Warframe, Difficulty, and Balance; how do you create proper scaling and progression with a non-linear system?

[Hypernaut1]

5 minutes ago, Yamazuki said:

Game being easy has nothing to do with Kuva Nukor, on this account I use secondaries so in-frequent that:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Then my most used primaries on my accounts are non-aoe. I even cleared some of SP using K-Karak and Supra-V. I don't even use the commonly played Warframes much, given on this account it's mainly Oberon, which does literally nothing in SP since armor is worthless, the hp/s is too low, armor removal on him costs a lot and is insanely long to the point shooting is faster anyways, leaving just radiation and the "oops" every 90 seconds for the randoms. I pug every run, with pretty much no ping limit, and had to play some of SP with 500+ping making even operator entirely unusable. So, useless Warframe, single target primary, no operator, still easy.

Although, me saying the game is easy doesn't mean I agree DE needs to do a 180 and create a difficult game. I already play other games for difficulty, and modern games have largely relied on what I consider artificial difficulty as a form of difficulty; so even if I wanted DE to change anything, I wouldn't expect them to do so in a way that is genuinely enjoyable. Difficulty to DE is insanely high health/armor/shield values, 1 shots with 0 warning, or completely making all your equipment worthless while you wait around doing nothing until you eventually succeed anyways.

I just think that if DE wants to go with the "power fantasy" route, then all options should be strong. It's a little silly Warframes like Khora get to do virtually everything, especially with Helminth being a thing, but others are only allowed to do 1-2 things, and be no where near as useful as her for the vast majority of content where abilities can be used.

Not everyone wants a Khora. I like having some frames that don't cruise through content. Why can't warframes also be made for different skill levels? Some people may want an invincible frame, some don't. Some want a frame to wipe the map with the press of a button, some want a frame that takes careful consideration of skill use. 

[Teridax68]

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

It's ok to agree to disagree. I like warframe being fun instead of whatever you're trying to make it. It's not the end of the world.

It is indeed okay to disagree, but it is not okay to attack, bully, and sabotage other users simply because they dared to give advice you don't agree with. The latter is something you have done so frequently across so many threads that you have managed to make a reputation for yourself as a notoriously toxic user. I am glad more people have picked up on this, because your attitude is fundamentally at odds with the very purpose of the feedback subforums, and has no place in any sort of discussion that aims to be constructive. You are free to disagree with others on which direction to take the game, but that does not entitle you to derail threads and belittle people you disagree with.

On-topic, I think @PublikDomain really hit the nail on the head throughout this whole thread, especially with the listing of the many different examples showing that Warframe's balance is hilariously off the mark. There is visibly no single standard for balancing our power, which consequently makes it impossible to balance the game around us: balance enemy damage to give squishy warframes a chance, and many other frames with tens or hundreds of times more EHP would need to make a genuine effort to even risk death. Balance enemy damage around those tanky frames, and squishier frames end up feeling like wet paper. Similarly, enemy EHP balanced around the majority of our weapons means even Steel Path enemies can get one-shot by our strongest picks, and if enemies had their EHP tuned around the latter, many other weapons would deal essentially no meaningful damage, as the gap between our strongest and average weapons is often a factor of tens of times more damage, and that between our strongest and weakest weapons one of hundreds.

With this, I also agree with the criticism that a large part of the problem stems from our modding, which relies on slathering on layers of additional damage. Not only does this process not lend itself to build diversity (for almost any given gun, there's pretty much just one optimal way of building it), it complicates balance further by exacerbating differences in damage between weapons. I'd also argue it makes for a rather dull progression system, because our mods don't really encourage us to play in interesting ways, they just make us more powerful. In this respect, I'd personally be happy stripping away base damage, multishot, and even elemental damage mods from the game, and instead buffing and adding mods that reward us for doing something other than bog-standard shooting or melee spam, e.g. Argon Scope's bonus on headshots, or Motus Setup's bonuses upon landing from a frog leap. This wouldn't fix everything by itself, and a new meta would almost certainly arise, but if that meta hinges upon mods that encourage us to play in a greater variety of ways, I'd be happy with that.

I think the other problem at hand is enemies: part of the progression in Warframe is that enemies get stronger the further away we get from Earth, yet we're expected to backtrack through the entire game, which means going back to enemies balanced around players who have just started playing. This creates an obvious balancing problem, because those enemies become trivial to veterans, and can't be made challenging without making them impossibly difficult for newcomers. This is actually a problem that I think goes way beyond Warframe, and applies to a lot of MMOs: unless they implement some sort of scaling system to bring enemies in earlier zones up to our level, those zones and enemies lose their entertainment value relative to designated "endgame" areas, which ends up making those games feel a lot smaller than they actually are.

While this may not be a popular suggestion for a game known for giving us a lot of raw power, I think one possible way of addressing the above could be to remove as much vertical power progression from the game (i.e. upgrades) as possible, and instead replace it with horizontal progression (i.e. sidegrades), while also flattening enemy scaling. Different warframes and weapons are already meant to be sidegrades to one another, and modding should ideally complement that by unlocking different ways to play the same weapon or frame. Enemy scaling has never been effective at injecting difficulty in Warframe, so if flattening enemy numbers raises the question of how to implement that successfully, that is a question we should be asking ourselves now.

[Zimzala]

Balanced against what formula? 

"Proper scaling" - who defines 'proper'?

The game is difficult for some easier for others, at all stages, so what problem is there to solve?

The game loses difficulty for players that beat the game, any game does.

Not against changes, even big ones, but IMO, the constant refrain here is 'challenge' in a game that is not meant to have the kind of 'challenge' the players asking for it want, nor is any GaaS game able to provide 'endless challenge'.

Balance? What most call for is 'normalization', IMO, which is just boring. Much like many other power fantasy games, you can build Hawkeye or Thor. Sometimes I like playing Hawkeye, sometimes I like playing Thor.

If the individual player, with the power to do so, won't tune their own game and take Personal Responsibility for their own fun, why should the game company have to play 'parent' with them and make them do stuff?

So, again, what's the real reason for the changes in 'balance' and 'challenge' if not to simply appease the players that have already beaten the game? It's a co-op game, so no one is overpowered in PvP stealing your lunch. There are no tournament prizes.

Why make such changes to a game plenty enjoy, for thousands of hours, until they beat it and then become jaded gamers that think they have to re-engineer it?

I totally get a balance pass for outliers, like DE has stated, melee is too 'bug' of a king for them, they are going to tweak it. Most of what I see players ask for is 'normalization' turning the game into a PvP type of thing, so no player 'feels bad' because we are all 'equal' no matter what we do, because DE clamped the the numbers. Ugh, how boring.

[Rakosta_Kai]

21 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

So, the question is , what would you try to do to solve game balance despite this? Or do you think I am entirely off base and this isn't a problem, or isn't a big part of the problem?

I don't think there is anything to actually solve in the first place...This game is years old now and the cadence for how it gets played is fairly well cemented at this point.

When players clamor for balance, they are generally speaking of 3 distinct things:

• Parity: That state of balance where things exist comparative to each other.

It's more prevalent now than it was in years past for frames and weapons never had it to begin with.

• Risk:Reward ratio: The ratio of Risk to Reward in this game has always been tenuous and would better be called Grind:Reward. 

It's not, currently, as bad as it could be... or used to be either.

• Difficulty: Difficulty, funnily enough, is not indicative of balance... As much as so many would like to make out that it is.

As long as a mod system exists without true hard caps and diminishing returns then balance is functionally impossible to achieve to begin with as you can always mod your way past challenges.

Players clamoring for "balance" as it relates to Warframe ultimately want a scenario where "the best build" simply isn't good enough on its' own and the player is forced to use skill to complete the mission— When have you actually had that in this game? 

And on the rare occasions it has occurred DE always backs the difficulty off due to rampant player complaints of the mechanic being either cheap or difficult...

[Pityuu2]

1 hour ago, Zimzala said:

The game loses difficulty for players that beat the game, any game does.

Have you ever played a roguelike? They are games with random generated levels and enemy placement where you start each "run" (mission, if you will) from a set starting point (your build, if you will) and have to develop new methods and strategies to adept to the new situations. Sounds familiar?

Warframe actually has a great base structure of random enemy placements, random level generation, multiple layers of interactive systems (status crits weakspots weapon mechanics), (sadly shallow but still existent) build variety, great squad comp variety.

DE just doesn't capitalize on it. There is little challenge presented, for which I blame mostly the aspects of:

• Mobs to cull, instead of foes to fight. Numbers over strength
• Dumb AI
• Enemies rarely interact with each other
• Enemies are unable to strategize: they do not recognize the player's patterns - I don't even have guns equipped yet the hide in cover
• No individual enemy poses a great threat
• No individual enemy requires specific strategies to be taken down (except some -often cheap- bosses)

I could keep going for a while. To sum it up: no need for brainz, if something happens to move on your screen, you can just keep hammering it 'til it stops to do so.

 

P.S.: I don't remember what it was called, but there was a PvP mode in Warframe where you could bring in any build, but you started the match fully unmodded. As you gained kills and scored points the game kept equipping a random mod from your build one by one: but in a random order. This was in the era when skills where mod cards themselves. So in every match I had to adept to what I was given: I could only use the abilities I had the mods for, and only with the benefits of the mods I was given back. Same for weapons. I don't know where this has gone, but I would like to see similar stuff in PvE as well. (In fact I will probably write a "What warframe could learn from roguelikes" essay of sorts.)

[Zimzala]

1 minute ago, Pityuu2 said:

I could keep going for a while. To sum it up: no need for brainz, if something happens to move on your screen, you can just keep hammering it 'til it stops to do so.

And?

What's your point?

If you are not a fan of the gameplay, don't play the game.

If the developers cannot give you what you desire, why waste your time on the planet trying to get something you obviously think they cannot produce?

If you are a l33t g@m3r that can just beat games from Day 0, then perhaps you should try your hand at the Stock Market, or curing Cancer.

If the game is so very lackluster, and you have no actual stock in the company, what purpose does it serve you in your life to continue to rail against a game company, that makes an entertainment vehicle, that you happen not to like? Did one of the developers dump you?

[Hokibukisa]

21 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

A lot is said about Warframe game balance. While there will be many debates about power fantasy versus desired difficulty, nearly all players would agree that there are serious balance problems with the game. 

First, let's identify the biggest problem, then the question is, how we solve it, or what would you suggest to solve it? 

Let's look at the big issue in WF that isn't talked about enough when we talk about balance: 

Warframe's progression system is incredibly well designed in terms of being a free to play monetization system that still respects the investment of whales. It is one of the best systems that way. But that's the problem. Warframes progression is incredibly well designed... for monetization, not for game balance. 

The way Warframe is designed, we are encouraged to branch off through a million different pathways when it comes to progressing with our gear. Apart from mods and arcanes, which are still specific to certain gear (and I wager the number of truly universal "staple" mods as it were, is relatively low in comparison to the actual number of mods in the game), we really don't have that much in the way of "universal progression" in the game (I guess also focus to a certain extent, but there is yet another system that needs a total restart and has a vaguely defined place in the game). 

I see many people trying to compare Warframe to MMO's when talking about balance, but I think Warframe has a far more Herculean task in order to create any kind of balance within their system. 

The thing is that in MMO's, you have one toon per account, progression is mostly tied to that toon, and the gear that is designed for its class, that you grind on that account. Level scaling can easily be implemented for lower zones, and there is a clear feeling of progression, a clear "what is endgame exactly", and a much easier path to regular game balance. 

On the other hand, in Warframe on one account, A tenno can switch between 45 different toons and counting, all with varying levels of forma. No weapon is class restricted and you can also use forma and have hundreds of weapons to choose from, etc. etc. 

 

So, the question is , what would you try to do to solve game balance despite this? Or do you think I am entirely off base and this isn't a problem, or isn't a big part of the problem?  

For a game like warframe I think the only thing you could do would be to put breakpoint limits on damage taken and damage done.

Warframe shield gates, and Battalyst health gates are a form of this already. You cannot 1-shot a Battalyst ever. You could have a weapon that does 999,000,000 damage, doesn’t matter, because there are gates.

Shield gates allowed something similar for warframes in that you can no longer die immediately, due to the shield acting as a breakpoint with a short invulnerability window.

As enemies scale higher and higher, their effective health can scale so high that some weapons, no matter how they are modded, cannot be effective at all vs some enemies.

Bleed status procs are then an example of a damage falloff breakpoint, as the bleeds completely ignore armor, but that depends on the weapon.

A more sophisticated damage falloff breakpoint, could be an altering of the damage formula to calculate a minimum dps. Sort of a reverse gate.

So image a level 100,000 enemy with 100,000,000,000 effective HP. We are no longer in game design territory, we are in chaotic spreadsheets run amuck territory.

The damage formula could be changed such that, regardless of enemy levels, damage, and HP, that you as the warframe have a minimum and maximum time to kill, as well as the enemy having a minimum and maximum time to kill.

Players already know how to do this, but it’s far from equally applicable.

Frames without shields technically don’t have a minimum time to kill, and weapons that do no slash damage don’t have a maximum time to kill. 

[Pityuu2]

12 minutes ago, Zimzala said:

If you are not a fan of the gameplay, don't play the game.

I did not say I am not a fan of the gameplay, I said that DE doesn't capitalize on the best aspects of it.

12 minutes ago, Zimzala said:

If the developers cannot give you what you desire, why waste your time on the planet trying to get something you obviously think they cannot produce?

what purpose does it serve you in your life to continue to rail against a game company, that makes an entertainment vehicle, that you happen not to like?

Given my experience of playing 2014~ish Warframe and Dark Sector I am more than certain that the devs CAN give me exactly the game I desire. This forum section is titled "feedback" so that I may express how I currently feel whether or not they succeed to do so.

12 minutes ago, Zimzala said:

If you are a l33t g@m3r that can just beat games from Day 0, then perhaps you should try your hand at the Stock Market, or curing Cancer.

I have not made a single claim of how "skillful" I am at the game. Even if I did, I don't see how it would relate to understanding economics or oncology.

[Zimzala]

1 minute ago, Pityuu2 said:

I did not say I am not a fan of the gameplay, I said that DE doesn't capitalize on the best aspects of it.

Given my experience of playing 2014~ish Warframe and Dark Sector I am more than certain that the devs CAN give me exactly the game I desire. This forum section is titled "feedback" so that I may express how I currently feel whether or not they succeed to do so.

I have not made a single claim of how "skillful" I am at the game. Even if I did, I don't see how it would relate to understanding economics or oncology.

So, you think 'the good ole days' can return.

Well, that's a fallacy.

Sure, it's all feedback, but you imply that the game has 'brain dead play', like it's a problem, then say you like the gameplay, so it's hard to see the point you are making, TBH.

Can WF improve? All things can, depending on your POV. You want certain aspects to be different, others want different changes, you can 'feel' however you like about it, it's a free world.

Can WF or any entity 'go back' to the 'good old days'? Nope, it's a fallacy. You would have to rewind your own life outlooks and growth back to the same point to make the game feel the same, that's just how life works.

At some point, be it Day 0 or Day 10M, most avid video game players will 'beat' the game.

GaaS games change, WF is known for it's change...but not it's 'going back', no game can turn back the clock to make you feel like everything is 'new again'.

If you want the game to improve, that's fine, but implying the players that enjoy the gameplay are without 'brainz', even while lumping yourself in that group as someone that enjoys the gameplay, just sounds like you think the players are all dumb for accepting the game in it's current state IMO.

if that's not what you meant, fine.

[Pityuu2]

  

How could I resist answering every single question of that lovely list of yours / Zimzala's?

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

Here are some words from the player "Zimzala":

• "Balanced against what formula? 
  There is not formula. What most people, and luckily DE mean by balance is that each aspect/item of the game would have a reason to be played.
• "Proper scaling" - who defines 'proper'?
  Bulletsponges and artificial difficulty is generally frowned upon in any game, not just Warframe. What not to do is generally easier to answer than what to do.
• The game is difficult for some easier for others, at all stages, so what problem is there to solve?
  The devs want their game to be played, and the players want an experience worthy of their time. Adjusting the difficulty curve of the game can help new players get into the world of Warframe, and help veterans stay engaged in it - both of which are a common goal. A problem rises when the game fails to the either, and it needs to be adressed then solved.
• The game loses difficulty for players that beat the game, any game does.
  Got this one separately above.
• Not against changes, even big ones, but IMO, the constant refrain here is 'challenge' in a game that is not meant to have the kind of 'challenge' the players asking for it want, nor is any GaaS game able to provide 'endless challenge'.
  Every video game ever released is and has to be built around the concept of challenge. How this challenge manifests: developing motorics skills for precise movement, understanding the game's mechanics for advanced strategies, the emotional challenge of understanding character's feeling and motivations etc. tends to be what really makes the game engaging and worthy of your time.
• Balance? What most call for is 'normalization', IMO, which is just boring. Much like many other power fantasy games, you can build Hawkeye or Thor. Sometimes I like playing Hawkeye, sometimes I like playing Thor.
  Doubt anyone has ever asked for every weapon to have the exact same firing mechanic, DPS, ammo pool, damage type distribution etc. As stated above, what most players want is for the game's content to be worth tempered with in the first place, which is most easily achievable by making unique and outstanding frames/weapons/mods. Exact opposite of normalization.
• If the individual player, with the power to do so, won't tune their own game and take Personal Responsibility for their own fun, why should the game company have to play 'parent' with them and make them do stuff?
  That's their goddamn job.
• So, again, what's the real reason for the changes in 'balance' and 'challenge' if not to simply appease the players that have already beaten the game? It's a co-op game, so no one is overpowered in PvP stealing your lunch. There are no tournament prizes.
  Warframe cannot be "beaten". New content is still getting released regularly, new strategies rise and fall, and quite importantly the playerbase is ever-expanding. It's a co-op game, so playing with different people that put their own twists and tricks into your squad should be always a new experience. What we want from "balance" is to actually have meaningful choices and the ability to put said twists and tricks into the game.
• Why make such changes to a game plenty enjoy, for thousands of hours, until they beat it and then become jaded gamers that think they have to re-engineer it?
  You do not have to. If DE decided to install 2014 Warframe on my drive alongside the newest version, I would be the happiest person ever. Expanding content does not have to mean getting rid of the core fun.
• I totally get a balance pass for outliers, like DE has stated, melee is too 'bug' of a king for them, they are going to tweak it. Most of what I see players ask for is 'normalization' turning the game into a PvP type of thing, so no player 'feels bad' because we are all 'equal' no matter what we do, because DE clamped the the numbers. Ugh, how boring."Shared my views on normalization above, and how I and many others wouldn't ask for it.

[Pityuu2]

17 minutes ago, Zimzala said:

So, you think 'the good ole days' can return.

Well, that's a fallacy.

Sure, it's all feedback, but you imply that the game has 'brain dead play', like it's a problem, then say you like the gameplay, so it's hard to see the point you are making, TBH.

Can WF improve? All things can, depending on your POV. You want certain aspects to be different, others want different changes, you can 'feel' however you like about it, it's a free world.

Can WF or any entity 'go back' to the 'good old days'? Nope, it's a fallacy. You would have to rewind your own life outlooks and growth back to the same point to make the game feel the same, that's just how life works.

At some point, be it Day 0 or Day 10M, most avid video game players will 'beat' the game.

GaaS games change, WF is known for it's change...but not it's 'going back', no game can turn back the clock to make you feel like everything is 'new again'.

If you want the game to improve, that's fine, but implying the players that enjoy the gameplay are without 'brainz', even while lumping yourself in that group as someone that enjoys the gameplay, just sounds like you think the players are all dumb for accepting the game in it's current state IMO.

if that's not what you meant, fine.

Yes, Warframe can go back to the 'good old days': it can be just as engaging an experience as ever. That's what I want. That's what we all want.

For the rest of your arguments, you keep claiming I said things I clearly did not. You either have serious trouble understanding what you read or you are just trolling at this point.

[Zimzala]

3 minutes ago, Pityuu2 said:

  

How could I resist answering every single question of that lovely list of yours / Zimzala's?

• "Balanced against what formula? 
  There is not formula. What most people, and luckily DE mean by balance is that each aspect/item of the game would have a reason to be played.
• "Proper scaling" - who defines 'proper'?
  Bulletsponges and artificial difficulty is generally frowned upon in any game, not just Warframe. What not to do is generally easier to answer than what to do.
• The game is difficult for some easier for others, at all stages, so what problem is there to solve?
  The devs want their game to be played, and the players want an experience worthy of their time. Adjusting the difficulty curve of the game can help new players get into the world of Warframe, and help veterans stay engaged in it - both of which are a common goal. A problem rises when the game fails to the either, and it needs to be adressed then solved.
• The game loses difficulty for players that beat the game, any game does.
• Got this one separately above.
• Not against changes, even big ones, but IMO, the constant refrain here is 'challenge' in a game that is not meant to have the kind of 'challenge' the players asking for it want, nor is any GaaS game able to provide 'endless challenge'.
  Every video game ever released is and has to be built around the concept of challenge. How this challenge manifests: developing motorics skills for precise movement, understanding the game's mechanics for advanced strategies, the emotional challenge of understanding character's feeling and motivations etc. tends to be what really makes the game engaging and worthy of your time.
• Balance? What most call for is 'normalization', IMO, which is just boring. Much like many other power fantasy games, you can build Hawkeye or Thor. Sometimes I like playing Hawkeye, sometimes I like playing Thor.
  Doubt anyone has ever asked for every weapon to have the exact same firing mechanic, DPS, ammo pool, damage type distribution etc. As stated above, what most players want is for the game's content to be worth tempered with in the first place, which is most easily achievable by making unique and outstanding frames/weapons/mods. Exact opposite of normalization.
• If the individual player, with the power to do so, won't tune their own game and take Personal Responsibility for their own fun, why should the game company have to play 'parent' with them and make them do stuff?
  That's their goddamn job.
• So, again, what's the real reason for the changes in 'balance' and 'challenge' if not to simply appease the players that have already beaten the game? It's a co-op game, so no one is overpowered in PvP stealing your lunch. There are no tournament prizes.
  Warframe cannot be "beaten". New content is still getting released regularly, new strategies rise and fall, and quite importantly the playerbase is ever-expanding. It's a co-op game, so playing with different people that put their own twists and tricks into your squad should be always a new experience. What we want from "balance" is to actually have meaningful choices and the ability to put said twists and tricks into the game.
• Why make such changes to a game plenty enjoy, for thousands of hours, until they beat it and then become jaded gamers that think they have to re-engineer it?
  You do not have to. If DE decided to install 2014 Warframe on my drive alongside the newest version, I would be the happiest person ever. Expanding content does not have to mean getting rid of the core fun.
• I totally get a balance pass for outliers, like DE has stated, melee is too 'bug' of a king for them, they are going to tweak it. Most of what I see players ask for is 'normalization' turning the game into a PvP type of thing, so no player 'feels bad' because we are all 'equal' no matter what we do, because DE clamped the the numbers. Ugh, how boring."Shared my views on normalization above, and how I and many others wouldn't ask for it.

The game makers tell players all the time they have beaten WF. Many players have beaten the game. It's not hard. New content is not the same thing. Long time players find no challenge in the new content as they have all the right mods, etc. 

Many of us play the game alone. It's Optional Co-Op, not forced. I do not gain enjoyment from playing with random humans, not an extrovert, not my bag, and it's disingenuous to imply we all are, or that we all look for the same kind of entertainment, just because the game allows Co-Op.

You cannot just rewind the game to 2014. That's you wanting to live it the past. If that's what you want, that's on you, I prefer to grow and change. Stagnation is not my bag.

What players are asking for is stat clamping and normalization. Not to the extreme that 'every single weapon' is the 'same', but what I see here is a 'driving need' beyond some outliers to be removed, so that some players don't kill faster than others, IMO, normalizing the gameplay. I have seen this very thing asked for on these forums.

What you and others find challenging is simply not the same things as every player. DE caters to a Diablo-style TPS player, that just likes to kill pixels, pass the time and be entertained. 

DE's only job is to make an entertaining game, which they do, no game company can please all players and to try is a mistake.

I get you don't like some of the things DE does, many of us do like what the game has become and do not want to rewind life back 6 years, thanks, I prefer to grow and change, not stagnate and grouse for the 'good old days' that never existed anyway.

[Hokibukisa]

45 minutes ago, Zimzala said:

So, you think 'the good ole days' can return.

Well, that's a fallacy.

Sure, it's all feedback, but you imply that the game has 'brain dead play', like it's a problem, then say you like the gameplay, so it's hard to see the point you are making, TBH.

Can WF improve? All things can, depending on your POV. You want certain aspects to be different, others want different changes, you can 'feel' however you like about it, it's a free world.

Can WF or any entity 'go back' to the 'good old days'? Nope, it's a fallacy. You would have to rewind your own life outlooks and growth back to the same point to make the game feel the same, that's just how life works.

At some point, be it Day 0 or Day 10M, most avid video game players will 'beat' the game.

GaaS games change, WF is known for it's change...but not it's 'going back', no game can turn back the clock to make you feel like everything is 'new again'.

If you want the game to improve, that's fine, but implying the players that enjoy the gameplay are without 'brainz', even while lumping yourself in that group as someone that enjoys the gameplay, just sounds like you think the players are all dumb for accepting the game in it's current state IMO.

if that's not what you meant, fine.

I think you could get it back to a good place but it would piss a lot of people off in the process.

I don’t think it’s possible to balance or make engaging by tweaking spreadsheet numbers though. All of the various spreadsheet numbers are impossible to balance taking everything into consideration. But you could make it challenging and engaging by passing it all through an evaluation filter.

For example: You fire a Braton Prime at a level 300 Corrupted Heavy Gunner. Normally you could empty all of your ammo and nothing really happens unless there are bleed ticks. Let’s say for example that you’d do 1/3000th of it’s health per shot fired.

Well, this feels bad and isn’t fun or challenging. During and evaluation of damage, you could have logic that says, “you know what? Formulas and spreadsheets be damned! You’re going to be dealing at least 5% of its health damage per shot, and 10% if it’s a headshot!”

This may seem like cheating, but I consider relying on spreadsheets to design your game for you the real cheating. Games like super Mario galaxy they do actual game design, no spreadsheets.

[Zimzala]

6 minutes ago, Hokibukisa said:

I think you could get it back to a good place but it would piss a lot of people off in the process.

I don’t think it’s possible to balance or make engaging by tweaking spreadsheet numbers though. All of the various spreadsheet numbers are impossible to balance taking everything into consideration. But you could make it challenging and engaging by passing it all through an evaluation filter.

For example: You fire a Braton Prime at a level 300 Corrupted Heavy Gunner. Normally you could empty all of your ammo and nothing really happens unless there are bleed ticks. Let’s say for example that you’d do 1/3000th of it’s health per shot fired.

Well, this feels bad and isn’t fun or challenging. During and evaluation of damage, you could have logic that says, “you know what? Formulas and spreadsheets be damned! You’re going to be dealing at least 5% of its health damage per shot, and 10% if it’s a headshot!”

This may seem like cheating, but I consider relying on spreadsheets to design your game for you the real cheating. Games like super Mario galaxy they do actual game design, no spreadsheets.

So now you have moved into changing the 'way' the game is designed?

Look, if you just want to re-engineer the whole thing, have a party, but it's going to mean nothing in forum thread.

Games are not designed by players in the General Forum.

If you think you have the magic buttons, start making some presentations to give to DE, or get VC funding and make your own game.

I get it, you don't like the direction of the. Play it or don't, it's your choice. I'll keep on having fun. 🖖

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

why do we still play? WF isn't about difficulty. It's about efficiency.

Yup yup yup 👏

3 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

You are constantly tweaking your arsenal and testing it out in the field.

Yup yup  yup 👏

3 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

You find tracks where you can adequately test your skill and the effectiveness of your car at the same time. The fun is in how good you can make your car run a track, not how many times the track can make you wipe out

Ehh somewhat.

Some people do endurance for a long time in warframe to see how long they can go without being wipedout. It can give players a real thrill avoiding wipeouts, especially if you give them something cool for it

3 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

system as complex and intertwined

I like that you compared warframe to a racing game, nice one!

 In racing its literally all about doing things as effective or perfect as possible as you said, then you go to a garage to change up what your vehicle can do and put it back on the road

In a sense, that is exactly how warframe is. Go edit your loadout and then get back on the "road" to test it out

My only grime is racing games usually have different tracks to help keep things entertaining where Warframe to me feels like it has 1 track in a straight line. All you do is shoot enemy head or melee, you dont having anything else that you can do better at, and its not too hard to land a head shot and melee.

Like it can be fun racing in a straight line, but not as fun as having different tracks.

They should give us more things to be perfect or effective at in a way thats not stupid hard (meaning youll need testers). Aiming, movement, perfect timing for nuking, etc and reward us for it

It would be the equivalance of adding a ramp to a racing game and making sure your car lands on its wheels instead of the roof, and more 

[PublikDomain]

2 hours ago, Zimzala said:

Balanced against what formula? 

"Proper scaling" - who defines 'proper'?

The game is difficult for some easier for others, at all stages, so what problem is there to solve?

That's kind of the whole problem. There is no formula. DE won't define "proper". The game providing such an inconsistent experience across all stages is the problem to solve. I'm here saying "Warframe should be fun from start to finish". Right now it isn't. It might be for you, but it isn't for a lot of players.

The answer to your first question: who cares, pick a number. Pick literally any number or formula or whatever and stick to it. That's balance.

Not having a number to balance against, or a definition of "proper", or a consistent experience, leads to things like the Wolf being nigh unkillable for some players and a cakewalk for others. A lot of lower-power players couldn't participate and DE nerfed him, I think twice. Yet he's still incredibly tanky when you summon him and is basically a trolling tool at this point. It leads to things like Amalgams, who are supposed to be neat enemies with special powers but get steamrolled whenever they spawn. It leads to things like Archwing being incompatible with ground combat and being relegated to a transportation role. It leads to things like parking your Railjack in an asteroid and using your Archguns instead. It leads to mission design that revolves around waiting for timers to fill up, because DE cannot get consistent results doing anything else. It leads to annoying enemy mechanics like status immunity or damage resistance or nullification or invincibility, which throws away everything that a player has learned or acquired, because DE cannot keep an enemy alive any other way. None of this is good, none of this is fun. It's inconsistent and broken and nothing lines up. It makes it so the only thing DE can do is throw health multipliers or excessive grind or RNG at you to keep you from blowing through it all, which players at the top can still do anyways.

[PublikDomain]

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

Some people are advocating for massive sweeping changes that others simply don't agree with. 

Right, which is something I mentioned in my old write-up:

Quote

Some players have suggested that required mods be "baked in" or removed outright, but this fails to address how players are approaching modding in the first place. If required mods were baked in or removed then they'd just be replaced with the next best source of damage. Damage-first weapon modding would still happen, and it would continue to cause all of the issues it does now. In addition to that, changing or removing inventory will be met with backlash since players don't want to see the things they've collected taken away from them.

A proper solution must be simple and effective, and result in the least amount of inventory change or loss as possible.

This is why, while I might like a post asking for changes like removing direct damage mods for the sake of discussion, I don't fully agree with that line of thinking. It would probably help with the game's balance, sure, but it'd leave a bad aftertaste. Anything that will result in a loss of "stuff" is going to be hard for players to get behind, so avoiding that is really important. That's why the "sweeping changes" I've arrived at and advocate for are not very "sweeping" at all:

• Duplicate the existing Mod Capacity system and make the duplicate count Polarity instead of Capacity.
• Standardize mod polarities.
• Buff Riven stats and give them multiple polarities so they fit in.
• Refund and replace any spent Aura/Stance Forma with a new variant.
• Revert the enemy scaling formula and change 3 of the numbers.
• Balance abilities and outliers to the new standard.

These are either systems mirroring what we already have or numbers changes. The only loss is in applied* Aura/Stance Forma since you'd have to reapply them, which DE could address with a double-affinity week. And I think the benefits of such a system far outweigh the cost of the small number of outliers being reined in which, mind you, happens all the time anyways.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

7 hours ago, Padre_Akais said:

When have you actually had that in this game? 

Never, its why only changing your loadout is fun and the actual gameplay fighting enemies is boring

Players applaud because their build held up, they got rewards, and the mission is over; not because the mission was or enemies were fun.

Even a game of Minecraft PVE can pull out more expressions from players faces during combat no matter how experienced they are or their age, than warframe could.

Warframe combat gameplay gives the player 1 of 2 expressions: straight face cause their build is working meaning it is basically trivializing content, or a face of misery because their build is not working meaning theyre now rendered useless and the mission is about to be failed.

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

Warframe has a core design requiring killing hordes of enemies to amass tons of resources to build things or killing hordes of enemies to get a CHANCE at a super rare drop (in the .0X decimal range). If it took us longer to kill enemies, they'd have rebalance the drop rates of everything, or the grind would become excessive. It's excessive now, even with drop rate increasing frames and boosters. There is no outcome of rebalancing the game for "more engaging encounters" with hordes of grunt enemies that does not adversely effect the wider tapestry of the game's design.

I had a much longer post in mind, but Firefox updated...

Anyway, the core of it comes down to, it must be easy to mindlessly wipe out hordes of enemies, completing missions in under 5min at a time (even sub-2min times for some drop rates). There CAN be some enemies like the Thumpers, Assassins (Stalker, Grustrag 3, Zanuka Hunter), Profit-Taker (and bosses in general), that drop more resources or rarer deterministic drops, but they CANNOT be the norm, not even in every single wave of enemy grunts, to maintain the other core game systems intrinsic to Warframe overall.

This doesn't even touch on the power fantasy, or the lore, or several other factors I had written in depth about (and probably have, in my post history.)