 

Rather than having another shelf weapon that no one uses because its absolute garbage *cough cough machete*, we could change the others. 

Make them worthwhile, don't make this one a piece of garbage.

[Xana_Skullsunder]

The weapon's mastery rank is being raised, and damage 2.0 may make other weapons more appealing.

 

I do not agree you with, OP. Not because of the two points stated above, but because you seem be crying for a "nerf on this one effective weapon" rather than a "Buff to make others able to compete with it".

 

Rather than having another shelf weapon that no one uses because its absolute garbage *cough cough machete*, we could change the others. 

Make them worthwhile, don't make this one a piece of garbage.

 

As someone calling for a change to the Soma, I'm not asking for it to be a piece of garbage. I'm asking for it to not be one of the best possible weapon choices. It's a hybrid weapon that has the upsides of both categories. How does that make any sense? It's an LMG that has more punch than the other LMG's and yet still has accuracy above that of most rifles, and the crit rate of a submachine gun without high spread or recoil. It's all positive attributes and no drawbacks. That is my problem.

 

The Latron? Powerful individual shots, good accuracy. Tiny magazine, bad fire rate.

The Synapse? Great damage, great crit rate. Limited range, iffy ammo economy.

The Ogris? Great damage and splash. Small magazine, low fire rate due to charging.

 

You see a pattern here yet? All these guns have a downside. Sometimes it's something you can deal with yourself, like Kunai and Despair having travel time, sometimes you can't. But there is something bad to help balance out the good. Soma doesn't have anything bad going for it.

[LukeAura]

As someone calling for a change to the Soma, I'm not asking for it to be a piece of garbage. I'm asking for it to not be one of the best possible weapon choices. It's a hybrid weapon that has the upsides of both categories. How does that make any sense? It's an LMG that has more punch than the other LMG's and yet still has accuracy above that of most rifles, and the crit rate of a submachine gun without high spread or recoil. It's all positive attributes and no drawbacks. That is my problem.

 

The Latron? Powerful individual shots, good accuracy. Tiny magazine, bad fire rate.

The Synapse? Great damage, great crit rate. Limited range, iffy ammo economy.

The Ogris? Great damage and splash. Small magazine, low fire rate due to charging.

 

You see a pattern here yet? All these guns have a downside. Sometimes it's something you can deal with yourself, like Kunai and Despair having travel time, sometimes you can't. But there is something bad to help balance out the good. Soma doesn't have anything bad going for it.

3 second reload speed is well below average. 

And it has limited build diversity(less of an issue for some people. More for others.). It needs crit mods to be effective, that's two-four(I'll assume two, but Hammer Shot Critical delay are options that must be considered regardless) less slots on it already. Currently your required mods are SplitShot, Serration, Piercing Hit, and maybe Cry rounds. Now you need to add Point Strike and Vital Sense. You take up 5/6 slots with just the basics to make this weapon good. A rainbow built Soma is about on par with everything else so the crit mods are vital to its destructive potential. So now you're left with three or two slots, and there is no way you can cover everything. Shred, Speed Trigger, hammer shot, critical Delay, Heavy caliber, elementals, fast hands. Usually, you'll get four or five slots, and have eight options to pick from. Now you have ten options to pick from and only two or three slots. it's not a statistical disadvantage, there is no quantifiable number here. But this is certainly a qualitative disadvantage. 

This is in no way enough to justify its advantages, but the Soma is not the perfect weapon like some people believe. 

[notionphil]

I'm going to apply to be a mod just so i can lock soma balance threads

[LukeAura]

I'm going to apply to be a mod just so i can lock soma balance threads

Wouldn't be such a bad idea. 

[[DE]Rebecca]

DE mentioned something about increasing Soma MR to 7 or 8.

 

The Soma and Galantine are way, way too easy to get for their level of power. This is a known issue that DE may or may not address, potentially with proc rates in Armor 2.0. Have a nice day.'

 

I've just heard from Scott about the "too easy to get Soma" and here is an official post on the matter/coming changes: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/122480-coming-soon-soma-mastery-rank-change-3-to-6/. I understand OP mentions this isn't a fix he feels is suitable, and this can be reviewed again once Damage 2.0 is live.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Changing how long it takes to get an OP weapon doesn't change how OP that weapon is - it only punishes players who don't have it yet.

On the other hand, without a marked improvement over weapons already available, the player has no reason to get any new weapon unless they particularly like its aesthetics.

[Volthorne]

I do not agree you with, OP. Not because of the two points stated above, but because you seem be crying for a "nerf on this one effective weapon" rather than a "Buff to make others able to compete with it".

 

Rather than having another shelf weapon that no one uses because its absolute garbage *cough cough machete*, we could change the others. 

Make them worthwhile, don't make this one a piece of garbage.

If one or two nails are sticking out of a board of wood, you hammer them flat, you don't try and pull the other twenty out to match the two oddballs.

 

On the other hand, without a marked improvement over weapons already available, the player has no reason to get any new weapon unless they particularly like its aesthetics.

Players should be using weapons for the play-style they convey and the particular up-/down-sides that each has. Like shotguns but don't like slow reloading? Get one with a small clip and fast reload instead of one with a large clip and long reload. Or perhaps you want a more accurate shotgun that has less damage per pellet than one with no relative accuracy to speak of but monstrous damage per pellet - one is more of a mid-range crit seeker and the other is an in-your-face-S#&$-is-about-to-get-wrecked gun.

[Kravik]

But after looking over the list of corrupted mods, I had to come out on this. The soma is way way too powerful as it is, easily surpassing similar guns, in their own catagories in some ways; Highs mag, second highest rate of fire, high acc, second highest crit chance by a country mile, -the- highest crit multiplier. The only real applicable downside the Soma has is it has a base damage of 10, second lowest in the game, but not that big of a gap; one damage mod and it's just as good as any other rifle in the game in terms of damage, better in terms of DPS. Even then given it's base crit chance and modifier, it quickly makes up for that damage gap by doing triple damage 1 out of every 3 shots....in a 100 shot mag.

 

One big problem I have with the Soma is that it outshines other primaries in their own class; It has the same acc as the Laptron, the battle rifle, while having a high rate of fire and a much high crit chance; A high mag than the now retiring Gorgon; which I have to say was a poor move in the first place-- While having a better RoF and Acc; and it's only bested in RoF and Crit chance by the Grakata SMG and Synapse Clan Laser rifle, respectively. Even compared to the sniper rifles, it does a better job in most cases; It has more Acc than the Valkar and a better crit chance, and only better crit chance than the Lanka, which, lets be honest, is more a novelty than a useful gun, given it's charge time and the high requirements to even get one in the first place. Overall, there's little reason to use any other primary, that isn't a shotgun, than the Soma. Especially considering previously you could get an 87.5% chance to crit with the Soma, and an 840% damage multiplier [8.4] when given three mods; two of which have polarities already set for them. So in a 10 shot burst, you're looking, at worst, somewhere around 1~3 shots not criting, and doing 8 and almost a half damage. Even without a base damage buff, that means two to three shots will surpass a sniper rifle in damage, and the Soma outputs close to 15 bullets a second.

 

Now, with corrupted mods, you can get the crit rate up to 100%! And buff the damage to 365% of norm [100% base, +165% serration, +160% High Caliber]. While this does lower Rof and increase Recoil, I can't imagine this will make the Soma any less attractive as the best gun in the game, especially considering the increase in damage is already got a polaritiy slot. Part of me is glad that we can now buff the basic rifles with slightly better crit chance and better base damage, but the Soma still out shines everything given it's crit multiplier and chance, as well as having some of the best stats from every weapon. What bugs me further is how much it feels like a Primed version of something; It starts with -two- polarity slots, has high stats to begin with, save one, yet costs a fraction of what it would cost to make a Prime weapon in total. I dread to think what the Primed version of a Soma would be like, as it would probably break the game.

 

This is more or less a reach out to the devs; Please fix the Soma. One of my friends said you guys were thinking of raising the mastery rank to 'fix it-- Don't. The problem isn't the mastery rank, it's that the gun is so powerful there's no reason to use any other gun, save a shotgun, a category you're shrinking. Same with the gorgon to be honest; Fix that, don't retire it....You take the gorgon out, that leaves you with the Supra and the Soma as your LMGs for the game, and the Supra has far too many disadvantages as well....Please, please just reduce the Soma in some way, it's absurd to have a gun with so many high stats, and doesn't follow the same rules or lines as the others. Most other automatic weapons have a 5%, 7% chance of criting, and only adds on half of the base damage....Or most have the same fire rate, or base damage; Why should the Soma be that radically different? Why should it have the highest Crit chance out there? Or the highest crit multiplier? Highest RoF? Mag? What reason is even given to make it make sense?

 

Iunno, just after reading the corrupted mods, it felt more like a buff for that one gun than anything else. Most of the other mods, save the warframe ones, didn't feel very useful whatsoever.

what about removing the wind up time and lowering the clip size to 30 rounds or something similar? would that be a viable fix?

[Vaskadar]

My old proposed fixes:

Remove Wind-Up

Reduce Accuracy stat

Reduce Fire Rate to 7.5

Reduce Magazine Size to 45

Damage, critical damage, and critical chance remain the same.

This way, it's closer to an LSW (Light Squad Weapon) as opposed to a GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) without having the best of every world.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Vaskadar

[LukeAura]

My old proposed fixes:

Remove Wind-Up

Reduce Accuracy stat

Reduce Fire Rate to 7.5

Reduce Magazine Size to 45

Damage, critical damage, and critical chance remain the same.

This way, it's closer to an LSW (Light Squad Weapon) as opposed to a GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) without having the best of every world.

You might as well make a whole other gun at that point.  

Although I would say reduce the accuracy. The Soma should not have an accuracy rating of a Latron. It should still be accurate, but not THAT accurate. I won't post a value because accuracy means very little. 

Your nerfs to it bring it to the point in which it just isn't the Soma any more. Its a Crit-Braton. 

Reduce the magazine to 75. Still large, but a little more reasonable given its more compact size over the gorgon. But still recognizable in its role. 

Slightly increase the wind up, at the most half way between wind up time now, and the gorgon's. Its lighter and more advanced, so it spins up faster, but not so fast like it is now. Still has the functionality of a Soma, but with a little more of the downside. 

Add a little bit extra to the reload time, 3.3/3.4/3.5 seconds. This gun should reload significantly slower over assault rifles, but as it is lighter than a gorgon it also needs to be faster than that. 3 is a little bit too fast. I think that little bit extra is just enough to give that sense of balance along with the reduced clip.

We want to reduce Soma's level of power, not change it entirely.  

 

[ChaoticVice777]

You might as well make a whole other gun at that point.  

Although I would say reduce the accuracy. The Soma should not have an accuracy rating of a Latron. It should still be accurate, but not THAT accurate. I won't post a value because accuracy means very little. 

Your nerfs to it bring it to the point in which it just isn't the Soma any more. Its a Crit-Braton. 

Reduce the magazine to 75. Still large, but a little more reasonable given its more compact size over the gorgon. But still recognizable in its role. 

Slightly increase the wind up, at the most half way between wind up time now, and the gorgon's. Its lighter and more advanced, so it spins up faster, but not so fast like it is now. Still has the functionality of a Soma, but with a little more of the downside. 

Add a little bit extra to the reload time, 3.3/3.4/3.5 seconds. This gun should reload significantly slower over assault rifles, but as it is lighter than a gorgon it also needs to be faster than that. 3 is a little bit too fast. I think that little bit extra is just enough to give that sense of balance along with the reduced clip.

We want to reduce Soma's level of power, not change it entirely.  

 

I guess it's not possible to reduce the base critical damage down to 200%, eh? That stat is the real reason behind the Soma's power when combined with the base critical chance.

[LukeAura]

I guess it's not possible to reduce the base critical damage down to 200%, eh? That stat is the real reason behind the Soma's power when combined with the base critical chance.

It might be possible, wait, isn't there a dps calculator we could just plug that in to? 

So yeah, just plugging in numbers because I do happen to have someone's dpscalculator. 

reducing Soma's crit damage to 200% puts it about. 

8.8 thousand dps. 

15 thousand burst dps. 

Which would actually be pretty good for it, and not ridiculous. 

...

Huh. How about that. 

Edited October 23, 2013 by LukeAura

[Xana_Skullsunder]

My old proposed fixes:

Remove Wind-Up

Reduce Accuracy stat

Reduce Fire Rate to 7.5

Reduce Magazine Size to 45

Damage, critical damage, and critical chance remain the same.

This way, it's closer to an LSW (Light Squad Weapon) as opposed to a GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) without having the best of every world.

 

I'd keep the accuracy about where it is, especially if you're going to decrease the fire rate. It's part Assault Rifle, so accuracy should be fair. Mag size, I'd say no smaller than 65, because of the reload speed.

[Seanjuju]

This topic was made before the recoil became accuracy.

[Vaskadar]

I'd keep the accuracy about where it is, especially if you're going to decrease the fire rate. It's part Assault Rifle, so accuracy should be fair. Mag size, I'd say no smaller than 65, because of the reload speed.

It should divide evenly into 540... so 60 is the next one that can divide evenly into 540. I mean, they had this ammo scheme going up until recently...

Edited October 23, 2013 by Vaskadar

[Mosychuk]

Honestly, you cant get mad if the 2014 Toyota Corolla has better fuel economy, nicer interior, a shinier paint job, and a better warranty than the 1998 model.... DE made a new weapon that outperforms their original sketches, get over it. None of those other weapons can perform end-game where Soma can, and that's an issue not with Soma, but with other weapons. You have to draw a line somewhere and say, well, Grakata inherently sucks and may as well be a dinosaur, there should be reasons the Soma outperforms it in those regards. Soma, now, is brand-spanking new, and ready to perform against powerful mobs.

 

Is there really a complaint or are the missions people are playing too easy? Complain that Grakata is weak, not that Soma is OP -.-

[ChaoticVice777]

Honestly, you cant get mad if the 2014 Toyota Corolla has better fuel economy, nicer interior, a shinier paint job, and a better warranty than the 1998 model.... DE made a new weapon that outperforms their original sketches, get over it. None of those other weapons can perform end-game where Soma can, and that's an issue not with Soma, but with other weapons. You have to draw a line somewhere and say, well, Grakata inherently sucks and may as well be a dinosaur, there should be reasons the Soma outperforms it in those regards. Soma, now, is brand-spanking new, and ready to perform against powerful mobs.

 

Is there really a complaint or are the missions people are playing too easy? Complain that Grakata is weak, not that Soma is OP -.-

 

Except the Grakata got buffed, and the Soma is in a tier that beats many other weapons that are considered top-tier?

[lostinrehab]

Honestly I would like the keep the soma as is since its one of the few things that can keep up with pistols. That said it needs to be rank 9 at least.

[Grulos]

If you are going to make a thread like this please make sure your maths is correct. 100% + 165% + 160% = 425%

Isn't the bonus multiplicative?

[lostinrehab]

Isn't the bonus multiplicative?

only bane is multiplicative.

[Mosychuk]

Except the Grakata got buffed, and the Soma is in a tier that beats many other weapons that are considered top-tier?

Good Lord! If i had a nickel for every time some fool glanced part of my post to make a nonsense response... instead of grakata, insert any other weapon that's been out since forever that underperforms compared to every weapon to come out in the last few updates, and voila, my argument still stands. -.-

[nekrojiji]

I've just heard from Scott about the "too easy to get Soma" and here is an official post on the matter/coming changes: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/122480-coming-soon-soma-mastery-rank-change-3-to-6/. I understand OP mentions this isn't a fix he feels is suitable, and this can be reviewed again once Damage 2.0 is live.

 

Yes, the rank is 6 now, but it still outshines the other rank 6 weapons that have the same user target. 

 

It's better than other rank 6 rifles and it's easier to make. 

It has no disadvantages like range or accuracy for the incredible DPS.

[ChaoticVice777]

Good Lord! If i had a nickel for every time some fool glanced part of my post to make a nonsense response... instead of grakata, insert any other weapon that's been out since forever that underperforms compared to every weapon to come out in the last few updates, and voila, my argument still stands. -.-

 

Calm thyself; you're looking rather foolish yourself. Almost every primary that focuses on DPS underperforms compared to the Soma regardless of the recent updates, and the ones that might just can't hit the theoretical DPS.