Self Damage & Shield Gating

[(XBOX)HollowCube987]

Don't get me wrong, I hated self damage with a burning passion because of the high chance of instantaneous death without warning or chances to improve.

But with shield gating being a barrier that stops lethal damage, at least for a few seconds, what would be your thoughts if Self Damage came back right now?

[Genitive]

That's just dying with extra steps. Self-damage depletes your shields and then you get yeeted into the stratosphere by a bombard or other heavy-hitting unit.

[Lutesque]

The issue with Self Damage is what we had before... Was NOT damage.... It was Self Annihilation.... Any AoE weapon capable of dealing with enemies did not Damage you... It killed you... Always.... If a self damage weapon managed to only just damage you then chances it sucked at killing enemies.

 

Should Self Damage come back ?

I don't know.....

My issue with Self Stagger was when it was first revealed they said you could use a time jump button press to escape the knock back Animation.... And then that feature was abandoned sort of....

Not that I think it's good because there's no depth to being able to do that.... So it's fine but it still sucks there's no Active way of dealing with the Knock Back...

[(XBOX)HollowCube987]

2 hours ago, Genitive said:

That's just dying with extra steps. Self-damage depletes your shields and then you get yeeted into the stratosphere by a bombard or other heavy-hitting unit.

 

2 hours ago, Lutesque said:

The issue with Self Damage is what we had before... Was NOT damage.... It was Self Annihilation.... Any AoE weapon capable of dealing with enemies did not Damage you... It killed you... Always.... If a self damage weapon managed to only just damage you then chances it sucked at killing enemies.

Yeah, these were my biggest concerns with Self Damage in the past. Almost if not all of the weapons that had self damage like the Angstrum, Ogris, and Kulstar had mediocre stats even when modded, meaning that you are more likely to die than whatever you're fighting.

I made the post to ask for different perspectives, because I'm not sure if the shield gating system we have right now is enough reason to bring Self Damage back.

[TnaneverRisen]

On 2021-05-04 at 6:28 AM, (XBOX)HollowCube987 said:

Don't get me wrong, I hated self damage with a burning passion because of the high chance of instantaneous death without warning or chances to improve.

But with shield gating being a barrier that stops lethal damage, at least for a few seconds, what would be your thoughts if Self Damage came back right now?

Shield gating or not, I think self-damage should come back because AoE weapons are so easy to use, and there needs to be risk associated with it.  Warframe needs more skill/thinking in general.  Making players do something as TRIVIAL as making sure their explosive weapons aren't used at point blank would be a great thing.  Right now, being staggered (which can be mitigated through various skills or mods, including becoming immune to stagger) means almost nothing when compared to the benefit of exploding groups of enemies with a couple clicks.

[Alpheus]

2 hours ago, TnaneverRisen said:

Making players do something as TRIVIAL as making sure their explosive weapons aren't used at point blank would be a great thing.

Someone's kavat jumping in front of your cursor as you fire, a projectile bouncing off a nullifier shield back to your face across the room, the Akarius's invisible and seemingly random blast radius, a Mag deciding the enemy next to you needs to be magnetized. All examples of frequent causes of death beyond the player's control when self-damage was still a thing. I don't know if you ever experienced it but when a Nezha with a 4 million ward can die to his own Lenz shot, having so many ways to kill yourself makes it way less trivial than just not using it point blank.

[TnaneverRisen]

50 minutes ago, Alpheus said:

Someone's kavat jumping in front of your cursor as you fire, a projectile bouncing off a nullifier shield back to your face across the room, the Akarius's invisible and seemingly random blast radius, a Mag deciding the enemy next to you needs to be magnetized. All examples of frequent causes of death beyond the player's control when self-damage was still a thing. I don't know if you ever experienced it but when a Nezha with a 4 million ward can die to his own Lenz shot, having so many ways to kill yourself makes it way less trivial than just not using it point blank.

I think that's great - exploding rooms of enemies should have significant risk.  Players should be forced to be cautious and know whether or not nullifiers are around, or a spam-happy mag is nearby, etc.  Players should have to choose their explosive shots and targets carefully, instead of spamming every weapon mindlessly.  The one thing you mentioned that should be changed, regardless of stagger or self-damage, is that blast radius should be more obvious and showed graphically for all explosive weapons.

[Alpheus]

39 minutes ago, TnaneverRisen said:

I think that's great - exploding rooms of enemies should have significant risk.  Players should be forced to be cautious and know whether or not nullifiers are around, or a spam-happy mag is nearby, etc.  Players should have to choose their explosive shots and targets carefully, instead of spamming every weapon mindlessly.  The one thing you mentioned that should be changed, regardless of stagger or self-damage, is that blast radius should be more obvious and showed graphically for all explosive weapons.

Insta-kill mechanics without a telegraph is bad game design regardless of the genre. You can't actually think it's the player's fault when they're taking every precaution and something entirely independent of their actions causes them to drop dead without warning. The stagger is sufficient in that it gives the player a chance to recover but still puts them in a dangerous spot by losing mobility.

[TnaneverRisen]

19 minutes ago, Alpheus said:

Insta-kill mechanics without a telegraph is bad game design regardless of the genre. You can't actually think it's the player's fault when they're taking every precaution and something entirely independent of their actions causes them to drop dead without warning. The stagger is sufficient in that it gives the player a chance to recover but still puts them in a dangerous spot by losing mobility.

How many examples can you think of where there is literally no telegraph?  Maybe there are some, but I can't think of any at the moment. 

Maybe the closest example from you ones you gave was other players' pets.  Well, just pay attention to what's around you, and if there is significant risk, don't fire at something without repositioning (simply by jumping first, for example).  Launching explosions should be a calculated move, because the payoff is so huge - otherwise, there isn't much reason to pick many other weapons, like the grinlock for example.   Side note - I'd also complain about the very high ease-of-use vs payoff ratio when it comes to chained beam weapons (kuva nukor, gaze, etc.) and other weapons with similarly high ratios (trumna. ignis wraith, etc.)

In any case, the stagger isn't sufficient because it's too easily reduced or completely eliminated by mods/skills, and there is often no danger from losing mobility even if you do get staggered.  Often people will get staggered when surrounded by allies/pets, or the enemies are CCd, or the player is too tanky to die from the short stagger window, or the enemies are already dead due to the clumsily launched area attack that caused the player to stagger in the first place.

[Alpheus]

37 minutes ago, TnaneverRisen said:

How many examples can you think of where there is literally no telegraph?  Maybe there are some, but I can't think of any at the moment. 

Maybe the closest example from you ones you gave was other players' pets.  Well, just pay attention to what's around you, and if there is significant risk, don't fire at something without repositioning (simply by jumping first, for example).  Launching explosions should be a calculated move, because the payoff is so huge - otherwise, there isn't much reason to pick many other weapons, like the grinlock for example.   Side note - I'd also complain about the very high ease-of-use vs payoff ratio when it comes to chained beam weapons (kuva nukor, gaze, etc.) and other weapons with similarly high ratios (trumna. ignis wraith, etc.)

In any case, the stagger isn't sufficient because it's too easily reduced or completely eliminated by mods/skills, and there is often no danger from losing mobility even if you do get staggered.  Often people will get staggered when surrounded by allies/pets, or the enemies are CCd, or the player is too tanky to die from the short stagger window, or the enemies are already dead due to the clumsily launched area attack that caused the player to stagger in the first place.

I already gave you perfectly acceptable examples. You're placing responsibility on the player to account for what some random AI or teammate decides to do in the time between shooting and the projectile reaching minimum safe distance, then blaming the player because they aren't omniscient, which is absurd. If you don't think staggers can't be punishing then I really highly doubt you've found yourself staggered in the middle of a swarm of drone-protected arbitration enemies. To me it just sounds like you want difficulty for the sake of difficulty without taking into account how unfun it would be to use the weapons in question.

[Tyreaus]

It's another instance of damage. Which means it's probably something we just shield restore through, or we're CC-ing everything so badly that there's nothing that can reasonably follow up to make the shield gate loss a concern. Either that or we're using one of the few setups where that kind of damage would be a big deal. Problem is, that makes "self-damage as a weapon drawback" pretty unreliable: for some setups it'll be significant, for others it won't matter. That makes it pretty much impossible to tell if it's an effective drawback.

(Personally, I think both self-damage and self-stagger miss the target by trying to increase player vulnerability - directly headbutting against the power fantasy aspect in the hardest way possible. It either rips control away with self-stagger or outright kills the player, which creates a back-and-forth of new mods and mechanics to balance things out. To me, it'd make more sense to skirt some of the opposing force by dropping player vulnerability as a target and kneecapping their damage output instead. Let them move, but block them from attacking for a period of time. Don't need to kill them or make them helpless to give them a reason not to stand at ground zero.)

[TnaneverRisen]

1 hour ago, Alpheus said:

I already gave you perfectly acceptable examples. You're placing responsibility on the player to account for what some random AI or teammate decides to do in the time between shooting and the projectile reaching minimum safe distance, then blaming the player because they aren't omniscient, which is absurd. If you don't think staggers can't be punishing then I really highly doubt you've found yourself staggered in the middle of a swarm of drone-protected arbitration enemies. To me it just sounds like you want difficulty for the sake of difficulty without taking into account how unfun it would be to use the weapons in question.

Those examples aren't acceptable at all.  The enemy AI can also do things you didn't plan for, such as an Osprey charging at you from an angle you weren't paying attention to, causing it to be in your face the moment you fire a rocket.

You're not supposed to be omniscient.  It's called risk, and it's a necessary part of any successful game.  If you want to take the extra risk of using an explosive weapon in order to gain the area damage benefit, you should need to make the tradeoff of needing to be more cautious when compared to using a non-explosive weapon.  It's like that with numerous games already, and it works great (example: rocket launcher from Quake, or area spells that hurt your own party in D&D style games).

[Alpheus]

4 hours ago, TnaneverRisen said:

Those examples aren't acceptable at all.  The enemy AI can also do things you didn't plan for, such as an Osprey charging at you from an angle you weren't paying attention to, causing it to be in your face the moment you fire a rocket.

You're not supposed to be omniscient.  It's called risk, and it's a necessary part of any successful game.  If you want to take the extra risk of using an explosive weapon in order to gain the area damage benefit, you should need to make the tradeoff of needing to be more cautious when compared to using a non-explosive weapon.  It's like that with numerous games already, and it works great (example: rocket launcher from Quake, or area spells that hurt your own party in D&D style games).

This isn't Quake or a tabletop RPG. Unforeseeable, instant death as a mechanic has no place in a PvE shooter like Warframe. At least the Lenz gave you the chance to dodge its explosion or go into spoiler mode before you got deleted.

Also, I noticed you started playing a few months after they got rid of self-damage so I can only assume you lack the experience that would give you the insight as to why the change was a welcome one.

[TnaneverRisen]

11 hours ago, Alpheus said:

This isn't Quake or a tabletop RPG. Unforeseeable, instant death as a mechanic has no place in a PvE shooter like Warframe. At least the Lenz gave you the chance to dodge its explosion or go into spoiler mode before you got deleted.

Also, I noticed you started playing a few months after they got rid of self-damage so I can only assume you lack the experience that would give you the insight as to why the change was a welcome one.

You've missed the point.  It doesn't need to be Quake or RPG. It's a general concept that numerous games have, and it works very well.

None of your examples qualify for automatic instant death.  It's your responsibility to know what's around you, and anticipate the things that could go wrong with your tactic.  You just sound like you're too lazy to pay attention, and would rather spam explosives whenever you want.  Let me guess - you're not a fan of weapons that require skill, like aiming.  You just want to mindlessly point your cursor in a general direction and win with few clicks.

I don't have a problem with stagger from any weapon, nor would I have a problem with self-damage.  Unlike you, I actually consider my surroundings and situation before spamming the attack key.

[Alpheus]

1 hour ago, TnaneverRisen said:

You've missed the point.  It doesn't need to be Quake or RPG. It's a general concept that numerous games have, and it works very well.

None of your examples qualify for automatic instant death.  It's your responsibility to know what's around you, and anticipate the things that could go wrong with your tactic.  You just sound like you're too lazy to pay attention, and would rather spam explosives whenever you want.  Let me guess - you're not a fan of weapons that require skill, like aiming.  You just want to mindlessly point your cursor in a general direction and win with few clicks.

I don't have a problem with stagger from any weapon, nor would I have a problem with self-damage.  Unlike you, I actually consider my surroundings and situation before spamming the attack key.

Keep on making baseless accusations about my preferences, I bring the right weapon for the situation. I'm not going to bring a Rubico to a Steel Path Survival or a Zarr to an Eidolon hunt. It just turns out that most content in the game can be done more efficiently with weapons and frames that can kill more enemies more quickly.

[SweetAnubis]

On 2021-05-07 at 10:18 AM, TnaneverRisen said:

You've missed the point.  It doesn't need to be Quake or RPG. It's a general concept that numerous games have, and it works very well.

None of your examples qualify for automatic instant death.  It's your responsibility to know what's around you, and anticipate the things that could go wrong with your tactic.  You just sound like you're too lazy to pay attention, and would rather spam explosives whenever you want.  Let me guess - you're not a fan of weapons that require skill, like aiming.  You just want to mindlessly point your cursor in a general direction and win with few clicks.

I don't have a problem with stagger from any weapon, nor would I have a problem with self-damage.  Unlike you, I actually consider my surroundings and situation before spamming the attack key.

do you have even the slightest idea how much random crap is flying around and moving around in end game content? it is impossible to know exactly where everything is at every moment at the speeds players move at. hell i still remember when players were frying graphics cards due to high speed builds and speed running missions back in warframes early days. its a fast paced game with tons of things happening all at once. if your complaint is point and click to win then we may as well make melee weapons kill ourselves as well since they are far more effective at insta clearing massive swaths of enemies

 

the stagger is more than enough to force players to pay attention to where they are shooting without being so punishing as to cause frequent insta deaths out of no where. this isnt dark souls, we already have enough causes of insta death in this game. before they changed it from insta death to stagger entire weapons went completely unused because it was basically like being a suicide bomber with a nuke strapped to ur chest. if you really think the stagger isnt enough of a deterrent to carpet bomb tactics then try running around on hydron with bubonico's alt fire for a bit, unless you basically rework ur entire warframes build to counter the stagger you will quickly find urself staggering more than killing real fast.

[taiiat]

i don't really care much at the end of the day

but, i would like AoE's that previously didn't Kill/Damage you, to NOT now Stagger/Knockdown us. it already didn't affect us before, what gives. that's wack.

[Kainosh]

On 2021-05-04 at 4:28 PM, (XBOX)HollowCube987 said:

what would be your thoughts if Self Damage came back right now?

I will be pretty happy.  Never minded it anyway...

Being killed by my own explosives felt fair.  

Also, I don't like shield gating. It sucks.

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

If enemies can't kill themselves with their own weapons, why should we? If a Bombard lets loose a rocket within a couple meters, why can't that enemy take as much damage as we do from said rocket? It's only fair if everyone suffers. Heck, might as well bring friendly fire into the equation if you wanna spice things up.

There was no real risk/reward component that made AoE weapons the best choice to go for. You weren't getting more credits, increased RNG or superior damage depending on the weapon of choice. In fact, most AoE weapons weren't that good. Band-aid mods like that one from Arbitrations didn't solve the problem either, your Bramma was going to kill you if you were anywhere close to the blast zone, no question about it. Far too many in-mission situations made running AoE weapons less effective. Now...We're in a different meta. Melee is king & AoE weapons fair better than most hit scan weapons.

Shield gating is nice, I like it, it shouldn't go away. If self-damage is brought back, shield gating might help a little bit, but so would legitimate adjustments to self-damage calculations. What really should go away are the absurd knockbacks from weapons that never had any self-damage component to them in the first place.

[TnaneverRisen]

6 hours ago, SweetAnubis said:

do you have even the slightest idea how much random crap is flying around and moving around in end game content? it is impossible to know exactly where everything is at every moment at the speeds players move at.

...

 

Of course I know how chaotic things can get.  I've played plenty of long duration arbitrations and survival missions, along with the various railjack modes.

The problem is with you.  You're bad at managing risk in this game.  I don't have issues with stagger because I don't spam fire when things are rushing in my face.  I do things such as bullet jump upwards before firing explosives, or making sure my angles are good, being aware of where my team is, etc.  The key is to have the proper skills and strategies to create a situation that mitigates risk based on your setup and goals (just like anything in real life).

 

[SweetAnubis]

15 hours ago, TnaneverRisen said:

Of course I know how chaotic things can get.  I've played plenty of long duration arbitrations and survival missions, along with the various railjack modes.

The problem is with you.  You're bad at managing risk in this game.  I don't have issues with stagger because I don't spam fire when things are rushing in my face.  I do things such as bullet jump upwards before firing explosives, or making sure my angles are good, being aware of where my team is, etc.  The key is to have the proper skills and strategies to create a situation that mitigates risk based on your setup and goals (just like anything in real life).

 

ok ur completely missing the point we are trying to make.... see first of all im an arial player so i dont sit around spamming things in my face. if something is in my face im using my melee not my guns. but even with nothing in front of my face and firing at something off in the distance there are still uncontrollable factors such as a player skills or player themselves or a companion randomly popping in front of you at speeds to fast for u to react to. in order for these guns to be even remotely useful against end game enemies that split second means instant death for most frames.....

 

additionally this has never been an issue for me as i run an immortal tank build with status immunity..... however i do understand where the other players are coming from as i have tried things out on dif frames. should it go back to insta death for the majority of rames that gun would just slide back into the garbage bin for 99% of players. and lets not forget the fact that very few guns can even dream of keeping up with melee. so if we went back to it insta killing people just cause a random ally happened to dash in front of players being careful at mach 500 then we would go back to absolutely everyone using melee 24/7 with an exception of one or two guns

[Xylena_Lazarow]

I'd forget that "explosive" weapons exist and continue brainlessly nuking hordes with no-drawback non-explosive AoE.

[TnaneverRisen]

12 minutes ago, SweetAnubis said:

..then we would go back to absolutely everyone using melee 24/7 with an exception of one or two guns

That's a completely separate issue.  Clearly melee is massively overpowered and the devs said they plan on making guns more competitive in the future.

Another issue you indirectly brought up - it's also clear that gun balance is terrible.  This needs to be fixed regardless.

[iPathos]

On 2021-05-05 at 1:48 AM, Lutesque said:

My issue with Self Stagger was when it was first revealed they said you could use a time jump button press to escape the knock back Animation.... And then that feature was abandoned sort of....

That feature still exists btw, however the window is a tiny fraction of a second and even when you do hit it, it doesn't always work. It's hard to hit even at super slow motion in Captura, and that's saying something.

I'd love to see this mechanic properly integrated or otherwise buffed, then at least the skill ceiling for usage around AoE weps wouldn't immediately depend on max knockdown resistance or invulnerability-type deals.