Remove Free Base Damage Mods, Replace With Scaling

[Sintag]

As pretty much everyone who's played Warframe for more then thirty minutes knows, there's four mods that are mandatory on every single weapon, ever, all the time, never remove.  Those mods are Serration, Point Blank, Hornet Strike, and Pressure Point.  These mods all do one thing:  Increase base damage by a (not inconsiderate) degree.  With the incoming dev workshop about firearms and melees incoming, I feel like now would be a great time to remove all of the mods that do nothing but increase base damage, and replace it with giving a weapon more damage as it levels up, freeing up a mod slot that would otherwise just be immediately taken by these all-important Mods and incentivizing using weapons.

I'm going to ignore Heavy Caliber/Magnum Force/Spoiled Strike/Vicious Spread since all of those at least impose a downside for the damage.  This is purely about the free damage mods;  I might come back to this later to touch on those.

 

What I propose is that, instead of just slapping on a Mod that gives you a percentage of damage, the weapon instead gains power as it levels up in nice, even increments, until, at Rank 30, it hits the equivalent of a max-rank base damage mod.  Except that there's a few problems with that, namely the fact that in terms of mods, Rifles have Amalgam Serration, Melees and Shotguns have Primed versions of their respective +base damage mods, Pistols have Augur Pact, and Shotguns also have Blaze.  Arch-guns also have Primed Rubedo-Lined Barrel and Sabot Rounds to worry about.  I'm going to break this down into categories based on weapon types explaining what's changed.

Rifles

Spoiler

• Gain +6% damage per level, capping at 180% at Rank 30 (240% at Rank 40 for Kuva Weapons)
• Amalgam Serration now grants +40% fire rate and +30% Sprint Speed, renamed Amalgam Speed Trigger

Shotguns

Spoiler

• Gain +5% damage per level, capping at 150% (200% for Kuva Weapons)
• Blaze now adds +35% Reload Speed instead of +60% Damage

Pistols

Spoiler

• Gain +7% damage per level, capping at 210% (280% for Kuva Weapons)
• Augur Pact now provides +40% fire rate instead of +90% Damage

Melee

Spoiler

• Gain +5% damage per level, capping at 150% (200% for Kuva Weapons and Paracesis)
• Sacrificial Pressure replaced with Sacrificial Prowess, gives +100% status chance (110% with Sacrificial Pressure)

Arch-Guns

Spoiler

• Gain +6% damage per level, capping at 180% (240% for Kuva Weapons)
• Sabot Rounds now increases projectile speed in addition to adding Punch-Through

Arch-Melee

Spoiler

• Gain 6% damage per level, capping at 180% (No Kuva Weapons here)

FAQ:

Spoiler

• 'But Sin!  What's going to happen to my existing Base Damage Mods?'  You'll be refunded for the Credits and Endo spent on every Mod and every variant on said Mod.  Additionally, any copies in player inventories will be both dissolved and sold (you'll receive the Credit/Endo value of all those Mods)

 

• 'Why are Kuva Weapons and the Paracesis given special treatment?'  If you're going to throw 5 Forma at something, mod capacity and a situationally useful bonus should not be your only rewards for putting in the time, effort, and resources required to obtain and max these out.  Hence, why these weapons benefit harder from this system.

 

• 'Why aren't you affecting the Corrupted Mods?'  Two reasons.  One, they impose downsides, they're not just free damage.  Two, I'm honestly not sure how I can change them just yet.  Free +damage is easy enough, but when we're talking downsides plus damage, this gets a little tricky.

 

• 'What about Riven Mods?'  The purple-clad elephants in the room are going to remain untouched, both because I don't want to be killed in my sleep by the Riven Mafia and because, honestly, if you went through all the hoops/spent all the Plat for a +dmg +cc +cd -zoom Riven, honestly, I shouldn't disrupt that sort of effort/insanity.

Good idea?  Bad idea?  Let me know quick because, well...

[VoidArkhangel]

hace 1 hora, Sintag dijo:

What is right above this comment lol

Good idea but I disagree with the second change proposed on every category but melee since well.... this will certainly allow 1 extra mod to our builds but, as you know, every weapon on every category excluding melee, Cedo and Mausolon falls useless pretty quickly so having those sources of extra damage without any drawback would be better imo.

[Sintag]

9 minutes ago, VoidArkhangel said:

Good idea but I disagree with the second change proposed on every category but melee since well.... this will certainly allow 1 extra mod to our builds but, as you know, every weapon on every category excluding melee, Cedo and Mausolon falls useless pretty quickly so having those sources of extra damage without any drawback would be better imo.

Wait, you mean the damage increases or the mod changes?  Because the damage increase is still there, it's just baked into the levelling instead of a Mod.  And yeah, I know about the fact that guns fall off hard, but we've got an incoming Dev Workshop on this issue incoming very soon;  For all I know, maybe what I just posted might be in it.

[YUNoJump]

The thing about +damage mods is that they work as progression. The big 4 +damage mods are either 10-ranked or have a 10-ranked Prime variant, so that it takes a while for newer players to level them up all the way. As such, over time new players basically get an increasing permanent damage buff until the mod is maxed, rather than just having massive damage boosts out the gate.

While your suggestion addresses increasing damage, max-ranking a weapon is much easier and faster than max-ranking mods. It would also mean that a new weapon would feel a bit trash for a while, until it’s high enough rank to get a good buff going.

Another thing to consider is power creep. The vast majority of mods directly affect DPS in some way; incorporating damage mods into weapons essentially gives us a free mod slot with which to obtain even more damage with a different mandatory mod. Even if every popular mod was integrated into weapons, we’d probably still be able to min-max for DPS with the rest of our mods. Considering many weapons can already do their job around level 150 or more, giving every gun in the game a damage buff may not be a good idea.

[VoidArkhangel]

hace 6 minutos, Sintag dijo:

Wait, you mean the damage increases or the mod changes?  Because the damage increase is still there, it's just baked into the levelling instead of a Mod.  And yeah, I know about the fact that guns fall off hard, but we've got an incoming Dev Workshop on this issue incoming very soon;  For all I know, maybe what I just posted might be in it.

I believe the mod changes was the second change you proposed so that should be it.

Anyways I wonder what will happen to Primed point blank/pressure point and if we will get actually good mods.

[Sintag]

Just now, VoidArkhangel said:

Anyways I wonder what will happen to Primed point blank/pressure point and if we will get actually good mods.

Also removed and compensated for.  Melee and Shotguns get a damage boost that falls somewhere between those two values.  Sacrificial Pressure gets replaced entirely.

[Sintag]

45 minutes ago, YUNoJump said:

The thing about +damage mods is that they work as progression. The big 4 +damage mods are either 10-ranked or have a 10-ranked Prime variant, so that it takes a while for newer players to level them up all the way. As such, over time new players basically get an increasing permanent damage buff until the mod is maxed, rather than just having massive damage boosts out the gate.

While your suggestion addresses increasing damage, max-ranking a weapon is much easier and faster than max-ranking mods. It would also mean that a new weapon would feel a bit trash for a while, until it’s high enough rank to get a good buff going.

Another thing to consider is power creep. The vast majority of mods directly affect DPS in some way; incorporating damage mods into weapons essentially gives us a free mod slot with which to obtain even more damage with a different mandatory mod. Even if every popular mod was integrated into weapons, we’d probably still be able to min-max for DPS with the rest of our mods. Considering many weapons can already do their job around level 150 or more, giving every gun in the game a damage buff may not be a good idea.

Point for point counters:

• That form of progression can be snapped in two with three words:  'LF low Index'.  After that, it's a matter of getting the Endo needed to max a Mod, which is more or less just farming out Ayatan stuff, which entails missions/Maroo's hunts/smash and grab.  After that, the issue becomes the fact that these mods are, not to put too fine a point on it, required on every single weapon.  The point is, much like you see MR5s running around with Brammas, progression in Warframe is easy to sequence-break if you know even a little of what you're doing or have someone to taxi you.

 

• Kind of my intention here.  Rather then just 'slap on a card, more damage', I'd rather have players work for their power fantasy and be able to tap into it quicker for the work.  This said, I'm also going to agree that maybe some guns might need a (very) minor touch-up to their base damage so they don't feel like peashooters.  But that's more of a case-by-case thing.

 

• Fair enough, fair enough, but then isn't Warframe almost entirely a game based on power creep?  Not to be 'that guy' for a moment here, but between Condition Overload, Kuva Nukor/Bramma, Redeemer Prime, Primes superseding the originals in every way, shape, and form, we're neck deep in power creep as it is.  Besides, the Dev Workshop coming tomorrow might address some of this stuff to begin with, and this entire thing may well become moot.  We just don't know yet.  So aside from my idea, I'm gonna refrain from further insanity of my own making until we know what's in the thing.

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

By and large, I have no problems, but I see one hitch unaddressed: MR
As it stands, at MR16(?) you can start with a max Serration on any Rifle with no Forma or Catalyst. The idea behind "functionally" (via starting mod cap) was, if memory serves, to show that MR = overall skill (see: Steve's referencing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon's scene with them pulling weapons off the wall). Right now, I start with an almost done weapon, but would your system force me to go back to lower level areas to level weapons, or would the base damage scale off my starting mod capacity?
(yes, I'm aware a lot of strength comes from the other mods, but the idea still holds. Especially for fresh out of the oven stuff)

Apologies for the parenthetical phrase nesting.

[Sintag]

11 minutes ago, TheSixOfDiamonds said:

By and large, I have no problems, but I see one hitch unaddressed: MR
As it stands, at MR16(?) you can start with a max Serration on any Rifle with no Forma or Catalyst. The idea behind "functionally" (via starting mod cap) was, if memory serves, to show that MR = overall skill (see: Steve's referencing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon's scene with them pulling weapons off the wall). Right now, I start with an almost done weapon, but would your system force me to go back to lower level areas to level weapons, or would the base damage scale off my starting mod capacity?
(yes, I'm aware a lot of strength comes from the other mods, but the idea still holds. Especially for fresh out of the oven stuff)

Apologies for the parenthetical phrase nesting.

It's okay, I had to fight down the urge to do it.  Also; Yeah, that's the one glaring flaw of this plan.  I'm honestly not sure how to counter this.  Maybe have the damage 'cap' once you hit Level 30 with a weapon?  (I.E, once you Master a weapon, all copies begin with the capped damage/Forma won't reset the damage value)  Scale the overall damage boost to MR and use your MR as the starting 'level' of whatever damage boost would normally be obtained by levelling (so an MR22 player wouldn't gain more damage until their gun hits Level 23, but they'd have the damage boost that a Level 22 gun would be from the word 'go')?  Being honest, I should look into this more once I get some sleep.  I posted this at like 11 PM after about half an hour of running math and trying to come up with mod changes to keep this consistent.  I didn't quite factor in the fine details like that.

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

1 hour ago, Sintag said:

It's okay, I had to fight down the urge to do it.  Also; Yeah, that's the one glaring flaw of this plan.  I'm honestly not sure how to counter this.  Maybe have the damage 'cap' once you hit Level 30 with a weapon?  (I.E, once you Master a weapon, all copies begin with the capped damage/Forma won't reset the damage value)  Scale the overall damage boost to MR and use your MR as the starting 'level' of whatever damage boost would normally be obtained by levelling (so an MR22 player wouldn't gain more damage until their gun hits Level 23, but they'd have the damage boost that a Level 22 gun would be from the word 'go')?  Being honest, I should look into this more once I get some sleep.  I posted this at like 11 PM after about half an hour of running math and trying to come up with mod changes to keep this consistent.  I didn't quite factor in the fine details like that.

Those ideas work for me 🙂

[Andele3025]

You want to remove a endo progression curve to in turn make leveling weapons even worse? Why would you ever do that?

[ShortCat]

5 hours ago, Sintag said:

What I propose is that, instead of just slapping on a Mod that gives you a percentage of damage, the weapon instead gains power as it levels up

This is a completely pointless change for several reasons:

1. As already mentioned, base mods function as first means of progression (whether you like it or not) as well as Creddits and Endo sinks. So removing them without a replacement is coutnerproductive.
2. What would be the point? If you want to remove those mods, what goes against the idea of integrating this damage directly into the weapons from the get-go? Why do you want to punish unranked weapons, when ranking them up can be done in 3 minutes? This change would only impact new & clueless players, who have no idea how to rank up gear; for an experienced player this damage ramp-up would be mostly meaningless.
3. This change has the potantial to push players even more towards passive lvling or leaching, since unranked weapons have terrible damage. Anything that encourages leechung is terrible design.
4. Do you like how Zaws are inferior weapons till you guild them? Or how it is pointless to put power mods on an unranked frame, because it has locked skills & terrible stats?  I hope yes, becasue you are about to introduce more of this.

A big NO from me.