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I'm starting to see the gist of this "sustainable content"


TheArmchairThinker

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5 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

And what's the difference between difficulty settings now, if not enemies having more health and deal more damage than lower difficulty setting?

(PSN)DoctorWho_90250 answered this well: It differs from game to game based on each game's mechanics.

In the case of SP, enemies are given additional health/shields/armor, a new enemy type is encountered  (Acolytes), team bonus consumables (eg energy pads) have a 1 minute cooldown and spawnrates in endless missions are always set to the spawnrate one would have in normal mode with a full squad.

5 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Seeing how people brag how things are not a challenge and going ape over a nerf that makes steel path trivial, or how people start covering things with other things presented as problem, I doubt people want it and there are still people who get wrecked in SP

Also, game that "rises to their level" doesn't give you power to get 100% more damage and more often than not the gear power rating is just meaningless numbers to gate things away if you're below the requirement and do nothing if you're over it

How people react to nerfs varies from player to player and circumstances/implementations of said nerfs. 

In terms of wanting a continued challenge in Warframe, the myriad of threads on this forum as well as Reddit regarding Warframe being too easy, or there being no challenge, along with said threads' support from the community is certainly indicative of players wanting an option for continued challenge/higher difficulty as they progress, just as there are players who enjoy challenging difficulty settings in other games.

Depending on the mechanics, some of the games mentioned give you far more than 100% more damage. Usually the challenge doesn't involve just a simple gear check.

5 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

WIth how things spouted as should be balanced? Sure, lets balance it to star chart level instead and enjoy steel path being bullet sponges as "hard mode"

Apparently DE's aim is to have balance set around normal mode. That's perfectly fine. PublikDomain explained how differences in maximum player power should not vary by a large margin in order to attain proper balance as it grants greater variety to the player.

5 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Seeing how having "challenging difficulty" end up nerfing things, and not everyone on the same level, how can you guarantee that none of the things currently will get nerfed?

The pursuit of continued proper balance is what usually leads to things being nerfed and/or buffed. A "no nerfs ever" guarantee would be one of the stupidest guarantees anyone could ever make if they plan to have a game that strives to maintain even a hint of balance in an online game, PvE or PvP.

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6 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

On the topic of "taking their toys away", if the game were balanced properly then there wouldn't be such a massive divide between good and bad equipment. By definition, normalizing player power means that all of the games strategies (weapons, frames, etc.) would be closer together in power. Which means more stuff is viable across a wider portion of the game. DE "taking toys away" is literally what they're doing right now by trying to create challenge out of numbers increases, like in Steel Path. With such a wide range of power, the higher DE sets the bar the less there is that can actually overcome it. The higher the numbers go, the fewer and fewer toys still work. And that's lame. A balanced game means more toys work, not less.

I remember our previous conversations.

Has DE not set the bar in an optional game mode?

Steel Path seems optional, there’s not much in there worth getting unless someone wants to. Would removing the handful of unique rewards fulfill the criteria you’re looking for? DE will then have made anything useable for content with unique rewards.

Or is it that any combination of equipment should be enough to do the highest level content? We have all these exilus and augment and QoL mods that we can combine that ultimately will struggle with level 40 enemies. A build full of non-damage and non-survival increase mods sounds like… what you’d want to balance for? That would ensure that it’s not that we’re increasing in power, but instead we’re gaining more options until we acquire everything, in which case we’ll have every combination of options and be able to combine them however.

I remember your chart with the inverted triangle, where once we get to the end, we can use every option and combination available

edit: 🤔 Or is it that as we play, we intrinsically get stronger? Like a standard MMO?

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5 hours ago, (PSN)DoctorWho_90250 said:

I'm not like TheArmChairThinker, at the same time I don't like Steel Path because I'd rather DE had gone with allowing players to set their difficulty. Initially, DE discussed allowing players to just set the difficulty themselves so streamers wouldn't utilize the Simulacrum in their videos. This would have been great. Players, streamers and non-streamers, could just set the difficulty to whatever level they wanted and have at it. Instead, we got Steel Path. Now, DE could make manual difficulty setting available at some point, but they went with Steel Path so players would have to grind for things because what is content in Warframe without some form of grind. Sigh.

I can see valid points and lesser-desired effects for both a manual level increase, as well as Steel Path, from both a player perspective and DE's perspective. 

Manual level selection indeed makes it easier for players to get to a point where they can start with a challenge, but the lesser desired effect is pub-game viability would likely suffer and players would either be going solo, or in pre-made teams. I would guess DE wants pubgames at higher difficulty settings to still be viable and played. I would guess balancing late-game may be more complex as well.

Based on data available to DE, the median player's power progression may be in line with enemy damage output and durability and overall balance by the time they finish the base Star Chart, as the median player may not have access to all the tools that trivializes the content. As such DE doesn't want to touch enemy balance there. Conversely, the difference between enemy damage output and enemy durability at higher levels on non-SP, say lvl 200, is far out of balance considering late-game player tools, hence the introduction of health/shield/armor bonuses. In terms of lesser-desired effects of SP, players do not have the choice of which level to start at, but late-game balancing may be easier and have no effect on normal mode, despite the current balancing issues in end-game SP.

DE likely also looked at data from various sources in terms of player retention and future possibilities in going both routes. With both manual level selection and SP, they release new (or "new") content for players, but the manual level selection is a one-time release kind of thing, whereas going the SP route allows them to introduce other difficulty settings in the future as content, in which there may be other modifiers to address higher-level imbalances, likely with the potential for greater player retention, easier balancing options and methods to introduce other higher-difficulty related content.

Depending on what DE's roadmap is, I can be swayed to either method. Personally though, my hope is for the roadmap to include a new difficulty setting in which better balance at late-game is attained through various modifiers addressing some enemy balancing and very overpowered tools we have (eg some Operator abilities, some very specific effective immortality mechanics etc), without DE having to alter anything in normal mode for players who are happy there.

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2 hours ago, Silligoose said:

Apparently DE's aim is to have balance set around normal mode.

I would love to see your attempts to back up that claim, because as far as what's apparent, DE keeps releasing more and more stuff (though not all the stuff because DE's not the best at balancing) that makes SP easier and completely trivializes normal mode. See gun arcanes, Galvanized mods, Helminth invigorations, for example. At most, one can argue that DE "aims" for it but misses the mark completely.

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31 minutes ago, Perfectly_Framed_Waifu said:

I would love to see your attempts to back up that claim, because as far as what's apparent, DE keeps releasing more and more stuff (though not all the stuff because DE's not the best at balancing) that makes SP easier and completely trivializes normal mode. See gun arcanes, Galvanized mods, Helminth invigorations, for example. At most, one can argue that DE "aims" for it but misses the mark completely.

DE already stated that they've begun balancing for steel path. I'm seeing the effects already. The last few SP missions I competed, I had to double check that it was indeed SP. Players are running through it like start chart missions now

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6 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

DE already stated that they've begun balancing for steel path. I'm seeing the effects already. The last few SP missions I competed, I had to double check that out was indeed SP. Players are running through it like start chart missions now

Not surprised to hear that - my experience is the same. SP is more like New Game+ than an actual hard mode, being a bit more difficult going in but giving you the gear to beat it just as easily. Arguably, Arbitration is more along the lines of a hard mode than SP is, given the drones, the altered revives, and the slightly more difficult objectives.

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1 hour ago, Perfectly_Framed_Waifu said:

I would love to see your attempts to back up that claim, because as far as what's apparent, DE keeps releasing more and more stuff (though not all the stuff because DE's not the best at balancing) that makes SP easier and completely trivializes normal mode. See gun arcanes, Galvanized mods, Helminth invigorations, for example. At most, one can argue that DE "aims" for it but misses the mark completely.

Galvanized Mods and Weapon Arcanes only become farmable upon completion of all connected nodes on the normal Star Chart, ie when one can enter Steel Path. Given how far into progression they become farmable and/or the amount of endo they take to max, it is obvious they are not to be accounted for in normal Star Chart progression, or balance, within that part of the game. They were introduced into the game in terms of balance towards the next difficulty level and end-game power balance between different offensive options.

As such, one shouldn't expect all future frames, weapons, companions etc to excel at SP, depending at where they become available. The Ghoulsaw, Yareli and Sister Hounds are all examples new content (gear) being balanced more around normal-mode - they can all be used in SP, but they weren't designed to excel in SP.

Looking at content releases of late: Liches, Sisters of Parvos, Call of the Tempestarii, Railjack, Plague Star (though a return) - none of these appear to have been released with the aim of balance of SP in mind. The balance for this content is around normal mode. Some of the balance certainly entails having reached further progression within normal mode, but not SP. The only mechanics in terms of balance regarding SP (or late-game) are arbitrary damage caps and reductions.

Even the recent change to Sentients appear to indicate a focus on balance for the player on normal mode and the upcoming New War. I would be pleasantly surprised if there is an SP New War option, but I honestly don't foresee The New War being balanced around SP. There may be some arbitrary mechanics to prevent late-game players from breezing through it, as with Liches and Sisters, who are also balanced around normal mode.

With all this being said, as Steel Path becomes more and more played within the player base and end-game gear's maximum performance discrepancies become more pronounced, it should be no surprise that some mechanics/mods/arcanes etc will be introduced for the sake of balance (amongst other things) at the higher difficulty level.

Overall content may be focused more on balance within SP (or beyond) at some stage in the future, if the metrics ever shows it to be the right step for DE, but at this point, expect new content to mainly remain focused around normal-mode balance, for the most part.

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1 hour ago, (XBOX)TyeGoo said:

Yeah, like rounds starting faster in defense.. 🤭 😂

Well, I did say "slightly" for a reason! 🤣

59 minutes ago, Silligoose said:

-snip-

What you replied with here is does not back up the claim that DE's aim is to have balance set around normal mode, only that DE releases content that imbalances normal mode though there are some bits that don't. Not "accounting for it" doesn't de facto mean it doesn't exist - it only lends credence to 

3 hours ago, Perfectly_Framed_Waifu said:

DE's not the best at balancing

Besides, it's not like content that imbalances normal mode isn't readily found in normal mode to begin with. For example, some of the most powerful melee mods in the game are found as early as on Deimos. Normal mode also has Octavia, who's strong enough to make SP a cakewalk with minimum mod investment, and although she's one of the most notable outlier, she's not alone in being too strong to be classified as not balanced for normal mode. As such, SP becomes merely the next bit of content to progress through - no more a "hard mode" to the "normal mode" than rank 5 bounties are to rank 4s. And one can't simply look at what content they release either - releasing content set in normal mode does not mean they aim or attempt to balance the game for said content. In fact, said new content all too often confirms another thing I said:

3 hours ago, Perfectly_Framed_Waifu said:

DE keeps releasing more and more stuff (...) that makes SP easier and completely trivializes normal mode.

Liches gave us K.Bramma and K.Nukor, Sisters gave us T.Plasmor, T.Flux, and K.Zarr, Tempestarii gave us a 95% slow, available to all frames through some Deimos content.

So thank you for your attempt to back up that claim, it was enjoyable though unsuccessful.

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5 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Has DE not set the bar in an optional game mode?

Yes, and it's a moderately high bar. But that just means that most equipment isn't good enough, and because no bar they set will ever be right for everyone there are still many players who think Steel Path is still easy baby mode. They could add Steel Path+ and double the levels, but that's going to have the same outcome: less gear will be viable, and some players will still be so powerful that it's not enough. Some people play Steel Path to level cap. How do you make it harder for them?

5 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Steel Path seems optional, there’s not much in there worth getting unless someone wants to. Would removing the handful of unique rewards fulfill the criteria you’re looking for? DE will then have made anything useable for content with unique rewards.

In terms of sustainability? Not really, mainly because the rewards and their uniqueness is pretty irrelevant to begin with. Steel Path lacks most of those meta-criteria to make it sustainable I mentioned on page 1. It's potentially challenging for some, but for many it isn't so it only gets a half point there. It doesn't involve the community, or let players construct things, and it doesn't have any competitive outlets. It does provide a few evergreen rewards, which maybe I should have added as a criteria, but that's about it. Once you're done with SP and get all the one-time rewards there's not much of a reason to go back.

If we wanted SP to be a more sustainable mode, then it could have something like community Acolyte hunting. Maybe Stalker and his Acolytes only appear on nodes they control, and players can push them around. Maybe this unlocks special showdown fights. Maybe DE could update the game's leaderboards and make them more prominent, and have leaderboards for SP so players can compete for better scores. Stuff like that. Or more on the current topic, balance the game so SP is actually a challenge for everyone.

5 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Or is it that any combination of equipment should be enough to do the highest level content? We have all these exilus and augment and QoL mods that we can combine that ultimately will struggle with level 40 enemies. A build full of non-damage and non-survival increase mods sounds like… what you’d want to balance for? That would ensure that it’s not that we’re increasing in power, but instead we’re gaining more options until we acquire everything, in which case we’ll have every combination of options and be able to combine them however.

I remember your chart with the inverted triangle, where once we get to the end, we can use every option and combination available

I think I'm reading this right, so yes? Ideally builds would not focus purely on power.

5 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

edit: 🤔 Or is it that as we play, we intrinsically get stronger? Like a standard MMO?

Well consider that in a standard MMO, the player's power is tied to their level, which is a number that always goes up. Even if the player takes off all their gear, a lvl80 player is going to have bigger numbers than a lvl1. So the developers have a known, guaranteed level of minimum power for a given player/class and they can make good assumptions about the type of equipment that player/class has at any given time. They know that a lvl72 Warrior is going to have on average 1,256 Strength, Cleave, Rage, and Whirlwind, and have access to the Slayer raid gear from the Slay Pit. So they can place content that's just above that point to create a new challenge. Maybe the new raid requires 1,300 Strength?

That's not the case in Warframe, where for the most part we don't get intrinsically stronger, at least not in regards to gear. If I take off all my mods and gear and get fresh MK1 weapons and an unmodded Excalibur, then I'm just as weak - gear-wise - as the day I started. Player power in Warframe is almost purely elective; players only have power if they choose to have power. And how much power will a player choose? Nobody knows.

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23 minutes ago, Silligoose said:

It wouldn't make sense some people. It doesn't bother me.

Yeah, it not making sense is just what one would expect, given that it's false.

26 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

It's potentially challenging for some

And with the release of stuff like the arcanes and Galvanized mods, that number is dwindling. We're basically just short an "On Kill: Reset shield gate" arcane to completely trivialize it. As it stands, unless we get some radical game changes, this is basically the only way to keep the game challenging:

29 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

If I take off all my mods and gear and get fresh MK1 weapons and an unmodded Excalibur, then I'm just as weak - gear-wise - as the day I started. Player power in Warframe is almost purely elective; players only have power if they choose to have power. And how much power will a player choose? Nobody knows.

Or, in a related fashion, challenging yourself to make some of the more useless gear usable in the "endgame". Talons Yareli, anyone?

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4 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Yes, and it's a moderately high bar. But that just means that most equipment isn't good enough, and because no bar they set will ever be right for everyone there are still many players who think Steel Path is still easy baby mode. They could add Steel Path+ and double the levels, but that's going to have the same outcome: less gear will be viable, and some players will still be so powerful that it's not enough. Some people play Steel Path to level cap. How do you make it harder for them?

In terms of sustainability? Not really, mainly because the rewards and their uniqueness is pretty irrelevant to begin with. Steel Path lacks most of those meta-criteria to make it sustainable I mentioned on page 1. It's potentially challenging for some, but for many it isn't so it only gets a half point there. It doesn't involve the community, or let players construct things, and it doesn't have any competitive outlets. It does provide a few evergreen rewards, which maybe I should have added as a criteria, but that's about it. Once you're done with SP and get all the one-time rewards there's not much of a reason to go back.

If we wanted SP to be a more sustainable mode, then it could have something like community Acolyte hunting. Maybe Stalker and his Acolytes only appear on nodes they control, and players can push them around. Maybe this unlocks special showdown fights. Maybe DE could update the game's leaderboards and make them more prominent, and have leaderboards for SP so players can compete for better scores. Stuff like that. Or more on the current topic, balance the game so SP is actually a challenge for everyone.

I think I'm reading this right, so yes? Ideally builds would not focus purely on power.

Well consider that in a standard MMO, the player's power is tied to their level, which is a number that always goes up. Even if the player takes off all their gear, a lvl80 player is going to have bigger numbers than a lvl1. So the developers have a known, guaranteed level of minimum power for a given player/class and they can make good assumptions about the type of equipment that player/class has at any given time. They know that a lvl72 Warrior is going to have on average 1,256 Strength, Cleave, Rage, and Whirlwind, and have access to the Slayer raid gear from the Slay Pit. So they can place content that's just above that point to create a new challenge. Maybe the new raid requires 1,300 Strength?

That's not the case in Warframe, where for the most part we don't get intrinsically stronger, at least not in regards to gear. If I take off all my mods and gear and get fresh MK1 weapons and an unmodded Excalibur, then I'm just as weak - gear-wise - as the day I started. Player power in Warframe is almost purely elective; players only have power if they choose to have power. And how much power will a player choose? Nobody knows.

Cool cool. I wasn’t sure what direction you were coming from, and now I have a better sense of what you’re thinking, as well as some things to mull over. Thanks for answering my questions 👍 

edit: Ah yeah, I think I better understand what you were saying on page 1 about sustainability

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4 hours ago, Perfectly_Framed_Waifu said:

And with the release of stuff like the arcanes and Galvanized mods, that number is dwindling. We're basically just short an "On Kill: Reset shield gate" arcane to completely trivialize it. As it stands, unless we get some radical game changes, this is basically the only way to keep the game challenging:

4 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

If I take off all my mods and gear and get fresh MK1 weapons and an unmodded Excalibur, then I'm just as weak - gear-wise - as the day I started. Player power in Warframe is almost purely elective; players only have power if they choose to have power. And how much power will a player choose? Nobody knows.

Or, in a related fashion, challenging yourself to make some of the more useless gear usable in the "endgame". Talons Yareli, anyone?

Yeah, but while "just nerf yourself" is an option I don't think it's a particularly good one. For one, it's not my job to balance DE's game; providing a consistent and enjoyable experience is their responsibility. And even if I do self-balance the content you play can flip wildly anywhere from "kill lvl10 enemies for a Lith" to "kill lvl80 enemies in Railjack", so managing which build is good for which level range against what faction can get tedious. How many versions of the same builds am I expected to maintain to create a consistent experience for myself? And some content even within the same mission isn't balanced to the same standard. For example, if you go do Sister missions to find Murmurs* you're fighting, what, lvl65-ish enemies? A build to tackle that level of enemy doesn't need to be very strong, but then if your Sister shows up your lvl65 build isn't gonna cut it. It's the best we'll get without more involved changes, but man it'd be so much better if your builds just worked appropriately everywhere you went. Talons Yareli shouldn't be any less viable than anything else.

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15 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

And some content even within the same mission isn't balanced to the same standard. For example, if you go do Sister missions to find Murmurs* you're fighting, what, lvl65-ish enemies? A build to tackle that level of enemy doesn't need to be very strong, but then if your Sister shows up your lvl65 build isn't gonna cut it.

🤔 Isn’t it? I gotta get my current Lich dead so I can test this; I don’t remember having problems with my lower-level lich when they appeared. At level 4 and 5 they’re getting pretty chunky, and that makes me wonder if I should enlist the help of my partner

edit: If the in-mission balance is out of whack, that’s definitely worth questioning, since that’s kind of the only way to gauge.

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I like the poor naive bastards in here thinking there is some higher, overall plan or concept in place. "The direction they are going" cracks me up everytime.

When every problem in fact comes exactly from the lack of direction.

 

It's just throwing mud at a wall and see what sticks. Then some times it's alternated with a certain developer going off on an ego trip and forcing something like mining or fishing down people's throat.

The only consistency is the ever increasing grind.

It's so unstable they are actually afraid to go back and touch something like damage types because they are thinking at least people are using viral and slash.

What if we mess those up too.

So you just fire aimlessly and hope 'whatever' or 'at least something' sticks.

 

If a weapon or frame flops then no worries it can just be MR fodder along with the 500 other items that's been given up on.

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18 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Yeah, but while "just nerf yourself" is an option I don't think it's a particularly good one.

Oh, definitely not. Don't get me wrong, it might be the best we got but it ain't good. I could see some challenge mode that limits us to some randomized selection of mods and gear (without taking up an arsenal or loadout slot), perhaps with you being able to rank up mods and find new mods/gear along the way, but "hurr durr dont uss teh brama then" is not what you should balance your game around.

Also, I definitely agree that most/all frame/weapon combos should be somewhat viable compared to one another. Like, I'm fine with Zephyr being worse with your average melee than Valkyr, and Snipers being a worse choice for group killing than the launchers, but we should be able to present a frame/weapon combo for one another and have the other party immediately think "yeah, that's gonna have a damn hard time accomplishing anything".

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9 minutes ago, Surbusken said:

I like the poor naive bastards in here thinking there is some higher, overall plan or concept in place. "The direction they are going" cracks me up everytime.

When every problem in fact comes exactly from the lack of direction.

It's just throwing mud at a wall and see what sticks. Then some times it's alternated with a certain developer going off on an ego trip and forcing something like mining or fishing down people's throat.

The only consistency is the ever increasing grind.

Closest thing we have to balance is the massive number of objectives that can't be sped up no matter how good you are. Like oh, your Xaku can disintegrate lvl 9999 enemies in the blink of an eye and all you have to do is click 4 once per minute? Good for you, this Survival mission is still taking 5min per reward.

And now we're starting to see adaptive damage resistance, because this boss fight is gonna take X minutes and not a second faster, dammit! (Edit: Imagine the uproar if the Tridolons got that treatment, limiting the number of hunts to 2 per night.)

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1 hour ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

🤔 Isn’t it? I gotta get my current Lich dead so I can test this; I don’t remember having problems with my lower-level lich when they appeared. At level 4 and 5 they’re getting pretty chunky, and that makes me wonder if I should enlist the help of my partner

edit: If the in-mission balance is out of whack, that’s definitely worth questioning, since that’s kind of the only way to gauge.

I'm not sure if Liches and Sisters scale the same, plus Grineer have Armor, so grain of salt. But a lvl65 Vapos Crewman is only 8k EHP and Sisters are way, way above that. It's hard to even pin down just how much health a Sister has to begin with since it's all behind the scenes.

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1 minute ago, PublikDomain said:

I'm not sure if Liches and Sisters scale the same, plus Grineer have Armor, so grain of salt. But a lvl65 Vapos Crewman is only 8k EHP and Sisters are way, way above that. It's hard to even pin down just how much health a Sister has to begin with since it's all behind the scenes.

Er. Is this a speculative numbers thing?

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22 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

We can't really help but speculate since their stats aren't shown anywhere.

Hm. Fair point. Though personally I hesitate to speculate via numbers since there’s a lot of interplay happening in the mission itself, like spawns and shield recharge rate and how often I need to flee or hide.

I can’t even feel comfortable looking at the “Damage” number on my gun and using that as a gauge for how well it will do 😅 (though maybe it could be; I just don’t have the mathematical knack for it). The Gorgon has huge long reload times, and that means I can’t dodgeroll or melee or do much of anything until it’s done, crucial fight stuff that isn’t easily shown in the Equipment screen. Usually I’m just asking “How hard does it feel like I’m hitting/how hard does it feel like they are hitting”, so it’s a subjective experience (luckily it’s fairly easy to set up; instead of juggling whether I need 1 Serration or 3 Serrations, I’m like “Okay, gonna need a bit more direct damage here”).

That’s why I’m really curious to test a Sister fight out for myself; there’s a lot to consider

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