the problem is not Melee being too Op, the problem is the core combat mechanic itself

[SenorClipClop]

The problem is:

• a kneejerk reaction to Dev talk before anything concrete or tangible has been shown
• people suddenly deciding they are game design experts
• several new threads a day trying to deflect a potential incoming nerf by attempting to blame other issues and "issues" in the game
  • like come on, "attack speed is not the problem here, it's... launchers have knockback"? (By the way, saying the Bramma is the only primary people went nuts over only tells me you haven't been around long enough to have experienced the haydays of Simulor, Tonkor and maybe even Plasmor)
• fear of change

[LillyRaccune]

1 hour ago, Aldain said:

Endless power creep is the only thing that will Sabotage Warframe in the long run.

Agreed.

[(PSN)Unstar]

50 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Can does not mean will however.

The vast majority of content only asks for the Bramma, and in fact, quite a bit of the content that seems to ask for the Rubico can also be brute-forced with the Bramma. Anything that doesn't have a weak point is fair game

I tested out Hek (on the Steel Path no less) and, TBH, the only issue was ammo. And even then only in the turkey phase, since the difficulty hitting him in his flying phases was offset by the fact that the Bomblets can hit his weakpoints, and it only took 3-4 hits to move to the next phase. Very good damage. Plus the base damage of the Arrow on impact is actually the same as the Rubico, albeit the Rubico sports better crit chance, crit damage and the Combo count which greatly increases it, so that's moot. Still, Bramma is a much better pick for Hek than Rubico for Defence.

Forgive me, I'm genuinely sleep-deprived at the moment, but I'm not quite sure what conclusion you're trying to get at.  Could you spell it out for me? It sounds like you're disagreeing with me, but I'm not sure in what way.  I agree that can doesn't mean will, so I'm with you that far... ^^;

[Loza03]

17 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Forgive me, I'm genuinely sleep-deprived at the moment, but I'm not quite sure what conclusion you're trying to get at.  Could you spell it out for me? It sounds like you're disagreeing with me, but I'm not sure in what way.  I agree that can doesn't mean will, so I'm with you that far... ^^;

Half and half really.

Warframe definitely has the makings of a game where your choice of build matters. Snipers aren't good crowd clearers being the example which I undoubtedly agree with. However, it doesn't usually shake out that way - Bramma is, whilst not as good at taking out boss fights, even Hek, is still perfectly capable of doing so, as long you have ammo, which kind of makes it a do-all. Ignis W is in a similar position - it's still plenty capable of dealing with heavy units and breaking through Nox helmets to deal with them. So there's really no reward for thinking ahead and bringing a Nox buster. 

For all the depth Warframe has, its wasted in its current form.

[Rakosta_Kai]

1 hour ago, Aldain said:

Endless power creep is the only thing that will Sabotage Warframe in the long run.

Power creep is inevitable in any game where things get constantly added over time—When people harp about power creep they seem to lose the notion that power dynamics aren't static in live service games. This is vastly more noticeable in scenarios where the items added are designed to modify a class of items...

Players can argue that is "shouldn't be as pronounced", etc but ignore that it's always voluntary.

Put simply, There is no player in Warframe that is accidentally overpowered.

 

With respect to you, I find concepts like "stat squishing" to be silly as it's merely designed to functionally drop numbers and is not effective in creating scenarios of parity or challenge. It's shifting the goal post from nerfing for effect to what amounts to just nerfing the number itself.

All of the nerf herding is "crab in a barrel" logic in that it presumes, ad nauseam, the same thing, "If we can only get X fixed...That'll solve everything.".

It never has...

It never will...

[Aldain]

7 hours ago, Padre_Akais said:

With respect to you, I find concepts like "stat squishing" to be silly as it's merely designed to functionally drop numbers and is not effective in creating scenarios of parity or challenge. It's shifting the goal post from nerfing for effect to what amounts to just nerfing the number itself.

With respect in turn, it isn't to drop the numbers, it is to keep them manageable.

Final Fantasy 14 is actually undergoing a stat squish with its coming expansion this year due to several factors, most of which being that the math is starting to become unmanageable for the developers, with a smaller factor being that the numbers are now getting so large that they are causing overflow errors in several circumstances that cause the game to not function as intended.

There is a point where numeric overkill creates problems that no amount of band-aids can solve, we don't need to deal millions of damage per second, not even on Steel Path with its crazy multipliers stacked on top of multipliers, in fact the only reason we even need damage in that ballpark in the first place is because the enemies are having to chase the imbalance of the player, and before that the players were having to chase the imbalance of the enemies, specifically the Grineer.

That is why we need a stat squish, they can't control the numbers anymore, there's too much superfluous multiplication to do so, if they change one thing in the formula then everything can either become useless or hysterically overpowered.

I know some people may like the numbers big, but if they are only big for the sake of being big then the whole game will suffer because of it, power creep may be natural but not at the degree Warframe has it.

[PublikDomain]

9 hours ago, Padre_Akais said:

Power creep is inevitable in any game where things get constantly added over time

Yes, and as long as the content the player plays creeps up as well there's no problem. But when powercreep is one-sided it becomes a big problem: the game becomes trivial and and players begin to focus more and more on optimizing away the tedious and unengaging content. The content we play has stayed the same difficulty or gotten easier, with content getting big buffs from places like Steel Path and new unit types but even bigger nerfs from things like the S-Curve. Meanwhile player power has gone nothing but up, from powercreeping stats to powercreeping mods and Rivens to powercreeping mechanics like status effects. But not every player uses every bit of power available to them, so player power varies wildly and unpredictably. With the player so inconsistently powerful it's no wonder DE fails and fails and fails to create content that works for more than a narrow slice of the playerbase. It's either trivial or unapproachable, with no in between. Something like a concerted stat squish would narrow the available range of player power, making it easier to target content to a broader audience.

It's an intentional oversimplification, but if you've got a game where a player has 10 "power" then how much "power" should the content they're expected to be playing be balanced to? Around 10, plus or minus a few. 7's a little easy, 13's a little hard, but anything in that range is fine. But what if the players can range from 1 to 1,000 power, and you can't predict where any given player is going to land? Then what? What level of power do you balance content to for a party whose members have 10, 100, 500, and 1,000 power? 10 works for the weakest player but is a hundred times too easy for the strongest, so the party steamrolls the content and no one has fun. 1,000 works for the strongest player but is a hundred times too hard for the weakest, so the strongest has to carry the whole group. Warframe tends to go the former route, where we're all rolling around in the thousands but the content is still stuck in the teens. Any time DE makes content for the thousands it has to get nerfed to let the hundreds play. But if the party only ranges from 10 to 20 power then it's much easier to pick a number that works well enough for everyone: 15 would be fine. A stat squish would make this possible.

[(PSN)mahoshonenfox]

I think no body noticed the big difference between melee and guns until after Steel Path happened. If you're just doing regular star chart stuff like opening relics or doing NW, guns are fine. Some guns even work in sorties. But when you're in steel path or even arbitrations, melee has a higher power ceiling than what guns can currently offer.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

On 2021-03-04 at 4:19 AM, Aldain said:

The numbers are part of the problems that are damaging the core combat mechanics too.

When even the biggest tank of an enemy dies in 1-3 swings of any average melee weapon everything that enemy can do is rendered moot.

Melee's power is just one of many many many problems with Warframe's balance, but any time somebody brings up anything to address that the math of Warframe isn't in a good place people jump to the defense of it saying the game is supposed to be completely brainless once you have anything in the same zip code as a meta build.

That's why I'm an advocate of a stat squish, nerf EVERYTHING'S numbers down to something more practical, that way it will be easier to keep them in a relative balance of each other rather than one thing dealing 6billion DPS and another thing barely scratching 40k to kill enemies that by and long only need 3k DPS to kill in a timely fashion.

I can go along with this just as long as hit scan is completely deleted from this game. I despise hit scan with a passion.

 

[Rakosta_Kai]

5 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Yes, and as long as the content the player plays creeps up as well there's no problem. But when powercreep is one-sided it becomes a big problem: the game becomes trivial and and players begin to focus more and more on optimizing away the tedious and unengaging content.

That has yet to prove the case in previous Live Service games to date to my knowledge.

Please do feel free to cite the game that legitimately failed due to powercreep though.

[Rakosta_Kai]

6 hours ago, Aldain said:

With respect in turn, it isn't to drop the numbers, it is to keep them manageable.

You are suggesting to keep them manageable by dropping them... Potatyto / Potahto

6 hours ago, Aldain said:

Final Fantasy 14 is actually undergoing a stat squish with its coming expansion this year due to several factors, most of which being that the math is starting to become unmanageable for the developers, with a smaller factor being that the numbers are now getting so large that they are causing overflow errors in several circumstances that cause the game to not function as intended.

I'm aware... WoW did the same thing as well years ago as well. The intent in both of their cases was simply to drop the numbers to tune ttk/ttl as opposed to encourage balance or parity.

Both groups are known for constant class/weapon balance tweaks to ensure parity, or at least, comparatively so...Some months the X class is apex for their job and other months Y is instead.

The stat squish ultimately affects TTK/TTL unilaterally— That's not an indicator of balance because the "balance" ostensibly remains unchanged... Which was the ultimate result of the squish in WoW and will likely be the result in FFXIV as well. 

The difference in those games versus this one regards gear, gear checks, expected TTK/TTL, and a constant act of balancing classes against both each other and content —Put simply, you have to have met a potential TTK/TTL capability from a gear perspective to need to be affected by such changes to begin with.

In other words, they have the balance they want for that expansion/patch/update and are squishing the numbers to get the TTK/TTL they want next.

None of those really apply here given our latticework of interdependent mod systems and interactions coupled with the general lack of attribute caps/DR.

This game is vastly closer to COH than it is either WoW or FFXIV... A stat squish would have been irrelevant there too imo. No offense.

Asserting that "we need a stat squish because the numbers are too much now..." doesn't make a great deal of sense if you aren't the one actually crunching the numbers while already knowing what your desired effect should look like. 

 

That said, you have every right to hold the opinion you that you do... I'll beg to differ on the matter.

[Carl_Bar]

The problem isn't the balance between various things so much as it is the fundamental gameplay loop. There are problems with the balance between various things, but the core tendency of things to trivialise so much content is largely down to the requirements the fundamental loop imposes. Most missions have something to defend, and most of the rest impose some kind of time pressure that makes it important to not take too long doing things. And generally doing most things requires that you kill things. After the very early levels the speed at which you need to kill is fairly rapid, if your taking several second per enemy neither you nor the mission objective are likely to survive for very long. At an educated guess i'd say mid levels a 4 man squad probably needs a kill a second or better average to keep up with mission requirements, (actual rates will fluctuate as enemies tend to come in groups and strays somtimes need hunting down in defensive situations). As enemy health goes up your damage output has to scale to account for it or you can't do the content, and since your own durability starts to cap out well before your damage does the result is that you have to start killing even faster to mitigate incoming damage to survive the enemies so your DPS scalign starts to double dip and you very rapidly reach the point of needing to clear entire rooms of ridiculously tough enemies.

 

What that means is the game enforces a need for exponentially scaling extreme DPS numbers, preferably that are as easy to apply as possibble. Which means that dropping the content difficulty even slightly results in a massive drop in required DPS and consequently means anything that can do the hardest content is completely brain dead overpowered in even slightly easier content. And the top end in warframe is pretty extreme, level 150 steel path is waaaaaay ahead of lv 100 sortie enemies who are way ahead of the 50-60 enemies that are the top end of open world bounties and regular starmap stuff.

 

That dosen't mean that some things aren't outscaling others pretty badly right now, with melee as a whole doing this, but at the same time the visibility of this is so noticeable because the high end content is requiring such extreme values that the difference actually matters a lot.

 

A balance pass on a lot of stuff would help, but more than that the exponentiol TTK increases the game-play loop demands need more addressing IMO as well. The whole pace of combat needs to be slowed down at the high end and that means making having a longer TTK more viable.

[(PSN)Unstar]

20 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Warframe definitely has the makings of a game where your choice of build matters. Snipers aren't good crowd clearers being the example which I undoubtedly agree with. However, it doesn't usually shake out that way - Bramma is, whilst not as good at taking out boss fights, even Hek, is still perfectly capable of doing so, as long you have ammo, which kind of makes it a do-all. Ignis W is in a similar position - it's still plenty capable of dealing with heavy units and breaking through Nox helmets to deal with them. So there's really no reward for thinking ahead and bringing a Nox buster. 

Thanks for clarifying, I agree.  Player choice in Warframe seems to be more about personal preference rather than strategy, which is part of why I thought it was a bit unexpected to find someone complaining about one of the few parts of the game (one present in all shooting games, no less) that had an element of strategy relating to player choice.

I could be out of the loop or just bad at the game, but can a weapon like the Bramma even hit Vay Hek?  I was under the impression that most bosses that are invincible except for specific weak points can't be damaged by AoE's from weapons.  I could be wrong though, but that felt like what was going on in the past.

[Loza03]

8 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

I could be out of the loop or just bad at the game, but can a weapon like the Bramma even hit Vay Hek?  I was under the impression that most bosses that are invincible except for specific weak points can't be damaged by AoE's from weapons.  I could be wrong though, but that felt like what was going on in the past.

It's a tad tricky because Bramma's a projectile, not hitscan, but its bomblets can totally hit Hek's weak points, as can the main arrow. I've not tested super extensively, but I'm fairly sure that there's quite a few AoE weapons that can hurt him.

[(PSN)Unstar]

23 hours ago, MouadSaqui said:

you guys have no brains at all

Friend, you came into a room with a bucket of seemingly unrelated complaints about the game, dumped them on the floor, shouted "CORE COMBAT MECHANICS ARE BAD" and then walked away expecting everyone to understand what you were thinking.  Then you got upset when people didn't agree with you.

Perhaps if you explained what you meant by "core combat mechanics", or even better, provided a suggestion that would solve whatever this issue you have is, people might be able to engage with whatever you're actually thinking.

[PublikDomain]

9 hours ago, Padre_Akais said:

That has yet to prove the case in previous Live Service games to date to my knowledge.

Please do feel free to cite the game that legitimately failed due to powercreep though.

I wasn't talking about games failing, I meant games getting less balanced over time due to one-sided powercreep. Warframe is a living example of this.

[Rakosta_Kai]

44 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

I wasn't talking about games failing, I meant games getting less balanced over time due to one-sided powercreep. Warframe is a living example of this.

Then it's in no fear of failure due to your estimation.

 

[PublikDomain]

1 minute ago, Padre_Akais said:

Then it's in no fear of failure due to your estimation.

I still wasn't talking about success or failure, though do you really thing being poorly balanced works in a game's favor? Warframe would be better if it were more evenly balanced. More frames and weapons would be viable choices, which is good for players, and it'd be easier to create good content people actually want to play, which would help with retention and be good for DE.

[MouadSaqui]

6 hours ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Friend, you came into a room with a bucket of seemingly unrelated complaints about the game, dumped them on the floor, shouted "CORE COMBAT MECHANICS ARE BAD" and then walked away expecting everyone to understand what you were thinking.  Then you got upset when people didn't agree with you.

Perhaps if you explained what you meant by "core combat mechanics", or even better, provided a suggestion that would solve whatever this issue you have is, people might be able to engage with whatever you're actually thinking.

Dude, People here did the same when I *@##$ed about Railjack back in its first days in the game, and here we are seeing the same things I complained about being added to the game a year later, I just don't know why this community take everything DE add to the game as Gospel or something that is not subject to change, most of the comments here are out of emotions, and not common sense, so rest assured I'm immune to these type of comments, I've been playing this game for 3 years to understand this community is nothing but brain dead people.

[Rakosta_Kai]

3 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

I still wasn't talking about success or failure, though do you really thing being poorly balanced works in a game's favor? 

I don't think you (or anyone for that matter) knows what balanced is supposed to look like because you have no working example of it as it pertains to this game.

But I will disagree and assert you've been implying success or failure this entire time...

Evidence:

3 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Warframe would be better if it were more evenly balanced. More frames and weapons would be viable choices, which is good for players, and it'd be easier to create good content people actually want to play, which would help with retention and be good for DE.

That's a whole bunch of causal arguments to be making for absolutely no purported effect... Just sayin'

Absent that, you are definitely welcome to your opinion... Please know I don't share it on principle.

Why?

I prefer to let the actual developers do the developing and have seen enough damage done to the "balance" this game by nerf herders, youtubers, and armchair developers over the years to know exactly how all of this shakes out long term. 

Ultimately, the results never change...

• If the Devs go for it and it doesn't blow the game up?  You'll start lobbying for the next thing because the thing you just got had no real effect.
• If it actually wrecks the game's balance or regular gameplay? You'll act like you had nothing to do with it and play the injured party instead.... Only to start lobbying for something else in a few months after the heat dies down anyway.
• You're a youtuber and the idea goes south? You remove the video and hope people forget about it.

The cadence isn't new and is entirely predictable at this point... So predictable, in fact, that there are people in this thread lobbying with you who are guilty of most of what I just said. 

You are, as I said, welcome to your opinions though...

 

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

I don't think you (or anyone for that matter) knows what balanced is supposed to look like because you have no working example of it as it pertains to this game.

I quite literally have a working example. Here:

Feel free to read through that thread and see my thoughts on how DE can balance the game. You can test the idea ingame right now with zero changes made to the game itself.

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

But I will disagree and assert you've been implying success or failure this entire time...

You're free to assert whatever you like. I'm still not talking about success or failure though.

1 hour ago, Padre_Akais said:

I prefer to let the actual developers do the developing and have seen enough damage done to the "balance" this game by nerf herders, youtubers, and armchair developers over the years to know exactly how all of this shakes out long term. 

Ultimately, the results never change...

• If the Devs go for it and it doesn't blow the game up?  You'll start lobbying for the next thing because the thing you just got had no real effect.
• If it actually wrecks the game's balance or regular gameplay? You'll act like you had nothing to do with it and play the injured party instead.... Only to start lobbying for something else in a few months after the heat dies down anyway.
• You're a youtuber and the idea goes south? You remove the video and hope people forget about it.

The cadence isn't new and is entirely predictable at this point... So predictable, in fact, that there are people in this thread lobbying with you who are guilty of most of what I just said. 

You are, as I said, welcome to your opinions though...

You sound like a lovely person.

[MouadSaqui]

On 2021-03-04 at 1:32 AM, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

I also don’t really understand the Bramma nerfs, they took a sledge hammer to that thing, and yet if you use carrier you can spam away all day?

Like, it’s exactly as obnoxiously powerful as it was before?

Trust me, if using carrier becomes a trend, I'm sure DE will nerf that too, its like they don't want such things to be common knowledge, the bramma was like literally everywhere, But instead of bringing up Explosive weapons up to a bramma they decided to Nerf the bramma....  Expect that to happen to Kuva Nukor some times soon

[MouadSaqui]

On 2021-03-04 at 5:15 PM, CurseOfFilth said:

Just make melee attacks rely on stamina. 

I would probably advocate for stamina in warframe, a stamina system will probably make this community actually THINK before smashing buttons, I personally think Lavos is a step toward something like this, and It will happen at some point !

[MouadSaqui]

On 2021-03-04 at 2:19 AM, Aldain said:

That's why I'm an advocate of a stat squish, nerf EVERYTHING'S numbers down to something more practical, that way it will be easier to keep them in a relative balance of each other rather than one thing dealing 6billion DPS and another thing barely scratching 40k to kill enemies that by and long only need 3k DPS to kill in a timely fashion.

It is not just the stats, its spawn rates and enemy placements too, lowering stats will make the game impossible to be enjoyed, if you can't kill 20 enemies mindlessly running into you before they get too close, its just gonna be overwhelming, enemies in warframe are just punch bags nothing more nothing less, even freaking genshin impact has more attack patterns and enemy types than warframe has, all factions in warframe shoots, attack, run, hide, the same way..... a stat squish could be the end of what we play this game for...

don't get me wrong I get your Idea, but I would suggest Damage Cap rather than squish all stats at once, also limiting the damage multipliers to prevent a 6 billion damage, There is minor steps that could fix the issues with damage, and keep the power fantasy there, But Also limiting the output damage you can reach, in some cases it seems infinite in warframe 

[PublikDomain]

22 minutes ago, MouadSaqui said:

lowering stats will make the game impossible to be enjoyed, if you can't kill 20 enemies mindlessly running into you before they get too close, its just gonna be overwhelming, enemies in warframe are just punch bags nothing more nothing less, even freaking genshin impact has more attack patterns and enemy types than warframe has, all factions in warframe shoots, attack, run, hide, the same way..... a stat squish could be the end of what we play this game for...

A stat-squish ought to affect enemies, too. You'd squish players into a narrower range and then bring enemies up or down to match them to achieve a fun TTK, whatever that ends up being. And Warframe's enemies are actually pretty interesting, especially the newer ones from the Jupiter and Corpus Ship tileset updates. They tend to die instantly, though, so you never actually get to see any of it. That's why Warframe's enemies seem so simple: everything looks simple when it dies in a nanosecond.