Warframe weapon balance: The prevalence of AOE and my diminished enjoyment as a fan of single target weapons.

[Kontrollo]

1 hour ago, (NSW)DracoHouston said:

People talk about power creep making things too easy, but this game has always been too easy. My old pc account is from before they added the vor starting quest, back then we just shoved packs of enemies into vauban CC and demolished it with melee, explosives and warframe abilities. A trinity would be keeping you from dying and feeding you energy because we didn't have zenurik dash and arcane energize yet. 

Our 'power creep' has just been letting everyone clown on the vast majority of content in the fashion they most enjoy. It sucks that you don't enjoy being a tiny god demolishing everything in your path but this has never, at any point, been a game about drawn out fights using single target primaries. Trying to make it more like that is a fool's errand. You physically can not stop us trivializing pve content. 

Oh please. Rose tinted glasses.

It hasn't always been too easy, you just don't remember what it was like. Maybe go on Youtube and watch some old gameplay footage.

Going 40 to 60 minutes in a Void Survival with a non-premade squad was an achievement back in the day. Now it's a breeze.

And the premade squads that allowed you to stay longer mostly revolved around sitting in a corner and exploiting game mechanics. Nowadays you can just spam AoE for ages until there's even a semblance of resistance. Also, being virtually invulnerable through Shield Gate alone.

[(NSW)DracoHouston]

22 minutes ago, Kontrollo said:

It hasn't always been too easy, you just don't remember what it was like. Maybe go on Youtube and watch some old gameplay footage.

Going 40 to 60 minutes in a Void Survival with a non-premade squad was an achievement back in the day. Now it's a breeze.

And the premade squads that allowed you to stay longer mostly revolved around sitting in a corner and exploiting game mechanics. Nowadays you can just spam AoE for ages until there's even a semblance of resistance. Also, being virtually invulnerable through Shield Gate alone.

If you'd actually managed to read my entire post you might have found I literally said the following:

"Our 'power creep' has just been letting everyone clown on the vast majority of content in the fashion they most enjoy. It sucks that you don't enjoy being a tiny god demolishing everything in your path but this has never, at any point, been a game about drawn out fights using single target primaries."

I don't know why you have a problem with being able to effectively play the game outside of the most boring premade squads possible, but this is a good thing. The genie was out of the bottle about 5 seconds after we read the warframe ability tooltips in 2013.

We could have:

-unlimited energy

-constant cc

-instant full heals

-massive damage mitigation

-a giant bubble over the one endless modes objective

Let's go back! We'll play the same 3 or so frames every game! Difficult content ahoy.

[Kontrollo]

8 hours ago, (NSW)DracoHouston said:

If you'd actually managed to read my entire post you might have found I literally said the following:

I've read your entire post. Thanks for trying to belittle me, what a good way to have a conversation!

 

8 hours ago, (NSW)DracoHouston said:

"Our 'power creep' has just been letting everyone clown on the vast majority of content in the fashion they most enjoy. It sucks that you don't enjoy being a tiny god demolishing everything in your path but this has never, at any point, been a game about drawn out fights using single target primaries."

I don't know why you have a problem with being able to effectively play the game outside of the most boring premade squads possible, but this is a good thing. The genie was out of the bottle about 5 seconds after we read the warframe ability tooltips in 2013.

We could have:

-unlimited energy

-constant cc

-instant full heals

-massive damage mitigation

-a giant bubble over the one endless modes objective

Let's go back! We'll play the same 3 or so frames every game! Difficult content ahoy.

As I said, you could have a premade squad and sit in a corner. But outside of that the game was much more interesting than it is now with all the spam everywhere. And yes, single target guns weren't actually just a gimmick.

Melee only really got out of hand after they added (to a lesser degree, but in combination) Berserker, Meme Strike and later Condition Overload, iirc. Also Rivens, of course.

[(NSW)DracoHouston]

20 hours ago, Kontrollo said:

I've read your entire post. Thanks for trying to belittle me, what a good way to have a conversation!

 

As I said, you could have a premade squad and sit in a corner. But outside of that the game was much more interesting than it is now with all the spam everywhere. And yes, single target guns weren't actually just a gimmick.

Melee only really got out of hand after they added (to a lesser degree, but in combination) Berserker, Meme Strike and later Condition Overload, iirc. Also Rivens, of course.

You are talking about taking bad equipment for 'the challenge', a suggestion everyone rightly laughs at when someone brings it up. Defense was slow enough without intentionally taking longer to do it. Back then, you did defense then you did void keys, maybe you farmed capture where you didn't capture the target for resources. What was this challenging 'interesting' content where you slowly took apart packs 1 at a time? The star map modes where you kill brainless trash mobs, the void maps where you killed brainless but spongier trash mobs? The bosses with invuln phases to stop us killing them in 2 seconds?

[Kontrollo]

2 hours ago, (NSW)DracoHouston said:

You are talking about taking bad equipment for 'the challenge', a suggestion everyone rightly laughs at when someone brings it up. Defense was slow enough without intentionally taking longer to do it. Back then, you did defense then you did void keys, maybe you farmed capture where you didn't capture the target for resources. What was this challenging 'interesting' content where you slowly took apart packs 1 at a time? The star map modes where you kill brainless trash mobs, the void maps where you killed brainless but spongier trash mobs? The bosses with invuln phases to stop us killing them in 2 seconds?

Here's my view and what you're arguing here:

You're assuming that just because you prefer and preferred the "sitting in a corner with a min maxed team comp" playstyle back in the day, that everyone else does, too.

Like in the other thread where you were saying "i think you have rocks in your head" and asking "what is wrong with you?" because I actually do and did like some of the gameplay (how dare I?) instead of just what is and isn't efficient and therefore yields the most and highest numbers on the mission reward screen.

Of course, everyone "rightly laughs at" bringing equipment that is, and playing for fun. Right?

 

As said before, Void Survival was something I did, with random squads, not sitting in a corner. Going 40 or even up to 60 minutes was an achievement. Much more interesting than camping, and the main mission rewards I got from that didn't care about the total number of kills, anyway.

 

Your aggressive demeanour isn't helping your case, by the way. And if you have such a low opinion on the gameplay itself, why are you still here. 😅

[(NSW)DracoHouston]

On 2022-04-06 at 5:53 AM, Kontrollo said:

Here's my view and what you're arguing here:

You're assuming that just because you prefer and preferred the "sitting in a corner with a min maxed team comp" playstyle back in the day, that everyone else does, too.

Like in the other thread where you were saying "i think you have rocks in your head" and asking "what is wrong with you?" because I actually do and did like some of the gameplay (how dare I?) instead of just what is and isn't efficient and therefore yields the most and highest numbers on the mission reward screen.

Of course, everyone "rightly laughs at" bringing equipment that is, and playing for fun. Right?

 

As said before, Void Survival was something I did, with random squads, not sitting in a corner. Going 40 or even up to 60 minutes was an achievement. Much more interesting than camping, and the main mission rewards I got from that didn't care about the total number of kills, anyway.

 

Your aggressive demeanour isn't helping your case, by the way. And if you have such a low opinion on the gameplay itself, why are you still here. 😅

How can you possibly read my posts and come to the conclusion that I preferred to sit in a corner? This is the EXACT same assumption you made in the other thread. It is an even worse assumption to make when I am explicitly arguing that what you want will (unintentionally, on your part) take us back to the corner!

As for the last remark, I am not the one demanding the game go back to some imagined past where it wasn't about exploding lots of trash mobs (survival doesn't care how many kills the team gets? What?). I love making trash explode and having 40+ frames that can do that and a load of weapons suitable for the task and powerful ways to build them is fun, and interesting. The way you want me to play? That's what doesn't sound interesting.

[Shadowex3]

On 2022-04-04 at 11:13 AM, (NSW)DracoHouston said:

People talk about power creep making things too easy, but this game has always been too easy. My old pc account is from before they added the vor starting quest, back then we just shoved packs of enemies into vauban CC and demolished it with melee, explosives and warframe abilities. A trinity would be keeping you from dying and feeding you energy because we didn't have zenurik dash and arcane energize yet. 

Our 'power creep' has just been letting everyone clown on the vast majority of content in the fashion they most enjoy. It sucks that you don't enjoy being a tiny god demolishing everything in your path but this has never, at any point, been a game about drawn out fights using single target primaries. Trying to make it more like that is a fool's errand. You physically can not stop us trivializing pve content. 

Oh please. Rose tinted glasses.

I've been playing this game since it was open to the public, with friends who've been playing since the beta, and this is a complete misrepresentation. The whole point is that you used to actually need a carefully put together squad like Vauban and Trinity combined with some damage dealers or defenders to pull off those kinds of shenanigans. Now every single individual player with an AOE weapon has map clearing capability vastly superior to what you used to get with a full organized 4 person squad using purpose-built frames. There's simply no middle ground anymore. Everything is either completely mooted, or you're utterly ovewhelmed. "Damage reduction" only made that problem worse.

DE backed themselves into a corner by turning this into Dynasty Warriors meets Doom 2016 but still designing content like we're playing Splinter Cell. The only viable option will be a Damage 3.0 that eliminates the "more" mods, with element mods being a conversion of a fixed physical damage stat.

[(NSW)DracoHouston]

5 hours ago, Shadowex3 said:

I've been playing this game since it was open to the public, with friends who've been playing since the beta, and this is a complete misrepresentation. The whole point is that you used to actually need a carefully put together squad like Vauban and Trinity combined with some damage dealers or defenders to pull off those kinds of shenanigans. Now every single individual player with an AOE weapon has map clearing capability vastly superior to what you used to get with a full organized 4 person squad using purpose-built frames. There's simply no middle ground anymore. Everything is either completely mooted, or you're utterly ovewhelmed. "Damage reduction" only made that problem worse.

DE backed themselves into a corner by turning this into Dynasty Warriors meets Doom 2016 but still designing content like we're playing Splinter Cell. The only viable option will be a Damage 3.0 that eliminates the "more" mods, with element mods being a conversion of a fixed physical damage stat.

I played then too, and that is exactly why I am glad we got "power creep", because sitting in a corner with a min max premade team to farm was awful. Those groups were easier than soloing things like Steel Path are now, you forget that these teams had literally no energy problems, were always at full health with a massive DR buff, and every enemy was CC'd, also the defense objective was immune to damage due to the massive shield Frost put over it. The game you are talking about I quit before they added Survival mode, I had a Trinity and got bored trying to build Frost Prime.

You have no idea how happy I was in 2018 trying the game again and finding little to no use for Trinity.

[Nira]

On 2022-03-25 at 7:00 AM, alchemystn2o said:

Thanks to Gun CO mods, arcanes, and helminth system, as a Mag main/enthusiast ( for the most part ) I outdone players that used frames such as Wukong, Mesa, Saryn, Mirage, Equinox, Rhino, etc. with weapons like Kuva Zarr, Bramma, Ogris, Nukor or whatever AOEs they are using.  Personally, I embraced it.  When they do not understand how I (using Mag) can out perform kills/dmg more than 3 other players combined within a pub session.  And when they ask me "share your build", I either say no or just ignore.  I just basically "fight back" in my own way.

Oh man, I remember doing the same thing with nought but Mag Prime and the humble Miter, in SP void survival. Topping the damage charts vs the usual meta gear was satisfying to say the least.

I did share my build when they asked though... 🙈

[alchemystn2o]

8 hours ago, Nira said:

Oh man, I remember doing the same thing with nought but Mag Prime and the humble Miter, in SP void survival. Topping the damage charts vs the usual meta gear was satisfying to say the least.

I did share my build when they asked though... 🙈

Shhhh, gotta keep non-meta Miter on the down low.  I said too much.  😆

[W3zeer]

The problem of AoE killing everything in sight has been in the game for as long as I can remember. When I started it was the Tonkor, then came the Synoid simulor, Attarax, Bladestorm and many many more. At this point it's kind of fruitless to try to change the AoE meta, especially since the game has changed in a way that enforces heavy AoE damage.
In most games, single target weapons deal a lot of damage at the cost of a low rate of fire. Warframe still shares this concept, although it does not fit at all into the way the game plays now. Killing a single target multiple times over offers no benefit because the 20 guys around it are still there. And then we have explosives that are just as strong but take care of all the enemies in the vicinity aswell. The simplest way to make other weapons significantly more relevant at little cost could be just cutting their reload time by a lot. We have reload times during which users of the meta weapons clear the entire tile several times over. Warframe has never become a tactical shooter, but it still tries to use approaches from that genre. I took a long break from the game and I immediatly noticed that melee now feels a lot more fluent and fast paced, but the guns stayed exactly in the same cumbersome place they used to be. It's not fun spending several seconds reloading. Sure you could mod for faster reload, but as someone who likes to experiment a lot with weapons I can say, most of them already struggle to be relevant outside the starchart and Rivens have changed nothing for that. Replacing even a single mod for more utility just means you can't really kill anything anymore.

Just to be clear, I don't advocate for every weapon to compete with the meta, I don't even say every weapon should be usable at the highest levels. But it would be nice to have some more variety during normal gameplay and the easiest solution I can think of is making 80% (totally arbitray number) smoother to use, by increasing the time they are ready to fire. The possibility of this upsetting the balance is seriously negligable since the meta weapons are still WAY more powerful. But maybe I can shoot a few guys more before your explosions would have deleted them anyways ;)

[Venus-Venera]

Am 4.3.2022 um 12:02 schrieb (PSN)Shaun-T-Wilson:

I suggest you play other FPS instead of warframe, if you just want single target guns gameplay try destiny or battlefield. Warframe is more on power fantasy and killing targets fast as possible so you can never avoid AoE guns or abilities, and it be rude of you to try and enforce that style on randoms.

right! same was with saryn in 2013/2014.

i am here to chill and hear stuff in background with double speed. i cant take this game seriously because there is no goal and most stuff is pointless.

there are better game for "work simulation" without salary. something like "eve online".

[johnno23]

I have to agree with the 

9 hours ago, Battle.Mage said:

i am here to chill and hear stuff in background with double speed. i cant take this game seriously because there is no goal and most stuff is pointless.

Warframe has many faults but it also has a great number of positives which are fun. In a 3 hour session I often use 1 frame on one day and another day use 5 or 6 frames and multiple missions at random all over the place. Games are meant for having fun and in many respects Warframe delivers. The fluidity of movement makes many of my other go to games feel so sluggish but at times I do mind a slower more methodical pace so load older titles as Deux Ex or Dishonered 2 maybe Control or something.

I also find the graphical quality of Warframe sucks me in as overall the game runs so well and overall the feeling of expanse on larger tile sets and the feeling of confinement in some areas is pretty well designed.

There are gauss players that smash thru a tile set and waiting at the exit for me to catch up....part n parcel of the choices available. Myself I never use Guass as I am simply too old and slow to use him and have bust a rib with laughter running him solo and trying not to crash into walls every 2 seconds as I simply cannot control my movement attempting a speed run. Thats cool and I accept that Gauss is not for me but I would never ask those expert Gauss players to slow down as I cannot keep up. 

Overall the simple answer is that nothing a developer makes does or tries to balance things will ever please everyone - it simply is never going to be possible. My advice as I do it myself is simply take a break now and again. I have well over 7000 hours over a few years and as I am semi retired plenty of time to play space ninja but warframe is one of my many games even if it is the one I have the most hours played. 

[Berzerkules]

On 2022-03-03 at 10:28 PM, XVMII said:

 When I join public matches in relic and sortie missions

People are going to speed clear low lvl missions like these even without AoE weapons. Nerf aoe weapons and say hello to Saryn.

DE couldn't break enough of our toys to please you.

[Lutesque]

On 2022-04-21 at 3:34 AM, johnno23 said:

 

There are gauss players that smash thru a tile set and waiting at the exit for me to catch up....part n parcel of the choices available. Myself I never use Guass as I am simply too old and slow to use him and have bust a rib with laughter running him solo and trying not to crash into walls every 2 seconds as I simply cannot control my movement attempting a speed run.

Every Gauss Player does this....

There's no other way to play him.... 👀

On 2022-04-21 at 3:34 AM, johnno23 said:

Overall the simple answer is that nothing a developer makes does or tries to balance things will ever please everyone - it simply is never going to be possible.

I'm not entirely sold on that statement.... 

One of the things that has always divided the Warframe Community is players doing the Same mission but have very Different Goals....

You might be trying kill a Demolisher in Disruption while I'm Just trying to Complete my Codex, you might be trying to Complete an Exterminate Mission while I go looking For Caches....

You might be trying to Capture Uncle Terry while I'm trying To Capture some Vampire Kitties....

As it is right now....the Matchmaking System does not allow players with Similar goals to team up with each other....  On top of that the missions them selves also have Side Objectives that Conflict with the Main Objective.....

It's true that you can't please Everyone.... But why does the game Match with you with Anybody who's Available rather than somebody whos interests Actually align with yours ?

That's why you always see these Nerf Threads everywhere.... That's just a Side Affect of how the game is designed.... People want things nerfed and modes Changed simply because they are Trying to dictate how other people play the game and the reason they are doing that is Because the game does reward or punish one player for the Behaviour of their Team Mates....

And you know what sucks.... Rather than Actually allowing like minded Individuals to team up with each other Naturally... DE does listen to these Nerf Threads from time to time....

And that's a Damn Shame....

On 2022-04-21 at 3:34 AM, johnno23 said:

My advice as I do it myself is simply take a break now and again. I have well over 7000 hours over a few years and as I am semi retired plenty of time to play space ninja but warframe is one of my many games even if it is the one I have the most hours played. 

I've followed this Advice 3 Times now....

Doesn't it ever bother you when you play something else and you see some similarity to Warframe except that game does it better.... Or better yet.... Doesn't it bother you when you finally return to Warframe and Nothing is changed ?

New Grinds with the same Problems.... Bugs Persisting for Years.... 

I don't know....

Warframe doesn't get Better when I play Something else.... It's the same game when I come back...  And there's no other game I can play to scratch that Itch.... Not For now anyways.... 👀

 

[Venus-Venera]

There are always topics like this...
I have ultimate solution for this:

there should be a mode for single target players only! neither saryn 4th skill nor the smallest aoe damage from weapons is not allowed! also kuva nukor and ignis wrath may not be used.
then the topic creators will surely have their super "fun".
and the devs might be able to post statistics on how many players actually play something like that...

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

Ya, the current meta is kind of doo doo and a bit confusing. They went from redesigning frames and rebalancing weapons to prevent nukes to putting nukes in every players hand. This idea that Warfame is about AoE is false. They consistently tried to curtail that. To the point were they had to take self damage away to get players to use explosive weapons. No though, they let the genie out and im not sure how they put it back in the bottle. 

[Lutesque]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Godlike13 said:

This idea that Warfame is about AoE is false.

I haven't been playing this Game since the beginning so I can Not Say.... But as far back as 2018 AoE has always been what Warframe was about it.... It has changed Forms about 3 Times since then but it has never been Not about AoE....

[Kontrollo]

On 2022-04-06 at 11:50 PM, (NSW)DracoHouston said:

How can you possibly read my posts and come to the conclusion that I preferred to sit in a corner? This is the EXACT same assumption you made in the other thread. It is an even worse assumption to make when I am explicitly arguing that what you want will (unintentionally, on your part) take us back to the corner!

As for the last remark, I am not the one demanding the game go back to some imagined past where it wasn't about exploding lots of trash mobs (survival doesn't care how many kills the team gets? What?). I love making trash explode and having 40+ frames that can do that and a load of weapons suitable for the task and powerful ways to build them is fun, and interesting. The way you want me to play? That's what doesn't sound interesting.

If you have actually played it back then, then you know it's not some "imagined past" and you're simply being insincere.

Alternatively, if you have played it and think it was all just trash mobs, then you were sitting in a corner with a dedicated team comp, all day every day.

Decide on which narrative you want to go with please, you can't have it both ways.

 

Because I actually know what the game was like back then.

 

Edit: P.S. And yes, you didn't get the reward thing, either. Were you really playing back then? I said "the main mission rewards I got from that didn't care about the total number of kills". The tower keys were spent once at the beginning, and you would stay in there for the 5-minute cycle rewards, not to kill as many enemies as possible. Of course you needed enough to keep the life support up but that was that. CC was a viable strategy to not get overwhelmed, though. Nowadays it's just "explode everything" instead.

[p_silveira]

On 2022-04-24 at 6:35 PM, Battle.Mage said:

there should be a mode for single target players only! neither saryn 4th skill nor the smallest aoe damage from weapons is not allowed! also kuva nukor and ignis wrath may not be used.

I'mma be honest here, I'd love an option where you can choose to be the host and have a "blacklist" of weapons/frames for whoever wants to join. People who enjoy AoE nuking get to play the way they want, and people who don't enjoy playing walking simulator (that's what pub missions are rn if you are not using a nuker weapon) get to play multiplayer with likeminded people, without having the hazzle of getting into Recruiting Chat every time. Everyone wins.

[Venus-Venera]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb p_silveira:

I'mma be honest here, I'd love an option where you can choose to be the host and have a "blacklist" of weapons/frames for whoever wants to join. People who enjoy AoE nuking get to play the way they want, and people who don't enjoy playing walking simulator (that's what pub missions are rn if you are not using a nuker weapon) get to play multiplayer with likeminded people, without having the hazzle of getting into Recruiting Chat every time. Everyone wins.

there are 667+ items in the game

[p_silveira]

1 hour ago, Battle.Mage said:

there are 667+ items in the game

Make it search-able.

[Kontrollo]

1 hour ago, p_silveira said:

Make it search-able.

They could also reduce the complexity by classifying/tagging equipment and letting us choose that. Not that I think it's likely to happen, but I like the idea.

 

[Berzerkules]

On 2022-03-24 at 3:44 AM, Kontrollo said:

Well, the problem for those who have been around for a while (2013 in my case) and don't agree with the direction it is headed/has been heading, this game did fit exactly what I liked.

But with how they're handling it in the past few months/years, that is getting harder and harder to ignore/deal with.

It's not something we just have to accept silently.

From the perspective of someone that started playing 3 years ago there has always been something that just wipes the map. There has never been a great multi player experience in this game for me. Back when I started it was spin 2 win memeing strike and catchmoon spam. The only thing that's changed is the meta. Melee is as strong as ever but it isn't twice the range of the aoe weapons we have now. Catchmoon has been gutted and now we have Bramma/Zarr, nothing has really changed from my perspective. 

This is the game they way I found it and the way I enjoy it. It's far from perfect, but I like the game for what it is. I never enjoyed "co-op" in WF. If I had to guess, I've played solo like 75% of the time because there is generally no reason to play with others and pubs have always sucked. It's not worth letting randoms effect my mood, so I do my own thing at my own pace. 

I play solo and don't bother nobody. I just wonder why people subject themselves to the cesspool that is pubs then want DE to change the game so everyone has to play the way they enjoy. 

I don't want the game set back to someone else's good ol' days. The game would be unrecognizable as WF to me if they did. When people encourage DE to break my toys because they want a time machine I'm going to voice my opinion as well. 

[Kontrollo]

3 hours ago, Berzerkules said:

From the perspective of someone that started playing 3 years ago there has always been something that just wipes the map. There has never been a great multi player experience in this game for me. Back when I started it was spin 2 win memeing strike and catchmoon spam. The only thing that's changed is the meta. Melee is as strong as ever but it isn't twice the range of the aoe weapons we have now. Catchmoon has been gutted and now we have Bramma/Zarr, nothing has really changed from my perspective. 

This is the game they way I found it and the way I enjoy it. It's far from perfect, but I like the game for what it is. I never enjoyed "co-op" in WF. If I had to guess, I've played solo like 75% of the time because there is generally no reason to play with others and pubs have always sucked. It's not worth letting randoms effect my mood, so I do my own thing at my own pace. 

I play solo and don't bother nobody. I just wonder why people subject themselves to the cesspool that is pubs then want DE to change the game so everyone has to play the way they enjoy. 

I don't want the game set back to someone else's good ol' days. The game would be unrecognizable as WF to me if they did. When people encourage DE to break my toys because they want a time machine I'm going to voice my opinion as well. 

And if you had read the few posts right above yours you'd have seen that there are alternative ways to deal with that, too. 🙄

But I agree with you on one thing: co-op these days is not very enjoyable. If I'm not after something specific where it's much faster to play in a group, I often turn it to solo, as well.

 

Co-op used to be the cornerstone of this game and pubs weren't a "cesspool". (Well, I don't think they are today, either, not sure what your experience there is. Just the gameplay is not very enjoyable to me nowadays.)