AoE/Single Target Balancing

[StokesTheorem]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)BARLEYDAWG said:

It is pretty common to kill 100+ enemies in a mission in Halo and Borderlands has multiple challenges where you need to kill 1000+ enemies of the same type. I said 40 enemies max at once because that is the cap on Grendel, but with a max range Saryn I rarely, if ever, get 25 enemies with Spores on them at once even when I'm not fighting with other Saryns for enemies to put Spores on. Single-instance enemy count really isn't that much higher than other shooters (at least most of the ones I've played) despite people calling Warframe a horde shooter. Considering that some people mod aim bots into to their games (mostly to cheat) regardless of enemy count, the presence of one character with an aim bot ability doesn't mean a whole lot.

While I haven't played Borderlands 3, I have played every single other entry in the series. And I've watched enough Borderlands 3 footage as well, and I can absolutely say that there is overall a lot less enemies around the player at any given time, and the amount of room that the combat takes place on is generally significantly larger, leading to more spread out enemies. Those kill 1000+ enemies challenges? They're precisely that, challenges. Not necessarily hard ones, but they do take a time investment. Meanwhile you'll easily kill 200 enemies (though spread across the enemy types) within 5 minutes of Warframe play. There are plenty other differences, such as both enemies and players moving significantly slower, and the fact that Borderlands doesn't lock you into a loadout at mission start. You have your 4 quick weapon slots + grenade and relic, but you can also just duck behind some cover for a second and switch to a weapon in your inventory if you want an alternative.

Honestly, Borderlands is different enough that there're really not that many relevant comparisons to be had, beyond maybe that if you have larger levels with more spread out enemies, a lot of which have ranged attacks, then AoE abilities and weapons aren't as relevant.

[PsychoGlory]

This is a Horde shooting game but now the weapons design for killing hordes have been nerfed to garbage.  All of you players demanding nerfs you are BAD/untalented players that have not put the time in to learn to be good.  Instead of learning the game you want nerfs.

[Bambo0zl3]

I can't shake of the feeling, that most players who were complaining about the AOE-Damage/Weapons were those who do not even own any of them.
The most people who complain are those, who are leaving any end game / Steel Path mission within two minutes, after two deaths, because of their crappy gear.
Sorry, I want everybody to have fun - but it's called end game and not "everbody should get every reward without any expense".
A friend of mine always said: "If you want to play with the big boys and girls - bring the big guns".

Yes, it's a lot of "work" to get a matching, nice Kuva Bramma and it costs a lot of material and time to research the Bubonico (and all it's previous, needed weapons) in the Dojo. What really grinds my gears is: Why didn't you boost the single target weapons instead of crashing and nerfing the only weapons that were fun for Steel Path and late end game?

Shedu? It's now a f*cking joke... Fire seven rounds, get yourself some coffee, take a p*iss, come back aaaaand your magazine is reloaded

Bubonico? Same here... Fire, clean up your household, cook some meal aaaand reloaded

Kuva Bramma? Alright, no damage through any walls, smaller explosion radius; fine. But even more ammo reduction through changes with the drop rate?

Cedo? To be honest, seems to be "ok" (not minding the point, that we'll have the same ammo problem in the end game like Kuva Bramma and so on)

 

I shout it out to the developers and the team - we love your game but those nerfs are not the way to integrate a balanced end game meta for more weapons. 🙄
And this is not the right topic here but how you massacred my boy Wukong... I have no words left *mic drop*

[Tiniey]

Lmao. Can't believe you really did play game

[(XBOX)BARLEYDAWG]

10 hours ago, PsychoGlory said:

This is a Horde shooting game but now the weapons design for killing hordes have been nerfed to garbage.  All of you players demanding nerfs you are BAD/untalented players that have not put the time in to learn to be good.  Instead of learning the game you want nerfs.

The irony here is that AoE weapons were promoting a braindead playstyle for the bad/untalented players to get through content. Also, my first suggestion on how to actually balance things were buffs that would have had more impact than just some extra heashot damage. Lastly, I personally wouldn't call a group a horde if I can see the back wall between the enemies.

[(XBOX)BARLEYDAWG]

10 hours ago, Bambo0zl3 said:

I can't shake of the feeling, that most players who were complaining about the AOE-Damage/Weapons were those who do not even own any of them.
The most people who complain are those, who are leaving any end game / Steel Path mission within two minutes, after two deaths, because of their crappy gear.
Sorry, I want everybody to have fun - but it's called end game and not "everbody should get every reward without any expense".
A friend of mine always said: "If you want to play with the big boys and girls - bring the big guns".

Yes, it's a lot of "work" to get a matching, nice Kuva Bramma and it costs a lot of material and time to research the Bubonico (and all it's previous, needed weapons) in the Dojo. What really grinds my gears is: Why didn't you boost the single target weapons instead of crashing and nerfing the only weapons that were fun for Steel Path and late end game?

Shedu? It's now a f*cking joke... Fire seven rounds, get yourself some coffee, take a p*iss, come back aaaaand your magazine is reloaded

Bubonico? Same here... Fire, clean up your household, cook some meal aaaand reloaded

Kuva Bramma? Alright, no damage through any walls, smaller explosion radius; fine. But even more ammo reduction through changes with the drop rate?

Cedo? To be honest, seems to be "ok" (not minding the point, that we'll have the same ammo problem in the end game like Kuva Bramma and so on)

 

I shout it out to the developers and the team - we love your game but those nerfs are not the way to integrate a balanced end game meta for more weapons. 🙄
And this is not the right topic here but how you massacred my boy Wukong... I have no words left *mic drop*

While I can't vouch for the other people that made posts calling for nerfs, I do own AoE weapons and I have completed the SP starchart (mostly solo) and I do not find it fun having to rush ahead of everyone else just to have enemies to shoot at regardless of what weapon I'm using.

While end game isn't supposed to let bad or mediocre gear pass by nature, it shouldn't be excluding even the best weapons of a category just because it is a single-target weapon. I do agree that single target weapons didn't get the buff they needed to to be on par with the farming speeds of AoE weapons (a net +50% headshot damage doesn't do much), but I will acknowledge that if something becomes a significant outlier in terms of overall power then it needs to change (for better or worse).

I think a large portion of the ammo economy issue is that people are still hellbent on using just one weapon despite the devs trying to get players to use more of their arsenal by reducing ammo drops. Iirc being in a group further reduces ammo drops (according to the patch notes) which further aggravates the ammo issues. From what I can tell, DE probably won't consider the ammo changes an issue unless people are consistently running out of ammo for both guns in any loadout.