Ranged weapons need something comparable to stance/aura.

[PhreazerBurn]

Warframes and melee weapons can be used with high effectiveness from the get-go because they get a ton of extra capacity at unranked due to aura and stance mods (particularly if they are the matching affinity). Primary and secondary weapons get nothing, and so at unranked and with no catalyst they are nearly useless for a long time.

For a lot of players, a lot of the fun in this game is getting to play around with new and unique weapons. However, its almost impossible to tell if you like a weapon if it won't kill anything.

[BahamutKaiser]

The problem extends far beyond that, as few guns compare to melee currently. I don't really think they need the overhaul, it sucks that most guns can't be judged unless you invest in them, but it's 2020, you can research testimonies and demonstrations of the weapon fairly easy. It's not ideal, but it's functional. 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

bear in mind melee has the Combo system, so damage scales far faster with them. if guns had some kind of combo system as well (not just Snipers and a couple outliers, ALL guns), they'd be much more effective. I think DE has started to realize this with the introduction of mods like Double Tap for the Latron Family of Rifles. unfortunately reworking ALL guns to this point would be a tremendous amount of work, which I doubt they'd do. but yeah, guns could probably use some love.

 

[Canach]

I agree in part, the concept of Bullet Mojo is pretty awesome - but - from a gameplay perspective I disagree that this is lacking. Consider, there's a certain mystique and elegence to the use of (many) melee weapons - bespeaking years of training, hidden knowledge, or at least traditions. Granted there are exceptions, but for the most part, melee weapons represent the 'special' trainings - hence the stance cards.

The Secret World (and redeux SW Legends) built their game on the concept of special powers associated with (or utilizing) otherwise normal weapons - it worked well for them, but it was pretty pervasive and I don't know what that would resemble in WF.

To the OP, can you give some examples of what's in your head?

[BahamutKaiser]

Combo building isn't required, heavy attack builds do exist and still outperform guns. Guns have multi shot, the problem is the base first, than the scaling. Critical is way higher on melee, and there are mods that multiply critical, status chance, combo, and damage, whereas most guns have fixed damage. 

It's just hilarious that gun blades are allowed to bang hard but shotguns can't have a combination of crit and status. Like Redeemer and Sarpa aren't unloading a dozen stat procs, with shattering impact and high overall damage. Even beams are allowed to have universally high output, but now that shotguns have natural status count, they have to go to Vegas. 

[Xylena_Lazarow]

39 minutes ago, BahamutKaiser said:

It's just hilarious that gun blades are allowed to bang hard but shotguns can't have a combination of crit and status.

Agree, gunblades also have infinite ammo and no reloads on top of their insane damage, while most shotguns have terrible duty cycles even with Chilling Reload. Shotguns are still very good at stacking status procs, but the 10 proc cap thing really hurts there, and they get garbage crit mods. Semi auto shotguns have it the worst, there's no reason a Hek shouldn't perform similarly to a Redeemer. Buff shotguns.

[(PSN)thegarada]

1 hour ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

bear in mind melee has the Combo system, so damage scales far faster with them. if guns had some kind of combo system as well (not just Snipers and a couple outliers, ALL guns), they'd be much more effective. I think DE has started to realize this with the introduction of mods like Double Tap for the Latron Family of Rifles. unfortunately reworking ALL guns to this point would be a tremendous amount of work, which I doubt they'd do. but yeah, guns could probably use some love.

 

I suggested before that all single target weapons start having combo multiplier similar to snipers. Weapons like bows, semi automatic guns, could become very good with such a change. I do not see that as game breaking or requiring much work.

[Rakosta_Kai]

1 hour ago, PhreazerBurn said:

Warframes and melee weapons can be used with high effectiveness from the get-go because they get a ton of extra capacity at unranked due to aura and stance mods (particularly if they are the matching affinity). Primary and secondary weapons get nothing, and so at unranked and with no catalyst they are nearly useless for a long time.

     Melee weapons don't get extra mod capacity from aura mods but do from stance mods. Primary and Secondary weapons enjoy the benefit of greater range and the options that can provide.

Stance mod capacity was added at a point when most melee weapons were fairly terrible and is definitely a contributor to why they are as powerful as they are now.  

     Are they balanced with each other? No. But they also shouldn't be equal to each other either... 

Melee sacrifices range and gets more power for it.

Ranged weapons enjoy the options that range and damage variety (sniping, aoe, etc) offer.

    Generally (outliers have and do exist), an OP melee will wreck the enemies around the player...

    An OP ranged weapon, otoh, wrecks the room entirely.

Whether you realize it or not, your argument is less a call for buffs to ranged weapons and more a call for nerfs to melee.

[PhreazerBurn]

6 hours ago, Padre_Akais said:

Whether you realize it or not, your argument is less a call for buffs to ranged weapons and more a call for nerfs to melee.

It really isn't. Melee is fine right now at all levels of content.

Killing from distance in Warframe is a convenience. It logically doesn't merit having melee be THIS much stronger.

Range just needs (as several others have mentioned) something comparable to the combo system. That would give players that do steel path, long survival, and future content the option to use ranged weapons.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

9 hours ago, PhreazerBurn said:

its almost impossible to tell if you like a weapon if it won't kill anything.

There's a handful of weapons and frames I was dead wrong about because of a lack of mods.  I hated the Convectrix when I first leveled it.  I kept it though, because I kept all the weapons that use faction materials.  Then I got a riven for it from sortie and I was annoyed, because I thought I hated it.  I forma'd the weapon up out of spite and rolled the riven to okayish stats and stuck the NW augment on it.

It cuts down damn near anything and the augment removes what makes it annoying to use.  There's plenty of stuff that isn't obviously good at a glance but can be made into something great.  

More on the main topic though, I want gun stances.  They should increase capacity like you suggested, but I think they would be a great way to add utility mod stats without having to eat a slot for utility mods.  A gun stance that increases reload speed, or one that slowly regenerates ammo in your reserve pool.  If they put them in with the right stats it could be the small buff that guns need to compete with melee and WF powers at high levels.  The stances could be for specific types of guns, like how melee stances only work with specific types of weapons.  

For the longest time I've had an idea for a mod called "Belt-Fed" which would lower fire rate by a % and turn your max ammo capacity into your magazine.  Would be perfect for automatic rifles.  Making it a stance would fit, imo.  Most guns need a buff, even in the context of other guns.

[Rakosta_Kai]

40 minutes ago, PhreazerBurn said:

It really isn't. Melee is fine right now at all levels of content.

Killing from distance in Warframe is a convenience. It logically doesn't merit having melee be THIS much stronger.

Range just needs (as several others have mentioned) something comparable to the combo system. That would give players that do steel path, long survival, and future content the option to use ranged weapons.

The most nerfed melee weapon attribute? Range.

The weapon class most often nerfed? Ranged.

The most nerfed ranged weapon attribute? AOE.

Logic would suggest that they don't want you insta-gibbing mobs with ranged weapons (at range) and have proven quite consistent with that mindset for years now.

As such, it's the source for the most weapon nerfs to date.

It's also the reason why ranged weapons require so much more forma to be effective in late-game to begin with.

 

Removing the risk at range (result of increased ranged damage) creates a need to increase the risk in melee while giving NPCs incentive to close to melee faster.

Just because DE wants players to enjoy a power fantasy doesn't mean they don't also want you to die too.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

Just now, Padre_Akais said:

The most nerfed melee weapon attribute? Range.

The weapon class most often nerfed? Ranged.

The most nerfed ranged weapon attribute? AOE.

Logic would suggest that they don't want you insta-gibbing mobs with ranged weapons (at range) and have proven quite consistent with that mindset for years now.

As such, it's the source for the most weapon nerfs to date.

It's also the reason why ranged weapons require so much more forma to be effective in late-game to begin with.

 

Removing the risk at range (result of increased ranged damage) creates a need to increase the risk in melee while giving NPCs incentive to close to melee faster.

Just because DE wants players to enjoy a power fantasy doesn't mean they don't also want you to die too.

I said this in my comment but I'll repeat it here:  Guns need a buff even in the context of other guns.  Saying that, I still want to look at melee as an example of what I'm looking for.  Not melee's damage or scaling, etc, but the fact that melee is really even right now.  People ask if a particular melee weapon is good or not, and unless it's one of the absolute most bottom of the barrel weapons, it's hard to answer the question because almost all melee is good right now.  My Ether Sword is still solid and usable in Steel Path missions, even at Sedna and the Void.  My Prisma Dual Cleavers and Twin Basolk are still effective in high level endurance runs.  They may not be as powerful as a min/maxed Reaper Prime or Stropha, but they compete for sure.  So long as I pick one of my melee weapons that I've put forma into, I'm never found wanting unless a status immune enemy shows up while I have a status weapon on.  

Meanwhile, I have a rivened, 7 forma Dera Vandal that can't hold a candle to my no-riven, 7 forma Fulmin.  A rivened, 6 forma Veldt that is a pale shadow next to my rivened, 3 forma Prisma Grinlok.  After taking so many nerfs my no-riven, 5 forma Staticor sits and rots because it's not even as effective as my rivened, 5 forma Atomos.  The Staticor used to be one of the top secondaries and now it gets out-killed by an MR 5 weapon where the riven on it is mostly utility stats.  Nearly all of those weapons are fodder in comparison to my (nearly perfectly rolled) rivened, 5 forma Kuva Ogris.

The power gaps in the gun categories are absurd.  The top end does NOT need to be brought down on them because even the top end slows down before melee does.  The bottom end needs to be brought up, and they need to be much more in-line with each other.  The power gap between melee and guns should stay because I agree with your point about ranged weapons reducing risk and therefore not being as strong.  The power gaps between guns and other guns needs to be closed up though, and it needs to be closed without the use of nerfs.

[(PSN)GingyGreen]

One step at a time dude.

 

 

Start by nerfing the hell out of all melee weapons and how overpowered they are because if 3.0.

 

 

THEN figure out what to do with ranged. Don't buff something using stupidly over power stuff as a bar

[(PSN)GingyGreen]

2 hours ago, PhreazerBurn said:

It really isn't. Melee is fine right now at all levels of content

One-shotting Heavy Gunners and clearing entire rooms of steel path enemies without taking a tick of damage just by spinning around isn't "fine"

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

10 hours ago, PhreazerBurn said:

Warframes and melee weapons can be used with high effectiveness from the get-go because they get a ton of extra capacity at unranked due to aura and stance mods (particularly if they are the matching affinity). Primary and secondary weapons get nothing, and so at unranked and with no catalyst they are nearly useless for a long time.

For a lot of players, a lot of the fun in this game is getting to play around with new and unique weapons. However, its almost impossible to tell if you like a weapon if it won't kill anything.

You're supposed to put a potato in something you're actually gonna use. 

You get more capacity by also raising your MR. 

You should try to actually make an effort in the game before you complain about something being weak or unusable.

And if you want to test an unformaed or unpotatoed weapon....go to earth....they're the weakest enemies that can be killed by anything.

[Rakosta_Kai]

1 hour ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Guns need a buff even in the context of other guns.

That's a potentially plausible argument.

The problem is y'all keep leaving out the word "some"...

That's because there are some that do... Many simply don't.

There are a number of lowliers (regardless of MR# lock) that don't perform with anything close to parity to other ranged weapons in the same general tier.

That's not cause to buff Ranged weapons as a whole or add net-new mechanics to the entire category of weapons though.

Combo mechanics, Stance Mods, Gun-Fu, etc are nifty ideas but it needs to be centered around lowliers/mid-ranging weapons that aren't performing on par with other ranged weapons of the same type or intent as opposed to being used to push all ranged weapons up.

In short, saying that some select weapons need buffs is not the same as "buff ranged weapons"

  

[PhreazerBurn]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

You're supposed to put a potato in something you're actually gonna use. 

You get more capacity by also raising your MR. 

You should try to actually make an effort in the game before you complain about something being weak or unusable.

And if you want to test an unformaed or unpotatoed weapon....go to earth....they're the weakest enemies that can be killed by anything.

I'm MR 23. I've put Catalysts/Reactors into dozens of things, but I just could not afford to do that on the 100+ things I've leveled. Its absurd to suggest that to merely test out a weapon to see if I like it I need to make a 20p investment. Killing level 1s doesn't tell me anything. Literally any weapon with no mods can do that. Furthermore, weapons with full mods feel completely different from weapons without them to the point that there is just no way to tell if something is fun to use.

Imagine for a moment a player that doesn't know better gets their hands on an Ignis Wraith. They max level it and have 30 capacity. They load it up with the best possible mods. Aaaaaaaaand naturally they think its trash, and everyone whose ever told them otherwise is out of their minds.

That's actually another issue with ranged. There are no shortage of primary/secondary weapons that require 6-8 forma before they reach their potential. Meanwhile, frames and melee can hit like 90%+ of their potential power with like 2 forma...or less.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

36 minutes ago, PhreazerBurn said:

I'm MR 23. I've put Catalysts/Reactors into dozens of things, but I just could not afford to do that on the 100+ things I've leveled. Its absurd to suggest that to merely test out a weapon to see if I like it I need to make a 20p investment. Killing level 1s doesn't tell me anything. Literally any weapon with no mods can do that. Furthermore, weapons with full mods feel completely different from weapons without them to the point that there is just no way to tell if something is fun to use.

Imagine for a moment a player that doesn't know better gets their hands on an Ignis Wraith. They max level it and have 30 capacity. They load it up with the best possible mods. Aaaaaaaaand naturally they think its trash, and everyone whose ever told them otherwise is out of their minds.

That's actually another issue with ranged. There are no shortage of primary/secondary weapons that require 6-8 forma before they reach their potential. Meanwhile, frames and melee can hit like 90%+ of their potential power with like 2 forma...or less.

That's why the weapon's stats are displayed for you. You can see what the element weighting is, if it has a secondary fire, crit, status etc.

You're more testing the weapon to see how it handles and how you like how it shoots in regular gameplay. All weapons kill the starchart no problem at all.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Also, taking a level 30 melee with no potato or forma is still going to be terrible even with a stance mod. 

[LarenaBot]

At the very least single target ranged weapons need a buff. I think AOEs are often fine, but for something like the Grinlok even decent punch through isnt as good as just spinning around with any melee. Even a dagger.

And it really isnt a risk proposition. Being close with melee does not make me take any more damage than being at a distance with a rifle.

 

[Rakosta_Kai]

1 minute ago, Larena said:

At the very least single target ranged weapons need a buff. I think AOEs are often fine, but for something like the Grinlok even decent punch through isnt as good as just spinning around with any melee. Even a dagger.

It's not supposed to be...

2 minutes ago, Larena said:

And it really isnt a risk proposition. Being close with melee does not make me take any more damage than being at a distance with a rifle.

I guarantee you take more damage at range with the rifle.

Which is also by design...

[LarenaBot]

Just now, Padre_Akais said:

It's not supposed to be...

I guarantee you take more damage at range with the rifle.

Which is also by design...

So you're saying guns are SUPPOSED to be worthless garbage? Why?

Why even put them in the game if theres literally no benefit to using them over melee. If it does more damage AND it's safer to run in with a sharp stick like a lunatic, what's the point of doing anything else.

I sincerely doubt DE intended this power imbalance. If they did, I feel it's pretty fair to say that's BAD game design that needs to change. 

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

46 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

It's not supposed to be...

Are you going to back that up with anything more than speculation though?

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

25 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Are you going to back that up with anything more than speculation though?

Single target high powered weapons are just that. It's common sense dude. 

A sniper rifle that can shoot through 2 people's heads is still just a straight line, although a powerful line.

A drone strike will always be stronger than a sniper rifle, but they are used for different reasons. 

No one is gonna balance the game and release weapons that constantly try to out-do the Acceltra and Bramma.

I like the Baza and others do too, it's really not a big deal if you need AoE to play the game.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

18 hours ago, Larena said:

So you're saying guns are SUPPOSED to be worthless garbage? Why?

Why even put them in the game if theres literally no benefit to using them over melee. If it does more damage AND it's safer to run in with a sharp stick like a lunatic, what's the point of doing anything else.

I sincerely doubt DE intended this power imbalance. If they did, I feel it's pretty fair to say that's BAD game design that needs to change. 

What's the point of any variation in life whatsoever? 

Why do military's have rifles when bombs and nukes exist? There's no benefit to using them when we can just blow an entire neighborhood up, right? 

Why do we have motorcycles when cars exist? 

Why do we still even have swords when guns exist? Why even have guns at all actually since bombs of various sizes exist from molotov cocktails to C4? 

Players are worthless garbage, not weapons. 

Did you know there's a bounty in the Plains of Eidolon that gives you bonus standing for killing a target without killing any other enemies? How would you go about completing this? Are you gonna shoot a Bramma at the group of targets? Why or why not?