Why Don't You Like Guns?

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

DE has said the game will never be balanced around steel path. Steel path is just an extra mode for a few. The majority of all guns correctly modded per faction are perfectly viable for all star chart or sortie content. The mechanics of gun play are what’s needed to be updated; not damage.   

[PublikDomain]

8 minutes ago, (PSN)Wil_Shatner_face said:

I think where people get hung up is that DE did say that the game would never be balanced around SP. So if we assume that to be true, then what you described above will never happen in SP, no matter how unfortunate you and I may find that.

You don't have to look at just SP to find places where it breaks down, Railjack enemies for example are much beefier than other enemies and as a result fewer weapons and frames are viable in that gameplay segment. Sorties maybe not to the same degree, but surely Arbitrations or even standard modes like Disruption. Demolysts scale very quickly and unless you've got one of the select few good weapons or frames there's a fast limit to how long you can play. Places like the Orb Vallis scale very quickly as well and you can face a lot of lvl100+ enemies happy to tackle you into the dirt unless your gear is graced with good stats. Even ignoring SP entirely and only looking at starchart missions, there's a massive difference in that content between AoE/melee weapons and normal shooty guns. That isn't a good thing there, either.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

17 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

Or maybe guns are just fine after all?

The majority of all guns are fine. It their mechanics (aiming, hit scan, modding, shooting, movement, switching, equipping, hit points ) that need to be updated. Not damage. 

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

17 hours ago, Aldain said:

Rivenless Veldt

Works just fine in completing Star chart and Sortie content. 

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

16 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

Why would you bring a bad, single target, beginner weapon

No weapon is bad just the unrealistic expectation of that weapon. Veldt modded correctly works just fine in star chart content. 

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

I honestly feel like the whole aoe vs single shot weapon efficiency disccussion that's happening in here could be helped to an extent if punchthrough mods were more effective or even an existence of a ricochet mod(Think Jakobs guns from Borderlands) existed it would help with some multi-target kill with a single shot weapon. I know that doesn't change that now but I think people just want more variety of guns that would be efficient in a harder game mode, it places a permanent meta on it pretty much. 

[Traumtulpe]

15 minutes ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

if punchthrough mods were more effective or even an existence of a ricochet mod

These effects might have to be on one mod, removing 2 DPS mods is a tough ask. But I think having infinite enemy punchthrough and ricochets would be both fun, and effective.

This could actually happen.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Ailia_Grimm said:

So what would be the solution? Buffing guns or nerfing everything else? Or maybe a 3rd or even 4th option?

That's a really good question... I'm going to go with a different option;

Change the enemies and match the damage system to them instead of trying to piece-meal the different parts like Status. Do this by identifying how much time an enemy is supposed to be engaged with.

A lot of the current problems come from the fact that, regardless of what enemies are on screen, the engagement with any single one of them is supposed to be less than a second. In terms of things like Survival, Defense, Exterminate... any mission type where the direct way of winning is to kill the enemies (rather than it just being a happy side effect of doing the job), the enemies are not supposed to slow you down or be engaged with for longer than a short burst of death. Regardless of the enemy type, regardless of the enemy level.

That's why Melee is so strong right now, because it does that. You ramp it up and it keeps that engagement time to the minimum.

DE needs to decide how much time a player has to engage with an enemy to get a kill, not how tanky the enemies are specifically. Each enemy, is it fodder and down in a few hits (comparative to scaled damage and levels), does it have mechanics it uses when it sees the player (such as deploying a shield to make the player move around), does it have faster movement than the player (like Manics), that sort of thing.

People say 'better AI' and that's not it. All the things that AI are supposed to do are already in Warframe, it's just useless because of our movement and relative power, and because we are not rewarded for enemies being alive longer than a second. We need to be rewarded for actually taking each enemy individually and engaging our brains just enough to learn patterns. Enemy X has a shield that you can't punch-through, even with mods, so you must stun it or get around it to attack. Enemy Y has high damage, but slow movement, and you must have a way to mitigate that damage or you get, say, pushed back by a hail of bullets and can't attack it, except from range using guns. Enemy Z has a heavy suit that only takes Headshot damage at full value, but it will charge at you if you're too close or break the helmet, making sure you have to use mobility and precise damage to kill it. The AI is just how they get to us and whether they choose to attack us, what we need is to have the enemies actually have effects on us beyond just damage and passive Aura effects.

Once the different amounts of time investment necessary for a player to kill those enemies are established, DE can adjust things like enemy squad compositions, their overall health and whether they need drops adjusting for things like Life Support based on which enemies are killed rather than pure RNG based on how many enemies are killed. If a difficult enemy type, like a Heavy Gunner that could literally force you back if you tried Melee blocking the damage, was killed then it should drop more and better loot than a grunt that charged you with a machete.

With the time investment established, you then have a way to balance the power of damage we, the players, can deal. What damage stacks up Status bonuses, what abilities affect damage dealt, what functions we do (like CC) will reduce engagement time, and what will potentially even increase it. So you can adjust their health/shields/armour to be based on what we're actually doing to them rather than pure numbers. Give every enemy reliable and predictable health types, with reliable bonuses and weaknesses across the board, no more of the crazy ones DE uses like the Deimos Jugulus having DR based on the actual DPS of your weapon before Crits, meaning only Crit weapons can actually kill them.

It can systemically affect the design of every ability, weapon and enemy in the game. It gives a player a reason to have as many types of weapon equipped as possible, with a melee they can ramp up with Combo Counters for whirling through fodder enemies, a Secondary they can use as utility to offset the weaknesses of their Primary or as a backup for their Melee, and then a Primary that they can bring for main damage by exploiting modding for the enemies they'll face and choosing what tactic is better for approaching them.

But that... that's probably not going to happen.

[Paradoxity]

Spoiler

13 hours ago, Sevek7 said:

Interestingly, I think DE already fixed this problem.

The big question is: How do you make single target weapons useful in a horde game? Surely, if the enemies are coming in a horde, then melee / AOE weapons will always be better, no? 

I think the most satisfying answer is to include priority targets. Targets that are very dangerous to get close to, who resist melee & AOE damage, and reward good aim & awareness and taking them out from range. I think this is the idea DE had with heavy gunners, bombards, ancients, etc... but it didn't really work out. DE forgot to add the melee & AOE resistance, and making them dangerous. So, due to the crazy power of melee, these priority targets became basically equivalent to all the trash that gets wiped out super easily by melee and AOE.

But, DE did revisit this idea, and got it right! They added the Nox unit. This time they remembered to include the melee & AOE resistance, and (to a lesser extent) they are dangerous to get close to because of their charge and toxin damage. 

I think DE should lean into this idea. Heavy priority targets, dangerous to get close to, but with a weakpoint that only single target ranged weapons can reliably hit. I would like to see heavy gunners and bombards get a flat 95% resistance to all melee and AOE damage, but remove all the armor on their head. Also, give them some sort of frenzy mode if the player gets too close, making them a real threat. [For example, a dispel, player max HP debuff, temporary player armor / shield removal, or a variety of other "Oh Crap!" things.] EDIT: And of course, similar priority-style targets for other factions.

I think this would make single target guns viable, without even needing to buff or nerf any weapons!

 

Spoiled your comment just to help keep things a little shorter. 

Yeah, and that's another solution- though it's one I'm frankly a little leery of because DE's usual solution to 'tougher enemies' is "Make them immune to at least 50% of abilities and effects" Then again, as I stated, I'm a little shook of DE's attempts to balance... well, anything, at this point. I believe it needs to be done, of course, and having a situational use for a point target weapon in any given mission would be great, but at this point I'm also not entirely sold on it not causing a massive swing in the other direction and ranged overtaking melee as the superior method of engagement. 

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 hour ago, PublikDomain said:

You don't have to look at just SP to find places where it breaks down, Railjack enemies for example are much beefier than other enemies and as a result fewer weapons and frames are viable in that gameplay segment. Sorties maybe not to the same degree, but surely Arbitrations or even standard modes like Disruption. Demolysts scale very quickly and unless you've got one of the select few good weapons or frames there's a fast limit to how long you can play. Places like the Orb Vallis scale very quickly as well and you can face a lot of lvl100+ enemies happy to tackle you into the dirt unless your gear is graced with good stats. Even ignoring SP entirely and only looking at starchart missions, there's a massive difference in that content between AoE/melee weapons and normal shooty guns. That isn't a good thing there, either.

The issue is people don't want to change their mods based on the faction they're fighting. I've literally seen multiple people say it takes too long or that they simply won't use faction damage mods. 

People shouldn't call Magnetic garbage if they're not even gonna use it against the corpus. Kyta Raknoids aren't hard if you simply use the movement system and play against its weaknesses.

And "good stats" are a part of the progression system. Get better builds instead of asking the game to cater to your mediocre build.

Even with buffed weapons, there will still be bad players trying to use viral and heat on everything.

[Lakais]

I get depressed whenever I skim through these threads. I, for one, DESPISE AoE weapons. At least I find it viscerally difficult to take them seriously. They are lazy. Far too effective for their ease of use. But I doubt DE has the will to change it as the community would implode on itself yet again for a while. 

I find precision weapons fun. Not because they are the most efficient but specifically because they are not. It's a handicap on myself to do better. Causing me to actually interact with the game far more then using meta-builds ever could. 

I also enjoy melee combat, but again with caveats. I rarely equip speed or range mods. Not what I am trying to achieve with them. I go for the style, not the meta. 

So yeah, I find the people who rely on AoE spam weapons and very max range slide attack spam as an inconvenience to my enjoyment. It's just depressingly boring. 

[PublikDomain]

3 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

The issue is people don't want to change their mods based on the faction they're fighting. I've literally seen multiple people say it takes too long or that they simply won't use faction damage mods. 

People shouldn't call Magnetic garbage if they're not even gonna use it against the corpus. Kyta Raknoids aren't hard if you simply use the movement system and play against its weaknesses.

And "good stats" are a part of the progression system. Get better builds instead of asking the game to cater to your mediocre build.

Even with buffed weapons, there will still be bad players trying to use viral and heat on everything.

... What? Did you quote the wrong person or something?

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 minute ago, PublikDomain said:

... What? Did you quote the wrong person or something?

No, I didn't. I'm responding to your claim that you can't even handle orb vallis corpus or railjack enemies. Why don't you try lowering or stripping their armor or using an ability that makes them susceptible to more damage.

[PublikDomain]

Just now, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

No, I didn't. I'm responding to your claim that you can't even handle orb vallis corpus or railjack enemies. Why don't you try lowering or stripping their armor or using an ability that makes them susceptible to more damage.

lol, I'm not sure where you got any of that from what I wrote? I said that Vallis enemies can get to a high level like a lot of other content in the game. Which they do. Weapon performance being inconsistent isn't just an issue in SP, it shows up in many different game modes.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

6 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

lol, I'm not sure where you got any of that from what I wrote? I said that Vallis enemies can get to a high level like a lot of other content in the game. Which they do. Weapon performance being inconsistent isn't just an issue in SP, it shows up in many different game modes.

And some melee weapons are just as inconsistent. This is why we have things like synergy. You know you're able to use a variety of ways to buff yourself and/or debuff the enemy, correct? You shouldn't just go shoot a weapon at an enemy without setting anything up in the way of buffs or debuffs, then turn around and say "See, it's weak". 

As an example, do you think it's completely ok to take a 0 potatoes, 1 forma weapon to higher level content, then blame the content when you have trouble? Yes or no?

[PublikDomain]

18 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

And some melee weapons are just as inconsistent.

Which is why I said that all weapons should be minimally capable. By "all" I meant, you know, all of them. I meant those, too.

18 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

You know you're able to use a variety of ways to buff yourself and/or debuff the enemy, correct?

You know that not all frames have buffs and/or debuffs, correct? And I didn't think I'd have to be this specific, but by "minimally capable" I meant "minimally capable on their own", not "minimally capable only if you use a specific set of buffs or debuffs".

18 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

As an example, do you think it's completely ok to take a 0 potatoes, 1 forma weapon to higher level content, then blame the content when you have trouble? Yes or no?

What?

[(XBOX)Hyperion Rexx]

10 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

As an example, do you think it's completely ok to take a 0 potatoes, 1 forma weapon to higher level content, then blame the content when you have trouble? Yes or no?

Who's advocating that?

Literally no-one would think that would be sensible.

Thats not the conversation at all.   The problem is, even my very best AR, properly built and using all the appropriate buffs/de buffs available comes no where near the performance of a below average melee with little to no synergy or effort put into it.   Guns don't have to be more powerful, or even as powerful as melee, but they shouldn't be the worst choice possible in almost every situation in a looter shooter.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

22 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

As an example, do you think it's completely ok to take a 0 potatoes, 1 forma weapon to higher level content, then blame the content when you have trouble? Yes or no?

said the person who literally told me to remove all mods if i feel like the game is too easy, on my melee thread

" Why don't you just take it off and use a regular crit mod?"

 

[Zimzala]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

said the person who literally told to remove all mods if i feel like the game is too, easy on my melee thread

" Why don't you just take it off and use a regular crit mod?"

In one case, you wanted a challenge and in the other, the player finds it to be a challenge.

Right tool for the right job.

Why are people trying to be so binary like computers these days with their thoughts?

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

8 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Which is why I said that all weapons should be minimally viable. By "all" I meant, you know, all of them. I meant those, too.

You know that not all frames have buffs and/or debuffs, correct? And I didn't think I'd have to be this specific, but by "minimally viable" I meant "minimally viable on their own", not "minimally viable only if you use a specific set of buffs or debuffs".

What?

I think they should increase the base stats of many weapons (not kuva weapons, not the fulmin, etc) and collect data for a month and a half to 3 months and see how it goes. Many of you are unaware how OP this can get real fast.

[BethTheBean]

Honestly, there's no reason to watch the warframe creators. Most of them just S#&$ on DE and the players who enjoy the game, just to get reviews.

All my weapons are built into my warframe builds. so every one is useful in the current mission/situation. 

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

7 minutes ago, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

said the person who literally told me to remove all mods if i feel like the game is too easy, on my melee thread

" Why don't you just take it off and use a regular crit mod?"

 

Because you blamed the game for making you build your own weapons. I said try using weeping BR and CO not fully maxed. 

The game didn't put a gun to your head, max all your mods then act all surprised when you killed enemies.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

2 minutes ago, Zimzala said:

In one case, you wanted a challenge and in the other, the player finds it to be a challenge.

Right tool for the right job.

Why are people trying to be so binary like computers these days with their thoughts?

it's the same situation for me. and different for madurai.

i feel like madurai just doesn't like whenever people complain and is ready to use any type of comeback to support his argument, but i may be exaggerating so don't quote me on that.

[PublikDomain]

Just now, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

I think they should increase the base stats of many weapons (not kuva weapons, not the fulmin, etc) and collect data for a month and a half to 3 months and see how it goes. Many of you are unaware how OP this can get real fast.

It's not specifically what I'd like to see but it would get us to roughly the same place... So you agree with me now? I'm confused.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Because you blamed the game for making you build your own weapons. I said try using weeping BR and CO not fully maxed. 

The game didn't put a gun to your head, max all your mods then act all surprised when you killed enemies.

this isn't really how i should play though.

how many times do i have to say this? the game (or any video game in general) should be designed for me to test my LIMITS, limits being me putting all my calculated effort and time into a build, telling me to just not use those limits is irrational

however when the game dev limits me (aka nerfs something or changes how things work)  it's ok because it's their game and they set the rules 

i should use any option available the game has to offer, telling me to not use those so i can have a challenge makes no sense

 

all of this can be summarized in: i don't want to limit myself, i want the game to limit me!