Looks like it's time to tone down slash and viral

[OmegaVoid]

2 minutes ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Until you meet proto shields used on several corpus units with -75% damage penalty on it

It's -50%, but yeah. On the same weapon Viral would get through Proto Shields faster than Corrosive, while neither are penalised against Shields.

(Plus Viral gets a bonus against the human Corpus Flesh.)

[(PSN)Reaper330011]

Oof, forgot about that. It’s 50% btw.

[(XBOX)Zweimander]

3 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Blame those people who want balance, difficulty and challenge

True enough, lots if people wanted everything and as a veteran while I did want to be challenged sometimes I could only do it by gimping myself and that just felt wrong in a game like warframe. Their were extreme outliers that got hit like usual but it was the sweeping changes that made me not want to continue any further. Warframe stopped being warframe as I knew it and I already wasted so much if my life forming my perfect arsenal and builds, only to have all that uprooted if I had continued to play when railjack and the Lich system released. Veterans ignored with no true endgame and them removong the few things like raids, T4 survival and the stupid nerfs to whole systems in a massive overreaction. Makes me wish I could take back every cent and bit of time I put into the game honestly, DE really has lost touch of what made old warframe so magical...

[Lutesque]

8 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

So your saying that giving every enemy a unique damage weakness is a bad thing correct?

LoL.... Uhm.... Yes... That's Basically what I'm saying...😁 Sadly having that oppinion makes me sound like a Crazy Person....

8 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

Well, first of all, yes. It makes things complicated and don’t really like it.

Exactly !!! I knew you would Understand ❤️ !!!

8 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

third of all… which Skyrim do you play? (Played far cry and Arkham city too until I stopped because the car got bugged)

I never played Skyrim specifically for those Reasons I listed earlier.... Infact Final Fantasy XIII really shattered my ability to Tolerate RPG Elements.... 

If it wasn't for games like Bastion/Transistor and Hades then my perception of RPG Elements would have been WAAAAAAAAAAAAY worse than they are now....

 

[Loza03]

9 hours ago, Lutesque said:

Except it does the exact opposite of what you're describing.... Enemies don't feel more distinct infact by assigning Arbitrary Numerical Resistances and Weaknesses to each Enemy they actually feel more Homogenized than ever 😱 !!!

This is probably like the 20th Time I'm going to repeat this but what gave me hope in Hades (developed by Super Giant Games)... Was that there's only a single Damage Type and thus enemies have only a single type of Weakness.... That weakness being... Damage...

Makes all the enemies sound the same right ? 

Well not really because Although the game has one type of Damage... It has numerous types of "Damage Effects"....basically what this means is you get to choose How damage gets dealt to enemies.... There's Damage Over Time, Delayed Damage, Damaging AoE's, Chain Damage, Critical Damage and Environmental Damage.... All these Damage Effects affect almost every enemy the exact same way....

However... The true genius of this system is that although they are all technically equally effective... The Enemy behaviours might make you favour one Effect over all the others.... For Example one of the damage effects offered by Poseidon is called "Tempest".... And what it does is knock enemies backward whenever you hit them with it... It's really good against enemies that bum rush since you can Keep them away by knocking them backwards.... Infact you can knock them into the Environment, slamming them against walls or into Traps to deal extra Damage.... However this Effect is less useful against Skiddish Enemies that like to chuck things at you from far Away.... Since hitting them with Tempest just puts them into their Preferred Attacking Distance to throw things....

And just like that the game has created a Damage Type thats better against some enemies but not others without resorting to Abstraction the way literally every other RPG does (Fire damage is better against this enemy because I say so).... And that's just one of the Effects... There are like 5 Others and they are all just as interesting..... IN THEORY.... And that's where Hades falls apart because it doesn't Double Down on these Damage Effects.... For example you know that Tempest Effect I just mentioned Earlier.... It's less effective against all Bosses... Again... Not for any reason that makes sense... It just doesn't work on them because the game says so.... Rather than buffing the Knock Back effect on Bosses... All Super Giant did was Increase the Damage Multiplier on the Effect.... BOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!! 😠

My guess why They did this was because they knew that they were making a Roguelike and so they felt like they shouldn't double down on these Effects and so they doubled down on the Damage Multiplier instead.... Which Homogenized about 3 or 4 of the Types of Damage Effects in the game.... You literally don't even have to care about the difference between Frost/Passion/Deadly/Tempest anymore because all 4 of them have Damage Multipliers as their primary effect and their more Unique Effects are just their for Lore Purposes or whatever....gosh its So Frustrating !!! 😠

These aren't mutually exclusive concepts, though? These concepts can be naturally put into place alongside damage modifiers. This is an extremely complex topic, and I'm in support of altering enemy AI and possibly environments

You say it homogenises enemies - I would say it has the ability to do the opposite, used properly. Though granted, I don't think Warframe currently does it properly at all. It's somewhat off-topic, if I may?

Warframe's damage type system homogenises everything because it's not transparent. In DnD, damage type only matters if it's called out - if a damage type isn't explicitly a vulnerability, resistance or immunity (or some other effect, which is rarer still), they're treated exactly as you suggest - completely neutral. This means that damage-altering effects are always significant. When the DM says "the monster is vulnerable to radiant damage" the Paladin gets their smiting arm ready in a very good mood. But it's still effective near everywhere else too. I would warrant this is the same reason why Pokemon specifies 'it's super effective' every time.

Warframe, however, has most every weapon deal at least 3 different damage types, encouraging the addition of one or two more. In other words, instead of looking at an enemy and realising they're going to take extra chunky damage, you need to do mental maths about -25%, +25%  then another +75% - wait, this is a heat lich weapon, - 25% again. All of these percentages applied to completely different numbers because the amount of damage you're dealing is. And then you need to think and remember whether or not cloned health damage types matter if the enemy still has armour.

Combined with the fact that all of this is moot towards the fact that armour exists, and of course Warframe's damage types are homogenous and dull. It doesn't mean that the concept itself is fundamentally flawed, though.

[(PSN)Reaper330011]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

LoL.... Uhm.... Yes... That's Basically what I'm saying...😁 Sadly having that oppinion makes me sound like a Crazy Person....

Exactly !!! I knew you would Understand ❤️ !!!

I never played Skyrim specifically for those Reasons I listed earlier.... Infact Final Fantasy XIII really shattered my ability to Tolerate RPG Elements.... 

If it wasn't for games like Bastion/Transistor and Hades then my perception of RPG Elements would have been WAAAAAAAAAAAAY worse than they are now....

 

Haven’t played hades, RPG is cool but too many small squares . *squint*

Not really. (You don’t sound crazy) I mean, every enemy haveing a unique weakness is normal, but first of all it makes things more complicated than necessarily, and secondly there’s not 1 element that does good damage against all 3. 
 

[Lutesque]

25 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

These aren't mutually exclusive concepts, though? These concepts can be naturally put into place alongside damage modifiers.

True.... But it would be Redundant to use both.... If your Damage/Enemy Types are already Mechanically Distinct then there's no need and no point into further differentiating them using an Arbitrary and Abstract System that merely limits Options rather than Expanding Them.... Which is the problem that pretty much every RPG has....

28 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

 

You say it homogenises enemies - I would say it has the ability to do the opposite, used properly. Though granted, I don't think Warframe currently does it properly at all. It's somewhat off-topic, if I may?

Please... continue... 🙂

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

 

Warframe's damage type system homogenises everything because it's not transparent. In DnD, damage type only matters if it's called out - if a damage type isn't explicitly a vulnerability, resistance or immunity (or some other effect, which is rarer still), they're treated exactly as you suggest - completely neutral. This means that damage-altering effects are always significant. When the DM says "the monster is vulnerable to radiant damage" the Paladin gets their smiting arm ready in a very good mood. But it's still effective near everywhere else too. I would warrant this is the same reason why Pokemon specifies 'it's super effective' every time.

Well yes.... Warframe obscuring it's Damage Types using 2 Different Modifiers (3 in the Case of most Bosses) certainly is a problem but wouldn't making it transparent just make people assume it's simplistic and devoid of any Nuance ? 🤔

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

 

Warframe, however, has most every weapon deal at least 3 different damage types, encouraging the addition of one or two more. In other words, instead of looking at an enemy and realising they're going to take extra chunky damage, you need to do mental maths about -25%, +25%  then another +75% - wait, this is a heat lich weapon, - 25% again.

It's even worse than that.... You now have to do that math for Both the Enemie's Armor/Shields... And then again for it's Health.... Honestly it's so much that I didn't even bother... But for the players who did they Discovered that the Math doesn't even add up correctly 🤔.... 

 

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

. All of these percentages applied to completely different numbers because the amount of damage you're dealing is. And then you need to think and remember whether or not cloned health damage types matter if the enemy still has armour

The most egregious example of this Problem is The Plague Star Boss, The Hemocyte.... Who's Armor is vulnerable to Radiation but it's Health is Resistant to Radiation.... If it wasn't for people smarter than me explaining why it's better to use Corrosive on The Hemocyte then I would have never figured it out on my own....

And that's before we even factor in the Interface that shows this information has confused some players and atleast on one occasion was actually Borderline incorrect (when Tusk Thumpers were first introduced the Codex said they had Ferrite Armor).... 

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

 

Combined with the fact that all of this is moot towards the fact that armour exists, and of course Warframe's damage types are homogenous and dull. It doesn't mean that the concept itself is fundamentally flawed, though.

That's the thing.... I whole heartedly believe that it is flawed... Extremely flawed....

However i am in a good mood this week so if you know of any game that executes this concept Properly then I'd be glad to try it.... I wouldn't enjoy it but learning these things is my Jam...

2 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

Haven’t played hades, RPG is cool but too many small squares . *squint*

I think they did that on Purpose.... And I really don't like it.

2 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

Not really. (You don’t sound crazy) I mean, every enemy haveing a unique weakness is normal, but first of all it makes things more complicated than necessarily, and secondly there’s not 1 element that does good damage against all 3. 

YES !!!! That's exactly why I dislike it so much.... 😭

 

[Loza03]

7 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

True.... But it would be Redundant to use both.... If your Damage/Enemy Types are already Mechanically Distinct then there's no need and no point into further differentiating them using an Arbitrary and Abstract System that merely limits Options rather than Expanding Them.... Which is the problem that pretty much every RPG has....

The thing about 'unlimited choices' is that this often means those choices are arbitrary. If everything's good in every situation (or, as armour creates, if there's only one meaningful situation), then either the choice between them is meaningless, or more likely, the small number of choices that are the best for that situation become dominant. As backwards as it seems, sometimes more restrictions means more choices.

Of course, it needs to be done well, and as we both agree, Warframe doesn't.

13 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

That's the thing.... I whole heartedly believe that it is flawed... Extremely flawed....

You say so, but you don't support it. Chances are, that's just your subjective opinion.

13 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

However i am in a good mood this week so if you know of any game that executes this concept Properly then I'd be glad to try it.... I wouldn't enjoy it but learning these things is my Jam...

Hm.  Currently my go-to RPG is DnD, which is pretty difficult to 'just try'. I've heard that Larian Studio's Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's gate 3 are both good games that use this kind of idea a fair bit, but I'm waiting for the latter to fully release before I give it a shot, and I've yet to try out the former.

In terms of games that heavily focus on damage types, Pokemon is the obvious contender, but in most cases, damage typing is frequently a background element. There's a reason I originally prioritised discussing armour, since I think that aspect of Warframe is far more impactful on the current situation than Warframe's damage type problem. If you're just interested in games that incorporate RPG elements, then you've very much got pick of the litter, that's all over the place these days.

[ShortCat]

22 hours ago, Loza03 said:

The problem is that, because armour scaling is so much more dominant than health and shield scaling, everything is designed around being able to beat armour.

As you say, the tools you should use to fight armour work with armour scaling in mind. The problem lies in the fact that once you're done with that, the sheer level of increased power that armour provide dwarfs shield and health scaling unless you seriously inflate their numbers (such as seen on Steel Path Deadlock Corpus, who from my experience, sport shield that constantly regenerate on top of everything else). That means that either the other enemies don't matter, or you're dealing with the same nonsense that damage scaling without the proper tools is without the years of workarounds that have been put in place.

Not every faction should be euqlliy durable. Grineer are durable, but Corpus have significanlty more annoying tools, especially on the offensive side. I absolutely cannot comprehend why distinctly different factions should be made more similar to each other. When you fight Corpus going heavy on armor strip is a hard mistake, as there are no high priority armored Corpus units, which appear frequently. Demolysts would be the only one exception. Thus, selecting your loadout with armor in mind is suboptimal, as dedicated anti-Corpus builds are still more effective.
I also fail to see how regenerating shields are bad, since those require you to turn away from Viral+Slash combo.

22 hours ago, Loza03 said:

On top of that, the real benefit to having multiple damage types is lost

But different damage types already matter, even if not all of them.
However, if armor is reduced, then the sheer power of our Arsenal will make different damage types truly meaningless. You argue in favor of making armor less durabel, right? Yet, Corpus units are the ones where the difference in damage types is less noticable. You argue in favor of one thing, yet your solution would lead to the exact opposite.

[ShortCat]

20 hours ago, Lutesque said:

It's Difficult to Describe But IL give it my best shot....

You mostly argue from a lore perspective and as such bringing up WF as an example isn't going in your favor. In D&D it makes perfect sense lorewise to throw mixed parties against the palyer.

The more relevant point is the gameplay aspect. And here different vulnerabilities make sense, as they open the game for more builds. Say you hyper invested into fire magic and now can easely deal with regular mooks, yet a regular demon would mean trouble. It is a hard counter to your hyper invested build and pushes you out of the comfort zone so that you do not use the same tactic in every encounter.
Or you could invest into multiple elements and increase your diversity, while each individual element would be less effective compared to a hyper invested build. Here you trade flexibility for power.

[Lutesque]

2 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

You mostly argue from a lore perspective and as such bringing up WF as an example isn't going in your favor. In D&D it makes perfect sense lorewise to throw mixed parties against the palyer.

There's literally nothing I could care about less than Lore 🤔.... This is why I have no problem saying that The Dark/Demon Souls series Sucks.... Because that series's main appeal is it's Thematic Cohesion which Matthew does a decent job of explaining in numerous of his videos.... The most important one being this one:

It's all very impressive stuff but I'm Strictly a Gameplay above all else type of person and Dark Souls game play is Hot Garbage.... Okay maybe that's not fair.... But like the video says: "The Combat Is Nothing Remarkable."

10 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

 

The more relevant point is the gameplay aspect. And here different vulnerabilities make sense, as they open the game for more builds.

How ? 

If something is Weak to Corrosive... Build for Corrosive and Only Corrosive.... If something is Weak to Magnetic then Build for Magnetic and only for Magnetic.... If the game throws both enemy Types at you build for one and Suffer the other.... Or try to strike some sort of middle ground between the two or whatever....

Either way.... You're Strictly locked into using the one and only build that works better than any other.

 

It doesn't encourage Diverse Builds at all.... Or maybe there's something I don't understand here.... Is having all these Damage Types and Enemy Weaknesses some how making builds diverse because we keep switching builds to match the enemy's weakness ? 

I don't get it !!

15 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

Say you hyper invested into fire magic and now can easely deal with regular mooks, yet a regular demon would mean trouble. It is a hard counter to your hyper invested build and pushes you out of the comfort zone so that you do not use the same tactic in every encounter.

Yeah mate... You're just swapping the one and only thing that works best on one enemy to the one and only thing that works best on another enemy....

A game doesn't become more diverse just because Fire Magic doesn't work on a Fire Elemental.... All you have to do is make a new build exactly the same way as the fire Build except you just swap out all the Fire with Ice or PineApples or whatever then go back to playing exactly the same way you were playing before....

I kid you not... This is what I do in every single RPG I have ever played... In Dark Souls when I'm in the Dukes Archives I just use a the Lightning Halberd I picked up from the Bell Gargoyles to kill those enemies then when I go to the Catacombs I use Queelag's Fury Sword because those enemies are extremely weak to Fire for some unknown reason... It's suppose to Divine Weapons but Fire yields better Results... You could make the Argument that's what makes it diverse... But you can take that same Lightnigh Halberd and switch it to a Fire/Chaos Halberd for exactly the same Result... It's the exact same Weapon... With the Exact same Build... Only it now deals Fire Damage instead of Lightning Damage.... It's what you're suppose to do... It's how they designed the game... And "Diverse" is definitely not the word I would use to describe it 😱 !!! It's Homogeneous As #&#$ 😭 

29 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

Or you could invest into multiple elements and increase your diversity, while each individual element would be less effective compared to a hyper invested build. Here you trade flexibility for power.

There's a video some where on Sapmatic's channel where he exposes that this actually isn't true.... He was talking about Borderlands 3.... There's a game mode in there that the developers updated to include Different Enemy Types (which basically means it's the same enemies with Different Resistances.... And Character Models)... They did this to... And I quote "To Encourage Build Diversity and more diverse play styles".... What it actually did was It encouraged players to and I quote: "Make a single More Diverse Build"..... It's a very subtle distinction but the implications are massive.... Because now players could no longer hyper invest into a single Damage Type to shred one enemy type without being significantly less effective against the other enemy Types... What they did instead was make a build that would Do decent damage to all the enemy types.... It wasn't Optimal for any one type but it did okay against everything...it was the most Consistent Build and players abused the living hell out of that mode using it.... Because that's what happens when you use Abstract Numbers to Differentiate otherwise Completely Identical Game Mechanics... Not Similar... They were 100% Identical.... The only difference being one is Fire... The other is Electricity or Whatever.... Every RPG I've ever heard of works like this ( obviously I'm exggerating ) and it's Sooooooooo Dated...

 

Back to my earlier point:

41 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

lore perspective

It's because of my Complete Disregard for Lore that I just hate Damage Types... Because I can see them for the Abstract Numbers that they really are....

What most people see as Corrosive, Radiation, Viral etc.... I see those as Damage 1, Damage 2, Damage, Damage 3, etc.... And combine that with the Weaknesses: Ferrite Armor, Alloy Armor, Cloned Flesh that I see as Weakness 1, Weakness 2, Weakness 3, etc.... And you can see this the exact opposite of Diversity.... Does the Experience of swapping out your Slash Mods  for Toxin Mods just because your now fighting Corpus instead of Grineer really change the experience of Firing The Kuva Nukor (or whatever the meta is right now)....what if it's both Corpus and Grineer at the same Time (Corrupted Faction Missions).... Then find the Secret Element that fits in the middle of those two Resistances and build for that... To me it's exactly the same.... It feels like I'm the only one who gets that 😭 !

 

[Loza03]

1 hour ago, ShortCat said:

Not every faction should be euqlliy durable. Grineer are durable, but Corpus have significanlty more annoying tools, especially on the offensive side. I absolutely cannot comprehend why distinctly different factions should be made more similar to each other. When you fight Corpus going heavy on armor strip is a hard mistake, as there are no high priority armored Corpus units, which appear frequently. Demolysts would be the only one exception. Thus, selecting your loadout with armor in mind is suboptimal, as dedicated anti-Corpus builds are still more effective.
I also fail to see how regenerating shields are bad, since those require you to turn away from Viral+Slash combo.

You're right that the factions shouldn't be homogenous and have identical durability. That would also be bad. However, just because that's true doesn't mean that the opposite situation - the two factions being on different orders of magnitude in terms of their durability - doesn't itself pose an issue. The fact of the matter is that going heavy on anti-armour isn't a 'hard mistake' against the Corpus, because compared to the power of the power of the player's arsenal - and that's the problem. Taking a hardcore armour-fighting loadout should be the biggest mistake you can make against Corpus. But it isn't. Viral, Slash, Heat, the Bramma, Crits... the game has been designed around armour for nearly its entire lifespan now. Both getting rid of it, getting past it, or just flat out dealing more damage than it. Everything's up to the standards of dealing with armour, piercing through armour, being able to overpower armour. Let's be real here - you don't need to armour strip or viral-stack the average Scorpion in Grineer missions, do you? At that point, the fact that they're slightly better at killing the player is kind of moot.

So what happens when you use stuff like regenerating shields to bring it up to armour?

Well, now the game's backpedaled to a distant time when, yes, armour was hard to beat. And the bad thing is that many of the meta weapons are still the best options, because those can typically deal hundreds of thousands of damage per second, but now instead of your off-meta picks taking ages, it takes literally forever because on Steel Path, some enemies can wind up regenerating their entire shields in a couple of seconds if you need to dodge, reload or anything else. As indicated before, taking things to the opposite problem isn't a fix.

1 hour ago, ShortCat said:

But different damage types already matter, even if not all of them.
However, if armor is reduced, then the sheer power of our Arsenal will make different damage types truly meaningless. You argue in favor of making armor less durabel, right? Yet, Corpus units are the ones where the difference in damage types is less noticable. You argue in favor of one thing, yet your solution would lead to the exact opposite.

I am in favour of making armour less durable, yes. But that's not the only thing I'm in favour of. See, the problem is far more complicated then you make it out to be. Armour might be one of the biggest parts of the problem, but it's still only one part. Another part is the fact that the arsenal has had massive boosts in power to deal with it. Warframe's basically been caught in a power creep arms race between the devs and the players for half a decade, and like any arms race, the resolution will only be found through disarming all parties involved.

[Lutesque]

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

The thing about 'unlimited choices' is that this often means those choices are arbitrary.

And you know what.... That's perfectly fine... Good even.... There's nothing wrong with the Options all being Effective... The real problem is with all Options being Symmetrical....

I think that's why I have hard to explaining this to people... It's because I haven't been using the word to describe the issue...

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

. If everything's good in every situation (or, as armour creates, if there's only one meaningful situation), then either the choice between them is meaningless, or more likely, the small number of choices that are the best for that situation become dominant. As backwards as it seems, sometimes more restrictions means more choices

That's what's amazing about Human Beans.... If something doesn't have any meaning... Then they create meaning out of Thin air.... If people can't objectively pick one damage type based on Effectiveness because they're all equally effective.... Then they will then subjectively pick one damage type based on personal preference. And that's the best feeling in the World... Atleast for some people it is.... Sadly some people enjoy the process of meticulously calculating extremely complicated equations to find the one damage type that's better than all the rest.... In other words... It's a puzzle waiting to be solved.... While I can't say that players shouldn't enjoy that sort of thing (because that would just make me an ass hole)... I can say that does infact kill diversity

Damage Types need to be All Equally Effective.... but Asymmetrically Distinct so that players can still favour one over the other.... It's a Buzz word from the 2013 era but that's really what Warframe and all RPG 's should strive for when making Multiple Damage Types and Resistances... Asymmetrical Design... 😉

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Hm.  Currently my go-to RPG is DnD, which is pretty difficult to 'just try'.

Yeah... I need something that doesn't require me to video call my friend on the Weekends 😝

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

I've heard that Larian Studio's Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's gate 3 are both good games that use this kind of idea a fair bit, but I'm waiting for the latter to fully release before I give it a shot, and I've yet to try out the former.

I've been contemplating getting Divinity for so many years now.... Maybe it's time I finally made that Commitment.... 

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

 

In terms of games that heavily focus on damage types, Pokemon is the obvious contender, but in most cases, damage typing is frequently a background element. There's a reason I originally prioritised discussing armour, since I think that aspect of Warframe is far more impactful on the current situation than Warframe's damage type problem. If you're just interested in games that incorporate RPG elements, then you've very much got pick of the litter, that's all over the place these days.

And Ive played quite a decent chunk of them.... Despite how radically different they may seem on the surface or in other aspects... The way they handle Damage/Enemy Types is the same in all of them..  be it Action, Turn Base or even ATB....

 

The only exceptions were the games developed by Super Giant (Bastion, Transistor and Hades) I could try to make a case For Bioshock but that would be especially difficult to do....

 

[Loza03]

9 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

And you know what.... That's perfectly fine... Good even.... There's nothing wrong with the Options all being Effective... The real problem is with all Options being Symmetrical....

I think that's why I have hard to explaining this to people... It's because I haven't been using the word to describe the issue...

Being symmetrical isn't inherently bad, and being asymmetric isn't inherently good either. They're both tools in a larger game design toolbox.

Being asymmetrical has benefits - it makes encounters more interesting for the most part, and a lot of games use it for that reason. But being symmetrical tends to reward planning and forethought. 

Damage types being more symmetrical can help to diversify the game, especially if there's a looting aspect. Want the best sniper rifle? There is no 'best' sniper rifle, because different sniper rifles are good against different factions, and so forth. That can be achieved simply by having one sniper deal damage of a different type.

18 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

That's what's amazing about Human Beans.... If something doesn't have any meaning... Then they create meaning out of Thin air.... If people can't objectively pick one damage type based on Effectiveness because they're all equally effective.... Then they will then subjectively pick one damage type based on personal preference. And that's the best feeling in the World... Atleast for some people it is.... Sadly some people enjoy the process of meticulously calculating extremely complicated equations to find the one damage type that's better than all the rest.... In other words... It's a puzzle waiting to be solved.... While I can't say that players shouldn't enjoy that sort of thing (because that would just make me an ass hole)... I can say that does infact kill diversity

You touch on the opposite addage to the one your using - 'given the chance, players will optimise the fun out of your game'.

Both are true. Players who don't give a hoot about effectiveness are going to pick subjectively, regardless. Players who want to optimise always will. And then there are those caught in the middle, like me. I want to have a lot of fun playing what I like. I want to look at my vast arsenal, browse through it and wonder 'what weapon should I play today' without a nagging voice in the back of my head saying "if you use that gun you really like, you're going to have a miserable time in 'high level' content." I want to pick up a new weapon and not feel like if I'm wasting my time putting anything other than the same tired old sets of mods on it.

[(PSN)Reaper330011]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

There's literally nothing I could care about less than Lore 🤔.... This is why I have no problem saying that The Dark/Demon Souls series Sucks.... Because that series's main appeal is it's Thematic Cohesion which Matthew does a decent job of explaining in numerous of his videos.... The most important one being this one:

It's all very impressive stuff but I'm Strictly a Gameplay above all else type of person and Dark Souls game play is Hot Garbage.... Okay maybe that's not fair.... But like the video says: "The Combat Is Nothing Remarkable."

How ? 

If something is Weak to Corrosive... Build for Corrosive and Only Corrosive.... If something is Weak to Magnetic then Build for Magnetic and only for Magnetic.... If the game throws both enemy Types at you build for one and Suffer the other.... Or try to strike some sort of middle ground between the two or whatever....

Either way.... You're Strictly locked into using the one and only build that works better than any other.

 

It doesn't encourage Diverse Builds at all.... Or maybe there's something I don't understand here.... Is having all these Damage Types and Enemy Weaknesses some how making builds diverse because we keep switching builds to match the enemy's weakness ? 

I don't get it !!

Yeah mate... You're just swapping the one and only thing that works best on one enemy to the one and only thing that works best on another enemy....

A game doesn't become more diverse just because Fire Magic doesn't work on a Fire Elemental.... All you have to do is make a new build exactly the same way as the fire Build except you just swap out all the Fire with Ice or PineApples or whatever then go back to playing exactly the same way you were playing before....

I kid you not... This is what I do in every single RPG I have ever played... In Dark Souls when I'm in the Dukes Archives I just use a the Lightning Halberd I picked up from the Bell Gargoyles to kill those enemies then when I go to the Catacombs I use Queelag's Fury Sword because those enemies are extremely weak to Fire for some unknown reason... It's suppose to Divine Weapons but Fire yields better Results... You could make the Argument that's what makes it diverse... But you can take that same Lightnigh Halberd and switch it to a Fire/Chaos Halberd for exactly the same Result... It's the exact same Weapon... With the Exact same Build... Only it now deals Fire Damage instead of Lightning Damage.... It's what you're suppose to do... It's how they designed the game... And "Diverse" is definitely not the word I would use to describe it 😱 !!! It's Homogeneous As #&#$ 😭 

There's a video some where on Sapmatic's channel where he exposes that this actually isn't true.... He was talking about Borderlands 3.... There's a game mode in there that the developers updated to include Different Enemy Types (which basically means it's the same enemies with Different Resistances.... And Character Models)... They did this to... And I quote "To Encourage Build Diversity and more diverse play styles".... What it actually did was It encouraged players to and I quote: "Make a single More Diverse Build"..... It's a very subtle distinction but the implications are massive.... Because now players could no longer hyper invest into a single Damage Type to shred one enemy type without being significantly less effective against the other enemy Types... What they did instead was make a build that would Do decent damage to all the enemy types.... It wasn't Optimal for any one type but it did okay against everything...it was the most Consistent Build and players abused the living hell out of that mode using it.... Because that's what happens when you use Abstract Numbers to Differentiate otherwise Completely Identical Game Mechanics... Not Similar... They were 100% Identical.... The only difference being one is Fire... The other is Electricity or Whatever.... Every RPG I've ever heard of works like this ( obviously I'm exggerating ) and it's Sooooooooo Dated...

 

Back to my earlier point:

It's because of my Complete Disregard for Lore that I just hate Damage Types... Because I can see them for the Abstract Numbers that they really are....

What most people see as Corrosive, Radiation, Viral etc.... I see those as Damage 1, Damage 2, Damage, Damage 3, etc.... And combine that with the Weaknesses: Ferrite Armor, Alloy Armor, Cloned Flesh that I see as Weakness 1, Weakness 2, Weakness 3, etc.... And you can see this the exact opposite of Diversity.... Does the Experience of swapping out your Slash Mods  for Toxin Mods just because your now fighting Corpus instead of Grineer really change the experience of Firing The Kuva Nukor (or whatever the meta is right now)....what if it's both Corpus and Grineer at the same Time (Corrupted Faction Missions).... Then find the Secret Element that fits in the middle of those two Resistances and build for that... To me it's exactly the same.... It feels like I'm the only one who gets that 😭 !

 

Damage type X: 

Bonus damage against weakness X:

Bonus damage against weakness X:

Reduced damage against enemy/weakness X:

Go to the void, shred 2 factions, get wrecked by 1 faction.

There’s NO Element that does bonus damage to all factions, and sometimes it does reduced damage to different enemies of the same faction, which will make things even MORE harder. (Remember there are 3 factions). I got taxis to the void in sp when I used a viral Ignis wraith, I seriously wrecked the enemies hard, but… it took me 3 whole mags to kill corpus. (And you know how low the ammo consumption is on that thing!)
 

(Like, you could use 1 damage type for a single faction, but that same faction has enemies that are resistant to that damage type when the other enemies are weak to it).
 

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

And you know what.... That's perfectly fine... Good even.... There's nothing wrong with the Options all being Effective... The real problem is with all Options being Symmetrical....

I think that's why I have hard to explaining this to people... It's because I haven't been using the word to describe the issue...

That's what's amazing about Human Beans.... If something doesn't have any meaning... Then they create meaning out of Thin air.... If people can't objectively pick one damage type based on Effectiveness because they're all equally effective.... Then they will then subjectively pick one damage type based on personal preference. And that's the best feeling in the World... Atleast for some people it is.... Sadly some people enjoy the process of meticulously calculating extremely complicated equations to find the one damage type that's better than all the rest.... In other words... It's a puzzle waiting to be solved.... While I can't say that players shouldn't enjoy that sort of thing (because that would just make me an ass hole)... I can say that does infact kill diversity

Damage Types need to be All Equally Effective.... but Asymmetrically Distinct so that players can still favour one over the other.... It's a Buzz word from the 2013 era but that's really what Warframe and all RPG 's should strive for when making Multiple Damage Types and Resistances... Asymmetrical Design... 😉

Yeah... I need something that doesn't require me to video call my friend on the Weekends 😝

I've been contemplating getting Divinity for so many years now.... Maybe it's time I finally made that Commitment.... 

And Ive played quite a decent chunk of them.... Despite how radically different they may seem on the surface or in other aspects... The way they handle Damage/Enemy Types is the same in all of them..  be it Action, Turn Base or even ATB....

 

The only exceptions were the games developed by Super Giant (Bastion, Transistor and Hades) I could try to make a case For Bioshock but that would be especially difficult to do....

 

Bio shock is RPG? Anyway its hard, I quit halfway through. 

[TheArmchairThinker]

On 2021-09-13 at 12:07 PM, PublikDomain said:

Slash would probably be fine if Armor scaling wasn't so busted and countering it wasn't so critical, but Viral has clearly been overperforming since it usurped Corrosive as The Damage Type™. It just needs a lower starting point.

Still not fine when you can easily hit 45,000 damage tick that ignores armor with basic crit mods

Busted armor scaling is a thing to encourage different strategy that in this case, having either ability to strip armor or debuff ability to support DPS (many game used this to make you bring support because DPS can't brute force through the armor/defense) so slash proc that ignores armor needs to go. It doesn't make sense an element that is supposed to be bad against armored enemies deal armor ignoring DoT

Armor itself doesn't need lower starting point, most grineer have low enough armor to make them only durable enough and tougher from scaling and we're not supposed to fight until level 9999 because it wouldn't be something balanced, right? So let's take away the true damage so you can't brute force to level 9999 and there's a clearer line where things start being harder

[Lutesque]

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Being symmetrical isn't inherently bad, and being asymmetric isn't inherently good either. They're both tools in a larger game design toolbox

While that's technically true... In Practice Symmetry Sucks.... Because we as Human Beans are Egotistical Narcissists who think we are so above it all.... And Asymmetrical Design caters to that part of us that thinks we're so special... 😝

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

 

Being asymmetrical has benefits - it makes encounters more interesting for the most part, and a lot of games use it for that reason. But being symmetrical tends to reward planning and forethought. 

But you can still plan with Asymmetry... Infact I would argue that those are the most Interesting things plan a build around...

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

 

Damage types being more symmetrical can help to diversify the game, especially if there's a looting aspect. Want the best sniper rifle? There is no 'best' sniper rifle, because different sniper rifles are good against different factions, and so forth. That can be achieved simply by having one sniper deal damage of a different type

If the Sniper Rifles are already All Different.... Then what's the point of Introducing additional Damage Types ? You already have the tools for interesting planning right there... I mean think about.... A Lanka and a Rubico are going to change how you approach enemies because of how different those two Rifles are....

But the way you go about using a Corrosive Lanka versus a Radiation Lanka is going to be identical because the Damage Type doesn't give you anything new/different to plan around.... They are just modifiers that change Numbers.

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

You touch on the opposite addage to the one your using - 'given the chance, players will optimise the fun out of your game'.

To be fair... Gamers are a bunch of Fickle Bastards... You can rely on them to be anything... Really 😝

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

 

Both are true. Players who don't give a hoot about effectiveness are going to pick subjectively, regardless.

Not quite.... I mean yes... You're right... But these players can easily be manipulated into caring about Effectiveness just by hiding whatever subjective crap they actually do care about behind some pain in the ass Content....

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

And then there are those caught in the middle, like me. I want to have a lot of fun playing what I like. I want to look at my vast arsenal, browse through it and wonder 'what weapon should I play today' without a nagging voice in the back of my head saying "if you use that gun you really like, you're going to have a miserable time in 'high level' content." I want to pick up a new weapon and not feel like if I'm wasting my time putting anything other than the same tired old sets of mods on it.

Yeah but... Isn't that extremely Frustrating ? I feel that way all the time and It's gotten to the point where I can't bottle it up and not think about it anymore.... I just Tear my Hair out everytime I have to think about these things...

2 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

There’s NO Element that does bonus damage to all factions, and sometimes it does reduced damage to different enemies of the same faction, which will make things even MORE harder

Bombards vs Heavy Gunners are a good example this.... But the Corpus faction is also chock full of all kinds of Health, Armor and Shields modifiers of different types... It's so annoying !!!

2 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

Bio shock is RPG? Anyway its hard, I quit halfway through. 

Nope.... That's why I said it was tricky trying to make an Argument for it.... It's Abit too different...

 

[(PSN)Reaper330011]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

While that's technically true... In Practice Symmetry Sucks.... Because we as Human Beans are Egotistical Narcissists who think we are so above it all.... And Asymmetrical Design caters to that part of us that thinks we're so special... 😝

But you can still plan with Asymmetry... Infact I would argue that those are the most Interesting things plan a build around...

If the Sniper Rifles are already All Different.... Then what's the point of Introducing additional Damage Types ? You already have the tools for interesting planning right there... I mean think about.... A Lanka and a Rubico are going to change how you approach enemies because of how different those two Rifles are....

But the way you go about using a Corrosive Lanka versus a Radiation Lanka is going to be identical because the Damage Type doesn't give you anything new/different to plan around.... They are just modifiers that change Numbers.

To be fair... Gamers are a bunch of Fickle Bastards... You can rely on them to be anything... Really 😝

Not quite.... I mean yes... You're right... But these players can easily be manipulated into caring about Effectiveness just by hiding whatever subjective crap they actually do care about behind some pain in the ass Content....

Yeah but... Isn't that extremely Frustrating ? I feel that way all the time and It's gotten to the point where I can't bottle it up and not think about it anymore.... I just Tear my Hair out everytime I have to think about these things...

Bombards vs Heavy Gunners are a good example this.... But the Corpus faction is also chock full of all kinds of Health, Armor and Shields modifiers of different types... It's so annoying !!!

Nope.... That's why I said it was tricky trying to make an Argument for it.... It's Abit too different...

 

First of all, what do you mean by asymmetrical/symmetrical? 
 

Second of all, corpus sucks. More enemy types, more damage, more technology. Grineer are more like 

 

“DAKKA DAKKKA DAAKKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAAAAA! SHOOOT EM! MISSLES! BOMB BOMB BOMB! KILL SQUIRMY TENNO MAGGOTS!” It is annoying.

 

third if u have different weapons made for different factions why even have (like u said) additional damage types for different factions.

[George_PPS]

On 2021-09-12 at 10:01 PM, TheArmchairThinker said:

Seeing how people start saying they take down steel path sentients in one shot using Glaive Prime, I think it's really time to tone down slash and viral.

Viral combined with slash makes a ridiculous amount of DoT where armor ignoring damage ticks with viral multiplier makes even grineer heavy armor pointless. I think you can tone down viral damage increase to 50% - 100% on 10 stacks, making them strong enough and doesn't come out over the rest of the elements.

For slash itself, you can change the bleed damage tick to deal slash damage instead of true damage, Making slash still a viable element for bare flesh and not making armor irrelevant.

You want the game to go back to 2017-2020 with endless nerfs that killed fun and player base? Why don’t you propose something better or buff something to compete with this combo or any thing that’s fun to use? 

[George_PPS]

4 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Still not fine when you can easily hit 45,000 damage tick that ignores armor with basic crit mods

Busted armor scaling is a thing to encourage different strategy that in this case, having either ability to strip armor or debuff ability to support DPS (many game used this to make you bring support because DPS can't brute force through the armor/defense) so slash proc that ignores armor needs to go. It doesn't make sense an element that is supposed to be bad against armored enemies deal armor ignoring DoT

Armor itself doesn't need lower starting point, most grineer have low enough armor to make them only durable enough and tougher from scaling and we're not supposed to fight until level 9999 because it wouldn't be something balanced, right? So let's take away the true damage so you can't brute force to level 9999 and there's a clearer line where things start being harder

That’s the fun of it. These numbers don’t show up all the time, many numbers are still small and those seemingly random big numbers are FUN!

 

if you don’t like it, use magnetic all day long. 

[Lutesque]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

First of all, what do you mean by asymmetrical/symmetrical? 

Symmetry means when two things are Similar or Mirrored in some way... I think... 😁

It's Difficult to explain because in this context I'm using it Figuratively... 

And Asymmetrical means when two things are different basically...

That's not really what they mean but this my understanding of those words.

2 hours ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

third if u have different weapons made for different factions why even have (like u said) additional damage types for different factions.

Exactly 😁 !!!

Atleast in Warframe we are lucky enough to get different weapons in a single loadout... In other games that developers don't give us this option because "it makes the Damage Types more Meaningful".... Which really drives my crazy !!!

 

[(PSN)Reaper330011]

10 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

Symmetry means when two things are Similar or Mirrored in some way... I think... 😁

It's Difficult to explain because in this context I'm using it Figuratively... 

And Asymmetrical means when two things are different basically...

That's not really what they mean but this my understanding of those words.

Exactly 😁 !!!

Atleast in Warframe we are lucky enough to get different weapons in a single loadout... In other games that developers don't give us this option because "it makes the Damage Types more Meaningful".... Which really drives my crazy !!!

 

I know what it means, but in your context what do you mean? (I know your using it figuratively but like… I don’t understand it XD)

Assymetrical = Opposite of symmetrical. 

[Lutesque]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)Reaper330011 said:

I know what it means, but in your context what do you mean? (I know your using it figuratively but like… I don’t understand it XD)

Assymetrical = Opposite of symmetrical. 

Oh right... Well... Yes that's even harder to explain but basically.... Uhm..... Sorry I didn't Sleep last night so I'm having difficulty thinking of an Example.... Soooooo....I'm going to count sheep for a while then Il get back to you 😁

[(PSN)Reaper330011]

7 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

Oh right... Well... Yes that's even harder to explain but basically.... Uhm..... Sorry I didn't Sleep last night so I'm having difficulty thinking of an Example.... Soooooo....I'm going to count sheep for a while then Il get back to you 😁

Errr ok.  Happy counting!

[(PSN)Reaper330011]

7 hours ago, Lutesque said:

Oh right... Well... Yes that's even harder to explain but basically.... Uhm..... Sorry I didn't Sleep last night so I'm having difficulty thinking of an Example.... Soooooo....I'm going to count sheep for a while then Il get back to you 😁

Done counting?