The Arsenal divide.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

Hey, so we had the galvanised mods and the melee nerf in an attempt to close the gap between melee and ranged damage.

This was done in lieu of base stat changes, I have returned from the front lines to report that, while guns are stronger and melee is weaker, you’re just shifting the margins by tiny percentages. 

My Stahlta has 6 forma, an arcane adaptor, a catalyst, and a hunter munitions + viral build.

My Hate is rank 17, has no potato, and only a handful of mods.

My Stahlta takes 5-10 shots to kill a grunt on steel path, the galvanised mods and arcanes kick in after that and improve how the weapon functions, but the damage is still pretty weak on SP targets. Furthermore, I need to stay at a distance and do what I can to hit headshots with projectiles. That can be difficult even without other variables.

But my hate? Cleaves through whole packs of SP enemies within a couple of hits. It does higher single target damage, and it does that damage in an area with no restriction on how many times I may use it.

 

Stahlta is one of my favourite guns, nearly every slot has a polarity.

Hate was a piece of MR fodder I was just leveling up for mastery rank.

Yet it still performs better.

This is a very specific comparison, to give a more grounded and personable perspective on the arsenal divide and its state now.

 

I firmly believe the gap will never be closed without changing base stats. If it was up to me, I would revert the changes to blood rush, leave condition overload how it is, and rework base stats category by category.

You could even time it with your prime releases. Every 3 or so months you could do a “weapon class update,” where in a single update you’ll release base stat tweaks for hand guns, shotguns, smgs, snipers, polearms etc one at a time.

Doing them staggered like this will allow your development teams understanding of the base values to adapt and change as they commit to working on this project.

It would be iterative, it would be time consuming, but I honestly believe the influx of players you’ll receive when you announce “we are reworking all hang guns,” would be phenomenal.

League of Legends keeps its playerbase engaged with bi-weekly patches. I solemnly urge Digital extremes to take a more hands on approach to balancing.

 

Alternatively, I am genuinely willing to undertake base stat changes on my own. I will spend a whole year in excel rebalancing things myself, because I know it would be the single greatest change you could make to this game. The balance is the problem. 
 

Or just get your own public test realm or beta server, bring your community in, get their feedback, listen to them. Why guess what might work, when you can upload changes to a test realm and have tens of thousands of players provide you with millions of hours of data.

I love you guys at Digital extremes, but sometimes it really does feel like you’re asleep at the wheel.

You. Need. To. Engage. With. The. Base. Stats. 
New frames are releasing weak, hugely anticipated weapons are coming out as MR fodder, it’s become very clear that internal balance has slipped out of your hands. Please, seize it again.

Please <3

[Lutesque]

A better solution would be to remove all the rewards from Steel Path....

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

7 hours ago, Lutesque said:

A better solution would be to remove all the rewards from Steel Path....

I’d prefer if you kept your sarcastic takes yo yourself. I have to deal with your remarks on other peoples posts. This is feedback, not intended for you.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

my problem with the Arsenal Divide changes

is that all the gun buffs rely on "On Kill".

means a gun that was weak to begin with, has a hard time getting kills, thus doesn't get the buff and stays weak

vs a gun that was already strong, gets easy kills fast, and just gets buffed even farther ahead

Just unbalances stuff further. Bigger spread between strong and weak weapons instead of bringing weak weapons up.

[(NSW)Greybones]

Not gonna lie, when DE release something like the Ghoul Saw and it's not a Steel Path shredder, I'm going to believe that they're balancing to a system that may be a little different to some veteran expectations

[Lutesque]

9 hours ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

I’d prefer if you kept your sarcastic takes yo yourself. I have to deal with your remarks on other peoples posts. This is feedback, not intended for you.

Sarcasm ?

I was being Dead Serious. 😐

Remove all Incentive to Do Steel Path... People no longer feel the need to go there and suffer and thus won't feel like their Gear is rubbish... The Game's balance avoids becoming even more broken than it already is... Everybody wins !!!

 

[Tiltskillet]

On 2021-09-20 at 11:42 PM, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

You. Need. To. Engage. With. The. Base. Stats. 

Just figure out a way to monetize or grinditize a comprehensive base stat review without causing too much player uproar, and I think the chance of that engagement becomes significant.

[Electropuncher]

19 hours ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

I’d prefer if you kept your sarcastic takes yo yourself. I have to deal with your remarks on other peoples posts. This is feedback, not intended for you.

You can mute other members. Hover over their name and click ignore. Very helpful.

The Stahlta isn't exactly a high end weapon. It's great around level 50-90 with its alt fire, but its primary fire is terrible. It's an inaccurate, shaky, and weak assault rifle with some questionable elements. Its saving graces are its quick reload, the secondary fire, and the UT skin if you're into that sort of thing. Comparing it to the second strongest scythe in the game is kind of a weak comparison. I wouldn't recommend building it the way your original post seems to be. The only working build I found was basically ONLY focusing on the secondary fire and crit damage. I think I put two or three forma into it. I feel the problem is more you invested too much into a mediocre weapon.

Since the changes, I've been finding myself using my guns more and more, but I think the problem is really the level of "follow through" on most melee. There should be far less than there currently is on speedy melee weapons, and there should be mods that go along with it. The fact that you can cleave through five units with a light strike is kind of ridiculous. Warframe's real problem is single-target weapons not dealing nearly as much, proportionally, with multi-target; and this is often misdiagnosed as "melee good, gun bad." 

But yeah, Stalking Fan is an OP stance. No doubt about it.

[CephalonCarnage]

I have to agree - Steel Path was a "test yourself because you want to" heard mode, and never a "here's a grind for cool loot". Suddenly it is a grind for arcanes and so on,. and pewople have to play it to get them, in order to get the arcanes that make guns slightly better functional that they can... oh yeah, be worthwhile on the steel path.

These things should have been arbitration rewards at worst. top bounty drops at best.

 

anyway, the melee v guns thing isn#t even close to being resolved:

melee: put Steel Charge aura on, you get 9 points rather than 7 so you're already 4 mod points better off. Then you get combos, some do 400% extra damage, nothing like that for guns. Melee has combo counters, extra damage, nothing like that for guns. The Tenet weapons don't even have to bother with combo delay. You don't even need to be close to enemies - stuff like Exodia Contagion can kill them at a distance just by jumping up and down. Melee doesn't need ammo, reload etc. and so on for a list as long as my arm.

 

The whole combat system is broken. I think the onlyt way to fix it is a whole rework from scratch, even if it means changeing damage for a new "medium hard" gamemode where everything is level 50 across the starchart and damage and attack speeds and AoE and DoT (yuk, should get rid of that nonsense entirely) are thought through and balanced so the game plays like the designer wants it played. If they change the drop rates so you don't need to grind forever then people will play it even if it means they have to slow down and think through the mission.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

11 hours ago, gbjbaanb said:

 

anyway, the melee v guns thing isn#t even close to being resolved:

 

Come across a Tanky enemy, like an Acolyte. not a mob that just falls down instantly

Guns: he absorbs your bullets, your Arcane/Galvanized stacks bleed away since you not "On-Kill", making you progressively Weaker in an unwinnable spiral.

Melee: just keep swinging, and your Combo Counter keeps stacking up up up!, increasing your damage exponentially. Down he goes.

melee has it way easier for the tough spots.

 

People are saying the Divide Rebalance made Guns OP; but that's only when you're clearing mobs en mass with a Bramma AoE. -mobs were gonna be easy kills anyway.

Guns are still falling behind in the places that Actually Matter for Difficulty.

[Lutesque]

@(PSN)haphazardlynamed

I think they did that on purpose...

[Yamazuki]

8 hours ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

Come across a Tanky enemy, like an Acolyte. not a mob that just falls down instantly

Meta "gun" setups kill Acolytes within a couple seconds depending on the weapon; some even spawn kill them which is quicker than melee unless the acolyte appears on top of the person using a melee weapon.

Just as not all ranged setups can delete Acolytes, not all melee can either. All weapon types have severe imbalances between the top and low ends.

Regardless, it's true that SP simply shouldn't have had rewards tied to it. The issue hasn't been x weapon is worse than y weapon, but DE continuously increasing the level/durability of enemies we run into it. It makes absolutely no sense to demand DE provide higher level enemies only to then demand our damage go up along with it; this just cancels out the fact enemies had their level increased.

The whole point in enemies "endlessly scaling" is that you get to a point where you're forced to fail. Although, this is Warframe, and failing isn't supposed to be a thing unless caused by a bug.

[George_PPS]

Guns need to be buffed a lot more. At least 200-300% and their Riven stats needs more buffs as well. Finally, reverse melee nerfs!!

Finally, buff all enemies! 

[Leqesai]

On 2021-09-28 at 3:52 PM, George_PPS said:

Guns need to be buffed a lot more. At least 200-300% and their Riven stats needs more buffs as well. Finally, reverse melee nerfs!!

Finally, buff all enemies! 

Lol this is hilarious.

10/10

[Tyreaus]

On 2021-09-23 at 11:09 AM, Yamazuki said:

The issue hasn't been x weapon is worse than y weapon, but DE continuously increasing the level/durability of enemies we run into it.

And not having a smooth gear increase to go along with it.

You take something like, say, Diablo and you have gradual increase in enemy strength and gradual increase in player's equipment, largely powered by number bumps in variants of the same stuff.

DE seems to want weapons to fill that niche, and their stats sort of follow a curve based on MR and general game updates (see Prime weapons where this loves to fall apart). The problem is that the weapons are unique, and besides that uniqueness creating attachment (see all the complaints about the Kuva Nukor nerf), their actual performance gets thrown about all over the place because of that mechanical variety. Some stances and AoE mechanics can make weapons perform spectacular even in content that, based on their paper stats and MR requirement, should outstrip the weapon.

Meanwhile, the one system that could act like "gradual number bumps in variants of the same stuff" - the mod system - isn't updated with sufficient frequency. Or at least not with that design intended. Despite that system working decently well throughout the starchart progression path.