Jump to content
Dante Unbound: Share Bug Reports and Feedback Here! ×

Needed change to dragon key following shield gating.


dwqrf

Recommended Posts

18 hours ago, quxier said:

A lot of systems should be redesigned not only shields. If there are enough enemies then your constant shield regen won't help you. "Enemies vs you" should be balanced. If there are enemies that can take your shield/hp before you can even breath then people will try something that doesn't really on numbers.

Certainly there are other factors, but consider the current state of shields. It doesn't matter what you do with the system, shields themselves cannot be sufficient. They take too long to start recovering and they take too long to recover to full. With the current system as it stands, a player relying on shields for protection has to spend more time camping out of line of sight than actually fighting because the time required to get shields back is prohibitively long. Constant shield recharge means that players will find themselves with entirely depleted shields less often as shields can recover somewhat between instances of damage. Full shield recovery upon shield recovery delay means that players only need to take cover for a few seconds, rather than the 20-30 seconds it would normally take to recover shields to full.

None of these things are panacea when enemies exist who can strip shields and health in one shot, of course not. They should, however, help dramatically in most situations besides that one. Crucially, they are a means of using shields themselves as damage mitigation, whereas the shield gate is only tangentially related to shields themselves. You can entirely remove shields from the game, leave just the "gate" on a timer and precious little would change. This is no longer a "shields" system. It is a "damage gate" system. I don't think that's a good direction to go in.

 

On 2021-08-22 at 8:09 PM, Tiltskillet said:

Narrator:  But Steel Rook had not accounted for... [dramatic pause]

Narrator:  ...the Aquablades meta.  [spooky music] 

OK, fair point :) I did indeed neglect the "passive damage aura" aspect of Warframe. Gara has a similar mechanic, as well. I suppose it is possible to constantly roll around with a damage aura on. There are ways to address this, such as suspending enemy-affecting effects while rolling or just AoE damage auras while rolling, etc. It just feels like - as it stands right now - rolling is almost entirely redundant with sliding except it can't be cancelled and it interrupts animations. I figure stuff like "i-frames" ought to be inherent to rolls, rather than reliant on mods. You don't even have to make it last the entire animation, much less animation time + extra. Could simply tie to the start of the roll's animation and get much of the same effect.

Having said that - this depends on Warframe's network protocols, specifically how damage to clients is synced. I don't actually know this. If damage is hard-synced with the host, then a very short invulnerability duration on roll would be hard to use for clients. Because damage arrives "late" for clients, it's entirely possible for them to dodge an attack, only for the host to say "No, you actually got hit by that 2 seconds later than you rolled." If Warframe is closer to Payday, though, that might work. The host pushes instances of damage to clients that it saw them take. Clients, however, can say "No, actually, I'm out of LoS from my perspective. I'm not taking that damage." If that's the case for Warframe, then local players should still be able to dodge just fine.

I suspect you were joking, but it is a point worth considering just the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

None of these things are panacea when enemies exist who can strip shields and health in one shot, of course not. They should, however, help dramatically in most situations besides that one.

In those kind of situations you don't need that help, imho.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, quxier said:

A lot of systems should be redesigned not only shields

Damn right.

The worst offender of all systems in Warframe is the asinine Armor to Damage Reduction that is used to make Grineer tanky. This issue is long-standing but made much much more obvious within Steel Path. Grineer have a huge amount more EHP than any other faction and it has made balancing the game less "make this more balanced across the board" and more "make this more effective against grineer and WAY more effective against other factions"

The solution to this is actually very simple. Just set the damage reduction of armored enemy units to a static value. The value of armor is still useful in terms of how much needs to be stripped/removed for it to lose effectiveness but it eliminates the all or nothing system we currently have. Also use this as an opportunity to return corrosive procs to where they can fully strip armor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Dragon Key reduces Shield Gate Effectiveness by 50%.

I would say a better option is to just outright disable the shield gate when you have the key. Problem solved pretty much. You still have the reduced shields, but you can't cheese stuff with the shield gate anymore.

However... Isn't this whole setup the only way a lot of the squisher frames can even survive against high level enemies? In which case some alternative for those should be in play before this whole thing is removed, otherwise those frames will just be bumped off the "usable" list by a lot of players. It also doesn't solve the whole backwards logic of less shields being better for defense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Vahenir said:

I would say a better option is to just outright disable the shield gate when you have the key. Problem solved pretty much. You still have the reduced shields, but you can't cheese stuff with the shield gate anymore.

 

Bam. This is the solution 100%.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, quxier said:

In those kind of situations you don't need that help, imho.

So... shields are only necessary when enemies can one-shot us, and aren't necessary when they can't. Well, that just brings me back to my previous point - why not dump the concept of "shields" entirely and leave players with just the gate? Rename it to "damage gate," reset it ever X seconds and you have ostensibly the system we have now.

Shields can't be relied on for damage mitigation in high levels. You can maybe argue that for Hyldrin and MAAAYBE for Harrow, but that's about it. You either tank damage to health+armour or your tank damage to shield gate. Shield capacity is too low and shield recharge too slow for the actual shields value to be of any use. As far as I'm concerned, shields absolutely need "that help" in every situation above level 30 or so.

 

2 hours ago, Leqesai said:

The solution to this is actually very simple. Just set the damage reduction of armored enemy units to a static value. The value of armor is still useful in terms of how much needs to be stripped/removed for it to lose effectiveness but it eliminates the all or nothing system we currently have. Also use this as an opportunity to return corrosive procs to where they can fully strip armor.

Off-topic, but you have an alternative here - flat damage reduction. Tie that damage reduction to base weapon damage (so armour reduces damage before buffs are applied) and you have a system by which Grineer become progressively more resistant to small arms as they level up, while still being susceptible to hard-hitting weapons. It's not a "simple" solution since you'd need some kind of maximum amount of damage reduction (can't have players dealing 0 or 1) and you may need additional accounting for shotguns and sniper rifles and headshots and such, but it's a decent way to handle damage resistance while also giving the Grineer logical strengths and weaknesses beyond "because the game said so."

 

2 hours ago, Vahenir said:

However... Isn't this whole setup the only way a lot of the squisher frames can even survive against high level enemies? In which case some alternative for those should be in play before this whole thing is removed, otherwise those frames will just be bumped off the "usable" list by a lot of players. It also doesn't solve the whole backwards logic of less shields being better for defense.

Hence why I argue that both shields and the shield gate ought to be rethought, rather than attempting a "quick fix patch." Warframe is in the situation we find it in right now because DE consistently refuse to implement systemic changes in favour of piling on more special-case exceptions until systems collapse under their own weight. I say bring back the Warframe Revised patches and actually look at core gameplay mechanics again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

So... shields are only necessary when enemies can one-shot us, and aren't necessary when they can't. Well, that just brings me back to my previous point - why not dump the concept of "shields" entirely and leave players with just the gate? Rename it to "damage gate," reset it ever X seconds and you have ostensibly the system we have now.

Shields can't be relied on for damage mitigation in high levels. You can maybe argue that for Hyldrin and MAAAYBE for Harrow, but that's about it. You either tank damage to health+armour or your tank damage to shield gate. Shield capacity is too low and shield recharge too slow for the actual shields value to be of any use. As far as I'm concerned, shields absolutely need "that help" in every situation above level 30 or so.

I meant shield regeneration not just shield. You said:

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Constant shield recharge means that players will find themselves with entirely depleted shields less often as shields can recover somewhat between instances of damage. Full shield recovery upon shield recovery delay means that players only need to take cover for a few seconds, rather than the 20-30 seconds it would normally take to recover shields to full.

In low level nodes your shield will regenerate faster than enemies can deplete your shields.

In higher level nodes enemies will deal more damage than your shield can regenerate.

In the middle (of Bell curve) you have "constant fight" - sometimes enemies deals more damage sometimes you regenerate shield faster. This is, however, not very big part of game.

Some sort of constant shield regeneration might move middle section of Bell curve to the right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Vahenir said:

Isn't this whole setup the only way a lot of the squisher frames can even survive against high level enemies?

No? Players have been taking Banshee to level cap since Resonance was released, long before the Shield Gate. Plenty of squishy frames can survive without it, you just have to play differently to the way many players do now.

Playing with the Shield Gate isn't even survivability in a sense. Playing with the Shield Gate is how squishy frames simulate damage tanking, when before that they played to not be hit in the first place. Warframe has lots of ways for players to run long missions without getting killed (because back when I joined Self Revives were 4 per frame per day, and had to be bought with Plat if you ran out and wanted to play that frame more... not to be a boomer about it). Heck, remember that Khora only has a self-heal as her defense beyond CC, and people quickly took her to amazingly high level because of her abilities, and she was released 11 months before Shield Gating existed.

Even with the Shield Gate, the way squishy frames survive has always been Abilities. Even when those abilities only have stuns or staggers as their CC to not get hit, people have been doing massively long runs into high level with squishy frames just on how they place themselves, using their abilities, using Status based CC and the age old 'kills are good CC' method.

Anyway;

10 hours ago, Vahenir said:

I would say a better option is to just outright disable the shield gate when you have the key. Problem solved pretty much. You still have the reduced shields, but you can't cheese stuff with the shield gate anymore.

Well yes, the difference being that you can avoid complete back-tracking. Both your and my solution removes the Shield Gate and Key exploit, mine is an iteration, yours is a revert, if you can see the difference.

DE are famous for never fully back-tracking on an idea after it's out of the 'patch window'. If something isn't reverted in the first two or three months after implementation, DE have only ever iterated on it, or replaced it again with something newer.

So, a solution that doesn't fully remove shield gating, even under the specific circumstances, but still gives players a tangible and meaningful down-side that completely prevents the strategy they've developed? That should be something DE would at least consider.

On the other hand...

This is all stick, no carrot.

Why not balance this nerf out with a buff?

So that modding for more Shields actually has benefits as well, rather than just being an inhibitor for the Shield Gate that we do have?

Why not use the fact that DE put 25% DR onto Shields and let that increase as you 'strengthen' your shields? Give each mod that increases Shields an additional stat that adds DR to shields.

For example, the basic Redirection might add an extra 100% DR to Shields, meaning that the average frame with 300 Shields would then have 925 Shields and 50% DR on those Shields. (This means you would have 1850 Effective Shields, the same way that Armour increases Effective Health).

Maybe the mods that add much less Shield points actually add more DR, like Augur Accord only adds 180% Shield, taking you up to 600, but might add 150% DR, taking you up to 62.5% DR. (For comparison, the Effective value there is 1602 Shields, quite competitive, despite the lower base number.)

Or maybe the mods that give additional effects to Shields, like Retribution, which gives a 60% Chance to deal Electric damage to enemies that melee you, maybe this mod could add a lot of Shield DR, like 220% which brings you up to a full 80% DR on Shields. (That's equivalent to 1200 Armour on Health, and gives even a base 300 Shields an Effective value of 1500.)

If we make that system curve, just like Armour does, then it naturally will never reach total DR, and it makes stacking Warframe abilities on top, like Nezha's Warding Halo or Mesa's Shatter Shield, incredibly effective.

But maybe that's a little too hopeful...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Why not balance this nerf out with a buff?

Well, if you slot a dragon key its not supposed to be a buff in any way or form, right? It just seems kind of excessive to keep a shield gate at all in that scenario. If you have a dragon key you're either doing a riven challenge or popping vaults, neither of which are all that high level. That is apart from cheesing with the shield gate of course.

 

35 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

For example, the basic Redirection might add an extra 100% DR to Shields, meaning that the average frame with 300 Shields would then have 925 Shields and 50% DR on those Shields. (This means you would have 1850 Effective Shields, the same way that Armour increases Effective Health).

Something like this could definitely work. Also toxin /really/ shouldn't bypass tenno shields as that kind of makes full on shields tanks impossible if the enemies have any kind of toxin damage. If people need to build for HP to not get one shot by a shot with toxin on it then shields will always remain worse off. Once that is done then i could definitely see shields becoming useful on especially frames with low armor. Perhaps add some kind of shield "armor" stat on the frames themselves as well so that a crappy armor frame could have very good shields for instance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Vahenir said:

Well, if you slot a dragon key its not supposed to be a buff in any way or form, right?

You mis-understand, maybe I should have worded that better.

We are implementing a way to nerf Shield Gating on top of the effects that the Dragon Key does. This is just a straight nerf to existing Shield Tanking modding, which will make a lot of players that use that method... salty, to be fair.

So why not also, at the same time, and not connected to the Nerf, also implement a Buff that makes modding for Shields more worth it?

What this would do is create a little more balance to whatever update this becomes, see?

The ideas also works for you, so there isn't really a downside here ^^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

So why not also, at the same time, and not connected to the Nerf, also implement a Buff that makes modding for Shields more worth it?

Well, this is necessary to do at the same time as a potential nerf of the gate with the key imo. 

However... Reworking the shield gate to only remove 50% damage will bring back the one shots. I for one would prefer never seeing that again. It could be reworked to some kind of max damage per hit cap so that frames with no shields don't end up easier to kill than those with a shield gate. Something so that players can only take something like 50% of the frames combined shield and HP value, rounded down so that three hits at the minimum required to kill a player should work. Another option is just a flat limit per hit, say 500 damage after damage reduction, or even both and just go with whatever value is higher. Exceptions can of course be made for stuff that should one shot players no matter what. (Like the orb exploding, special boss mechanics and similar)
If something like that is added then i could see the shield gate being weakened or outright removed entirely as it would no longer be needed. But at the end of the day some form of one shot protection is in my opinion necessary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Vahenir said:

However... Reworking the shield gate to only remove 50% damage will bring back the one shots.

Again, I think you're misunderstanding a little here...

Remember, this is only with the Dragon Key equipped. I'm not proposing a rework to the Shield Gate itself.

I think that my version is a balance between the options that have been proposed so far in the thread. Some players, including you, want the Dragon Key to remove the Shield Gate entirely, other players want the Dragon Key to remove Shields entirely to prevent the Shield Gate from being a thing. Meanwhile we have to consider that nerfing something like this too hard is not exactly going to go down easily with the player base that currently uses it.

Thus, a more balanced approach from me; when the Dragon Key is equipped, you don't get Invulnerability on Shield Break, you get 50% Damage Reduction on that hit.

The Dragon Key can't be used as an exploitative function for the Shield Gate, it's a genuine nerf when you equip it rather than a buff, but it's not as heavy a nerf as it could be. Yes there can still be one-shots, but that's exactly what the other suggestions would cause too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, quxier said:

Some sort of constant shield regeneration might move middle section of Bell curve to the right.

Yup, and that's more or less my goal. DE seem to have moved "standard high-level" content to the 80-100 level. Obviously if you go above that then your defences will collapse and the "meta" will shrink significantly, but that's the nature of just boosting numbers above the point of balance. As long as we can keep shields relevant up to about level 100, then I'll be happy.

 

16 minutes ago, Vahenir said:

It could be reworked to some kind of max damage per hit cap so that frames with no shields don't end up easier to kill than those with a shield gate.

That would be a better solution, yes. That's actually what City of Heroes used to do. If you take damage equal to or greater than your maximum health, that would be reduced to "max health - 1" so you could never be killed from full health. I like your more conservative approach of limiting individual shots to no more than 50% of player max health. Would actually make Overshields worth a crap since those would likely not be accounted for in the max health calculation on account of being dynamic. Certainly better than having a "shield gate" which can be used to gain theoretical immortality.

To go back to Payday 2 for a second, something that game did pretty well was the "damage grace period" mechanic. Broadly speaking, you gained a brief period of invulnerability after receiving damage. I propose using a modification that myself and a mod maker came up with to prevent small shots from entirely blocking big shots. After taking damage, the player is immune to further damage for 0.5s. If the player receives damage higher than what triggered the grace period, the difference between the initial hit and the follow-up hit is dealt, but the period is not reset. Basically, this limits the amount of damage the player can take to just the largest source of damage available and makes it harder to be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.

Between one-shot protection and spam protection, I think we may be able to cap enemy damage down to a meaningful level where we're not forced into a "mitigation meta." Or worse, forced into a permanent "glass cannon" meta.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Yup, and that's more or less my goal. DE seem to have moved "standard high-level" content to the 80-100 level. Obviously if you go above that then your defences will collapse and the "meta" will shrink significantly, but that's the nature of just boosting numbers above the point of balance. As long as we can keep shields relevant up to about level 100, then I'll be happy.

If that's your goal then it's very possible. However keep in mind that levels doesn't mean damage your frame will get. 40-50 non-open-world level is kind of easy to survive with some build but going with the same build to the Void Storm exterminate on Pluto (similar level afair) I had much harder time surviving.

If they at least balance stuffs up to 100 level them your suggestion would be great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2021-08-24 at 10:17 AM, quxier said:

In low level nodes your shield will regenerate faster than enemies can deplete your shields.

In higher level nodes enemies will deal more damage than your shield can regenerate.

In the middle (of Bell curve) you have "constant fight" - sometimes enemies deals more damage sometimes you regenerate shield faster. This is, however, not very big part of game.

Some sort of constant shield regeneration might move middle section of Bell curve to the right.

This is an interesting concept as it resonates with me as I think about one of my fights in the 110 Lich Kuva Fortress defense I did relatively recently (and failed, and am going to try again for testing purposes).

As I thought of that fight I was compelled to look up the unbroken shield recharge delay, but the wiki doesn’t seem to show it? It feels like less than a second, but I’m not sure how long it actually takes aside from guesstimation (I may be missing something on the wiki)

edit: Got answer; turns out I missed it in the wiki 👍

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...