Is it time to bring back self damage on AOE weapons?

[(PSN)OmegAmorbis]

I can already feel some folks breaking out in hives at the thought of this, but here's what I'm thinking. Right now, it feels like we're at a point where aoe weapons make almost everything else look like a worse option by comparison. Self stagger, while annoying, isn't much of a penalty and can be mitigated by mods, so there's no reason to not just spam them at every opportunity. I don't believe in nerfing their damage or giving single target weapons aoe in some form.

Instead, get rid of the current stagger/knockback mechanic and bring back self damage, albeit slightly modified. Rather than taking you from full health and shields to dead, like in the old days, this new version would deal a percentage of your current hp. Shield gating would still protect your health, provided it's up. If not, taking a hit would cost you, perhaps, 50-75% of your current hp. That sounds like a lot, but I think it's necessary to encourage people to choose their shots more carefully, while still leaving some margin for error. Cautious Shot would then be tweaked to reduce that amount by, let's say, half. I don't know if this would be an ideal solution, but I prefer it over other ideas I've seen proffered. Mostly, I'm just curious to see what people think.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Nope. 

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

The stagger might be annoying on some weapons, but it will never be as annoying as getting killed by my own weapons. I could live with that suggestion, to be fair, but I'd still prefer self-stagger. I love me my power fantasy.

[--F--NerevarCM]

Just now, (PSN)Hikuro-93 said:

The stagger might be annoying on some weapons, but it will never be as annoying as getting killed by my own weapons. I could live with that suggestion, to be fair, but I'd still prefer self-stagger. I love me my power fantasy.

There's no self-stagger. Prime Sure Footed exists and everyone spammimg AoE weapons use it.

[Incongruous]

Yes, self-damage should have never been removed. All those who cry because they killed themselves for the nth time with their Bramma should just learn to keep their distance and to actually aim at enemies that are farther than one meter away from them.

I also like the changes you propose. I doubt they'll add it back in because of all the people who'd rather face-tank the enemies and shoot at their feet for the big AoE damage number though.

[(XBOX)ScooterLaroo]

 There really is no reason to add back self-damage.

None at all.

"Be careful where you shoot!" That argument has been used so many times and has basically been put into the ground. If you play with other players or there is way too many enemies, then how can you "be careful" when all your allies are ping ponging all over the map at speeds you can barely see and react to? I bet you I've seen more deaths to explosive weapons because of allies getting in the way than I have because no one thinks about where they are shooting.

Even now your own companions (Including Specters, Crewmate Summon, Hound, Vulp, and even summons like Wukong's Clone) gets in the way of shots. Meaning you now have to contend with at least 1 maybe 2 to around 4 random AIs doing whatever they want and constantly moving into your own line of sights, mucking up already dangerous shots with self-stagger. 

So no, this argument has been had more than enough times. There is no reason to go back to self-damage. Is the current system perfect? No. But should we go back to a system almost everyone in the Warframe fandom hated to the point they wouldn't even use explosive weapons? NO.

Even with what you suggested, two shots and your dead from your own weapon. And forcing players to have to put a mod into their already cluttered weapon just so they don't take as much damage is one of the most selfish things I've heard. You shouldn't require a mod so your weapon can be somewhat good but still too dangerous for you to have fun with. 

Most weapons now need a lot of mods to make them good, and if someone wants to put a riven in their weapon to make it even better, they should be allowed to. They shouldn't have to pick between a mod from Arbitrations (Meaning only the Veteran Players have access to it, meaning no new players would ever, ever want to go near explosive weapons again. I know I didn't when I first picked up this game and nearly killed myself with the ogris.) and having some fun with a decent explosive weapon that could help them. That's one of the main reasons why a lot of players leave or have left when they heard about the Melee nerf, because all it was doing is what you are suggesting, basically make a weapon too expensive to use and not at all useful for the amount of time, effort, and forma needed to make it that good only for it to suck. It's just removing more weapons from the pool of available ones and we go right back to everyone not using explosive weapons because they've outlived their usefulness. 

TL;DR: The new system is a lot better than Self-Damage, the self-damage system was basically like the Super Jump of Warframe abilities, it wasn't needed in the first place and long out-lived its usefulness. You could argue about games like TF2 and their self damage, but the only classes that can get self-damage from their normal weapons (excluding the Engineer) have a natural damage reduction from their own weapons because of their class, aka, something Warframe does not and will not have.

 

[Aldain]

Only if the damage is rational and not "Oh you clipped your toe with a Tonkor Blast? GG use a rez scrub".

[Loza03]

I wouldn't be totally opposed, at least on the most powerful weapons. Certainly, weapons like the Scourge, Opticor, or even weaker explosive weapons don't deserve it, but the Bramma and its ilk could do with a meaningful weak spot.

 

Ultimately, though, I think the problem mostly lies in the simple fact that the damage system as a whole is in sore need of a once-over. Sort out armour, sort out EHP and damage disparaty between enemy factions, warframes, between enemies vs players. Put everything on a level playing field, and from there sort weapons out so that single-target weapons have some meaningfully tanky single targets to take out that AoE weapons struggle against, so the two weapon classes have meaningful distinction. Instead of trying to cram every weapon into being good at the same thing.

[George_PPS]

3 hours ago, (PSN)OmegAmorbis said:

Instead, get rid of the current stagger/knockback mechanic and 

Why don't you suggest buffs to weapons that aren't as strong? and what? AND BUFF OTHER WEAPONS SUCH AS ADDING MORE PUNCH THROUGH! 

We had this envious environment during 2017 to 2020 and many weapons got destroyed and nerfed to the ground because few players complained. We can't go back to the dark days. Why players are coming back? Buffs and buffs and stronger enemies for more FUN!! Duh!!

PS I do agree all staggers/knockbacks need to get removed/reduced! They should only be implemented very limitedly. 

[George_PPS]

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

weapons like the Scourge, Opticor, or even weaker explosive weapons don't deserve it,

 

Exactly. When few players propose nerfs because they don't like how others play and enjoy these weapons, many related weapons are collaterally damaged/destroyed.  

[Loza03]

40 minutes ago, George_PPS said:

Exactly. When few players propose nerfs because they don't like how others play and enjoy these weapons, many related weapons are collaterally damaged/destroyed.  

I should like to point out that I am 100% proposing sweeping changes that would absolutely involve nerfs that would 'destroy' many weapons as the one-size-fits-all solutions to every combat scenario that they currently exist in, on account of the fact that I don't like the fact that these weapons destroy how I and many others like to play and enjoy the vast majority of other weapons, and I don't think this needs to be some zero-sum game of fun where one kind of weapon/frame type (AoE nuker and arguably crowd controller) gets all the attention over other playstyles.

[xcrimsonlegendx]

3 times in my sortie I had teammates run in front of my Zarr and send me flying backwards from self stagger, that's a hard nope from me.

[(PSN)OmegAmorbis]

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Certainly, weapons like the Scourge, Opticor, or even weaker explosive weapons don't deserve it

I didn't remember to put this in my initial post, but I agree that some weapons should be exempt. The Opticor was actually the first weapon I thought of, as I always thought it was baffling that it got stagger added to it in the first place.

[--F--NerevarCM]

1 hour ago, George_PPS said:

Why don't you suggest buffs to weapons that aren't as strong? and what? AND BUFF OTHER WEAPONS SUCH AS ADDING MORE PUNCH THROUGH!

Holy S#&$ why no one ever proposed this before ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

For the millionth time in this forum, ADDING PUNCH THROUGH WONT DO S#&$! BUFFS WON'T DO S#&$!

My Latron P deals 5 MILLION DAMAGE PER SHOT! But doesn't matter how many buffs or how many kilometers of punch through it have, it will NEVER KILL FASTER THAN AN AOE WEAPON!

Adding Punch Through will only make the Latron P kill 2 or 3 enemies per shot. While my Trumna kills 50 with one grenade bounce of one grenade. AND IT SHOOTS 5!

Can you see the fcking problem here? Or DE nerfs AoE or make every gun in the game an AoE weapon to be usable.


 

[(NSW)Greybones]

I'm not against a percentage-based damage for self damage, but I find the stagger a lot more dangerous/flow breaking than if I'd just lost a chunk of life or shield from self damage.

Usually I'm bouncing around all over the place, and hitting myself with selfdamage at the moment is like getting a hard landing; severely flow-breaking and unpleasant feeling if I don't recover. And when I'm facing a bunch of enemies, I feel downright terrified of shooting my own feet if I'm not confident I can recover, because then the enemies will shred me while I'm playing the stagger animation, and I rely on my movement normally to keep that from happening (I prefer keeping Prime Surefooted or Cautious Shot in the back pocket for silly builds, though I may at some point find myself needing them, perhaps).

Not complaining, mind; I'm feeling the cost of being careless but still able to flub some shots by accident, and I can appreciate that it's working. In some ways, I prefer it because it's more threatening than if I were to just lose some health or shields, since it's taking into consideration game mechanics like mobility in a rather (I think) clever way.

I have this sneaking suspicion as well that the main reason some players want self damage back is because that's the only way they can feel threatened since otherwise they're equipping all the survival mods and don't want enemies to have a chance; their worst enemy is themselves.

[Andele3025]

5 hours ago, --F--NerevarCM said:

There's no self-stagger. Prime Sure Footed exists and everyone spammimg AoE weapons use it.

There was no self-damage either, Revenant, Rhino, Nezha, Volt, Garuda (and if one doesnt mind niche setups, Frost and Gara), etc exist. And everyone was spamming aoe since the dawn of time in any dungeon crawler/looter game and will continue to do so till objectives arent just kill or waste time (so kill to not fall asleep).

[Aldain]

15 minutes ago, Andele3025 said:

There was no self-damage either, Revenant, Rhino, Nezha, Volt, Garuda (and if one doesnt mind niche setups, Frost and Gara), etc exist.

Uh aside from Revanent most of the defensive abilities on those frames couldn't hold a candle to the top-of-the-line AoE blasts of yester year.

Especially before Shield Gating was added, I saw so many Rhinos blowing themselves up through Iron Skin it wasn't funny.

[--F--NerevarCM]

16 minutes ago, Andele3025 said:

There was no self-damage either, Revenant, Rhino, Nezha, Volt, Garuda (and if one doesnt mind niche setups, Frost and Gara), etc exist. And everyone was spamming aoe since the dawn of time in any dungeon crawler/looter game and will continue to do so till objectives arent just kill or waste time (so kill to not fall asleep).

What? You could literally kill yourself even with Iron Skin/Warding Halo. Thats why one of Rhino's builds was using self damage to buff IS health.

[Andele3025]

40 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Uh aside from Revanent most of the defensive abilities on those frames couldn't hold a candle to the top-of-the-line AoE blasts of yester year.

Revenant was the easiest since its just keeping buff active, but with appropriate cheese prep any of them could and still can soak your own damage for ages.

It wasnt worth it or fun IMO except for the Lenz which lost part of its point of existence, but id also ask how many people count the 400 day wait, exilus slot unlock and D forma on each frame they use for aoe to be worth it.

40 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Especially before Shield Gating was added, I saw so many Rhinos blowing themselves up through Iron Skin it wasn't funny.

39 minutes ago, --F--NerevarCM said:

You could literally kill yourself even with Iron Skin/Warding Halo.

And you can put on a half ranked PSF and still get staggered half the time since its only 100% at max. Doesnt change the point that equal mindless aoe was possible and as viable only with extra arsenal lock instead of exilus slot lock OR simply by going for weapons without self damage or melee or a frame that can nuke.

[Tyreaus]

9 hours ago, (PSN)OmegAmorbis said:

Self stagger...can be mitigated by mods

Maybe that's the real problem. Or, at least, that's the part that should be looked at first.

Self-damage and self-stagger both push the player to be more judicious in their firing. Whether it's self-stagger or self-destruction, it's annoying, and players in general are going to avoid annoyances.

The main difference is long-term: self-damage can kill a mission run. often quite easily (and quickly and unpredictably). That's basically what turns it from a "be careful" mechanic to a "don't use" mechanic. So we have to ask: do you want the player to be discouraged from using explosive weapons, or do you want the player to be careful when using them? Self-damage fits the former; self-stagger the latter.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Vex Armor?

Covenant?

yes please, I'd really like to go back to exploiting self-damage for these abilities.

[Leqesai]

11 hours ago, Incongruous said:

Yes, self-damage should have never been removed.

100% agree.

Removing self damage was a major mistake. The only way to keep AOE weapons SOMEWHAT balanced is the risk of killing yourself.

[Leqesai]

Just now, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

Vex Armor?

Covenant?

yes please, I'd really like to go back to exploiting self-damage for these abilities.

This is barely an issue though. Getting vex armor to max is not difficult nor is getting covenant to max.

If anything the only real issue I see is with trinity's link but they had already fixed that interaction prior to removing self damage.

Other frames like Equinox don't function very well without self damage. Getting her pacify aura to max slow is a major pain in the neck without self damage.

[Leqesai]

1 hour ago, Tyreaus said:

Self-damage and self-stagger both push the player to be more judicious in their firing. Whether it's self-stagger or self-destruction, it's annoying, and players in general are going to avoid annoyances.

 

This is a very valid point. Part of the issue is the fact that the penalty (whatever that may be) has a mod that completely negates it. 

In the days of self-damage there was cautious shot that negated -most- of the damage but even with the mod the threat of killing oneself was real. The stagger mechanics, even without Primed Sure Footed are more of an annoyance than a real method of keeping these incredibly overpowered weapons from destroying the meta. If you aren't using AOE weapons you're regularly doing anywhere between 50% to 10% of the damage of a player that uses AOE to instantly zone rooms. 

AOE has always been really powerful, but many players avoided using them because the cost was so high. I feel like this makes sense. A rocket launcher SHOULD be extremely powerful, but we should not be able to simply shrug off the explosion. 

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

1 hour ago, Leqesai said:

This is barely an issue though. Getting vex armor to max is not difficult nor is getting covenant to max.

pardon me, I might have come off as sarcastic

No, I seriously want self damage back so I can use it for those abilities. I happen to enjoy using exploits. Its a good QoL to be able to just shoot my feet to max out these abilities on demand. Sometimes the enemies just don't deal damage to me fast enough because they're too busy being crowd controlled or something.