Why do Damage Mods Exist

[JKb0ss]

Almost 100% of the time any given build will be running the fully leveled damage mod (i.e. serration, pressure point). Since almost every build will always run a damage mod like this effectively leaving every weapon with only 7 mod slots. It feels like the existence of the damage mods is an unnecessary step. Why not just add the damage directly to all weapons and then give everyone 7 mod slots? Or maybe a better solution would be to have something that rivals these damage mods that isn't just a prime version, because currently I don't really see any reliable alternatives.

[Kokokojo]

Damage mods exists to increase the damage dealt by X thing as far as I am aware.
Dissolving them into wepaons will just make more room to people fit more stuff to deal more damage.
(also 99% of the game can be completed by bruteforcing your way with damage, so there is not really any incentive to use anything else.)

[(PSN)Unstar]

Just now, JKb0ss said:

Almost 100% of the time any given build will be running the fully leveled damage mod (i.e. serration, pressure point). Since almost every build will always run a damage mod like this effectively leaving every weapon with only 7 mod slots. It feels like the existence of the damage mods is an unnecessary step. Why not just add the damage directly to all weapons and then give everyone 7 mod slots? Or maybe a better solution would be to have something that rivals these damage mods that isn't just a prime version, because currently I don't really see any reliable alternatives.

For most weapon modding, there is more or less one or two "ideal" setups anyway, perhaps with one or two mods that can be adjusted for flavor.  Weapon modding is just something you do to make your weapon stronger; it is not a place to be creative and experience variety.

[Myscho]

Because Power creep exist

[CoalitionOfGears]

Because someone thought that boosting a weapon's damage by a fixed amount (serration, split chamber, etc.) is enough of an alteration to call it 'modding'.

I dunno, I'm more used to mods changing the behaviour of something in other games, ideally at a cost of something else. Silencers, extended mags, accuracy boosters or reloaders seldom have any use in Warframe if you can substitute them with another mod that increases your damage. Exilus slots were supposed to help that, but not really.

[vanaukas]

29 minutes ago, JKb0ss said:

 Why not just add the damage directly to all weapons and then give everyone 7 mod slots? 

10/10 comedy gold

[Aldain]

Honestly the problem isn't that damage mods exist, it is that most of them don't compete with each other and just all get smashed into the same build.

What we need is more alternative mods like Amalgam Serration which trade off MOAR DAMAGE for utility, and to have things like 60/60 element mods not be able to be used alongside their pure elemental damage versions.

Yes, there will always be a "meta build" but right now it is just cramming in as much damage with crit and/or status as humanly possible with maybe ONE utility mod depending on the weapon.

[TARINunit9]

Once upon a time the devs experimented in their test build with removing Serration from the game and just having weapons gain +15% damage every three level ups

That was five years ago

[-Krism-]

1 hour ago, TARINunit9 said:

Once upon a time the devs experimented in their test build with removing Serration from the game and just having weapons gain +15% damage every three level ups

That was five years ago

Should weapons get bonuses from leveling up?

Real question

[lukinu_u]

The reason they were first introduced it to tie your damage output with some kind of progression linked to the mods system.
We could certainly have an innate +165% damage as we level weapons, but you won't have to invest endo, credits, and mod capacity, which are 3 valuable resources you might want to use differently as a beginner. So even if these mods seems like an unnecessary step that lead to +165% damage and 7 mods slots, it provide some interesting progression, especially as they are all 10 ranks mods that are expensive and not worth leveling too early.

However, I agree it's not enough and there need to be more. Maybe some mods that compete with Serrations (and the other weapons variants) based on conditions or with negative stats, like Condition Overlad and Heavy Caliber (even if those 2 aren't balanced at all).

[Alpheus]

3 minutes ago, Ailia_Grimm said:

Should weapons get bonuses from leveling up?

Real question

It would be nice if the "mastery" of a weapon were reflected in the reload speed and recoil to demonstrate increased acclimatization to the weapon's engineering and performance.

[trst]

They exist because dealing damage is what weapons exist to do. There isn't any other alternative to this system as effects that alter weapons in non damage based ways is solved through using a different weapon.

Also stripping damage mods out of the system would do more harm than good. Remove any of them and we instantly return to square one with replacing those mods with the next best damage mod and this cycle could repeat until we've literally removed all mods from the game. As well mods in general, especially staple ones like Serration, function as a method of progression and to remove it would not only invalidate existing progression but have knockdown effects on the entire game.

[Tesseract7777]

1 hour ago, JKb0ss said:

 Why not just add the damage directly to all weapons and then give everyone 7 mod slots? 

Honestly though, the devs have talked about similarish solutions to this before, where weapon damage could be buffed and straight damage mods removed, but on a lot of thought, they realized it doesn't make as much sense as it sounds like it does at first. And it just would create more mandatory mods. 

What DE has done over the years is even better (although their is still a ton of room for improvement). They have made straight damage mods less and less relevant in modding over time, especially when using more than one of the pure damage mods. 

[AuroraSonicBoom]

Because monkey brain go "brrr power".

They shouldn't really in a game, or only come with a heavy condition or drawback attached to them. Headshots only, lower fire rate, do no damage to main body of enemy, etc. Sadly, the conversation around removing mandatory combat mods has grown very quiet.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

they exist because the system is outdated as hell and DE isn't willing to try and make any radical changes knowing full well it will tick off the majority of the playerbase. hell, they already have to put up with "but muh powuh"! with every Riven Disposition change, which is every 6 months or so.

[Wolfdoggie]

Cuz endo exists

[schilds]

Progression.

[(PSN)Deeceem]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb JKb0ss:

Why not just add the damage directly to all weapons and then give everyone 7 mod slots?

Congratulations! You just saved everybody ~50k Endo and ~5 million credits or how much ranking up all basic damage mods costs and nothing else changed except that you also nerfed pretty much all primer- and other utility weapon builds from the past, present and the future since they tend to not use the damage mods and they now have one mod slot less than before in exchange for damage they didn't ask for.

[Tiltskillet]

8 hours ago, JKb0ss said:

Almost 100% of the time any given build will be running the fully leveled damage mod

"Almost" is exactly why they're not built in.   They have to be leveled, and once they are, they're still not used -all- the time.  Priming weapons, utility weapons, Chroma.

 

8 hours ago, JKb0ss said:

Or maybe a better solution would be to have something that rivals these damage mods that isn't just a prime version, because currently I don't really see any reliable alternatives.

Condition Overload.  And some weapons and builds aren't used for direct damage at all, so in those cases the damage mod gets replaced with other things.

[Berzerkules]

I liked the part about removing not only the damage mod but the slot it would go in. Freakin genius!!

Why stop there? How bout we just add crit chance and crit damage mods to every weapon and remove 2 more mod slots. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Because the game isn't built around have-everything late stage players. 

The progression system involves ranking up mods, with many early players using Rank 3 to Rank 7 or 8 mods.

I just hit 800 hours and still need a few Primed and umbral mods fully maxed. 

People keep bringing this up as if everyone is building the same but it's actually not so.

[(XBOX)xJdKxZomBiE]

How about converting these pure damage mods to nightmare/tradeoff mods. You gotta give up something to gain something else.  Extra damage? Gain considerable extra recoil. Reduce recoil? Lose damage. Gain accuracy, lose status chance (increase cc/cd?)

 

I'm not a noob, but not max MR either (21) and I gotta say every frame and weapon all having to run the same mod set gets pretty old.  Frame? Prime flow. Intensify. Continuity. etc etc. Weapons get Serration/Point Strike etc.  Not enough is built around the idea of a proper working multishot setup, as it used to increase status chance, but doesn't also increase your CC/CD.  Increased mag size doesn't slow down reload time. Slash is absolutely king of all damage types.  I would be all for a weapons damage being tied to its level (perhaps a additional small increase in stats for each forma and relevel) and additional small increase for you MR.  Say remove the mastery level requirement for weapons, and anybody and everybody can use whatever they buy or build, but for example, a Arco Plasmor is going to wreck enemies in the hands of a noob sure, but its going to be even more deadly in the hands of a veteran.  Mods should be about utility. Or quirky gimmicks that changes a weapons behavior (think borderlands style) where it can be a hinderance in some cases but surprisingly effective and helpful in others.  Raw damage increases shouldn't ever be a thing imho because it highlights the EXACT problem we have with the horrible enemy scaling issues, enemy damage output at times, and power creep from us. New stuff has to constantly be tuned with people who rock maxxed out damage boost mods in mind because whats finally a challenge for them is the rest of us hitting a reinforced concrete and rebar wall at 140mph for the rest of us or people that dont eat sleep and breathe Warframe.

 

Funky mods to increase bullet ricochets.  Instead of straight punch through, do like the crusaders shield throw in diablo or spectral shield throw fom PoE where on enemy hit it splinters and hits others around it.  Fragmentation rounds could be cool. Slug round mod conversions to drastically increase impact and impact based animations like staggering if not outright knocking down enemies. Puncture already has the cool effect of stapling enemies to things. High puncture stat should innately punch through. Status effects got cool new identifiers on enemies, its time the 3 main stats did too.

 

Honestly it seems like they are so diehard of holding on to mistakes made in the past decisions that they keep bandaiding every future choice to skirt the issue.  Players want to feel powerful, yes, but without said (and usually pretty damn difficult to acquire) mods you don't really feel powerful.

[Aadi880]

6 hours ago, AuroraSonicBoom said:

They shouldn't really in a game, or only come with a heavy condition or drawback attached to them. Headshots only, lower fire rate, do no damage to main body of enemy, etc.

Or perhaps, going a simpler route, change how its calculated.
Make Serration and other straight damage mods are multiplicative to base damage. Make Elemental and IPS mods are additive to modded damage.

Now you have a reason to NOT use serration everywhere, and some Impact mods would provide better damage output if you combine it with an elemental if a weapon happens to be weighted towards impact (Rubico Prime).

Gives the IPS mods more use cases depending on the weapon's IPS weightage.

That, or perhaps you could add restrictions like "You cannot have more than 3 Madurai Polarity mods on the same build".

[ZodiacShinryu]

Isn't the fundamental problem that the Mod system is as crude as it is powerful?  Why stop at damage mods?

The general progression has all equipment set up fairly strictly, with generally 2 mod slots left up to choice (and usually that choice is to move more crit or status). If DE moved any number of stats to innate growth through experience/levels then a new set of mandatory mods take their place. Actually the largest offenders are the elemental mods which are should not be multiplying damage like they are currently but only function as a change to innate damage types. 

There are very few actual interesting mods that change how you approach a situation or use a weapon. The Napalm Mod for Ogris is an example of what the Mod system should be elevating.

[Slayer-.]

4 hours ago, Berzerkules said:

I liked the part about removing not only the damage mod but the slot it would go in. Freakin genius!!

Why stop there? How bout we just add crit chance and crit damage mods to every weapon and remove 2 more mod slots. 

Why don't we remove all the mods and just play the game, oh yeah been there done that farming Grendel.