Regarding some of the points of the 163 Devstream overview

[inappropriatename5877]

(what i'm saying refers to this https://www.warframe.com/news/devstream-163-overview?utm_medium=organic-social&utm_campaign=2022-08-Devstream163Overview&fbclid=IwAR2b6jX5H1vfSy9VG77IclOK8z9xNdYHEJ4O92xwYxxzzxZopiMdE7l0iIQ)

Greetings. I would like to discuss some of the points I felt need more of a player PoV to be understood.

 1) "Currently, some explosive weapons and playstyles remove the need to aim, or otherwise care about your surroundings. This doesn’t fit the “automated” category perfectly, but we want such impactful weapons to require more consideration and tactical decision making than currently exists."

 You mention "consideration" and "tactical decision", in a game where you got 10+ enemies rushing you from everywhere at any given time and can melt you within seconds if you don't act fast enough. A fight or flight mechanic like that is nowhere near the "tactical decision" you are talking about. The problem is not the explosive weapons here, the problem is the situations we find ourselves in. If you are in a tight corridor and you want to clear it, you will never pull out your single shot pistol or sniper rifle and try to headshot your way through that, you will be efficient and use a single shot from an explosive weapon, as it clearly does the job much better.

2) "Warframe is a game full of very powerful tactics, but problems arise when players feel ‘forced’ to use specific choices. The top 5 most popular weapons are all AoE, accounting for 47% of all weapon usage at high Mastery Rank AOE usage stats. In situations where efficiency is important, some would say you aren’t playing ‘correctly’ if you’re not utilizing these choices, which some players don’t necessarily find fun."

Warframe is also a game where you need to grind, grind and grind. The faster you grind, the faster you can achieve your goals and the faster you can move on to other goals. It's not a matter of "correct" or "incorrect" playing, it's a matter of wasting time vs spending time. Shooting the enemy 1 by 1 is fun the first 10 times you play a defense mission, but you (the devs) do not put nearly as many hours in the game grinding away as we do, and it shows. Try staying engaged enough in a 30min survival for the 500th time, killing enemies with single shot weapons. You will fail. Many players are people with jobs. Of course they will want to be as efficient with their time as possible, and AoE weapons provide just that.

3) "A majority of sessions are played co-op, so ideally everybody gets a chance to play. We’ve reached a point where players are asking us to change these weapons, because they leave so little for others to do."

The weapons are not to blame for this, the game objectives are. Most mission types require killing enemies, so of course people are gonna naturally find a way to do that as fast as possible. Let's take a closer look at some of the more prominent mission types used for farming:
  a) Assassination: Blitz through the stage, ignore all the enemies until you reach the boss room, then either 1 shot the boss, or wait until his invincibility wears off, and then 1 shot him. There are extremely few such missions with extra mechanics.
  b) Defense: Kill all the enemy waves, get the rewards every 5 waves. No extra mechanics other than killing enemies.

  c) Survival: Kill enemies and survive as long as possible. Make sure to kill them fast enough to get enough air supply modules.

  d) Excavation: Sit in one place so that you can CC the enemies without them killing the excavator, the best CC being death.

  e) Interception: Sit in one place so that you can CC the enemies without them capturing the points, the best CC being death.

  f) Disruption: A literal damage check of a mission, as you have to have extremely well built weapons to bring down the Demolysts later on, or you don't get as many rewards.

Do you see a pattern here? Warframe is a game about killing stuff, and the sheer amount you have to do that, makes it so that players are naturally inclined to make more and more powerful builds to deal with the grind as efficiently as possible. In these missions there is nothing else to do other than kill, of course the other players will feel useless if they have weak equipment. The closest you ever came to making others feel useful even with underperforming equipment was with Railjack, where each player was able to get a role (gunner, repair, pilot, invader).

This is the first crux of this whole post:

ROLES. Warframe is not your traditional RPG with set roles. Everyone can do everything up to a very serviceable extent. When there are no roles and everyone is expected to carry their own weight, of course newer players or players with lesser equipment will feel useless. The lack of extra objectives that have to happen simultaneously should be pretty indicative of the whole experience as a new player in a squad with experienced players. In Railjack, when the ship is being bombarded and there are cracks in the hull, the pilot cannot stop piloting to fix them, which is why the engineer is there. Or when the engineer has to bring ammo to the pilot but there are invaders on board, you got the defender dealing with those. This brings me to the second crux: 

LACK OF ESSENTIAL TEAM PLAY. Warframe is a power fantasy horde shooter. When your character can deal crazy amounts of damage, and can also heal and CC the enemy all by themselves, you lose the need for others. Others can expedite the process of farming, but it's also doable solo. Heck, even in Railjack, if your ship is outfitted enough, you can still solo the higher difficulty regions, albeit much slower. This is a problem in a co-op environment. Picture this: you are a new player, just got Trinity. Your weapon loadout is not that good, but you invested quite a bit in your Warframe, and want to support your allies, so you assume the mantle of the support and enter a match. What you see instead, is people healing and regenerating energy all by themselves (add the operators to the mix and things get WAY out of hand), all the while destroying enemies faster than you can blink. "What's the point,then?" You ask yourself. "Guess I'll just have to get more damage and disregard supporting".

No extra objectives. No valves to close so that the gas doesn't kill the whole team. No floor holes to cover. No terminals to hack to temporarily disable automated defense systems. No stage hazards. All you must do is kill, and you succeed. Want weapon parts? Kill. Want resources? Kill. Want warframes? Kill. Want to level up? Kill. The whole game is built around on different flavours of killing, so players will naturally gravitate towards making the process as fast as possible, so that they can progress faster.

What I want to say with all this is STOP looking at the weapons and the playstyles and focus on the bigger picture. What you are trying to do will not entice players to not use explosive weapons as much, it will just make them try to find a workaround, and things will still stay the same as before. The changes are superficial and will accomplish nothing in the long run.

[Iryn]

Warframe guns should all be like this... just saying.

[Lutesque]

4 minutes ago, inappropriatename5877 said:

 

 1) "Currently, some explosive weapons and playstyles remove the need to aim, or otherwise care about your surroundings. This doesn’t fit the “automated” category perfectly, but we want such impactful weapons to require more consideration and tactical decision making than currently exists."

 You mention "consideration" and "tactical decision", in a game where you got 10+ enemies rushing you from everywhere at any given time and can melt you within seconds if you don't act fast enough. A fight or flight mechanic like that is nowhere near the "tactical decision" you are talking about. The problem is not the explosive weapons here, the problem is the situations we find ourselves in. If you are in a tight corridor and you want to clear it, you will never pull out your single shot pistol or sniper rifle and try to headshot your way through that, you will be efficient and use a single shot from an explosive weapon, as it clearly does the job much better

It's Either that.... Or the Excavator will Blow Up since They Killed Off Crowd Control ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.....

5 minutes ago, inappropriatename5877 said:

 

2) "Warframe is a game full of very powerful tactics, but problems arise when players feel ‘forced’ to use specific choices. The top 5 most popular weapons are all AoE, accounting for 47% of all weapon usage at high Mastery Rank AOE usage stats. In situations where efficiency is important, some would say you aren’t playing ‘correctly’ if you’re not utilizing these choices, which some players don’t necessarily find fun."

 

This Coming from the Same Developers that Creates ESO and Affinity/Resources is A reward earned mostly from Killing.... I guess they Think we are Stupid.... And you you know what.... They are right.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

9 minutes ago, inappropriatename5877 said:

3) "A majority of sessions are played co-op, so ideally everybody gets a chance to play. We’ve reached a point where players are asking us to change these weapons, because they leave so little for others to do."

The weapons are not to blame for this, the game objectives are. Most mission types require killing enemies, so of course people are gonna naturally find a way to do that as fast as possible. Let's take a closer look at some of the more prominent mission types used for farming:
  a) Assassination: Blitz through the stage, ignore all the enemies until you reach the boss room, then either 1 shot the boss, or wait until his invincibility wears off, and then 1 shot him. There are extremely few such missions with extra mechanics.
  b) Defense: Kill all the enemy waves, get the rewards every 5 waves. No extra mechanics other than killing enemies.

  c) Survival: Kill enemies and survive as long as possible. Make sure to kill them fast enough to get enough air supply modules.

  d) Excavation: Sit in one place so that you can CC the enemies without them killing the excavator, the best CC being death.

  e) Interception: Sit in one place so that you can CC the enemies without them capturing the points, the best CC being death.

  f) Disruption: A literal damage check of a mission, as you have to have extremely well built weapons to bring down the Demolysts later on, or you don't get as many rewards.

Do you see a pattern here? Warframe is a game about killing stuff, and the sheer amount you have to do that, makes it so that players are naturally inclined to make more and more powerful builds to deal with the grind as efficiently as possible. In these missions there is nothing else to do other than kill, of course the other players will feel useless if they have weak equipment. The closest you ever came to making others feel useful even with underperforming equipment was with Railjack, where each player was able to get a role (gunner, repair, pilot, invader).

I've been telling people this for Years....

Triburos even made a Video about it....

DE knows and they know Very Well.... But if they Had to Choose between Actually Taking the Time and Effort to Fix the Game or Applying a Quick Bandaid that just Shuffles the Meta.... Guess which one they are going to Pick... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Reason why DE Rewards Kills more than Anything Else is because it's the Easiest Thing to Track ....  How would the Game Evaluate how well you Protected the Defense Objectives ? how well would the Evaluate how Sneaky you are ? How Well would the Game Evualate how good you are at Managing the Lures and Manipulating Spawn Patterns ? 

Somebody has to Program that Crap and that crap needs to be Tested to make sure it's not Exploitable or even that it's Working Correctly ... So yeah.... They took the Easy and more Importantly Least Impactful Option....

Although Things might get Interesting with the Steel Path Fissures 🤔....

21 minutes ago, inappropriatename5877 said:

No extra objectives. No valves to close so that the gas doesn't kill the whole team. No floor holes to cover. No terminals to hack to temporarily disable automated defense systems. No stage hazards. All you must do is kill, and you succeed. Want weapon parts? Kill. Want resources? Kill. Want warframes? Kill. Want to level up? Kill. The whole game is built around on different flavours of killing, so players will naturally gravitate towards making the process as fast as possible, so that they can progress faster.

So to Summarise Dev Stream 163:

"We designed weapons based on the Content in Warframe and now we want to Make them Worse without Fixing the Content." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Uhkretor]

... And yet, so much noise for an extra second... Oh wait, that's how long I kill the same amount of Steel Path enemies with my secondary, in comparison to AoE guns...

 

... I guess I'm too efficient with single target weapons...

[Graavarg]

1 hour ago, inappropriatename5877 said:

All you must do is kill, and you succeed. Want weapon parts? Kill. Want resources? Kill. Want warframes? Kill. Want to level up? Kill. The whole game is built around on different flavours of killing, so players will naturally gravitate towards making the process as fast as possible, so that they can progress faster.

Yes. But we don't play to kill (unless we are totally bonkers), we play to have fun.

The core problem with the current AoE spamming is that it isn't fun. It is not a fun way to play the game for the spammer, even if it is effective as h*ll, and it is horrible (simply put) for the other three players on a squad. It makes you want to stop playing Warframe and do something that is a bit more fun.

You simply cannot have such a self-destroying mechanic in the game (if you want it to survive and prosper), so it has to change. There are a lot of other (smaller) reasons as well, the insane focus on "efficient farming" (which is sandbox-destroying in it's own psychological way), promoting the complete egoistic disregard for others (forcing AoE spamming on others in random squads) and the complete ridiculousness of playing a shooter where you kill most enemies by running around like crazy and shooting grenades at your own feet (which really is beyond silly, when you stop and think about it).

But DE just let this drag on, much MUCH too long. And the "fixes" are not nearly good enough, since they won't stop the explosion spamming. Re-introduce self-damage, increase AoE weapon fire-rate by 10X (or more) and reload times and/or make them all have single-shot magazines (like Tonkor). All this will effectively and cleanly remove AoE spamming = problem solved.

DE should leave the damage output & range per grenade as it is, or even buff it. Since that is the main reason for using explosive weapons the way they are meant to be used, blowing up a group of enemies by aiming/firing ONE grenade at the right spot. Nerfing the damage/range will only lead to more spamming/spammers, since single-shot AoE will be (much) more heavily nerfed than spam-AoE.

I was actually surprised by the inherent stupidity in the suggested fixes, until I deduced that the reason might be that DE is afraid of pissing the 45% AoE-spamming part of community off. So they "kinda fixes" this, but actually aims for keeping AoE spam viable. Ammo pizzas will be the new AoE meta...

Mob rules, it would seem (and no, I am not referencing the legendary album by Black Sabbath).

[Luscious_Lilim]

I agree entirely with OP. IF DE really wanted to discourage AOE weapon usage, rebalance the spawn rates, drop rates, and game modes such as Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, especially for solo players. Before the "but this is a co-op game!" argument comes back, a lot of people feel anxiety/discomfort playing games with strangers and they should not be punished for it.
In the long run Warframe is a grinding game. You will be sitting in Steel Path survivals for hours for resources, which is always 4P spawn rate regardless of if you're on your own or not. You will be running Disruption for hours for Axi relics. You will be doing countless fissures. You will be farming affinity. You will be sitting in Arbitrations.
AOE weapons made all of these easier - brainless, you can chill, listen to music, not focus on much at all. 
Nobody wants to spend multiple hours consecutively in the same missions fighting the same enemies slowly. It's tiring and artificial difficulty. Any weapon in the game can be modded to 1 shot something so it isn't like that's making the game harder. Just making missions longer for no reason.

[DarkSkysz]

I am totally against nerfing AOE, without fixing the core issues AOE can fix by itself.

DE, how the #*!% you find 'fun' in killing one by one for hours? Thats something a machine would do, not a human.

If you are gonna nerf AOE, then nerf the grind too.

You dare talk about 'forced purchases being bad' but still keep making huge grinding for any new stuff while also selling that same stuff for platinum. I know you have bills to pay, but keep the hypocrisy under control.

[inappropriatename5877]

5 hours ago, Graavarg said:

The core problem with the current AoE spamming is that it isn't fun. It is not a fun way to play the game for the spammer, even if it is effective as h*ll, and it is horrible (simply put) for the other three players on a squad. It makes you want to stop playing Warframe and do something that is a bit more fun.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Warframe, after a certain point you will either have fun, or be efficient in your farming. Personally, after having done so much grinding in the game, i'm glad to find someone with such a weapon in the squad, as i can pretty much afk farm. Is this healthy in a co-op game? No. But are the weapons to blame? Also no. This is my point. There are so many weapons in the game, but since it is a horde shooter with no extra mechanics, you are left with nothing but formulating strategies around killing many enemies simultaneously, making AoE weapons the obvious choice. I love sniper rifles, yet they are next to useless in this game in terms of mechanics. Why take the time and aim at a target's head or weak point only to get what you would get from a single shot from Kuva Bramma?
The weapons are supposed to be tools for different jobs, but when the jobs are limited, the weapons used are also going to be limited. Again, is it the weapons' fault? No.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

I dont understand what fissures have to do with the proliferation of AoE weapons.   That is NOT an issue imo.    I have a HUGE issue with their reaction to that argument though.   They are going to add SP Fissures.     Relic popping is best done in a full squad.   Dividing the playerbase into seperate relic groups only makes it HARDER to build squads for relics.    We did have one huge pool of players who onyl had one place to open relics...    Then you added void storms which gave players TWO places to open relics,  luckily RJ launching is hella buggy/laggy and it kept people from migrating.   Now your going to add Steel Path fissures??   Your taking the playerbase that used to all goto the same place to open relics which made it super easy to get full rando squads.....and your going to split that into 4.  Normal/SP void fissures,   Normal/SP void storms....      The ability to get into full squads of randoms is going to go waaaaay down.     

And your doing that /\ to address AoE weapons???   Because people who spam AoE weapons in fissures REALLY just want to play in steel path???  Your nuts!!   AoE spammers want to do stuff as fast and easy as possible.   Unless your saying SP fissures are a sanctuary away from AoE users??  People who want to get their own kills can do steel path???  I could see how that makes sense but I dont think there are very many people like that.    Friends/clans popping relics together.   But definately not alot of people who would join random squads for that....   

---------------------------------------------------------

They are shrinking AoE range and adding LOS checks.....  I dont really like the sound of any of that lol.    First the LOS checks at the edges...  yes part of AoE's popularity is killing crap you cant reach..  I feel like thats more about bad level design than us the players.   Making maps with so much verticallity.... you saw how much hate the corpus defense tile got.  But i can see a ton of maps where your at the end of a wave or round and there is one last enemy who spawns far away or below you and your suppose to jump and run and slide to get to him or would you rather just pump out a grenade and kill him to end the round/wave.    People have plenty of patience but once you make it into a mission,  you shouldnt have to wait for enemies to navigate a stupid map or waste time going to them since they cant get to you.   

I dont mind small primary AoE ranges....   but I REALLY hate shrinking the AoE on secondaries....     Yes the Epitaph quickly became one of my top secondary guns.    Not because it kills tiles, because it isnt that strong really,  Its actually just the most useful secondary gun I've ever used.   I use it to smash crates and security cameras.   I really think you should leave the secondary AoE range alone!!    I cant even think of a AoE secondary for KILLING???   One of the kitguns??      I think your looking at the wrong stats here.....   Epitaph might have insane usage numbers but check it versus kill counts.   Which secondary gets the most kills??  

----------------------------------

Ammo changes are whatever...   I dont really like the idea of having to switch between different guns.    I think affinity splitting needs to be redone/reworked so that your not penalized for bringing a full arsenal of weapons into battle first......     Even with gun arcanes helping my melee I still do not like bringing a full loadout.  

I think two area's you guys overlooked in dealing with AoE is  Rate of Fire and Reload speed.   Give em a 5 second cooldown between shots,  a 10 second+ reload time to where they have to actually miss some combat in between nuking stuff.   

I woudnt mind seeing explosive AoE weapons get classified as heavy guns like AW weapons.   They cant be used in AW/mech but they dont need a gravmag to be used in heavy gunner slot.    You would probably need the AW gun summoner for gear wheel so you might have to rework how people get that..   (but still have to do PT 1-3 for gravmag and AW guns)

--------------------------------------------------

Another really frustrating part of the devstream for me.....    DE thinking the oppsite of AoE weapons is sniper rifles...   so they are buffing headshot damage....    I dont know how many people use snipers in normal/non boss missions but it cant be alot.    The opposite of AoE weapons is ASSAULT RIFLES.   And news flash, assault rifles can be used for headshot but by and large its about spraying streams of bullets at your enemy not giving a crap where you hit them(ur usually trying to sweep over multiple targets).    AR's need damage buffs,  built in punch through,  bigger MAGAZINES.    Weapons like Tiberon/Hind should start in full-auto then flip to burst, then flip to single shot. 

But the point is Snipers dont need the help,  AR's do.   Having enemies soak up 1/3rd or an entire clip of assault ammo per guy is NEVER going to compete with AoE no matter how small the area is or how slow they fire......   

Also AoE weapons dont have to aim , they can take out multiple guys with one shot.   They are extremely mobile weapons which adds to your survival.   Have you tried aiming weapons?   Lining up shots makes your extremely vulnerable both to enemy bullets AND to abilities.   Like an energy eximus...  if your aiming at enemies you may not even notice your about to get drained of your energy.   

------------------------------------------

Talking about Assault rifles makes me think of Battacor and Trumna....  what if AoE weapons acted more like those...    normally ammo to get kill and build a charge which lets you unload a massive AoE blast.    That sounds a hell of a lot better than screwing with ammo economy and forcing us to use dif weapons to get ammo.  

[Yamazuki]

18 minutes ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

Another really frustrating part of the devstream for me.....    DE thinking the oppsite of AoE weapons is sniper rifles...   so they are buffing headshot damage....    I dont know how many people use snipers in normal/non boss missions but it cant be alot.    The opposite of AoE weapons is ASSAULT RIFLES.

I think this just shows how focusing on just the frequency of weapons used is flawed... They said Rubico gets used a lot, but that's likely for specific content.

It's why I wish DE would show usage based on mission type, rather than just general usage. I only ever saw Rubico in missions where Snipers were forced, or content centered around a singular enemy that didn't greatly reduce slow-burst shots such as Eidolons.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

2 minutes ago, Yamazuki said:

I think this just shows how focusing on just the frequency of weapons used is flawed... They said Rubico gets used a lot, but that's likely for specific content.

It's why I wish DE would show usage based on mission type, rather than just general usage. I only ever saw Rubico in missions where Snipers were forced, or content centered around a singular enemy that didn't greatly reduce slow-burst shots such as Eidolons.

Now that Rebb is in charge maybe it will bring about a new era of data analytics =P

I totally agree.    They look at basic data that gives no context.   

[inappropriatename5877]

2 hours ago, Yamazuki said:

I think this just shows how focusing on just the frequency of weapons used is flawed... They said Rubico gets used a lot, but that's likely for specific content.

It's why I wish DE would show usage based on mission type, rather than just general usage. I only ever saw Rubico in missions where Snipers were forced, or content centered around a singular enemy that didn't greatly reduce slow-burst shots such as Eidolons.

Yeah, Rubico sees no use other than Eidolons, a game mode where 90% of your arsenal is garbage. Not even talking suboptimal here, im talking viable. And then they have the gall to talk about "forced choices".

[cute_moth.npc]

3 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

The ability to get into full squads of randoms is going to go waaaaay down.   

I don't know if it's going to be that catastrophic? I stopped playing public fissures long ago, so did a few other people from my clan last time it was brought up. They're incredibly dull was the consensus among those who had stopped. I'm going to START playing pub fissures again now ^^;

I'm not going to be held captive in some puke inducing level 10 mission where you have to sit there trying not to sneeze on anything so you get enough reactant xD

3 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

I cant even think of a AoE secondary for KILLING???   One of the kitguns?? 

Yes. Sporelacer.

 

[Graavarg]

6 hours ago, inappropriatename5877 said:

Unfortunately, when it comes to Warframe, after a certain point you will either have fun, or be efficient in your farming. Personally, after having done so much grinding in the game, i'm glad to find someone with such a weapon in the squad, as i can pretty much afk farm. Is this healthy in a co-op game? No. But are the weapons to blame? Also no. This is my point. There are so many weapons in the game, but since it is a horde shooter with no extra mechanics, you are left with nothing but formulating strategies around killing many enemies simultaneously, making AoE weapons the obvious choice. I love sniper rifles, yet they are next to useless in this game in terms of mechanics. Why take the time and aim at a target's head or weak point only to get what you would get from a single shot from Kuva Bramma?
The weapons are supposed to be tools for different jobs, but when the jobs are limited, the weapons used are also going to be limited. Again, is it the weapons' fault? No.

Well, I agree with most of what you say, but to me it seems you are making my point. 🙂

Because this is not about assigning blame (to specific weapons), it is about fixing a situation that has come about. AoE spamming are so overwhelmingly prevalent exactly because it is so effective. The problem is not AoE, it is not the weapons as such (damage output etc.), it is all the involved mechanics that supports the spam. Removing self-damage was a huge mistake (which a lot of veterans pointed out at the time). The (from a practical viewpoint) unlimited ammo is part of the problem. The AoE weapons mag size, fire rate and reload speed is part of the problem. The ability to negate falling on your ass (PSF) is part of the problem. Allowing clones and specters to have unlimited ammo AND use AoE weapons is part of the problem.

But what isn't part of the problem is the amount of damage AoE weapons does, and especially not the range of the explosion(s). Grenade weapons SHOULD do a sh*tload of damage, that damage just shouldn't be spammable, in any way, shape or form.

The only thing I do not agree with is that you sort of put "fun" against "efficiency". There is no such conflict, it can be extremely fun creating an efficient build/gear, it can be just as extremely fun playing a "special" build (that is not all that efficient from a farming perspective). And high/extreme efficiency can also be totally un-fun, as can bringing your specially designed off-META build to a mission and finding out that it sucks.

There is nothing wrong with really liking that you have one, two or three AoE-spamming squad mates in your mission. You might even like having three Wukong clones with Kuva Zarr on your team. But it is just as ok to intensely dislike playing with AoE-spammers (including clones & specters). And normally this wouldn't be a problem, especially in a game with hundreds of weapons and tens of thousands of different combo options of warframes, mods, gear, weapons etc. etc. The chance that you would get the same sh*tty setup in the next mission is fairly low. Normally, but now there is a situation where this is used in 45% of the missions, making the un-fun really hard to avoid and especially so for players needing or wanting to play in a public squad.

So to repeat myself, there is nothing all that wrong with the weapons as such, but there is everything wrong with the current situation. It needs to be fixed. It is inexplicable that DE has let this drag on (and on, and on). And unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anyone at DE with enough guts to actually solve the problem either, so the AoE spamming will continue but now also the spammers will be irritated (because they have to jump through more hoops to keep the spam going). 

[Graavarg]

3 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

Now that Rebb is in charge maybe it will bring about a new era of data analytics =P

As long as the design team completely disregards all those "player feelings" and stops caring about "likes", and does what is right for the gameplay and the game.

I mean, how many good online games have crashed and burned by giving in to what the respective community wants and/or demands. Anyone truly believing that we humans know what is best for us, or even what we actually want? Or that we Tenno could even handle such a responsibility, with a large part clearly blinded by "gimme, gimme, gimme, want more, more ,more, easier & quicker, quicker & easier...".

[sigh]

[Graavarg]

14 hours ago, inappropriatename5877 said:

What you are trying to do will not entice players to not use explosive weapons as much, it will just make them try to find a workaround, and things will still stay the same as before. The changes are superficial and will accomplish nothing in the long run.

This is exactly right.

The problem is not AoE weapons, not their damage, not their range mods, the problems is their "spammability". All that needs to be fixed is the spam. And this is most easily and effectively done by affecting the stats that decide how often you can shoot. Including clones, specters & crewmen/women. But for some unfathomable reason DE has decided to ignore this, and instead focus on stuff that isn't the real problem.

Considering how well thought out the changes to the three "starter" warframes are, the suggested AoE changes make no sense at all. Especially since there is a huge amount of "historic data" proving that AoE weapons really can exist and function without any "spam" problems, so there already are solutions available. The only reason I can come up with is that the actual design team has been throttled by "marketing, social media & community" and simply are not allowed to make effective changes due to fear of some "community backlash".

[sigh]

[inappropriatename5877]

43 minutes ago, Graavarg said:

The only thing I do not agree with is that you sort of put "fun" against "efficiency". There is no such conflict, it can be extremely fun creating an efficient build/gear, it can be just as extremely fun playing a "special" build (that is not all that efficient from a farming perspective). And high/extreme efficiency can also be totally un-fun, as can bringing you specially designed off-META build to a mission and find out that it sucks.

Of course, fun is subjective. However, I would like to stress the line "it can be extremely fun creating an efficient build". This is the whole point of warframe. The only time for tactical decision making (as it stands now) is in your orbiter, while you configure your builds and loadouts, not in missions. And here lies the issue of efficiency being not fun. I very much enjoy thinking about my build and how I can minmax it, maybe insert 2 more formas to get those certain mods in there, for just a bit more shenanigans. And that's it. When I enter the mission, I am greeted by the same enemies, the same patterns, the same mechanics, the largely same play style. The only thing that's different now are the damage numbers and maybe the setups. After like 10 minutes with my new build, I zone out and listen to a podcast while I mechanically kill enemies out of muscle memory alone.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Graavarg said:

And this is most easily and effectively done by affecting the stats that decide how often you can shoot.

The easy way to do this is what DE is about to do, with their changes. The hard, but more interesting way would be to redesign tilesets and introduce hazards that punish reckless explosive abandon by introducing permanent debuffs, stacking damage, or a mix of both and more. Make the player more involved in the missions, do not just haphazardly slap on a band-aid solution and call it a day.