Anyone else think it is time for "Enemy Damage 2.0"?

[(NSW)Greybones]

9 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

The problem we see in Warframe is that certain content is clearly designed to be a specific difficulty and when players asked for more challenge, we got Steel Path instead of a level slider to set our own challenge.

Personally I don't see what's so special about strict damage/survival-increasing mods 😒. They take up a slot that I'd otherwise use for an Augment or something (that said, it's not like it doesn't make sense that I'd have to get more serious and figure out my more limited pallette the higher-level I go).

edit: Hrm. Though they do come in handy at times if I want to take it chill or easy

double edit: Even resistance stuff is more interesting; one enemy is weak to an element I brought, but his buddy is resistant. Time to switch weapons or tactics. Hrm. Actually resistance stuff is quite interesting

[FrostDragoon]

7 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Personally I don't see what's so special about strict damage/survival-increasing mods 😒. They take up a slot that I'd otherwise use for an Augment or something (that said, it's not like it doesn't make sense that I'd have to get more serious and figure out my more limited pallette the higher-level I go).

edit: Hrm. Though they do come in handy at times if I want to take it chill or easy

Well, vast majority of frames can just breeze through regular star chart with just maxed out Vitality + Adaptation and a good weapon or two. This was a big part of why people asked for more options to seek challenge. It's a bit of a catch-22 too, because Adaptation did a lot to equalize the natural defensive qualities among frames, but it also trivialized the basic chart. However, when you get into Steel Path a bit, it won't save you. This is where you see more players going with the Rolling Guard + Shield Gate (with Decaying Dragon Key) + Augur set bonus combo. This doesn't trivialize SP in the same way, and requires a lot more attention and micromanagement from the player, but most frames could run this setup and see success.

[(NSW)Greybones]

8 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

Well, vast majority of frames can just breeze through regular star chart with just maxed out Vitality + Adaptation and a good weapon or two. This was a big part of why people asked for more options to seek challenge. It's a bit of a catch-22 too, because Adaptation did a lot to equalize the natural defensive qualities among frames, but it also trivialized the basic chart. However, when you get into Steel Path a bit, it won't save you. This is where you see more players going with the Rolling Guard + Shield Gate (with Decaying Dragon Key) + Augur set bonus combo. This doesn't trivialize SP in the same way, and requires a lot more attention and micromanagement from the player, but it most frames could run this setup and see success.

Vast majority of frames don't even need that until level 60-80 maybe. Lots of space for interesting mods!

[Sazero]

On 2021-07-23 at 2:58 AM, Tyreaus said:

Indeed. Though, to be fair, seldom are things both worth doing and easy. Otherwise someone would've done them by now.

Minecraft reduces detection range when invisible, and the Rakta Dark Dagger either did or does a similar thing. Invisibility could borrow from that, reducing detection and targeting ranges so that the player is invisible up to a point, but is detected (and can be fired upon) when sufficiently close to enemies, depending on the ability, Warframe stats, so on and so forth.

That's probably the most straightforward baseline for balancing invisibility, with the rest being a matter of numbers.

(This is coming from someone who, nowadays, almost exclusively plays invisibility frames, by the way.)

But yes, there are multiple moving parts in the web of problems. No doubt about that.

 

 

My laundry is both easy to do and worth doing, but because I am lazy it hasn't been done.
And every day I don't do it, even more laundry gets added.

I would say, that if stealth is changed to basically make you spend energy to crouch stealth like Skyrim. Then it is going to make every stealth frame a joke. Particularly Ivara.

But I feel we both agree so I won't belabor the points.

[FrostDragoon]

8 minutes ago, Sazero said:

My laundry is both easy to do and worth doing, but because I am lazy it hasn't been done.
And every day I don't do it, even more laundry gets added.

I would say, that if stealth is changed to basically make you spend energy to crouch stealth like Skyrim. Then it is going to make every stealth frame a joke. Particularly Ivara.

But I feel we both agree so I won't belabor the points.

I don't think attacking energy is the correct approach either. The question we have to ask is if stealth is even that much of a problem. I never really thought it was because you're taking a certain level of safety over the field-wiping power that other frames might offer. Most of the frames that have stealth are pretty squishy too.

If stealth is a problem, maybe detection radius might be the better approach, but you still would have to make the case for why it needs to be nerfed.

[Sazero]

11 hours ago, Iccotak said:

Look like what? Back in 2013? I don't think anyone is asking for a return to everything of 2013 but I think people are right to say that there was a focus back then that is lacking today. That it has lost an aspect of its identity that was key to its success. That's what I see people critique about Necramechs and Archwing

I played WF recently - and imo until they do something about it Warframe is a growing pile of different unrelated systems. Steve talks about the goal being to connect everything but I've heard that before so I'll wait and see. Personally I think WF lost a bit of its magic it had back in 2014.

If I have to compare the old parkour vs new parkour - yeah I think there are some clear problems. Old Parkour was too slow, I get that, but 2.0 basically threw Parkour out the window. Now a session is just constant bullet jumping and maps are rarely ever designed around wall running & jumping.

Old was not perfect by any means - but 2.0 got rid of too much

Someone else said this in a separate thread

Just look at Monster Hunter - one of the biggest video game franchises in the world, yet it has an incredibly strong focus on its core gameplay and any new ideas or systems added are ensured to serve the core gameplay loop. MH doesn't have "Content Islands" because it's core gameplay is core to the identity of the franchise. Diversify and change things up? OK Fine, but make sure you don't lose focus of the core gameplay that made players interested in the first place.

Warframe got successfully kickstarted because of its core gameplay - it's where it is now because of its core gameplay. It's not radical to say that the thing that made the game successful should not be so casually tossed aside for the sake of "Diversity". Warframe should not try to be everything - it's not Star Citizen.

Link for that quote

 

I would argue Star Citizen isn't Star Citizen :)

The reason Warframe has moved into Railjack and Necramech and all these new things, is because regular Warframe was starting to run out of design space. We see it even now. Every new game mode that gets introduced to the star chart is worse than everything before it.

Everyone hates Infested Salvage or Defection. The only reason you do them is to get the one time rewards and then you never look back. That's also why the newest Railjack missions fell flat.
It's literally just the star chart missions with a tiny railjack component glued on. As opposed to fleshing out Railjack as it's own game mode more.

I can't even bring myself to finish grinding for Ambassador because it's just a survival 20 min run.
Which is one of the oldest game modes. And I've been playing since stamina was a thing, albeit on and off.

Variety is the spice of life, as they say. But don't tell your wife that. She'll get angry.

[Sazero]

11 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

I don't think attacking energy is the correct approach either. The question we have to ask is if stealth is even that much of a problem. I never really thought it was because you're taking a certain level of safety over the field-wiping power that other frames might offer. Most of the frames that have stealth are pretty squishy too.

If stealth is a problem, maybe detection radius might be the better approach, but you still would have to make the case for why it needs to be nerfed.

Stealth is a problem in the sense that it deactivates enemy AI. It is the ultimate form of survivability.
You don't need HP or Armor, if the enemy isn't attacking you.
I would agree with you that having stealth could be balanced around having less offensive power.
However, a good deal of power comes from our weapons. I would even say most player power comes from weapons.
Gone are the days of Frost 4 spamming to win lvl 30 defence missions.
We're in steel path now and we have rivens. (Yareli still bad though, there is no saving that frame)

Now I don't actually want to change this, because I've given up on the legend of Warframe balance.
Let stealth completely trivialize enemies. It's fine. Valkyr doesn't give a poop about damage either. Nor does Inaros or Nezha or Trinity etc.
It just makes it less aggravating when you don't get that survival C drop you wanted and now you have to do your 17th exact same mission. Isn't RNG fun?

[FrostDragoon]

2 minutes ago, Sazero said:

Everyone hates Infested Salvage or Defection. The only reason you do them is to get the one time rewards and then you never look back. That's also why the newest Railjack missions fell flat.
It's literally just the star chart missions with a tiny railjack component glued on. As opposed to fleshing out Railjack as it's own game mode more.

I can't even bring myself to finish grinding for Ambassador because it's just a survival 20 min run.
Which is one of the oldest game modes. And I've been playing since stamina was a thing, albeit on and off.

Variety is the spice of life, as they say. But don't tell your wife that. She'll get angry.

Precisely. This is why I want them to separate "regular" missions out of Railjack. I want to enjoy my ship to ship battles without the overly long interruptions of having to do content I'm not there for.

Defection should have been obvious that it would be a failure. It takes one of the most hated mission/quest types in gaming and makes it endless--escort. I don't get how this wasn't a no-brainer for DE. Rescue are only acceptable because the agent can keep up (gets teleported along, really). If we had to wait for the agent, nobody would play this mode except where absolutely necessary. Because they got that part right, Rescue is just seen as "Capture, with extra steps," which is more or less fine. Defection is basically bring at least 2 Wisps and tons of aoe, then wait. The low drop chances of targeted items and lack of meaningful/exclusive rewards outside of those only exaggerates people's aversion to this mode.

Salvage sucks because it's "Interception, with extra steps," and those extra steps are tedious and irritating.

The problem with trying to make new game modes is that it can't be something too convoluted or include elements that make players feel overly restricted in their loadout choices. 

[CatboyPrincess]

15 minutes ago, Sazero said:

Every new game mode that gets introduced to the star chart is worse than everything before it.

nah disruption is based

[Sazero]

Man I want to make that spicy dark souls joke, but we live in a dark timeline my friend.

[FrostDragoon]

1 hour ago, Gwyndolin-chan said:

nah disruption is based

I really hated it when it first came out. I'm still not crazy about it, but I kind of see it like "Survival, with extra steps." The biggest problem for me is that I don't usually play with game sounds up very loud, usually 15-20 / 100 while listening to music or Youtube in the background, so this reliance on audible queues struck me as a particular poor choice not just because I play this way, but I know many others do and it gets into accessibility concerns. The bright blinking icon is good, but the initial detection range is still a little too close to the objective/players. I genuinely just think this idea that we have to go find the target is a bit absurd given all the other protections it has.

[CatboyPrincess]

4 hours ago, Sazero said:

Man I want to make that spicy dark souls joke, but we live in a dark timeline my friend.

you can tell me it over dm

no one has to hear

just me and you

o_o

[CatboyPrincess]

2 hours ago, FrostDragoon said:

I really hated it when it first came out. I'm still not crazy about it, but I kind of see it like "Survival, with extra steps." The biggest problem for me is that I don't usually play with game sounds up very loud, usually 15-20 / 100 while listening to music or Youtube in the background, so this reliance on audible queues struck me as a particular poor choice not just because I play this way, but I know many others do and it gets into accessibility concerns. The bright blinking icon is good, but the initial detection range is still a little too close to the objective/players. I genuinely just think this idea that we have to go find the target is a bit absurd given all the other protections it has.

all of gameplay is "fun but with extra steps"

i like that it's more involved and active than survival, and doesn't have a strict lose condition

the lack of accessibility in that mode is its worst offence, absolutely

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

17 hours ago, Iccotak said:

Look like what? Back in 2013? I don't think anyone is asking for a return to everything of 2013 but I think people are right to say that there was a focus back then that is lacking today. That it has lost an aspect of its identity that was key to its success. That's what I see people critique about Necramechs and Archwing

I played WF recently - and imo until they do something about it Warframe is a growing pile of different unrelated systems. Steve talks about the goal being to connect everything but I've heard that before so I'll wait and see. Personally I think WF lost a bit of its magic it had back in 2014.

If I have to compare the old parkour vs new parkour - yeah I think there are some clear problems. Old Parkour was too slow, I get that, but 2.0 basically threw Parkour out the window. Now a session is just constant bullet jumping and maps are rarely ever designed around wall running & jumping.

Old was not perfect by any means - but 2.0 got rid of too much

Someone else said this in a separate thread

Just look at Monster Hunter - one of the biggest video game franchises in the world, yet it has an incredibly strong focus on its core gameplay and any new ideas or systems added are ensured to serve the core gameplay loop. MH doesn't have "Content Islands" because it's core gameplay is core to the identity of the franchise. Diversify and change things up? OK Fine, but make sure you don't lose focus of the core gameplay that made players interested in the first place.

Warframe got successfully kickstarted because of its core gameplay - it's where it is now because of its core gameplay. It's not radical to say that the thing that made the game successful should not be so casually tossed aside for the sake of "Diversity". Warframe should not try to be everything - it's not Star Citizen.

Link for that quote

 

Steve wanted this game to have railjack even in the beginning. The team was just limited by hurdles they had to overcome. 

I don't think you really can say what someone else can do with their game. I'd rather spend money on the game now because I like how it is at the moment.

[Iccotak]

32 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Steve wanted this game to have railjack even in the beginning. The team was just limited by hurdles they had to overcome. 

I don't think you really can say what someone else can do with their game. I'd rather spend money on the game now because I like how it is at the moment.

The point of forums is for feedback - I gave my feedback - you may disagree with it but I am still free to give it

[z3us32610]

On 2021-07-22 at 10:06 AM, Redfeather75 said:

I wish the enemies were better at damaging each other. Maybe it has gotten better. I haven't tried mind control in months.

When I mind control a Nox and get >1000% damage increase he will murder his fellow Grineer with that Stug.

[Loza03]

On 2021-07-23 at 3:02 PM, Iccotak said:

I think the "Fast Gameplay" of warframe is janky and Not fluid or smooth - like the current parkour system might as well just not be parkour because bullet jumping made most avenues of movement obsolete. And the "Wall Hopping" is just unappealing - never liked it.

I think that's less a problem with Warframes movement system, and more the environments it's used in. There's precious few spaces that really make use of such a high or long base jump height and long hang time granted by bullet jump and aim glide. Precious fewer that are intended to have combat take place in them on a regular basis.

I mean, most areas are designed more like traditional gameplay arenas, even post 2.0 (in some cases, worse than parkour 1.0 maps) as opposed to maps good for parkour which need verticality, walls and obstacles. Like, the new Corpus ship is a lot bigger, which is what some people think is what makes a good parkour map in WF, but there's so little to jump on or over  - the old one had a ton of catwalks. Meanwhile, the Kuva Fortress might be a maze, but there's so many little shortcuts and obstacles.

 

[FrostDragoon]

8 hours ago, Gwyndolin-chan said:

all of gameplay is "fun but with extra steps"

Not all of these things are fun, though. Many of these modes that take an existing base mode and add those "extra steps" end up being extra dumb and extra shunned.

[(NSW)Greybones]

34 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

I mean, most areas are designed more like traditional gameplay arenas, even post 2.0 (in some cases, worse than parkour 1.0 maps) as opposed to maps good for parkour which need verticality, walls and obstacles. Like, the new Corpus ship is a lot bigger, which is what some people think is what makes a good parkour map in WF, but there's so little to jump on or over  - the old one had a ton of catwalks. Meanwhile, the Kuva Fortress might be a maze, but there's so many little shortcuts and obstacles.

+1 for this observation. I expect not many people like the Kuva Fortress because it’s hard to fly through, but it’s a wonderfully dense tileset to fight in. And I expect future Grineer tileset updates to be semi-cluttered as well (at least I hope so); they’re not a clean-cut aesthetic, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the level designers build more affordances for Parkour 2.0 into the levels while preserving the more organic and busy designs.

I remember when I first played through the new Corpus Ship tileset; you were absolutely right when you said there were more catwalks in the old one, and I miss them a bit. The ships’ halls are so vast and wide I find myself running across the floor comparatively more often than the walls. When I do make contact with walls I can get a pretty good flow going, but there’s also a lot less clutter to hide behind or use to bounce off of. It’s all so… clean and vast.

That said, I found a place where frames like Hydroid or Gauss excel (and once I get Yareli, I expect I’ll be floating along on Merulina a lot too). I’ll tend to bring one of those frames who can make good use of the wide-open nature of the tilesets, like how I love using Valkyr on Jupiter

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

10 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

+1 for this observation. I expect not many people like the Kuva Fortress because it’s hard to fly through, but it’s a wonderfully dense tileset to fight in. And I expect future Grineer tileset updates to be semi-cluttered as well (at least I hope so); they’re not a clean-cut aesthetic, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the level designers build more affordances for Parkour 2.0 into the levels while preserving the more organic and busy designs.

I remember when I first played through the new Corpus Ship tileset; you were absolutely right when you said there were more catwalks in the old one, and I miss them a bit. The ships’ halls are so vast and wide I find myself running across the floor comparatively more often than the walls. When I do make contact with walls I can get a pretty good flow going, but there’s also a lot less clutter to hide behind or use to bounce off of. It’s all so… clean and vast.

That said, I found a place where frames like Hydroid or Gauss excel (and once I get Yareli, I expect I’ll be floating along on Merulina a lot too). I’ll tend to bring one of those frames who can make good use of the wide-open nature of the tilesets, like how I love using Valkyr on Jupiter

Another glaring issue is that most enemies are a holdover from parkour 1.0 and aren't designed to combat a Warframe's speed.

A lot of enemies are designed with the idea that player stamina is limited and player melee is weak without stealth. Some old Warframe powers were designed to alleviate these player limitations.

Look at OG Excalibur:

• Slash Dash: An extra movement option that doesn't draw from stamina.
• Radial Blind: CC that disrupts enemy fire and makes the melee temporarily viable via finishers in an era before Blood Rush + Body Count where Skana had a Base Damage of 35.
• Radial Javelin: An AOE attack in an era where most weapons were single target. An era even before the Tonkor.
• Super Jump: An extra movement option that doesn't draw from stamina and could be used for escaping unfavorable fights like a Ninja.

Grineer are your traditional soldiers in your bog standard cover shooter. Their endgame goal is to surround and achieve fire superiority over the player. They whittle away shields and stamina with hit scan impact weapons forcing you into cover from cover themselves. If there is no natural cover, they'll drop Blunts. Butchers flush you out of cover while you are in your weakened state. Bombards are threats that can kill you even behind cover with their AOE rockets. Warframe powers are used to disrupt the Grineer's tactical goal to give you breathing room.

Nowadays, Butchers are just dumb ON KILL fodder to fuel buffs while Melee is the strongest weapons we have. Mashing E is more efficient than bothering with finishers. Lancers are stupid for hiding behind cover that's useless against our AOE weapons. None of them can outrun a Warframe. Warframes don't need cover (by being super tanky or infinite CC) and Bombards fall just as quickly as Elite Lancers. All they got is their broken armor scaling.

New enemies like the Nox are an attempt to counter how players have changed. They have this goop that robs us of some mobility and they don't get downed by melee as easily. They got this weak-spot that's supposed to give precision weapons some purpose again.

Corpus are your more technologically advanced army. They also want to achieve fire superiority over the player, but they have exotic technology on their side. They employ shielded disposable proxies that rush and shoot without heed of any cover. They even got Bursas that are invulnerable from the front. Cover would only get in the way of their higher damaging projectile puncture weapons that did noticeably more damage to Ferrite armored Warframes than Grineer Impact guns. Instead of archaic cover that stopped bullets from both sides, Nullifier bubbles soak up our bullets while letting the Corpus continue shooting theirs without stopping. In contrast to the typical Grineer Lancer, who stops shooting to take cover. These Nullifier bubbles also add an extra limitation to our powers that we don't face against the Grineer. Running out of stamina to run while being trapped in a bubble was a death sentence.

Nowadays, Corpus are fancy paper because all our power creeped meta weapons are balanced around broken Grineer armor scaling.

Infested are your Zerg of the big three. They don't have guns, but they have numbers and are fast. Not so scary when players are even faster. They can leech energy, so it's harder to use infinite CC on them like you can on the Grineer I guess.

A lot of missions themselves don't age well with parkour 2.0. Enemies in capture, sabotage and rescue missions are little more than set pieces we can zoom past without any consequence or difficulty. DE just ends up resorting to reskinned Mobile Defense to get us to engage with them.