STAT Squish: Enemy Armor shouldn't Scale, Critical Damage and Viral bonuses should be Additive with Base Damage

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

The Glassmaker "boss fight" is a symptom of Warframe's bloated damage system where players fight enemy eHP multipliers with their own damage multipliers or ways to circumvent eHP multipliers. The solution is simple.

1.  Enemy armor shouldn't scale and remain flat. Armor level should be completely be determined by unit type with elite units sporting more. This will reign in the wild enemy eHP distribution between the high armored, low armored and unarmored, while indirectly lowering the value of Slash to be on par with everything else, thus diversifying the damage meta.
2. The Crit Multiplier should be additive with Base Damage along with Viral procs. A 4.4x multiplier would be equivocal to +340% Damage additive with Serration's +165%. Viral's +325% Damage would be additive with Serration's +165%. With this, Serration won't be a mandatory mod anymore. For melee this also decouples Blood Rush from Condition Overload and helps alleviate the melee meta.
3. Headshot multiplier and Crit multiplier shouldn't be separate things that are multiplicative with each other. Headshots should simply have a flat +100% Crit Chance.

Hypothetically, if Critical Damage and Viral procs were additive with Base Damage mods:

Assumptions: 4.4x Crit Multiplier and 10 Viral Stacks

Current: BASE*(1+1.65)*4.4*4.25=49.5*BASE

Proposed: BASE*(1+1.65+3.4+3.25)=9.3*BASE

4.9x Damage nerf.

Hypothetically, if armor didn't scale, Sortie level Heavy Gunners:

Current: 6000 armor, 95% DR, 20xeHP

Proposed: 500 armor, 62.5% DR, 2.6xeHP

7.7xeHP nerf.

WHY?

Changes like these would help normalize enemy eHP disparities and player damage disparities making the game a lot more manageable to balance to give Boss Design more breathing room. It would also free up mod slots as "mandatory" mods like Serration will no longer have the value they once did, though some will argue people will just replace it with more Fire Rate or Multi-Shot.

 

 

[Corvid]

Wholeheartedly agree. Reduce the range/variation in EHP and damage output so more gear/mod setups get their chance to shine.

[PublikDomain]

Agree about the armor change. Armor is a multiplier for EHP, while shields are additive. Ideally Armor and Shields should be equal sources of EHP to keep enemies consistent, so Armor needs to be constant and not exponentially scaling as well.

24 minutes ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

people will just replace it with more Fire Rate or Multi-Shot.

I mean it's pretty obvious. Right now Fire Rate seems to be fairly uncommon in gun builds outside of secondaries or special cases, so if Serration provided a lower multiplier people would just use the next best thing. It's not really a solution to required mods. I don't know if making Viral and Crit additive is really all that necessary.

[-Kittens-]

Quote

WHY?

 

1. You missed the part where you're the only person in warframe that would be likely using these theoretical "more gear" builds.

2. If you wander over MCgamerCZ's channel, you'll note he doesn't follow the meta at all, ever; and has no problem playing the game what so ever, so this non-incentivized tableau you purport exists amongst the playerbase is rather likely nonexistent.

3. No one is forcing you to install any mod in any weapon or frame.

[continue]

it's a nice suggestion, but i think you would also need to make different statuses have more utility to begin with (and to do that, you might have to rebalance the whole game). otherwise, i'm still not sure there's much reason to build anything but damage

3 minutes ago, -Kittens- said:

2. If you wander over MCgamerCZ's channel, you'll note he doesn't follow the meta at all, ever; and has no problem playing the game what so ever, so this non-incentivized tableau you purport exists amongst the playerbase is rather likely nonexistent.

his builds look the same as everyone else's to me

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

38 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Agree about the armor change. Armor is a multiplier for EHP, while shields are additive. Ideally Armor and Shields should be equal sources of EHP to keep enemies consistent, so Armor needs to be constant and not exponentially scaling as well.

I mean it's pretty obvious. Right now Fire Rate seems to be fairly uncommon in gun builds outside of secondaries or special cases, so if Serration provided a lower multiplier people would just use the next best thing. It's not really a solution to required mods. I don't know if making Viral and Crit additive is really all that necessary.

It's a give and take. Just like how armor scaling changed with the nerf to Corrosive. 

Old Corrosive used to be able to strip off armor completely granting you 20x damage against sortie level enemies with 6000 initial armor which Pure Crit weapons could not compete with.

New Corrosive is capped at 80% strip, so it only grants you 4x damage against an enemy with 6000 initial armor which is in line with Viral. A 5x damage nerf. Viral being more universal against health types and the ability to boost Slash procs that circumvented armor pushed it above nerfed Corrosive. 

Warframe's Damage System is Multipliers Vs Multipliers.

100x Damage VS 99% Damage Reduction

Always a Multiplier above or below the damage we require, so enemies are in a binary state of paper vs tanks. One mod is the difference between shooting at paper and shooting at tanks.

Non-armored enemies that don't have the health multiplier called armor are paper, while armor scaling eventually surpasses our damage multipliers which forces us to circumvent with Bleed. Leaving our damage alone while making armor flat, would just make armored enemies into paper. 

If armored enemies at sortie level are going to become 7.7x squishier without armor scaling, then a 4.9x damage nerf is warranted no? Armored enemies will still feel squishier even with the massive nerf to player damage, while shielded enemies will feel a bit more substantial. 

It's all for squishing down the variances between enemy factions and players so DE doesn't pull another Glassmaker "boss" fight. 

Instead of Multipliers Vs Multipliers and trying to fit our wonky damage curve to an even wonkier enemy eHP curve, having Viral and Crit additive against an enemy that no longer has a scaling health multiplier would make everything more "linear".

 

[Tyreaus]

Just a few quick notes:

1 hour ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

The Crit Multiplier should be additive with Base Damage along with Viral procs. A 4.4x multiplier would be equivocal to +340% Damage additive with Serration's +165%. Viral's +325% Damage would be additive with Serration's +165%. With this, Serration won't be a mandatory mod anymore. For melee this also decouples Blood Rush from Condition Overload and helps alleviate the melee meta.

Elemental mods should probably be mentioned somewhere in here, since one reason base damage multipliers are so essential is because elemental modifiers multiply base damage. Nudging base damage mods aside might be more effective if pretty much everything were additive. (And it'd just make numbers more straightforward to calculate across the board)

1 hour ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

Headshot multiplier and Crit multiplier shouldn't be separate things that are multiplicative with each other. Headshots should simply have a flat +100% Crit Chance.

This also creates a mechanical way to get crits, which I'm totally for, and I wonder if there's some way to do a similar thing with status. That'd be nice to have.

1 hour ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

just replace it with more Fire Rate or Multi-Shot.

Fire rate tends to balance itself out due to recoil / accuracy, reload, and ammunition concerns. It can certainly fit on some weapons but it's pretty heavily dependent on the weapon's mechanical function - which, IMO, is the best point a mod can be at. Unfortunately, multishot would still likely need some kind of touch-up, since it does serve as a multiplier pretty much across the board with no mechanical considerations. It's just as good on a Vectis as a Tenora.

Of course, if we're not aiming to eliminate multiplicative values across the board, things like multishot / elemental multipliers could be just fine. But, IMO, I think it's better to just standardize how things behave, make things either A: mechanically balanced (like fire rate tends to be) or B: additive, at least where interactions are concerned. That philosophy would help keep things from creeping back onto the multiplicative train wreck.

(Also my personal fix for Viral is and always will be changing the majority of enemy health types to singular ones, e.g. most Corpus have just shields, most Grineer have just armour, etc. At that point, let it be a multiplier: like Magnetic, it only works in some cases, instead of across the board.)

 

[-Kittens-]

1 hour ago, continue said:

it's a nice suggestion, but i think you would also need to make different statuses have more utility to begin with (and to do that, you might have to rebalance the whole game). otherwise, i'm still not sure there's much reason to build anything but damage

his builds look the same as everyone else's to me

You're not looking very hard then.

[Proscriptor]

serration isn't mandatory. it's an old misconception. 

[continue]

22 minutes ago, -Kittens- said:

You're not looking very hard then.

let's see... blood rush, check. condition overload, check. hunter munitions, check. viral, check. corrosive, check. heat, check. serration, check. hornet strike, check. lethal torrent, check. barrel diffusion, check. split chamber, check. primed pistol gambit, check. primed target cracker, check. vital sense, check. point strike, check. primed heated charge, check.

if i have to look very hard, maybe it doesn't pass the "see for yourself" test. have you considered that an outside observer might have a more objective perspective than a fan?

[Tyreaus]

1 minute ago, Proscriptor said:

serration isn't mandatory. it's an old misconception. 

Forced to ask:

What do you mean by "mandatory"?

Most players, when talking about "mandatory mods", are talking about the sorts of mods that are essential for the very vast majority of its applicable weapons to perform within the realm of their best iterations. If you drop Serration or multishot, applicable weapons have a pretty big dip in performance. On the other hand, mods like Argon Scope or Heavy Caliber are contingent on the weapon's design: they aren't needed to top-notch even a majority of weapons they can be slotted into (because more damage per bullet doesn't matter if half the bullets miss).

Importantly, most players talking about "mandatory mods" are not talking about a mod that must be placed on a weapon in order for it to function literally at all. Those don't exist. Nor does it mean that a mod that can be excluded in one weapon (e.g. in sentinel weapons) is suddenly not classified as "mandatory", since the classification is meant to denote mods that are present in a very large majority of weapons and weapon builds (not literally all).

Just making sure we're talking the same lingo.

[continue]

3 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Forced to ask:

What do you mean by "mandatory"?

*grandma voice* back in my day, akbronco prime could do its job without hornet strike!

[Orokin]

I agree about armor... Firstly to normalize EHP between factions, secondly to make other DOTs more competitive with slash. Blows my mind that we went through an enemy scaling rebalance and they didn't fix the only problem, armor scaling.

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

1 hour ago, continue said:

it's a nice suggestion, but i think you would also need to make different statuses have more utility to begin with (and to do that, you might have to rebalance the whole game). otherwise, i'm still not sure there's much reason to build anything but damage

his builds look the same as everyone else's to me

Damage is only a no brainer when the opportunity cost is losing out on an entire damage multiplier that could spell the difference between 1 shot kill vs multiple bullets to kill. If the damage bonus is only additive, then utility can be more valuable like in the case of Primed Reach over Primed Pressure Point, when Condition Overload became additive to Pressure Point.

To be fair, the utility status are underwhelming and barely noticeable compared to Warframe powers or Operator schools. 

Suggestions:

Impact: Stuns enemy and converts 1% of Impact damage into Warframe energy.

Puncture: Debuffs enemy damage and Creates weak-points like Sonar.

Gas: Gas clouds blind enemies like Radial Blind, setting them up for finishers and stealth damage.

Magnetic: Pulls enemies and pick ups together like Ensnare.

Blast: Knocks down enemies and causes them to drop loot and pickups they would have otherwise given upon death.

 

 

 

[Proscriptor]

11 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Forced to ask:

What do you mean by "mandatory"?

Most players, when talking about "mandatory mods", are talking about the sorts of mods that are essential for the very vast majority of its applicable weapons to perform within the realm of their best iterations. If you drop Serration or multishot, applicable weapons have a pretty big dip in performance. On the other hand, mods like Argon Scope or Heavy Caliber are contingent on the weapon's design: they aren't needed to top-notch even a majority of weapons they can be slotted into (because more damage per bullet doesn't matter if half the bullets miss).

Importantly, most players talking about "mandatory mods" are not talking about a mod that must be placed on a weapon in order for it to function literally at all. Those don't exist. Nor does it mean that a mod that can be excluded in one weapon (e.g. in sentinel weapons) is suddenly not classified as "mandatory", since the classification is meant to denote mods that are present in a very large majority of weapons and weapon builds (not literally all).

Just making sure we're talking the same lingo.

mandatory means that some mods are a must, while others are optional or "flex"

however all mods work in tandem and serration is no more a must than a almost any other mod in a well put together build

[continue]

1 minute ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

Damage is only a no brainer when the opportunity cost is losing out on an entire damage multiplier that could spell the difference between 1 shot kill vs multiple bullets to kill. If the damage bonus is only additive, then utility can be more valuable like in the case of Primed Reach over Primed Pressure Point, when Condition Overload became additive to Pressure Point.

yeah, i agree. my concern was that, since CC becomes more valuable when enemies are more threatening, and since the proposed changes lower the enemy EHP more than they lower the player damage, CC might not have an opportunity to be valuable if you kill too quickly. 

on the other hand, if you're lowering enemy armor enough, you might actually make current gas+electric more useful, in a similar vein to your primed reach example. i like most of those suggestions, but i would probably leave gas as is, as we technically already have electric performing the aoe cc role

[Tyreaus]

2 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

mandatory means that some mods are a must, while others are optional or "flex"

however all mods work in tandem and serration is no more a must than a almost any other mod in a well put together build

Besides the slightly recursive / tautological definition of "mandatory", that just means you're not speaking the same lingo others are. So...best to keep in mind what people mean, rather than just what people say, right?

[Proscriptor]

Just now, Tyreaus said:

Besides the slightly recursive / tautological definition of "mandatory", that just means you're not speaking the same lingo others are. So...best to keep in mind what people mean, rather than just what people say, right?

no, i am speaking the same lingo, and you're not

[continue]

(as whom)

[Proscriptor]

as you

[Tyreaus]

2 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

no, i am speaking the same lingo, and you're not

Are you sure? Because if you were speaking the same lingo as the OP, for example, then the OP would have realized that there aren't mandatory mods, and so Serration wouldn't have to be bumped out of that category like their second point claims to, right? And I'd figure, since it's their thread, we'd be following along with what they mean, no?

[Proscriptor]

Just now, Tyreaus said:

Are you sure? Because if you were speaking the same lingo as the OP, for example, then the OP would have realized that there aren't mandatory mods, and so Serration wouldn't have to be bumped out of that category like their second point claims to, right? And I'd figure, since it's their thread, we'd be following along with what they mean, no?

yes i'm sure because i've been having this conversation on the forums as well as elsewhere with different people for a while now

the perceived issue with mandatory mods is build inflexibility, so when a mod is a part of mostly every build it's seen as mandatory  

it comes from the old crit v status (false) dichotomy where you have status builds and crit builds, but both status builds and crit builds slot serration, leading to a perception of serration being almost built into any weapon

but the foundations of this understanding of modding is wrong

[continue]

i mean i have to say that he is technically right that if you wanted to build something purely for statuses (probably as a condition overload primer) you wouldn't need hornet strike

but that would also be true even if the system of proposed changes were implemented, so it's also arguably not relevant since it isn't in the domain of influence of this thread?

maybe you could give us an example of another build that foregoes serration or other base damage mods? i know i offered one earlier, but that one isn't functional anymore. not sealioning you here, genuinely curious

[Proscriptor]

i can give a you a build that forgoes serration, but can you give me a build that forgoes a multishot mod?

[Tyreaus]

13 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

the perceived issue with mandatory mods is build inflexibility, so when a mod is a part of mostly every build it's seen as mandatory 

That's exactly what I'm talking about when I mention "talking the same lingo". At least in this thread, people seem to be using "mandatory" to mean "a mod that is part of mostly every build". It might not be strictly mandatory, as in necessary for every weapon's functionality (because, as I mentioned, those don't exist in Warframe), but for lack of a better term, the word's borrowed to mean as such.

Unless you mean to say that, in spite of base damage mods appearing in the vast majority of builds shown to the public at all, base damage mods don't actually appear in the vast majority of builds? Colour me a tad confused on that.

2 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

i can give a you a build that forgoes serration, but can you give me a build that forgoes a multishot mod?

My Cryotra setup uses fire rate and status chance, forgoing both multishot and serration. FWIW.