Resolving the Ranged vs Melee Power Gap

[Krankbert]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Surbusken:

I beg to differ.

Of course you would. Just go watch the dev stream, because I hope for you that you haven't. You'll find out just why your comment on them "not having any ideas for ranged weapons" was so ludicrous.

[Surbusken]

11 minutes ago, Krankbert said:

Of course you would. Just go watch the dev stream, because I hope for you that you haven't. You'll find out just why your comment on them "not having any ideas for ranged weapons" was so ludicrous.

 

Another example, from the same stream, showing lack of design concept, balance, intent, vision and purpose, is the idea to nerf melee speed.

It just shows a fundamental lack of direction.

... which all should have been cleared laid out, 10 years ago, before you started making the game.

You don't create a game first, the try to come up with ideas for it later... lol.

Railjack too. You must first decide what is fun gameplay, how to balance fun, challenge and reward.

[Krankbert]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb Surbusken:

 

Another example, from the same stream

So you're just going to gloss over the fact that most of the gap-closing will be handled by new things for guns while you're here demonstrating either your dishonesty or your cluelessness by whining that they don't have any ideas for guns?

[Surbusken]

7 minutes ago, Krankbert said:

So you're just going to gloss over the fact that most of the gap-closing will be handled by new things for guns while you're here whining that they don't have any ideas for guns?

I said, as a game designer, you first design a concept... before you create a game.

For instance, the game gran turismo's concept is a racing simulator with realistic driving.

Now you have a key to unlocking mechanics, gameplay, balance and direction. You can even begin to visualize the controls.

 

For melee vs ranged, there should have been a concept, an idea, or goal in mind... 10 years ago. And to this day, there isn't any.

I am saying that's the first thing you do as a developer.

Here is where we want to go, here is why and here is what is fun about it.

You can transfer that line of thinking into mostly everything in the game. Say forge for railjack or kuva liches... pvp. You name it.

"Where are we going", "Why", what are we trying to do.

 

/edit

ps. Another great example is frames and weapons balance. Do the developers want everything to be viable or is most items abandoned on purpose for MR fodder?

Do you think the developers even asked themselves that question yet... lol

 

 

[LegendaryNeurotoxin]

1 minute ago, Surbusken said:

I said, as a game designer, you first design a concept... before you create a game.

For instance, the game gran turismo's concept is a racing simulator with realistic driving.

Now you have a key to unlocking mechanics, gameplay, balance and direction. You can even begin to visualize the controls.

 

For melee vs ranged, there should have been a concept, an idea, or goal in mind... 10 years ago. And to this day, there isn't any.

I am saying that's the first thing you do as a developer.

 

 

Between stances and the existence of combo, I think they always meant for melee to be superior, but when the game started we weren't nearly as fast. The old Stamina system was a punishing but effective way to limit mobility and acrobatics, and in that environment, ranged weapons were very important to successful gameplay. Blocking shots wasn't what it is now, either. 

I feel like they just kinda let power creep go unchecked until they feel like something is out of balance, then change it when they feel they have to, but never commit all hands on deck to hammer it out as quickly as possible, or rely on a mass of play testers to try different balancing schemes and see how play testers perform with the changes vs how DE hopes they'll perform when the changes go in.

[Roble_Viejo]

Yeah we share a lot of views, could you mind to take a look at my post?

 

[LegendaryNeurotoxin]

54 minutes ago, Roble_Viejo said:

Yeah we share a lot of views, could you mind to take a look at my post?

 

Thanks for sharing your post! Lotta good stuff in there!

[Krankbert]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Surbusken:

ps. Another great example is frames and weapons balance. Do the developers want everything to be viable or is most items abandoned on purpose for MR fodder?

Do you think the developers even asked themselves that question yet... lol

 

 

Yes. I think the developers asked and answered that question, and so does everyone with half a brain who looked at the Mk1-Braton, Braton, Braton Prime and Rattleguts Primary.

[Aldain]

Across the board stat squishing is the only way to resolve anything with the numbers as they are now.

Health and damage both are too outrageously bloated to address in any meaningful way, multipliers are too high for basically anything they show up on and base stats are all that matter because of the overreliance on multipliers.

DE should buckle down and make Damage 3.0 a thing, no matter who complains, because right now nothing can actually be balanced, which can only lead to more and more content that either embraces the imbalance, making it inaccessible to anything that doesn't follow that meta, or ignores the mechanics of the game entirely (Glassmaker/Exploiter).

[Sovyul]

5 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Across the board stat squishing is the only way to resolve anything with the numbers as they are now.

Health and damage both are too outrageously bloated to address in any meaningful way, multipliers are too high for basically anything they show up on and base stats are all that matter because of the overreliance on multipliers.

DE should buckle down and make Damage 3.0 a thing, no matter who complains, because right now nothing can actually be balanced, which can only lead to more and more content that either embraces the imbalance, making it inaccessible to anything that doesn't follow that meta, or ignores the mechanics of the game entirely (Glassmaker/Exploiter).

We always hit the "what about grind efficiency" wall though

Gameplay is... well it could be better, but one thing for sure, it's efficient for grinding. Stat squishing will require reward scaling, otherwise things will slow down a lot, and from what I can assume, stats at the moment are grind adjusted. This whole situation is a big pile of steaming you know what. To "fix" it (in quotes because for some it's broken, for some it isn't), a Damage 3.0 wouldn't do it, it would need a Warframe 2.0 from my POV.

[Aldain]

Just now, Sovyul said:

We always hit the "what about grind efficiency" wall though

I think it could easily be argued that grind efficiency is in the toilet BECAUSE everything is effortless, they wind up needing to pad out the content one way or the other so it either winds up being a huge standing grind or an RNG festival.

The overall point of the matter is that there's no other road if things stay as they are, it will always be the same one-button unfun grindfest as long as there's no incentive for a player to actually put any effort into anything and just slam it with big numbers, all that small adjustments will ever do is change which button the players need to hit.

[ToKeSia]

7 hours ago, _junguler said:

they have to do a complete pass on all the weapons and bring them up to melee's level, just nerfing isn't the way.

and bring some non-meta melee to the same meta melee level as well.

[(XBOX)ShonOfDawn]

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

I was one of many asking for Steel path because star chart spawns are thin and weak, and all I wanted to do was not wait hours to fight high level enemies. 

 

Do you want a medal? How is this related to a melee rebalance? Steel path isn't challenge, it's just one big, fat, gear check, and people have still shown that absolute cheese strats can carry you to level 9999 with no effort whatsoever. Just look up any decent Xaku build since we are on topic, you can make Grasp of Lock do 100% of the work for you. 

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

I explained in great detail why warframes shouldn't damage eidolons shields...

How is this related to a melee rebalance? Xaku's void damage was a mistake to begin with, it adds nothing of value beside lore flavor and a status effect that does more harm than good by preventing headshots, they could have made Xata's whisper reset sentient adaptation and add the void status as part of the ability itself, making it a base damage % buff, using normal damage for the other abilities and calling it a day, instead of adding a gimped version of a damage type that disappointed everyone because it was introduced with no thought for the surrounding mechanics of the game. 

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

why would I shut down conversations on challenge? You're confused....I challenge people that offer nerfs as if it's some solution to all the games problems.

Because nerfs are part of the solution. It's not the nerfs that hurt the game, it's using nerfs as a red herring to avoid looking at the systemic issues of the game and the whole "Nerf=bad" mentality you so adamantly adhere to that prevent the developers from making a solid, functional gameplay foundation. A foundation that can then be used to make sustainable content, one that isn't trivialized 10 seconds after release, forcing DE to pad out reward acquisition times with layers on top of layers of grind and RNG. You cannot possibly build content for a game with the ludicrous power gaps Warframe has, you either force everyone into a meta that invalidates 90% of gear, or make the game so laughably easy that it becomes a boring exercise of repetition for anyone that has completed the starchart. You shut down conversation on challenge because whenever someone mentions the necessity of a level playing field between options, with no outliers that are clearly the be-all-end-all, you swiftly suggest nerfing oneself by removing gear. So what is it, are nerfs good or bad? And why is a self-imposed restriction that makes your entire game progression null and void preferable to actual balance? Your words betray your intentions, it's quite clear that all you want is to uphold the status quo of brainlessly mashing E and 4, all while hiding being these despicable "casual" and "bad" players who just want a bit of engagement, but can't because everything you do in the game actively makes progress towards tools that make the game play itself. 

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

good players will always be good, outshining bad players and basically making anything look OP no matter what it is.

Yeah, because literally pressing E and only E in rapid succession, and completing the hardest content the game has to offer is such a display of being "good", it's certainly the "good" players that make the game look easy, it's the "bad" players that demand "nerfs" because the "good" players are too "good", what an absolute joke. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)ShonFr0st said:

Do you want a medal? How is this related to a melee rebalance? Steel path isn't challenge, it's just one big, fat, gear check, and people have still shown that absolute cheese strats can carry you to level 9999 with no effort whatsoever. Just look up any decent Xaku build since we are on topic, you can make Grasp of Lock do 100% of the work for you. 

How is this related to a melee rebalance? Xaku's void damage was a mistake to begin with, it adds nothing of value beside lore flavor and a status effect that does more harm than good by preventing headshots, they could have made Xata's whisper reset sentient adaptation and add the void status as part of the ability itself, making it a base damage % buff, using normal damage for the other abilities and calling it a day, instead of adding a gimped version of a damage type that disappointed everyone because it was introduced with no thought for the surrounding mechanics of the game. 

Because nerfs are part of the solution. It's not the nerfs that hurt the game, it's using nerfs as a red herring to avoid looking at the systemic issues of the game and the whole "Nerf=bad" mentality you so adamantly adhere to that prevent the developers from making a solid, functional gameplay foundation. A foundation that can then be used to make sustainable content, one that isn't trivialized 10 seconds after release, forcing DE to pad out reward acquisition times with layers on top of layers of grind and RNG. You cannot possibly build content for a game with the ludicrous power gaps Warframe has, you either force everyone into a meta that invalidates 90% of gear, or make the game so laughably easy that it becomes a boring exercise of repetition for anyone that has completed the starchart. You shut down conversation on challenge because whenever someone mentions the necessity of a level playing field between options, with no outliers that are clearly the be-all-end-all, you swiftly suggest nerfing oneself by removing gear. So what is it, are nerfs good or bad? And why is a self-imposed restriction that makes your entire game progression null and void preferable to actual balance? Your words betray your intentions, it's quite clear that all you want is to uphold the status quo of brainlessly mashing E and 4, all while hiding being these despicable "casual" and "bad" players who just want a bit of engagement, but can't because everything you do in the game actively makes progress towards tools that make the game play itself. 

Yeah, because literally pressing E and only E in rapid succession, and completing the hardest content the game has to offer is such a display of being "good", it's certainly the "good" players that make the game look easy, it's the "bad" players that demand "nerfs" because the "good" players are too "good", what an absolute joke. 

You claimed I try to shut down discussion on challenge....that's why you're reading these examples....did you forget? 

And welcome to online games, and welcome to warframe. Everything is trivialized. If you want 4 hour raids then find another game. You're not going to make warframe some place for "sustainable content" and it's only your opinion that the game doesn't have a solid functional foundation. 

People like the game how it is, and a little tweak here and there isn't gonna change that this is a fast paced action mmo.

[Yamazuki]

 

3 hours ago, (XBOX)ShonFr0st said:

Yeah, because literally pressing E and only E in rapid succession, and completing the hardest content the game has to offer is such a display of being "good", it's certainly the "good" players that make the game look easy, it's the "bad" players that demand "nerfs" because the "good" players are too "good", what an absolute joke. 

How is holding your fire input down [or spamming it depending on gun] and clearing content any different to E spam? I don't even know why people are acting like guns are legitimately "unusable" in every aspect of the game. The game likely isn't going to be balanced around max level enemies, even with the buffs. Bosses have immunity/phases because of guns. Melee vs guns has no bearing on the wide gap between even the different guns and mod interactions. DE hasn't balanced any threat around top-end guns or mods. This is why some recent-ish bosses have just been glorified cutscenes where you don't actually even use your guns, or in the case of the glassmaker, you don't use your weapons at all.

It's laughable to say all people complaining are asking for engagement, no, far from it. They're just asking for more weapons to clear with little effort. If people cared for "engagement", the player base wouldn't opt into using Celestial Twin with aoe weapons to lazily kill enemies. They wouldn't have automated Khora to effortlessly farm Steel Essence [etc] before the change to that. Stealth wouldn't be as popular as it is today if stealth playstyle had genuine risks like it does in other games. Look at how stealth got buffed, for cases like Loki, if you had suboptimal positioning when your stealth ended, you died; but don't worry, DE came to the rescue and got rid of that. The popular ranged weapons are mainly both aoe and require no aim. Some of these complainers that did the melee slide spam when that was the cool thing to do had to automate that even. Inaros is utterly worthless yet popular.

Even long endless runs are 0 effort and easily automated. The only hard part of them is not wanting to go to sleep over doing the same exact thing for several hours on end when you aren't doing them in a dishonest manner, thankfully pausing exists for solo.

The only joke here is the statement people want actual engagement. I'm all for having to actually be aware, dodging, and properly utilizing your weapon and Warframe of choice, but it's a complete lie to say that's what a lot of people here want. I could go on, such as how shield gate exists, but these people just abuse it on end, instead of asking for it to be removed and enemies be properly designed.

Disagreeing with you doesn't mean I'm an E spammer either, or trying to defend the status quo. I don't E spam even when I use melee [or scroll wheel]. I just personally don't care if people opt into playing the game in a lazy manner, and there's nothing DE can do about it anyways. The game heavily incentivizes people into taking the laziest route possible, and anytime people say that needs to change, these people respond with "git gud" too. Not long ago there were threads over complaints about how so many endless runs consisted of semi-afk in a corner with specters, and I'm sure you can guess how well the response to that was.

What's also being ignored is that DE's response to this has so far consisted of mainly attackspeed adjustment and just raising ranged damage. The cc removal from stances hardly matter thanks to shield gate making us immortal anyways.

[(XBOX)ShonOfDawn]

14 minutes ago, Yamazuki said:

If people cared for "engagement", the player base wouldn't opt into

I think this is a fallacy, though. Warframe is a looter, your main aim while playing is getting loot. It comes naturally that the most sought after strategies are those that minimize difficulty, in order to get to said loot as fast as possible. My point is that it's the developers' job to make sure that the most effective setups also don't trivialize the game, because players will choose the easiest route, even if it's boring. In a perfect world, the playstyle most suited for getting through content should be the one most adhering to the fantasy the game is supposed to provide, and that is, straight from Warframe's marketing material, being "Space Ninjas, Tennos, Masters of gun and blade, and of the warframe armors", in the setting of a "Fast Paced MMO". All marketing videos show the use of guns, melee and abilities in conjunction, with a high emphasis on mobility (Just look at the most recent prime trailer, or the new player experience trailer). That should be what the game looks like at high level, but current meta strategies fall as far as humanly possible from those descriptions, with AoE spam and immortality easily accessible and reigning supreme in every corner of the game. The problem is that such a route inevitably leads you to burnout, because chasing loot loses its meaning, and gameplay devolves into a cookie-clicker. 

If DE ever decides to take an actual hard look at how the game is played, and decides to tone down outliers to the point of challenge being a thing, of course they'd also need an appropriate rebalance of reward distribution, incentivizing higher tier content. Right now it's a vicious cycle, with combat being trivial, leading to massive grind walls instead of proper rewards matched with difficulty, leading to any nerf being seen as a hit to efficiency and enforcing the grind, which is of course met with massive player uproar. That's why the route of small tweaks will probably never work, and by that reasoning, you have every right to say that "DE can't do anything about it anyway". I'm of the opinion that Warframe has one of the most brilliant concepts out there, and I still hold out hope for it to be fully realized one day, and be held in the same regards as the classics that defined gaming. Which is a utopian idea, but DE is at least showing the willingness to acknowledge the existence of these issues. 

 

[Xepthrichros]

21 hours ago, DudeeDew said:

Nobody asked for them, ever.

the 2% extremely noisy minority did. tyranny of the minority is the main factor behind most nerfs, i'd suspect

[LegendaryNeurotoxin]

I appreciate all the debate on everyone's different perspectives.... but what suggestions does everyone have to change it for the better, or feedback for DE to help guide them through this process?

 

Another thought I've had is changing Steel Path to the level adjustment, removing the increased attributes, and enforcing a mod limit that downscales all mods proportionately to fit the cap; if you're above the cap, it basically like a global disposition system for all mods. 60 per item could be the starting cap, and it builds up proportionately to the level scaling increases, such that every 10 level increase adds another 6 to the mod cap range. This isn't a perfect solution, but I think an imposed limit may be a better way to approach it.

[PublikDomain]

2 hours ago, LegendaryNeurotoxin said:

what suggestions does everyone have to change it for the better, or feedback for DE to help guide them through this process?

Reduce and standardize player EHP and DPS by limiting how many of certain type of mods can be equipped at once on a build, then lower enemy EHP and DPS to match. Think Exilus slots, but instead of 8 DPS mods and 1 QoL you can only have 3 DPS mods and 5-6 QoL. It's a similar idea to yours, but with a different limiting factor. Limiting builds to up to 3 power mods (damage, crit, status, fire rate, etc) and up to 3 secondary power or otherwise powerful QoL mods (ammo conversion, reload, punchthrough, etc) would put most guns in the 5-15k DPS range. That's far narrower than the current range of DPS, which can go anywhere from 50k or lower on the low end to well up into the millions or more. By reverting the S-curve scaling formula, setting the enemy armor scaling exponent to 1.00, and cutting health and shield scaling coefficients by half you can create enemies that fit that 5-15k DPS target pretty well. So while you can only have up to 3 DPS mods, 3 DPS mods is all the power you'll ever need.

From there everything gets better. Buffing or nerfing items is easier to do since there's a clear expectation of player power, more weapons are late-game viable, melee and other outliers have less space to jump ahead, enemies don't evaporate at high levels and don't need things like SP modifiers to stay alive more than a nanosecond and can actually do their unique behaviours and abilities, required mods are contained in their own corner and can't clog builds as badly, there's guaranteed room in a build to address a weapon's handling, Rivens can actually do their job of making bad weapons good, and if done right it can get us nice freebies like universal Forma. And guess what also fits a 5-15k DPS range? Amps, Warframe abilities, and Railjack weapons. No need for weird Archgun vs Armament scaling, everything would just fit in the same range. And this can be done without having to touch any of the existing mods, weapons, or player inventories.

By DE's words they intend to buff guns 90% and slightly nerf melee 10%. But this is going to result in yet another net increase in player power and make the game easier. Again. The ranged vs melee power gap might shrink a little, but the power gap as a whole is going to grow. Again. It's going to fail because DE is trying to address the symptoms without addressing the cause.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

On 2021-02-26 at 3:42 PM, DrivaMain said:

Steel Path was a mistake.

They should just let it only have a +100 enemy level modifier and no BS enemy stat buff.

Steel path was a blessing. I hope they expand on it. And add further "difficulty".