What are your solutions to gun balancing ?

[(PSN)ggh667124]

Woke up to a gaz video that exemplified an obvious issue with DE wanting to buff guns.

 https://youtu.be/tTecsYHCasY

would like to hear some ideas or even reasons why somethings are balanced or unbalanced whether it’s over or under powered . 
 

My personal response: 

In reality , you can’t balance any of this with warframes current balancing (damage multiplication and statuses) . 

So far some suggested a multi fire rate bow toggle to not reload quiver but rather just hold “x” amount and spam them all . I think this is heading towards a better system for bows . In addition I want  the single target toggle to work like the “stone skipping bow”  from ghost of Tsushima where when you get a headshot, all the arrow ricochet off of enemies heads in a certain radius .  This will basically be a better version of pax seeker with full damage applied . 

Rifles : those are tricky  to give any use , I would probably help them by giving all bullet related rifles (so no ogris ) will have insane amount of punch through . While also giving them a gimmick that’s based on their ammo : shooting continuously until the last shot will ramp up the damage by x% of ammo . So this won’t be abuse by soma and still viable on low ammo Rifles . This will basically be like the soma augment for Crit chance but I want it so that the last bullet to be like mausolon shot . Just have the Mesa 1st ability visual effect , while the AOE have 10m AreA. I think the best way for the mod to go is 10% of magazine = 100% damage bonus , while the difference between 99% and 100% would be some mausolon nuke bullet . 

Snipers , I think they’re okay just how they are since they’re mainly used for high HP bosses . Could definitely use a “primed chamber” fix where it already makes you have 1 bullet in mag but that bullet damage is 150% more . This is just a build quality of life .

 

[ZeroX4]

23 minutes ago, (PSN)ggh667124 said:

Woke up to a gaz video that exemplified an obvious issue with DE wanting to buff guns.

 https://youtu.be/tTecsYHCasY

would like to hear some ideas or even reasons why somethings are balanced or unbalanced whether it’s over or under powered . 
 

My personal response: 

In reality , you can’t balance any of this with warframes current balancing (damage multiplication and statuses) . 

So far some suggested a multi fire rate bow toggle to not reload quiver but rather just hold “x” amount and spam them all . I think this is heading towards a better system for bows . In addition I want  the single target toggle to work like the “stone skipping bow”  from ghost of Tsushima where when you get a headshot, all the arrow ricochet off of enemies heads in a certain radius .  This will basically be a better version of pax seeker with full damage applied . 

Rifles : those are tricky  to give any use , I would probably help them by giving all bullet related rifles (so no ogris ) will have insane amount of punch through . While also giving them a gimmick that’s based on their ammo : shooting continuously until the last shot will ramp up the damage by x% of ammo . So this won’t be abuse by soma and still viable on low ammo Rifles . This will basically be like the soma augment for Crit chance but I want it so that the last bullet to be like mausolon shot . Just have the Mesa 1st ability visual effect , while the AOE have 10m AreA. I think the best way for the mod to go is 10% of magazine = 100% damage bonus , while the difference between 99% and 100% would be some mausolon nuke bullet . 

Snipers , I think they’re okay just how they are since they’re mainly used for high HP bosses . Could definitely use a “primed chamber” fix where it already makes you have 1 bullet in mag but that bullet damage is 150% more . This is just a build quality of life .

 

Remove guns or remove Melee problem solved

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

From my perspective, the reason melee is so good is scaling damage. No amount of Punch Through, Skipping Arrows or anything is gonna bring ranged into the same playing field, imo. Since Blood Rush, Body Count, and Condition Overload were released, the damage ceiling on melee is bonkers.

By comparison, the best examples ranged has either: don't stack (I think? Dunno if Argon Scope stacks), has a hard limit (Latron Augment), punishes you for missing (Snipers, Latron Augment), requires something specific (headshots), or some penalty (Split Flights, which also has a limit).

So, without nerfing, the way I'd approach this (via D&D experience) is to simply give ranged weapons the same treatment. Convert Point Strike into something that does a huge crit bonus on low ROF weapons and/or Semi Auto weapons, but give a new mod that introduces the scaling crit. Give ranged its own "Acolyte set", and exclude launchers. In addition, this new set cannot rely on constant hits, since that's what they're "competing" with balancewise.

The only other thing I could see makes no sense, and that to just give ranged the equivalent of a permanent 12X combo counter.

[Loza03]

I'd rebalance enemies. As is, the current way enemy design and encounters are structured, it heavily incentivises mass-killing weapons, and little else. Therefore, whatever is the best at that is the best.

 

I'd address it in a few ways. The first is that some enemies gain a degree of resistance to certain frame abilities - namely fitting into different barrels, like DPS nukes, 'soft' CC (Nyx, cold procs etc) and hard CC. Notably, few enemies have any form of 'resistant to everything', with full-on Nullifiers being rebalanced as a kind of miniboss. Think the level of the Oppressor or the Bulk Detonator from DRG in terms of both rarity and threat level, albeit through their supportive capabilities over their direct combat prowess.

Likewise, certain enemies are resistant to certain weapon archetypes, either directly or through how their abilities work. Shield Lancer shields can block punch-through and explosives directly in front of them, and protect enemies behind them too, but the shields now have their own health bars like a Nox helmet, and can be broken. Broadly speaking, big boy enemies are usually better equipped to deal with your Ignis Wraiths. New enemies also get introduced, as well as 'equipment' - similar to blunts or ramparts.  Corpus especially have the Shield drones lose their ability to regenerate shields (instead reinforcing them or putting up a kind of non-nullifying barrier, perhaps), and that function along with others is fulfilled by static equipment peppered somewhat. Defensive fortifications, sniper towers, their own kinds of manned and unmanned turrets. Crewmen can use them and indeed flock around them, whilst Proxies don't, and in some cases you can too (for example, a more advanced setup could prevent shots coming in but let them out like a Frost bubble. But if you get in and root out the guys inside...) In general, give the Grineer stronger individual units, but the Corpus have support structures that allow them to match or surpass the Grineer in strength right up until you break said support. 

 

And from there, you have a ton of new avenues for weapon viability and value. The Ignis Wraith is no longer a catch-all, it's a clean-up for before or after you've dealt with more substantial targets. Some weapons get boosted headshot values by default, and others get a reduced value or lose the ability to deal them entirely, a'la the Plasmor style shotguns, letting them clean up heavies like nobodies business. Others are great at breaking equipment or weak points like on the Saxums, the shields mentioned earlier or the placeables. Some weapons are really good at one thing, other are 'eh' at several. A few get their ammo capabilities tanked like or worse than the Bramma (including the Bramma), but maintain their status as catch-all superweapons, albeit ones with far less uptime as opposed to something you're supposed to use realistically as a primary weapon through the whole mission.

[Sevek7]

Just give all heavy units in every faction the Nox treatment. Basically give them high damage reduction on the body so you want to hit the weakpoint - which is hard to do with melee. This way the optimal way to play is to move fluidly between melee for trash mobs and ranged weapons for weakpoints on heavy units. 

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

Slash is an issue in itself that has to be solved.

Then permanent combo counter at x12 (naramon) with bloodrush is also an issue.

And then condition overload (empathised with the cedo) is also an separate issue.

[ReddyDisco]

ranged just needs a condition overload type mod. 

super high tier crits alone won't be enough, been using soma prime with Hata-Satya mod, +cc+multi riven aswell as energized bullets in sp and it takes way too long to kill anything, i know soma prime isn't the strongest ar but it has the mod that gives it access to higher tier crits which i wanted to test and it really doesn't do much, damage is sorely needed on rifles

[Venus-Venera]

what people seem to understand by "balance": perfection or 50% / 50% etc ...
such a thing cannot exist here. in this world! there are no perfection! there is structured chaos...

devs can achieve similar damage as mele in a certain range. only for what ...?
even if primary does similar damage in the same range as mele, why do you need them? mainly because you also need ammunition and have to reload?
if you want balance, you play checkmate !!!

and have fun tweaking weapons at a distance. With so many different modes of operation and mods, it's a waste of time.
Even in PVP games without mods, "devs" cannot balance properly. there is always something "imba" ...
example would be overwatch with sausage devs, who bring out epic updates every few months with changes such as 6 damage per shot instead of 7. WOW !!!! and apparently they spend so much time with balance that content comes out every 2 years with only 1 new character and nothing more. (joke)

[(XBOX)Calliber]

Reduce melee damage potential.

[TeaHands]

Make Exilus mods give more mod points instead of needing more forma to use them. Have Exilus mods actually bring more benefits than what it does right now. 

Or, give guns an alt fire like the Trumna. Gun kills fill a meter and once filled you can alt fire, which can give different buffs or shoot out a heavy hitting AOE. Maybe even have Exilus mods give you different alt fires. 

I just really wish Exilus slots brought more to the table.

[Loza03]

26 minutes ago, Battle.Mage said:

what people seem to understand by "balance": perfection or 50% / 50% etc ...
such a thing cannot exist here. in this world! there are no perfection! there is structured chaos...

devs can achieve similar damage as mele in a certain range. only for what ...?
even if primary does similar damage in the same range as mele, why do you need them? mainly because you also need ammunition and have to reload?
if you want balance, you play checkmate !!!

and have fun tweaking weapons at a distance. With so many different modes of operation and mods, it's a waste of time.
Even in PVP games without mods, "devs" cannot balance properly. there is always something "imba" ...
example would be overwatch with sausage devs, who bring out epic updates every few months with changes such as 6 damage per shot instead of 7. WOW !!!! and apparently they spend so much time with balance that content comes out every 2 years with only 1 new character and nothing more. (joke)

Nobody's expecting perfect balance. In fact, completely perfect balance probably wouldn't be all that fun anyway. Chess, after all, isn't actually perfectly balanced. A see-saw isn't fun (at least when you're small) because it's balanced, it's fun because it's basically structured play between two or more people.

But if one side is so insanely heavy that the other person is launched into a nearby wall, it's not a see-saw, it's a catapault. And if there's a motor making the rocking motion for you, then there's no structured play. There has to be at least proportionality, otherwise the structured chaos just becomes chaos.

[vanaukas]

1 hour ago, (PSN)ggh667124 said:

Woke up to a gaz video that exemplified an obvious issue with DE wanting to buff guns.

[TARINunit9]

54 minutes ago, TheSixOfDiamonds said:

 (I think? Dunno if Argon Scope stacks), 

Argon Scope does not stack, you were correct

1 hour ago, (PSN)ggh667124 said:

would like to hear some ideas or even reasons why somethings are balanced or unbalanced whether it’s over or under powered . 

Melee is overpowered because it's not just stronger, it's also easier and safer.

You can swing melee, for free, staggering nearby enemies, blocking damage even while attacking, while dealing far more damage. And on top of that, it's free -- knives don't reload.

Guns don't just deal less damage, they also hit fewer enemies (only a few guns are AoE), stagger fewer enemies, leaving you more vulnerable to getting shot. Oh and did I mention that melee is free and guns cost ammo?

Combine this with Warframe enemy AI: the enemy is relentless and cannot be outmaneuvered. Compare games like Half Life (enemies can't move and shoot at the same time), Half Life 2 (enemies are grouped into fireteams, and only half of the team is allowed to shoot at a time), Doom 4 and Doom Eternal (a limited number of enemies can attack at once, with stronger enemies taking priority). Warframe's enemies, compared to that, are deliberately unfair: they spawn by the dozen, all walk up and surround you while shooting you, and keep shooting you all at once until you die. There is only one strategy in Warframe: kill them before they overwhelm you. There is no skill, only gear checks

Melee could only be balanced if you make it far weaker (I'm talking 2015 levels of damage), or force you to use the combos instead of just mashing W + E. Or completely rebuild the game to nerf the Tenno, rework the enemies, and drop all the gear checks. But that last one isn't going to happen, the devs seem to like the gear check design

[ant99999]

DE love plugging the leaks in the sinking ship very much.

When there is a problem with a class of weapons or a damage type lagging behind, what they do is add some mod which works with this specific class of weapons and bypasses the existing rules to make it stronger, or converts a weak damage type into a strong damage type.

But then the problem flips on it's head and DE take more flex tape to seal leaks in the existing flex tape.

This way of 'balancing' is beyond horrible. It's because of their refusal to fix the problem at its core, that the balance is in such petty state.

 

DE need to throw all their band aid mods like Hunter's Munitions, CO, Blood Rush, etc. right into an incinerator, redo all the status effects, rework melee again (because the current rework is terrible) and then possibly it will be better.

But because there are SO many band aid mechanics all over the place, you can't ever be sure.

 

So... Warframe 2 is the real answer I guess.

[lukasystem]

Give Combo mechanics to guns and Blood Rush/Weeping Wounds/Condition Overload shenanigans, plus some Hunter Munitions for secondary, the new "Bleeding" are too much specific.

Also improve other status effects so that elemental dependant weapons can have a room too, Magnetic could have innate headshot multiplier and multiply status procs, Gas stacking more damage and ignore shield's like Toxin, Radiation could cut HP by % per proc up to a certain number, like what Viral used to be.

Maybe even make Slash procs ignore 50% max armor instead of "True damage", Impact could have Shattering impact mod effect with halved efficiency.

Blast, Puncture, Electric and Toxin are beyond salvation imo.

Cold I don't even have to mention.

 

Anyway, I'm talking about ways to make sh1t guns kill high level enemies, so I don't know 100%.

[(PSN)ggh667124]

1 minute ago, lukasystem said:

Give Combo mechanics to guns and Blood Rush/Weeping Wounds/Condition Overload shenanigans, plus some Hunter Munitions for secondary, the new "Bleeding" are too much specific.

Also improve other status effects so that elemental dependant weapons can have a room too, Magnetic could have innate headshot multiplier and multiply status procs, Gas stacking more damage and ignore shield's like Toxin, Radiation could cut HP by % per proc up to a certain number, like what Viral used to be.

Maybe even make Slash procs ignore 50% max armor instead of "True damage", Impact could have Shattering impact mod effect with halved efficiency.

Blast, Puncture, Electric and Toxin are beyond salvation imo.

Cold I don't even have to mention.

 

Anyway, I'm talking about ways to make sh1t guns kill high level enemies, so I don't know 100%.

I remember seeing someone with a status re balance idea , it was well thought out too . I’ll see if I can find it to quote here .

[(PSN)ggh667124]

19 minutes ago, (PSN)ggh667124 said:

I remember seeing someone with a status re balance idea , it was well thought out too . I’ll see if I can find it to quote here .

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1251947-the-status-system-issues-and-fixes/

here it is . 

[Institute-Marksman]

It might be time to remove 'essential' dmg mods like Serration and give primaries and secondaries damage that scales with their level.

I doubt it fixes the issue, but it would make ye olde pew-pew more attractive.

[nslay]

If everything always scales, then enemy level has no meaning... it already has little meaning as it is!

[(PSN)ggh667124]

3 minutes ago, Institute-Marksman said:

It might be time to remove 'essential' dmg mods like Serration and give primaries and secondaries damage that scales with their level.

I doubt it fixes the issue, but it would make ye olde pew-pew more attractive.

Brozime had this idea but didn’t want to attach the essential mods to levels but I still think either way it’d be great . It makes more sense .

[(PSN)ggh667124]

1 minute ago, nslay said:

If everything always scales, then enemy level has no meaning... it already has little meaning as it is!

Was arguing this in my head , but at the same time DE seem to agree with the power fantasy idea , so I guess it’s okay .

[nslay]

3 minutes ago, (PSN)ggh667124 said:

Was arguing this in my head , but at the same time DE seem to agree with the power fantasy idea , so I guess it’s okay .

DE also seems to agree that several hour endless missions are generally bad... and they attempt to curtail players several hour endless missions with a combination of

• Finite number of deaths for sentinels
• Permanent death for most pets in Arbitrations
• Enemy scaling (which means little now) to counter your fixed damage weapons/abilities (some of which scale with enemy level)
• Better alternatives to get rewards with significantly less time (e.g. most recently Acolytes in SP).

[zombi3h3art]

is it time for warframe damage 4.0?

[continue]

i'm not really sure how i would balance guns with melee, but i can give you some examples of design decisions that already affect the gameplay balance between different classes of weapon

• fire rate (rifles vs snipers/launchers):
  • nullifier bubbles are popped more quickly with fire rate, making snipers questionable against them despite being weapons designed for high-value targets
  • fire rate synergizes with status rate, so status-immunity devalues fire rate
    • this means low fire rate weapons are not less effective against status-immune bosses (and often are more effective if they can hit a vulnerable weakpoint more easily)
    • similarly, having a cap on status stacks also devalues fire rate past a certain amount, which is why viral has always synergized with snipers
       
• area of effect weapons:
  • work well in high mobility gameplay (capture, exterminate, sabotage), because you can focus on going fast instead of aiming
  • are effective against hordes (defense, survival), for obvious reasons
  • include melee weapons and launchers, which in theory have different effective ranges, but only if their time to kill is faster than your mobility
    • (exodia contagion also kind of makes this moot, especially because you can use it at point blank and then BLOCK THE SELF-STAGGER)
    • melee weapons also generally have faster fire rate, bringing up synergy with status effects again

so you have essentially two roles with snipers being useful for bosses and melee being useful for everything else because that's all the design space really covers

2 hours ago, Sevek7 said:

Just give all heavy units in every faction the Nox treatment. Basically give them high damage reduction on the body so you want to hit the weakpoint - which is hard to do with melee. This way the optimal way to play is to move fluidly between melee for trash mobs and ranged weapons for weakpoints on heavy units. 

certain melee weapons can headshot nox with charged attacks pretty easily, but that doesn't necessarily make your suggestion less effective. i really enjoy the style of gameplay you've suggested, actually

[zombi3h3art]

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

I'd rebalance enemies. As is, the current way enemy design and encounters are structured, it heavily incentivises mass-killing weapons, and little else. Therefore, whatever is the best at that is the best.

a specific enemy rebalance that should be implemented is that the grineer roller balls should have a lot more armor.