Primary Weapons

[Gahrzerkire]

(The context of talking about weapon balance should only be from playing in steel path, with a quarter decent mod setup players are able to one shot level 90+ none steel path enemies with minor warframe buffs and minimal forma. Therefore weapon balance before steel path is irrelevant as the highest level none steel path content is about 90ish. Sadly this also implies that all content for anyone moderately geared is horrifically boring cause everything insta dies and yes at that point melee and primaries are balanced cause a one shot is a one shot. Everything I talk about related to balance is taken from the perspective of playing in steel path, where every primary weapon is totally useless save a maybe three or four, but they are still overshadowed by melee which i will get into why below. surprise, stagger isnt the problem.) 

Also the reason I cuss like a madman (as a commentor aptly put it) is 'cuase im bloody pissed off having played this game for years and having watched it have the same problems with the same simple (albiet time consuming, monotonous) solutions. 

WHY DO PRIMARIES SUCK?

They do less damage

Their mods are weaker then secondary's

Melee is always an AoE whereas most primaries are single target but still have lower DPS then Area of Effect Primaries / Secondaries and Melee. 

Melee weapons have access to a slew of mods that allow them to reach a level of % increased damage multiplier that cannot be competed with by any primary or secondary weapon loadout. (looking at you 120% increased melee damage per status on enemy)

They have to be reloaded (unlike melee weapons which dont) 

They JUST DEAL LESS DAMAGE BY A VERY LARGE MARGIN

Nerfing Melee Isnt Changing Things:
 

^^^^ With all these negatives removing stagger from melee weapons doesn't do S#&$. People will still NOT USE PRIMARIES. Look at your data after this update, there isn't going to be an increase in people using their primaries unless you nuked melee weapons SO HARD that NONE of them stagger and they deal like 1/5th their normal damage. Maybe You'll see an increase in high status chance high impact damage melees, but i doubt you will see people use their primaries more. 

Secondary weapons just deal MORE DAMAGE then the majority of primaries after taking into account their mods.

 

How to solve your problems and make balancing future weapons really #*!%ing easy:

Organize your weapons into Tiers of Usage, each tier being associated with what Enemy level it should be effective against, and this should be related directly to what level it is usually acquired at, and when it drops off is when the player is being motivated to get new equipment. Example Tiers:

Tier I: (Enemy level 0-10)
MK1 Braton
MK1 Bo
MK1 Paris

Tier X: (enemy level 100 - Infinite)
Trumna

Set Each tier to have a median DPS. Which is the amount of damage per second on average weapons in that tier should do. Then set your "target DPS for weapons in specific classes" so how much more damage this thing should do if its a sniper or if its a rifle or if its a submachine gun. Maybe don't even go that far. Make it "AOE Weapons" "Snipers" "Automatic Single Target Weapons" "Charge Rifles" and then an associated modifier for how much more or less DPS these guns should have:

Eg. "Automatic Single Target Weapons" +150% Base Tier DPS

After doing this and organizing your weapons you should know exactly how much damage each weapon should more or less have and using this framework to guide you each weapon can then be individually balanced base off of its damage. 

I understand DE. Doing this  ^ is boring as #*!%. But it will  fix your primary weapons hitting like wet noodles. Infact its the only thing you could do that would make the player base happy because then your guns wouldn't all suck ass. 

Low Tier Weapons and Rivens

"But what about the low Tier Weapons being S#&$ I wAnnA uSe My MK1 BraTOn In StEEl PatH?" - Rivens. That is the purpose of rivens. Now that we have our baseline values for every single weapon, we go through and sort the weapons by type accounting for crit etc. And then creating modded loadouts and figuring out what each weapon deals in damage with a modded crit loadout and a modded base damage loadout, maybe even different status loadouts as well (all this can be easily done in excel). 

This will show us the base multipliers we are working with for each individual weapon, so how much its damage is being multiplied by. Then by looking at its modded DPS and dividing it into our endgame Tier X categories target DPS we can see the damage multiplier that a god roll riven needs to provide to get this weapon into endgame content or to start approaching endgame content. The weapons riven disposition is then based off of some actually #*!%ing DATA ROOTED IN DAMAGE AND WHAT IT ACTUALLY DOES IN COMBAT and now will actually be good instead of dogS#&$ when used in higher tiers.

Other S#&$ that needs to happen to make primary weapons not suck total ass garbage

Melee will always outclass primaries and secondary's as long as those two classes do not have their own innate combo system

I propose the following:

start by giving both primaries and secondary's their own combo counters. Secondary's a max of x3 damage primaries x4 damage (this is at max combo counter) (these are example numbers they can be anything but my reasoning behind making secondary's have a lower multiplier is that secondary weapons are BACKUP WEAPONS)

Headshots | combocounter gained = x value.
kills | combocounter gained =  x value * 2.
Hitting multiple enemies with one trigger pull | combocounter gained =  # of enemies hit (if #>3) * x

Swapping from secondary to primary causes your combo counters to also swap with identical relative valency i.e. at 4x primary it turns into 3x secondary and vice versa. However Swapping from secondary to primary when have Emptied the mag and have not reloaded Applies at +50% valency transfer allowing you to go over the "cap".

empty magazine in your secondary at 3x combo to swapping to primary weapon gives you a 6x multiplier where as doing the same with your secondary brings you to a 4.5x mulitplier. Ooooo lookie motivating the player to swap weapons.

While a combo multiplier is over capped it continuously decays back to its original value at an ever increasing rate while the player is continuously trying to raise it back up through killing enemies.

Now players have a little minigame they can play to maximize their damage.

I understand the values provided above are not even remotely practical however I believe a system like this would be best if balanced in congruency to the above proposed primary weapon systems outputted values and melees average DPS values w/ combo counter.

If you dont give primaries and secondaries a combo counter but just buff their damage to be equal to melee, then melee will never be good because melee will need a combo counter to be built to do the same damage as primaries, giving them both combo counters is the only way to solve this imo without just outright making melee S#&$. 

Things in the game that have always made primary weapons S#&$ / or balancing them borderline impossible

Healing

health is one of the most valuable commodities in warframe, being able to restore your warframes health is an invaluable part of any good warframe build or any good warframes build. but the majority of warframes have NO sources of healing which relegates it to melee weapons as they are the only other source.
Healing is only available (excluding harrow) through either warframe abilities or through melee weapons. THIS IS WHY MELEE IS SO PREVALENT you can HEAL with that S#&$, AND deal the best damage in the game.

Healing is easiest put into a build on melee weapons, and its not healthy for warframe for the only universal sources of healing to be on melee weapons as if you are like me you #*!%ing hate smashing e and want to just hold right click instead. (Sorry DE you arent going to make your game loop more interactive, because the good news is that most players either like guns or like melee, you have two types of Monke players "smash e" and "hold right click" we also dont want to change so stop forcing us to, just make the game fun for each of our groups and the weirdos that do a little of both (me) will be happy cause both will be good)

What is the problem with melee weapons being the only source of healing? Melee weapons are what you use at point blank, if the only way to heal is to get within point blank range of the enemy, then the best thing to use becomes your point blank weapon, and suddenly you are always in point blank range, using your melee weapon. Because why use a primary when you can just shmack em' with melee. 

SO MOVING ON. How do we fix melee being the only source of healing?

WHAT THE #*!% IS THE POINT OF HEALTH ORBS IF THEY DONT DROP?? ENERGY DOES?

I propose tying health orbs into the combo system, making it so their drop change increases as your primary and secondary and melee weapon combo counters increase. Maybe make the base chance = to if not < then the chance for energy orbs, but MAKE THEM DROP so that building healing into your build isnt 100% neccessary, then provide all warframes with either a healing ability or a damage mitigation ability. 

This will also make mods like Equilibrium more viable, as well as Health Conversion on frames OTHER THEN #*!%ING NEKROS (side note DE he has one good build, that is really S#&amp;&#036; feeling, make his passive equilibrim or health conversion or both instead of the useless garbage it is now so he can have some #*!%ing build variety)

Punch Through 

Remove it from mods, make different weapons have different levels of punchthrough but not exceeding 1m unless its a sniper. Punchthrough is making your primaries way more complicated to balance then they need to be, its also holding them back from being single target beasts which they should be. Its holding them back by making weapons into pseudo AoE weapons when they shouldnt be, when they should just have a metric #*!% ton of damage. 

Trumna feels amazing in part cause it doesnt use or need punchthrough and its AoE Damage on primary fire is not giving Trumna room clear, its trumnas raw unmitigated #*!%ing single target damage, that gives it room clear. This is how single target auto primaries should feel, like unstoppable torrents of bullets knocking down one enemy after the other in rapid succession. They shouldnt feel like #*!%ing AOE cannons burting down an entire group cause they hit everyone in that group. 

Get rid of punch through its actively harming your ability to balance other parts of the game. (in many different areas)

Magazines and Reloading feel like crap, why are all the reload times so high

Magazines and reloading are the literally the stamina of primary and secondary weapons. You removed that from melee and movement. It doesnt feel good. Dont remove it from primary and secondary weapons, but I think everyone would enjoy their weapons more if they got to use them more. (Trumna deserves the 5 second reload) but it most cases for weaponry, they should all have reload times of under 1.5 seconds. Stop stopping your player from playing the game. 

Doom Eternal and Doom are great examples of how amazing a game will feel without ever having to reload. I am not saying reloading doesnt have a place in warframe, I am saying that when my viper wraiths have the same reload time to active fire time ratio, there is a problem. 

You dont need to reload a melee weapon.

The majority of guns in this game have a fire time to reload time ratio of 2:1 which means that you spend about 30% of your game on primary weapons reloading, which is #*!%ing ridiculous, this can be solved with either upping general mag size, increasing damage and lowering firerate, or boosting reload speed. The last of these options being the easiest and most directly effective to solve the problem. 30% of the time spent in game should not be spent reloading your weapon.

You know why I dont mind the trumnas reload?

Because even with a firerate of #*!%ing 10, it has a reload ratio of 4:1 which means you are spending 20% of the time reloading which is moderately acceptable. (its actual reload ratio at base is: 43:5, which means you spend 10.8% of your time reloading)

then you have the twin vipers reload:
 which is 1.6 : 2.0
you legitimately spend more time reloading the #*!%ing vipers then you do shooting them, and they dont even hit hard, they hit like #*!%ing pea shooters EVEN WITH A GOD RIVEN.

 

Anyways end rant. Listen if you want de. Maybe improve you game. I dunno. I like this game, I want to play it more.

A comprehensive list of things that motivate players to drop their primary and use melee

Healing pets (which shouldnt have health anyways)
Healing yourself
Being close to a large group of enemies
AoE Damage
Finishers being the highest and strongest source of damage in the entire game
While using melee your a highly mobile and therefore take less damage
Stagger (slightly mitigated in recent patch) 
Zaw melee weapons offer ridiculous buffs including a buff that makes it so the stagger changes are completely irrelevant
Most melee weapons have slash on them, allowing extremely effect slash status builds i.e. easy access to true damage
Melee weapons have insane damage buffs that scale off of not only their combo counter but also # of status's on enemies
When healing yourself you get stuck in a loop (more prevalent now that enemies are not staggered) where you take damage while healing using melee so you keep healing by using melee, which means you take more damage which means you keep healing.... etc...
Melee weapon status mods directly motivate you to use high status high firerate primaries to wet a target with statuses so they can do even more damage.
Slam attacks as free crowd control

 

[Almagnus1]

While the combo counter is a good idea, to really catch up the Primary and Secondaries are also going to need a version of Blood Rush, Condition Overload, and Weeping Wounds to have any hope of closing that gap.

[Agent_Matej]

You said that no one use primary weapons. I don't know about you guys, but I use my primary weapons a lot. Especially my Karak Wraith :) 

[bad4youLT]

Primarys and secondarys arent bad , its the melee whats the problem here , its simple to good it just overshadows everything , nerfing melee is right choice , if we buff guns then warframe abilitys will fall behind and then what ? we buff those to ? 

See where this is going ?

Spoiler

Well if you dont its called power creep and for the sake of balance nerfs have to be made .

 

[killerJoke66]

i like the combo idea on ranged weapons , we do actually have them on snipers why not spread it to others too 

[Veridian]

Ofc you know better than the devs, it's even more anoying that you write as if you're some kind of a messiah of balance.

Somehow, however, in my head fixing balance issues when melee trivializes every consievable content that 99% of the playerbase would face by buffing ranged is not a solution.

Might be just me...

[Gahrzerkire]

On 2021-03-19 at 6:39 PM, Almagnus1 said:

While the combo counter is a good idea, to really catch up the Primary and Secondaries are also going to need a version of Blood Rush, Condition Overload, and Weeping Wounds to have any hope of closing that gap.

I completely disagree with this. As currently performance of melee weapons can be replicated on primaries by stacking 400% more damage + 60% more which roughly translates to about 8x damage. It just takes two warframe abilities to make primaries as good as melees and then unfortunately those same buffs apply to your melee. but if you notice the multiplicative value is basically the same as what is provided by the combo counter. 

If melee didnt have a combo counter it would be equal to primaries in terms of performance. Arguing that the 12x damage multiplier melee gets for free has nothing to do with its current state of ridiculous OP bullS#&amp;&#036;icus is moronic. 

On 2021-03-19 at 9:55 PM, Ver1dian said:

Somehow, however, in my head fixing balance issues when melee trivializes every consievable content that 99% of the playerbase would face by buffing ranged is not a solution.

fixing stagger should solve that issue as now you take damage while using melee. But it also wont solve that problem fully as 

On 2021-03-19 at 6:05 PM, Reaverhart said:

Healing is easiest put into a build on melee weapons,

Therefore melee will still be just as broken you might just need to run arcane guardian. (the longer version for people who dont get my implied meaning: Melee stagger removal is a useless change becuase healing is on melee weapons, therefore even if enemies damage you it doesnt matter as you will just instantly heal that damage back. you also cant remove healing from melee becuase then the only frames that can run melee will be healing based frames as the only thing that keeps you from dying EVEN WITH STAGGER at the moment is having healing on melee. Stagger isnt problem with melee. The damage enemies deal to you while using melee is irrelevant. all this is going to do is make bombards more annoying. but its not like that even matters becuase primed sure footed exists so the devs clearly intend all players to become stagger immune at some point, as the only thing that will kill a properly built frame even in steel path is getting knocked on your ass, meaning best in slot, meaning meta, meaning you run it or you die.) 

On 2021-03-19 at 7:20 PM, bad4youLT said:

Primarys and secondarys arent bad , its the melee whats the problem here , its simple to good it just overshadows everything , nerfing melee is right choice , if we buff guns then warframe abilitys will fall behind and then what ? we buff those to ? 

The issue is mostly that primaries and secondaries hit like noodles compared to melee. And they lack the cleave damage that allows melee to AoE clear the entire screen. Primaries do not do enough damage to handle steel path because they dont scale. Melee scales for free with combos. Also warframe abilities will never fall behind because anyone that uses a warframe ability for damage in steel path is probably not killing anything and being carried. (exceptions to this include protea's turret... and thats the only one i can think of at the moment.)

Warframe abilities at the point where damage matters are nothing but glorified CC, Debuffs or Buffs. Thats it. Warframe ability damage doesnt scale, never has scaled, and probably never will on a wide variety of frames. There are a very select range of frames who have abilities that actually deal damage. Also excal exalted blade doesnt count cause you mod it like a weapon and it scales off combo counter.

On 2021-03-19 at 7:08 PM, Agent_Matej said:

You said that no one use primary weapons. I don't know about you guys, but I use my primary weapons a lot. Especially my Karak Wraith :) 

 Friend me, lets go to steel path, shoot your karak wraith at some level 130's with double armour, and health. It wont do S#&amp;&#036;. Then youll swap to your melee, rack up a 12x combo multiplier and start killing things at about 4x the speed. Not to mention youll be immortal becuase of the healing. 

On 2021-03-19 at 9:55 PM, Ver1dian said:

Ofc you know better than the devs, it's even more anoying that you write as if you're some kind of a messiah of balance.

Also im sorry I write like this, legitimately cant help it because watching this games balance over the years has literally drawn me to the edge of insanity as the devs clearly have no balance plan, no intended weapon progression through the game, and no proper hold on what actually makes a weapon good or bad which is why they balance rivens based off of usage instead of actual #*!%ing stats. Also arguing the point that balancing weapons is more then "doing the math" is extremely inane as that is all that the game is, a giant math equation that determines the colors of the pixels on your screen. you can calculate dps, in that calculation you can factor in status, crit, armour, and whatever else your heart desires at the end of the day a dps value pops out. maybe its a long equation, maybes its complicated, #*!%ing plug it into excel have a machine do it for you. There is no excuse for DE to not have a decently balanced game. I genuinely have come to the belief they just don't want to take the time to build the spreadsheet and organize their S#&amp;&#036; cause it isnt fun, it isnt thrilling, it isnt pretty, and it isnt something most people want to do. The sad part is their game would be amazing if they did it. 

Also if you havent noticed im pissed off. logging into a game and remembering all the reasons why I #*!%ing hate something I used to love and knowing the reason I hate it is because people dont take the time to do the easy monotaneous S#&amp;&#036; pisses me the #*!% off. I want to do more then just log into this game every three months play for a week, remember that eveyr primary weapon sucks and that the only way to play challenging content is to spam E because its more effecient then anything else, and then go on a raging rant because i hate how every gun #*!%ing sucks ass compared to melee.


(also adding a disclaimer to my original post that arguing about weapon balance in any state outside of end game content i.e. steel path is inane, will explain why up there)

[Aldain]

No.

No more combo counters.

No more multipliers.

NO MORE BAND-AID SOLUTIONS TO INHERENT PROBLEMS WITH THE GAME DESIGN.

They need to fix it right, they need to make infinite scaling NOT the end goal of every weapon, enough spaghetti math for God's sake...

[Gahrzerkire]

1 minute ago, Aldain said:

No.

No more combo counters.

No more multipliers.

NO MORE BAND-AID SOLUTIONS TO INHERENT PROBLEMS WITH THE GAME DESIGN.

They need to fix it right, they need to make infinite scaling NOT the end goal of every weapon, enough spaghetti math for God's sake...

so you didnt read any of my post at all. 

also "spaghetti math" isnt even a thing. "spaghetti" is used to talk about code, usually referring to horrifically fractured massively interdependent incompetent scripting. which results in massive bugs and issues when implementing new features due to inconsistencies, errors, and just general excessively complicated bullS#&amp;&#036; as a result of the dependencies. 

saying "they need to fix it right" is like saying "the water needs to hydrate me properly" youve said nothing. 

Also I have a question for you:

what is the end goal of every weapon?

to be usable? to have a purpose? to be valid? 

for me its one of those things^ and without damage or extreme CC a weapon can never be any of those things.

5 minutes ago, Aldain said:

No more combo counters.

That would be reasonable., It would bring melee in line with primaries. But DE wont do that. And the players would riot, therefore adding a similar system to primaries would actually allow them to compete. All melee is infinite scaling, grow up, deal with it. its reality. 

and before you tell me to do that about the current state of primaries I didnt make this post till after they are started talking about trying to make primaries better. and making eveything S#&amp;&#036; doesnt make something that was S#&amp;&#036; less S#&amp;&#036;. it just makes everything S#&amp;&#036;. hence me making this post. also I love that in a game where i can dismember people i cant cuss on the forums its like everyone here is in a kindergartner. 

7 minutes ago, Aldain said:

No more multipliers.

Really hate to break it to you but this is the founding principle of progression and literally everything that makes a video game a video game. its called math, its used for damage get over it. the volume of multipliers isnt the problem its the fact that melees volume is larger then the primaries volume, so the primaries lose. if they go with no more multipliers from now on primaries will always suck.

[Gahrzerkire]

20 minutes ago, Aldain said:

NO MORE BAND-AID SOLUTIONS TO INHERENT PROBLEMS WITH THE GAME DESIGN.

My solution isnt a band aid, its a complete overhaul of the entire system. I am crying for the entire weapon system to be overhualed. you didnt read my post and yet you reply like you have the right to speak to its merit. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

 

Just now, Reaverhart said:

My solution isnt a band aid, its a complete overhaul of the entire system. I am crying for the entire weapon system to be overhualed. you didnt read my post and yet you reply like you have the right to speak. 

You're on a public forum. We all have the right to speak because we also grew up in places where we learned from a young age we have the right to speak. Is that a problem for you?

[Gahrzerkire]

Just now, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

 

You're on a public forum. We all have the right to speak because we also grew up in places where we learned from a young age we have the right to speak. Is that a problem for you?

No its not, and i cant take away his right to speak, but exercising the right to speak about something someone else said and volunteer an opinion about something someone else said without actually reading what they said is poor usage of that right. 

Furthermore we are operating under two different meanings of the term right. there is the god given built in first amendment right to vomit forth whatever you desire at whoever you desire for whatever reason; then there is the moral right meaning you have earned; through some rite of passage the ability to do something. In this case i am operating from the latter definition, the rite of passage being reading my post and responding to it in a sensical manner.

You are accusing me of saying that he lacks the god given right to speak. Obviously he doesnt, Obviously I cant stop him, but i am informing him that his words unless he actually reads what was posted mean literally nothing and carry no value in a discussion board specifically about what i wrote. 

So by the all incompassing god given definition yes, he has the right to open his mouth and use his keyboard. But has he fulfilled the rite of passage that provides what he says any value or weight or meaning in the context of this discussion board? no.

[bad4youLT]

1 hour ago, Reaverhart said:

 

The issue is mostly that primaries and secondaries hit like noodles compared to melee. And they lack the cleave damage that allows melee to AoE clear the entire screen. Primaries do not do enough damage to handle steel path because they dont scale.

No , the issue here is the STEEL PATH , recal why steel path exist in the first place , because players are doing to much damage and nothing on vanilla game can compete so players asked DE for harder content . 

And now said harder content has got us here where we are now asking to buff guns even more instead of addressing the core problem and its WE HAVE TO MUCH POWER , specifically melee as it absolutely wrecks at any difficulty .

[Krankbert]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Reaverhart:

If melee didnt have a combo counter it would be equal to primaries in terms of performance. Arguing that the 12x damage multiplier melee gets for free has nothing to do with its current state of ridiculous OP bullS#&amp;&#036;icus is moronic. 

It has nothing to do with it. There is no "12x damage multiplier". The combo multiplier only applies to heavy attacks which consume part or all of the combo counter to execute and aren't the reason why melee is good right now. You're describing a Melee 1.0 mechanic that hasn't been in the game since 2019.

[Gahrzerkire]

12 hours ago, bad4youLT said:

No , the issue here is the STEEL PATH , recal why steel path exist in the first place , because players are doing to much damage and nothing on vanilla game can compete so players asked DE for harder content . 

And now said harder content has got us here where we are now asking to buff guns even more instead of addressing the core problem and its WE HAVE TO MUCH POWER , specifically melee as it absolutely wrecks at any difficulty .

I disagree steel path is the only content in the #*!%ing game where melee and ranged weapons dont just outright oneshot. its the only actual content in the game once you have serration, split chamber, and the toxin and cold dual stat mods maxed out. 

Part of this issue with us "having too much power" is that their is no real way for the enemy to fight us at any stage (the AI is S#&amp;&#036;). What makes or breaks content in this game as being engaging is how much damage enemies take to kill, and what defines "balance between weapon types" is them taking an equal amount of time to kill enemies, which in steel path is not the case. And I use steel path as a reference is steel path is the only time damage actually matters.

you can beat this game with a freaking lato if you know how to build your frame properly to buff your weapons. there is no content in this game where we dont " HaVe ToO mUcH PowEr" so what level enemies do you propose become the equvalent difficulty to steel path enemies? level 30? level 40? level 60? and mind you this would be without the steel path armour and health buffs. You are talking about lowering damage across the board by over 500% if you want those enemies to be challenging.  

Steel Path shows what weapons are good and bad and what weapon categories are ahead and behind, cause its the only game mode where your damage matters. Any jackass can one shot all other content in the game with little effort, stop pretending like this game isnt ridiculously easy outside of steel path.

[Gahrzerkire]

12 hours ago, Krankbert said:

It has nothing to do with it. There is no "12x damage multiplier". The combo multiplier only applies to heavy attacks which consume part or all of the combo counter to execute and aren't the reason why melee is good right now. You're describing a Melee 1.0 mechanic that hasn't been in the game since 2019.

huh wasnt aware of this change. the rest of the post however still stands, the player is highly motivated to do nothing but use melee for 90% of the game anyways.

Edited the original post to remain relevant with this new information.

[Almagnus1]

7 hours ago, Reaverhart said:

huh wasnt aware of this change. the rest of the post however still stands, the player is highly motivated to do nothing but use melee for 90% of the game anyways.

Edited the original post to remain relevant with this new information.

That's kinda why I want to see a combo counter, Condition Overload, Weeping Wounds, and Blood Rush on the primary and secondary weapons.... they simply cannot output the raw damage to the point that after a certain level range in Steel Path you may as well go melee only (with like less than 10 guns being on par) because the vast majority of primaries simply do not do enough damage to keep pace, and they also don't keep pace.

For example, if you start with a Tenora Prime build like https://overframe.gg/build/133186/tenora-prime/the-percussive-repeater-tenora-prime/ and that's going to push it about as far as it will go... especially if you have a sentinel with a stat stick to give you a 4/6 for the rest of the Vigilante mod set bonus for a 20% chance on crit to make the crit better.  That build is only going to get you so far on Steel Path before it just stops producing the damage needed and you may as well swap over to melee to continue on.  If those three mods became part of the Primary mod pool, that means you can drop both Argon Scope and Point Strike for Blood Rush, which frees up a spot for Condition Overload or Primed Shred.  Then the decision on whether or not drop Hunter Munitions to add in the third one as assault rifles just work so much better with punch through since it helps them do some limited AoE.  That is also true for shotguns as well, as shotguns with punch through are simply amazing.

If you take a look at the secondaries, the standard build is basically Hornet Strike, Lethal Torrent, Barrel Diffusion, Primed Pistol Gambit, Primed Target Cracker, Pistol Pestilence, Frostbite, Primed Heated Charge give or take a mod or two.  For that one, I'd probably throw out Primed Pistol Gambit and Barrel Diffusion and swap in Condition Overload and Blood Rush which would (again) give the secondaries much higher damage and also allow them to work better later on in the game.  Outside of the Pyranna Prime, there's very few secondaries I want to use in content that's going to provide a challenge to me because the amount of damage they currently do is just so inferior to what the melees can do.

And the solution here isn't to nerf melees because this entire guns vs swords thing is showing just how much of a bad state the gunplay in Warframe is currently.

The other thing I'm looking at with weapons in general is that they all should get the mods for damage, crit, crit damage, and possibly multishot should all be tied into the leveling system for the weapon so at rank 30 you get a maxed out version of each mod.  While that wouldn't really do much for melee, it would help out the primary and secondaries along with adding in Condition Overload, Blood Rush, and Weeping Wounds because one of the problems the secondaries have is there's just too many mandatory mods on the high end build that you end up using the same build on all the weapons.

[bad4youLT]

13 hours ago, Reaverhart said:

I disagree steel path is the only content in the #*!%ing game where melee and ranged weapons dont just outright oneshot. its the only actual content in the game once you have serration, split chamber, and the toxin and cold dual stat mods maxed out. 

Part of this issue with us "having too much power" is that their is no real way for the enemy to fight us at any stage (the AI is S#&amp;&#036;). What makes or breaks content in this game as being engaging is how much damage enemies take to kill, and what defines "balance between weapon types" is them taking an equal amount of time to kill enemies, which in steel path is not the case. And I use steel path as a reference is steel path is the only time damage actually matters.

you can beat this game with a freaking lato if you know how to build your frame properly to buff your weapons. there is no content in this game where we dont " HaVe ToO mUcH PowEr" so what level enemies do you propose become the equvalent difficulty to steel path enemies? level 30? level 40? level 60? and mind you this would be without the steel path armour and health buffs. You are talking about lowering damage across the board by over 500% if you want those enemies to be challenging.  

Steel Path shows what weapons are good and bad and what weapon categories are ahead and behind, cause its the only game mode where your damage matters. Any jackass can one shot all other content in the game with little effort, stop pretending like this game isnt ridiculously easy outside of steel path.

Play Destiny 2 and realize how wrong you are .

[SneakyErvin]

There are two things DE should do which would bring balance to a nearly "perfect" state.

1. Remove the oh so silly idea of having weapons tied to a meaningless MR value.

2. Add actual item budget to everything.

When that is done they will have a set number of points for a weapon (or any other type of loadout option), each stat increase or decrease of the baseline will either add or remove points from the budget. Obviously weapons with variations would gain a specific bonus perk based on the variation, but those would be smaller things that wont make massive gaps in the balance. Like the Opticor and Vandal, the regular version shoots harder but slow, both end up and respectable dps levels compared to eachother.

Most games go with this approach and it works. I dont know why DE hasnt done it in all these years. They could obviously keep certain items like the MK-1 series to be lowbie items.

[STUVash]

Le 19/03/2021 à 23:05, Reaverhart a dit :

start by giving both primaries and secondary's their own combo counters. 

No please no...  There are already arcanes, mods, warframe ability buffs, pets buffs. Don't give me a reason to Actually play with an MK1-Braton in the future...
We already have too much damage, even for primaries, please don't try to do what melee did. 

>> Either nerf Melee or let them be separate things. <<

Let them spam their E key while I have fun with a not as much broken system within Primary weapons.

You have Warframe mods like Auras, Vigorous Swap.
You have mods for your weapons.
You have Arcanes, like Arcane Avenger giving crit even to non-crit weapons, Arcane Arachne, Arcane Tempo for shotguns, Arcane Acceleration, Arcane Rage, Theorems.
You have pets like Adarza which can consistently increase your critical chance like Arcane Avenger would, and the pets from the other squad members could also help raising your damage like Kubrows with Mecha set, Helios marking an enemy part, or a Smeeta giving you another crit buff.
You have status like Corrosive, Heat, Viral, Magnetic.
You have Warframe passive and abilities, and alot of them can be shared.
 

Révélation

Ash passive raises the damage and duration of all of his Slash procs
Ash Seeking Shuriken reduces the armor of affected enemies.
Atlas petrification reduces all damage of affected enemies.
Banshee Sonar can raise damage on specific enemy parts
Banshee Sonic Fracture reduces the armor of affected enemies.
Chroma Vex Armor raise damage and armor of himself and nearby allies
Ember Fireball Frenzy infuse +Heat elemental damage to herself and nearby allies.
Ember FireBlast reduces the armor of affected enemies
Frost Freeze Force infuse +Cold elemental damage to himself and nearby allies.
Frost Avalanche reduces the armor of affected enemies and stop their shield regeneration.
Garuda passive raises her damage according to her missing health %
Garuda Seeking Talons allow any shots to inflict a status effect
Gauss Redline raises his fire rate alot, technically raising damage dealt.
Gauss Thermal Sunder with his passive, can remove the armor of affectd enemies.
Grendel Nourished Strike infuse +Toxic damage to himself and nearby allies.
Grendel Feast reduces the armor of affected enemies
Harrow Penance raises his fire rate and reload speed.
Harrow Covenant raises critical chance of himself and nearby allies.
Hildryn Pillage reduces the Shield and Armor of affected enemies.
Ivara Empowered Quiver raises Critical Damage of the affected squad members.
Limbo Rift Torrent raises his damage for each enemy affected by Rift Surge.
Mag Magnetize raises damage of all incoming projectiles on an enemy
Mesa Shooting Gallery raises the damage of squad members one after another.
Mirage Eclipse raises damage for herself and nearby allies.
Mirage Hall of Mirrors make some of her Mirage clone fire bullets, ultimately raising damage.
Nidus Teeming Virulence raises his Primary Weapon critical chance.
Nova Molecular Prime multiply the damage done on enemies by x2.
Nyx Psychic Bolts reduces all defenses from the enemy.
Oberon Reckoning reduces armor of affected enemies
Oberon Smite Infusion infuses +Radiation damage to himself and nearby allies.
Octavia Metronome can add Multishot to herself and her allies
Octavia Amp raises damage of all squad members in the affected area
Rhino Roar raises his damage and nearby allies
Saryn Toxic Lash infuse her weapons with +Toxic damage
Saryn Venom Dose infuse +Corrosive damage to herself and nearby allies.
Trinity Link reduces armor of nearby enemies
Vauban Overdriver raises damage of the affected target.
Volt Shock Trooper infuses +Electricity damage to himself and nearby allies
Volt Passive raises damage of the next shot by running.
Volt Electric Shield gives +Electricity damage and increased Critical Damage to projectiles passing through.
Wisp Haste Mote raises Attack Speed and Fire Rate
Wukong Primal Forces apply a x3 Elemental Damage multiplier to his attacks.
Xaku Gaze reduces defense of affected Enemies
Xaku Xata's Whisper infuse his weapons with +Void damage.

I forgot some and that's not even counting the crowd control abilities which would help the player hit multiple enemies in one shot instead of 10.

[(XBOX)Apoll0 666]

On 2021-03-19 at 5:05 PM, Reaverhart said:

Magazines and Reloading feel like crap, why are all the reload times so high

Magazines and reloading are the literally the stamina of primary and secondary weapons. You removed that from melee and movement. It doesnt feel good. Dont remove it from primary and secondary weapons, but I think everyone would enjoy their weapons more if they got to use them more. (Trumna deserves the 5 second reload) but it most cases for weaponry, they should all have reload times of under 1.5 seconds. Stop stopping your player from playing the game. 

Doom Eternal and Doom are great examples of how amazing a game will feel without ever having to reload. I am not saying reloading doesnt have a place in warframe, I am saying that when my viper wraiths have the same reload time to active fire time ratio, there is a problem. 

You dont need to reload a melee weapon.

Fr though, wayyyy too often do I just stop using my gun because Im just a sitting duck with a reload time of 1.5 to 2 to 3 whole seconds, guns are way more risky than melee could ever be 

[TeaHands]

26 minutes ago, STUVash said:

No please no...  There are already arcanes, mods, warframe ability buffs, pets buffs. Don't give me a reason to Actually play with an MK1-Braton in the future...
We already have too much damage, even for primaries, please don't try to do what melee did. 

>> Either nerf Melee or let them be separate things. <<

Let them spam their E key while I have fun with a not as much broken system within Primary weapons.

You have Warframe mods like Auras, Vigorous Swap.
You have mods for your weapons.
You have Arcanes, like Arcane Avenger giving crit even to non-crit weapons, Arcane Arachne, Arcane Tempo for shotguns, Arcane Acceleration, Arcane Rage, Theorems.
You have pets like Adarza which can consistently increase your critical chance like Arcane Avenger would, and the pets from the other squad members could also help raising your damage like Kubrows with Mecha set, Helios marking an enemy part, or a Smeeta giving you another crit buff.
You have status like Corrosive, Heat, Viral, Magnetic.
You have Warframe passive and abilities, and alot of them can be shared.
 

  Hide contents

Ash passive raises the damage and duration of all of his Slash procs
Ash Seeking Shuriken reduces the armor of affected enemies.
Atlas petrification reduces all damage of affected enemies.
Banshee Sonar can raise damage on specific enemy parts
Banshee Sonic Fracture reduces the armor of affected enemies.
Chroma Vex Armor raise damage and armor of himself and nearby allies
Ember Fireball Frenzy infuse +Heat elemental damage to herself and nearby allies.
Ember FireBlast reduces the armor of affected enemies
Frost Freeze Force infuse +Cold elemental damage to himself and nearby allies.
Frost Avalanche reduces the armor of affected enemies and stop their shield regeneration.
Garuda passive raises her damage according to her missing health %
Garuda Seeking Talons allow any shots to inflict a status effect
Gauss Redline raises his fire rate alot, technically raising damage dealt.
Gauss Thermal Sunder with his passive, can remove the armor of affectd enemies.
Grendel Nourished Strike infuse +Toxic damage to himself and nearby allies.
Grendel Feast reduces the armor of affected enemies
Harrow Penance raises his fire rate and reload speed.
Harrow Covenant raises critical chance of himself and nearby allies.
Hildryn Pillage reduces the Shield and Armor of affected enemies.
Ivara Empowered Quiver raises Critical Damage of the affected squad members.
Limbo Rift Torrent raises his damage for each enemy affected by Rift Surge.
Mag Magnetize raises damage of all incoming projectiles on an enemy
Mesa Shooting Gallery raises the damage of squad members one after another.
Mirage Eclipse raises damage for herself and nearby allies.
Mirage Hall of Mirrors make some of her Mirage clone fire bullets, ultimately raising damage.
Nidus Teeming Virulence raises his Primary Weapon critical chance.
Nova Molecular Prime multiply the damage done on enemies by x2.
Nyx Psychic Bolts reduces all defenses from the enemy.
Oberon Reckoning reduces armor of affected enemies
Oberon Smite Infusion infuses +Radiation damage to himself and nearby allies.
Octavia Metronome can add Multishot to herself and her allies
Octavia Amp raises damage of all squad members in the affected area
Rhino Roar raises his damage and nearby allies
Saryn Toxic Lash infuse her weapons with +Toxic damage
Saryn Venom Dose infuse +Corrosive damage to herself and nearby allies.
Trinity Link reduces armor of nearby enemies
Vauban Overdriver raises damage of the affected target.
Volt Shock Trooper infuses +Electricity damage to himself and nearby allies
Volt Passive raises damage of the next shot by running.
Volt Electric Shield gives +Electricity damage and increased Critical Damage to projectiles passing through.
Wisp Haste Mote raises Attack Speed and Fire Rate
Wukong Primal Forces apply a x3 Elemental Damage multiplier to his attacks.
Xaku Gaze reduces defense of affected Enemies
Xaku Xata's Whisper infuse his weapons with +Void damage.

And that's not even counting the crowd control abilities which would help the player hit multiple enemies in one shot instead of 10.

Are you actually expecting me to play other Warframes depending on what type of mission I'm going into???

But for real, there are so many abilities that make primaries excel. Also to add to that list, Breach Surge does crowd control and increases critical multipliers and is subsumable too. Also Nezha's Blazing Chakram makes enemies more susceptible to all sources of damage.

[STUVash]

il y a 2 minutes, TomCruisesSon a dit :

Are you actually expecting me to play other Warframes depending on what type of mission I'm going into???

Hehe

[Gahrzerkire]

12 hours ago, bad4youLT said:

Play Destiny 2 and realize how wrong you are .

Destiny 2 empowers the player about as much as shooting myself in the face would be comparable to applying makeup. 

The games are not even remotely similar when it comes to the ways they scale damage, define grind, and even define content as a whole. 

Destiny 2 isnt nearly the same pace as warframe and this can be seen from just looking at the animation speed of each individual character. Empowerment is not the first priority of the devs of Destiny 2, and a result all of the core gameplay is completely different. Also just stating "play destiny 2 and realize how wrong you are" doesnt tell me in what facet of my argument I am incorrect. 

Personally I think Destiny 2 feels like completely crap to play, its not satisfying, its not empowering, its downright #*!%ing patronizing 90% of the time, and its been simplified to the point of literally ONE #*!%ING NUMBER determining all my damage. It has the depth of a #*!%ing kiddy pool compared to warframe. Literally nothing matters in that game other then light level and that determines whether or not content is difficult. Build Variety? Lol that doesnt exist in nearly any fashion in destiny 2 compared to games like warframe. 

Go jump in the lake man. 
 

9 hours ago, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

Fr though, wayyyy too often do I just stop using my gun because Im just a sitting duck with a reload time of 1.5 to 2 to 3 whole seconds, guns are way more risky than melee could ever be 

ye ikr? "EmPoWeRmEnt" and you could fix the DPS increase by calculating how much more damage per minute weapons get by having shorter reloads and then lowering their damage as a whole just slightly and it would feel much better. But honestly... why do most guns empty their clip in the same time it takes to reload or maybe just double? making it so that 50% of my gameplay is reloading or 30%?

 

 

9 hours ago, STUVash said:

No please no...  There are already arcanes, mods, warframe ability buffs, pets buffs. Don't give me a reason to Actually play with an MK1-Braton in the future...
We already have too much damage, even for primaries, please don't try to do what melee did. 

>> Either nerf Melee or let them be separate things. <<

Let them spam their E key while I have fun with a not as much broken system within Primary weapons.

You have Warframe mods like Auras, Vigorous Swap.
You have mods for your weapons.
You have Arcanes, like Arcane Avenger giving crit even to non-crit weapons, Arcane Arachne, Arcane Tempo for shotguns, Arcane Acceleration, Arcane Rage, Theorems.
You have pets like Adarza which can consistently increase your critical chance like Arcane Avenger would, and the pets from the other squad members could also help raising your damage like Kubrows with Mecha set, Helios marking an enemy part, or a Smeeta giving you another crit buff.
You have status like Corrosive, Heat, Viral, Magnetic.
You have Warframe passive and abilities, and alot of them can be shared.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Ash passive raises the damage and duration of all of his Slash procs
Ash Seeking Shuriken reduces the armor of affected enemies.
Atlas petrification reduces all damage of affected enemies.
Banshee Sonar can raise damage on specific enemy parts
Banshee Sonic Fracture reduces the armor of affected enemies.
Chroma Vex Armor raise damage and armor of himself and nearby allies
Ember Fireball Frenzy infuse +Heat elemental damage to herself and nearby allies.
Ember FireBlast reduces the armor of affected enemies
Frost Freeze Force infuse +Cold elemental damage to himself and nearby allies.
Frost Avalanche reduces the armor of affected enemies and stop their shield regeneration.
Garuda passive raises her damage according to her missing health %
Garuda Seeking Talons allow any shots to inflict a status effect
Gauss Redline raises his fire rate alot, technically raising damage dealt.
Gauss Thermal Sunder with his passive, can remove the armor of affectd enemies.
Grendel Nourished Strike infuse +Toxic damage to himself and nearby allies.
Grendel Feast reduces the armor of affected enemies
Harrow Penance raises his fire rate and reload speed.
Harrow Covenant raises critical chance of himself and nearby allies.
Hildryn Pillage reduces the Shield and Armor of affected enemies.
Ivara Empowered Quiver raises Critical Damage of the affected squad members.
Limbo Rift Torrent raises his damage for each enemy affected by Rift Surge.
Mag Magnetize raises damage of all incoming projectiles on an enemy
Mesa Shooting Gallery raises the damage of squad members one after another.
Mirage Eclipse raises damage for herself and nearby allies.
Mirage Hall of Mirrors make some of her Mirage clone fire bullets, ultimately raising damage.
Nidus Teeming Virulence raises his Primary Weapon critical chance.
Nova Molecular Prime multiply the damage done on enemies by x2.
Nyx Psychic Bolts reduces all defenses from the enemy.
Oberon Reckoning reduces armor of affected enemies
Oberon Smite Infusion infuses +Radiation damage to himself and nearby allies.
Octavia Metronome can add Multishot to herself and her allies
Octavia Amp raises damage of all squad members in the affected area
Rhino Roar raises his damage and nearby allies
Saryn Toxic Lash infuse her weapons with +Toxic damage
Saryn Venom Dose infuse +Corrosive damage to herself and nearby allies.
Trinity Link reduces armor of nearby enemies
Vauban Overdriver raises damage of the affected target.
Volt Shock Trooper infuses +Electricity damage to himself and nearby allies
Volt Passive raises damage of the next shot by running.
Volt Electric Shield gives +Electricity damage and increased Critical Damage to projectiles passing through.
Wisp Haste Mote raises Attack Speed and Fire Rate
Wukong Primal Forces apply a x3 Elemental Damage multiplier to his attacks.
Xaku Gaze reduces defense of affected Enemies
Xaku Xata's Whisper infuse his weapons with +Void damage.

I forgot some and that's not even counting the crowd control abilities which would help the player hit multiple enemies in one shot instead of 10.

Melee weapons have their own arcanes and mods and similar things to primary weapons. What is this thing about talking about all the S#&amp;&#036; that you get from other aspects of the game that melee currently gets?

Melee is just better. Melee does not need to be nerfed. Primaries need to be buffed. Cuase they basically have access to all the same S#&amp;&#036; except very simple things covered in my post that are needed to close the gap. 

You are also illustrating part of the problem to make primaries and secondaries even remotely competitive to just a single melee weapon with no buffs, you need to run a warframe with helminth abilites on it, so you can get 2 buff abilities on the same frame, with arcanes specificly tailored to your primary, then you need to have pet buffs, as well as warframe esque mod buffs like vigorous swap... when melee just needs to exist. OH WAIT LOL even on that build #*!%ing melee will out perform your primary weapon cause all those damage buffs will still #*!%ing apply to your MELEE WEAPON HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAAHAAHHAAHAAHAHA

who knew that is something was just innately better by nature and by numbers and statistics it would stay that way when you applied global buffs to it. And no vigorous swap is not better then condition overload or any of the other conditional buffs that melee has that arent even that conditional cuase they are just "be using melee" whereas gun buffs are like "swap to a piece of trash and stop dealing damage for x amount of time to deal 1.3x more damage for like maybe 1.5x the time you were just not dealing damage"

[(PSN)Unstar]

On 2021-03-19 at 3:05 PM, Reaverhart said:

The context of talking about weapon balance should only be from playing in steel path, with a quarter decent mod setup players are able to one shot level 90+ none steel path enemies with minor warframe buffs and minimal forma. Therefore weapon balance before steel path is irrelevant as the highest level none steel path content is about 90ish.

I strongly disagree with the foundation you've dictated for this conversation.  You can't have a good discussion of a topic if you insist on building it off of a faulty premise.