Theorycrafting Damage 3.0 into a Railjack-like damage system

[Tyreaus]

General Concept

The idea is to tweak the current, on-foot Damage 3.0 system to make it behave like Railjack's system. In other words, it answers: what would damage look like if Railjack's design was the standard? This means:

1. Removing secondary elemental procs (but retaining, and in this case, emphasizing their damage properties)

2. Adjusting IPS procs to fit in line with Railjack's Ballistic / Plasma / Particle setup

3. Adjusting primary elemental procs to prevent overlap or redundancy (e.g. either armour strip on Heat or armour strip on Plasma, but not both)

There is also a good deal of making things simpler and more straightforward (such as simplifying health types to shield, armour, and health), and shifting things so that there aren't ugly negative signs.

Note: Herein, "Health" means "non-armoured health", while "armour" means "armoured health".

Physical Elements

These have both bonuses against certain types of health (armour, shields, and health) and status effects. Besides the bonus damages listed, these are neutral against all other health types. There are no negatives.

Impact - Bonus damage against shields. Procs Shatter, which staggers the target and reduces armour and shields per stack.

Puncture - Bonus damage against armour. Procs Weaken, which lowers the target's damage output and reduces the target's current health by a percentage per stack.

Shear - Bonus damage against health. Procs Tear, which increases damage the target takes per stack.

Primary Elements

These have only status effects. Both the damage type and status effect deal neutral damage to all health types, and there is no cap on the maximum number of status effect stacks. Procs of any type may stack, like current Heat's damage stacking, but only when close to overlapping with an existing proc. This is just to improve performance and damage readability.

Heat - Applies Ignite, a fiery damage-over-time effect, which causes most targets to flail and panic. Additional procs refresh the duration of previous procs. No longer strips armour, but is also not restricted to one tick of damage per second (see above).

Cold - Applies Freeze, creating an area around the target that slows, then freezes enemies. Additional procs increase the size and intensity of the area, with higher intensity leading to faster freeze times. Enemies killed while frozen shatter, dealing the killing blow's damage, multiplied by the number of Cold proc stacks, as an explosion in the area. Cold procs do not freeze Tenno, only applying a slow effect.

Electric - Applies Tesla, an electric damage-over-time effect and stuns the affected target. Damage arcs to nearby enemies with a chance to apply a stun effect to them as well. As well as stacking damage, additional stacks increase the range of damage chains. Against Tenno, this also scrambles the UI, but does not drain energy.

Toxin - Applies Sickness, a toxic damage-over-time effect, as well as enabling friendly fire between the affected target and their allies. Stacks increase damage from the proc as well as damage dealt and received to and from allies. Against Tenno, friendly fire damage is the damage of the unmodded, unranked weapon or ability.

Secondary Elements

These have only bonus damage against certain health types. They lack status effects and, thus, are not included in status effect weights or calculations. Like IPS, there are no negatives, but unlike IPS, these elements are super effective against one health type and normally effective against another.

Blast - Maximum damage against armour. Effective against shields. Neutral against health.

Corrosive - Maximum damage against armour. Effective against health. Neutral against shields.

Gas - Maximum damage against shields. Effective against health. Neutral against armour.

Magnetic - Maximum damage against shields. Effective against armour. Neutral against health.

Radiation - Maximum damage against health. Effective against shields. Neutral against armour.

Viral - Maximum damage against health. Effective against armour. Neutral against shields.

Note: Unlike the current damage system, there is no armour ignore, nor double-dipping with regards to armour (e.g. Puncture ignoring a percent of armour, Slash being extra affected by armour)

Void Damage

Applies a bullet attraction field on the target. May also, independently, proc one of the four primary elemental status effects. That is, for a given Void-damaging shot, you can proc a bullet attraction field, one of the four primary elemental status effects (heat, cold, electric, or toxin), or both at once.

Has neutral effectiveness against all health types, but an innate multiplier against the Sentient faction.

Special Elements

Ideally, the changes to the damage system should not affect status effects on Warframe abilities. Much like how Trinity's Energy Vampire deals True damage that bypasses shields (while Slash's True damage doesn't), elements in Warframe abilities - like Oberon's Radiation procs, Saryn's Corrosive and Viral procs, armour stripping on Ember's heat procs, and so on - should still deal their current status effects.

Other instances of special elements - certain Sortie conditions, such as Radiation pockets; certain Hive conditions, such as Viral clouds; and certain enemy procs, such as toxin from Nox enemies - remain up for debate, balance, and developer effort. (For example, I don't think it's worth renaming and redesigning Radiation sorties into Toxin sorties if the end result - a danger of friendly fire - is the same!)

Is armour still a concern?

Since this removes a few forms of armour reduction and the total armour bypass Slash provides, armour may become a problem. For that, I've previously suggested making headshots partly bypass armour, in much the same way headshots bypass shield gating.

[Cobalt313]

You mean reverting to Damage 1.0 but with status procs?

[Tyreaus]

6 minutes ago, Cobalt313 said:

You mean reverting to Damage 1.0 but with status procs?

Unfortunately, I wasn't around for Damage 1.0, so I couldn't say.

[Cobalt313]

1 minute ago, Tyreaus said:

Unfortunately, I wasn't around for Damage 1.0, so I couldn't say.

Basically damage types didn't combine so there was little stopping you from having Heat, Toxin, Cold, and Shock all together on the same weapon at all times.

[Tyreaus]

6 minutes ago, Cobalt313 said:

Basically damage types didn't combine so there was little stopping you from having Heat, Toxin, Cold, and Shock all together on the same weapon at all times.

Oh, no - they still combine, but like in Railjack, the combined elements don't have associated procs (and aren't counted in proc weight calculations).

[Loza03]

1 minute ago, Cobalt313 said:

Basically damage types didn't combine so there was little stopping you from having Heat, Toxin, Cold, and Shock all together on the same weapon at all times.

In which case, maybe part of the problem is that we can decide what damage types to use in the first place? I mean, most games use damage type systems to further fine-tune the balance of certain items - for example, how enemies work in Warframe already, and Gauss and Hildryn's variable strength based on faction fought. Perhaps, like Railjack, weapon damage types should be baked-in as IPS is now?

[Cobalt313]

1 minute ago, Tyreaus said:

Oh, no - they still combine, but like in Railjack, the combined elements don't have associated procs (and aren't counted in proc weight calculations).

Railjack elements do have associated procs though, they just don't combine.

[Tyreaus]

1 minute ago, Cobalt313 said:

Railjack elements do have associated procs though, they just don't combine.

Are you sure? I don't recall ever being able to get a mix of Ionic and Incindiary procs in Empyrean, and the wiki states that secondary damage types increase damage but aren't included in proc weights, so it seems they still combine but don't convert (and so don't have an associated proc)...I also recall my Archguns doing quite a bit more damage with Radiation than with Magnetic...

Regardless, the intent is to maintain the same combination system, but to tweak it to be a little more Railjack-like. So that would mean combining elemental mods into secondary elements, like we do now.

[KitMeHarder]

This system would just confuse the new player, and remove the depth that engages the a well seasoned one. I.E. in Railjack you build slash, cold, and radiation together and after that everything sucks.

It's like half way between the current system and the boring and uninspired damage system of Borderlands 3. And it just means any weapon without IPS is dead in the water.

[Tyreaus]

35 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

And it just means any weapon without IPS is dead in the water.

This is a fair point, and perhaps it means all weapons should have some kind of IPS (or some way to mod in IPS). But I'm a bit lost as to how this idea confuses the new player or removes depth, especially compared to the current system.

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, Tyreaus said:

But I'm a bit lost as to how this idea confuses the new player

4 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

elements in Warframe abilities - like Oberon's Radiation procs, Saryn's Corrosive and Viral procs, armour stripping on Ember's heat procs, and so on - should still deal their current status effects.

Other instances of special elements - certain Sortie conditions, such as Radiation pockets; certain Hive conditions, such as Viral clouds; and certain enemy procs, such as toxin from Nox enemies - remain up for debate, balance, and developer effort. (For example, I don't think it's worth renaming and redesigning Radiation sorties into Toxin sorties if the end result - a danger of friendly fire - is the same!)

 

• ^ makes zero sense.
• And because why would only 7 of the 13 damage types have procs?
• Why would they combine in the first place when they don't do much more then a Serration does?
  • And off that, why can I only have one elemental proc? Why not just revert to damage 1.0 at this point?
• Partially I said this because of how poorly DE explained Railjack damage, so less on you.
• Etc... 

1 hour ago, Tyreaus said:

or removes depth

• You've removed almost all the strong procs and made them innate to the weapon.
  • Which makes them almost impossible to build for.
• This damage system will be dominated by a singular build, more-so then current Warframe or Railjack.
  • By the looks of it, a high slash dispo weapon with corrosive and you never change your build. Maybe add heat if your weapon is bad at crits.
• You've removed interesting mechanics like Toxin's shield bypass. Etc...

 

And you've also added very unfun things like a whole bunch enemies that can proc friendly fire damage. Not to mention other status effects normally kept in line out side of stuff like sorties.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

^ makes zero sense.

I'm not sure which part is unclear. I'm saying that Warframe abilities should maintain their core effects, and leaving other things - like sorties and enemy procs - up for discussion. That may mean Nox units maintain their current form of Toxin damage. That may mean Radiation sorties get swapped over to something else entirely.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

And because why would only 7 of the 13 damage types have procs?

Well, in part because we have a number of quite sub-par procs - notably Blast and Puncture, arguably Impact and Gas - which could be removed with little issue. Also in part because I wanted to see how the current damage system might slot into a Railjack-like schema. I swear I mention that at the top of the post.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

Why would they combine in the first place when they don't do much more then a Serration does?

Because that's how the damage system works...? I'm not sure what kind of answer you are expecting with this question. I could mention the problem of rainbow builds if elemental mods didn't combine, I suppose. I could also just say, that's how Railjack's system works.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

And off that, why can I only have one elemental proc? Why not just revert to damage 1.0 at this point?

I don't know Damage 1.0 very well but based on what has been said in this thread, it had no procs whatsoever. As with above, I'm not sure what kind of answer you are expecting. I'm not reverting to Damage 1.0 because...I don't want to revert to Damage 1.0. Also, again: not how Railjack's system works, and this is exploring what the damage system could look like if it was Railjack-like.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

You've removed almost all the strong procs and made them innate to the weapon.

As I said just before that bit, some way to effectively mod IPS in would likely be a good idea. We already have one of the strongest procs - Slash - innate to weapons as-is, too.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

This damage system will be dominated by a singular build, more-so then current Warframe or Railjack.

I am a bit lost as to how it could be more singular than Viral + Heat for Grineer and Toxin (sometimes with Magnetic) for Corpus. Would it not at least follow that same sort of route, worst case? Heck, I would at least expect Cold + Radiation for Infested.

1 hour ago, KitMeHarder said:

You've removed interesting mechanics like Toxin's shield bypass. Etc...

Do those interesting mechanics contribute to depth, though? You even mention that the current damage system is dominated by a singular build (well, builds I would say, one per Grineer and Corpus). That Toxin has an interesting mechanic that, for the most part, invalidates Magnetic contributes to that simplicity, no?

[(XBOX)Gothic Chager]

Bere with me here as it is my first ever forum post anywhere. Mainly because I just browse and never post.

I have been playing Warframe on xbox since volt primes realase. I have developed an opinion on damage 3.0; serration, hornet strike, and pressure point should not exist.

Instead a solution I believe as a step in the right direction would be adding there bonus as a percentage to the weapons rank; 0% at unranked and 100% at rank 30. And add the kuva weapon forma to level 40 as means to reward players for putting time and resources into there weapons by adding the primed varaint bonus with these extra levels.

I believe this would be a fairly sole implementation for the foundation of damage 3.0

For those who purchased primed varaints of damage mods fro baro, refund the ducat coat per prime mods removed from players inventory and for each max ranked prime mos removed deposit an additional legendary core as compensation.

Please forgive my horrible formatting, spelling, and grammar.

[Proscriptor]

On 2020-08-14 at 1:32 AM, Tyreaus said:

Oh, no - they still combine, but like in Railjack, the combined elements don't have associated procs (and aren't counted in proc weight calculations).

that just sucks, sorry