Change about AoE Weapons (DevStream 163)

[Tiltskillet]

Yeah, I like this idea.   But really it should come as part of a general review of these weapons, like the melee changes did.  I  suppose that means the chances of any of it are poor.

2 hours ago, gamingchair1121 said:

you know... what if that happened to firestorm and non aoe weapons could get aoe that would be cool. 3m of aoe for my soma prime would be nice

Those would be some big bullets.  And Nataruk charged arrows would be the size of trucks. :P

[gamingchair1121]

3 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Those would be some big bullets.  And Nataruk charged arrows would be the size of trucks. :P

I meant like how the bramma's arrows explode on impact and firestorm would make single target like that but big bullets would be funny

[Mazifet]

who needs aoe when you have supra vandal

[kinoko_takenoko]

5 hours ago, Krion112 said:

The other side of this question is also, are Enemies too tanky or uniquely immune to things that nullifies alternatives, which thereby makes AoE, or other Metas, too necessary to actually be effective in gameplay?

As well, I see this argument a lot from... 'Pro-overpowered AoE', the whole 'why not just buff everything else?', but seriously, what direct buff would you give something like the Lato or Burston, or even higher 'tier' like Tiberon Prime', to make them at all as efficient as Kuva Bramma, Zarr, or otherwise? And how much harder would that solution be to find by comparison to solutions involving nerfs?

 

Really, the current issue with AoE Weaponry is just a symptom of a much greater, persistent problem, one that straight up cannot be solved without nerfing to both sides, which in its own way could create buffs.

Game balance is called as much because sometimes you have to take away to give to something else; the only way to buff certain things is by nerfing others.

But DE doesn't seem to intend to nerf the enemy or buff non-AoE weapons.
(Headshot changes? Too limited in scope.)

[Graavarg]

13 hours ago, sky_191970 said:

I get that in some ways this is necessary, but this is a prime example of Warframe harming it's most loyal players.

I see it the other way round. Allowing "Wukongbramma" and AoE spamming in general has been harming Warframe's most loyal players for a long time. It's a mechanic that has a negative balance, it is "fun" for one player and "un-fun" for the three other players, generally speaking.

Allowing such a mechanic as AoE spam in a co-op game is downright stupid, since it basically destroys the co-op part. On the starchart you can now get a random team of four player spending part of their life in a mission where one player's bot does all the killing. That is neither "co-op" nor "fun". There has to be hundreds of other games that are more fun than this. That the AoE spammer thinks he/she is so cool and is having so much fun does not compensate those leaving for games with more fun and gameplay participation.

For Warframe's longevity it is even more destructive, since the negative effects affects "newer" and still MR-/gear-climbing players more than than the vets or the op-METAs. They lose all control and all participation in random PUG missions. Even without any hardcore data to back it up I will claim that very few players decide to try Warframe because they can stand around doing nothing, admiring other player's explosions' fireworks and "passively farming effectively" at the same time.

It is one thing for a game to lose (or "pause") players due to lack of meaningful content, since that is also a "horizon" every successful game comes up against simply because it takes (lots) more time designing and producing content than playing it. It is another thing losing players both early ("this is not fun"/"this is not the game for me") and late ("this is not fun anymore") due to allowing destructive mechanisms. Which is what AoE spam is. In fact, AoE spam is even worse, since it totally promotes selfish play in a co-op game.

I still fail to understand why DE has allowed this AoE spam idiocy to go on (and on). They know their S#&$, but hasn't acted on that knowledge. And the current proposals for change are ridiculously weak, partly misguided and will not fix the actual problem.

"Spamming" is by definition a large amount of instances per unit of time. Warframe already has mechanisms in place exactly for dealing with this: fire rate, reload time, mag size. It would be very (VERY!) easy to remove the AoE spam problem by hard-capping the possibility to actually spam explosive weapons. In addition this fix could be tailored to every single weapon specifically, and without touching damage, explosion range or ammo (which also are not the problem, the spam is the problem and the spam is the amount of AoE a player can generate per unit of time). 

[Lutesque]

14 hours ago, sky_191970 said:

If they are just riding out metas to keep the game relevant and profitable, they need to find another way.

Actually They don't ... Players Keep Swalling These Changes as and keep Playing regardless of how much they Complain about them....

Why would DE Not just Keep Doing this ? 

14 hours ago, sky_191970 said:

but this is a prime example of Warframe harming it's most loyal players.

Considering These Players are less likely to Spend money than New Players...  I think DE considers that Either an Acceptable Loss... Or No Loss At All ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Llympack]

Il y a 10 heures, Neon_Violet a dit :

The day they nerf AOE weapons will be the day I quit for real I have occasionally taken breaks here and there and come back and enjoy each major update, but if they nerf the weapons I spent days farming leveling and upgrading I will not even bother to come back for the veilbreaker update.

All of those hours wasted for nothing.

I truly hope they think of something better.

Also for those that say others hate it well sorry to burst your bubble because I play solo and enjoy playing alone.

Good day to you and thank you for sharing your opinion.

I fully understand the frustration of seeing part of his work "thrown in the trash", nevertheless, I think stopping the game would be a bit extreme. I remember that we will have compensations (if only at the level of forma), and the game does not stop, AoE weapons will remain usable. Not as well as I think, but usable. Don’t give up. ^^

[kinoko_takenoko]

The reason why AoE is used so much today is because it is an attack method that fits many scenes, and I don't see a problem.
If AoE is being abused in situations where it is not appropriate (e.g. Eidolon Hunting), it may be a problem, but you don't use Zarr when fighting Eidolon, do you?
(If you have a separate means of attacking Eidolon and only use Zarr when fighting Grineer in the vicinity, that might be possible.)
I think what we need is a scene for non-AoE weapons, "a scene other than fighting a large number of enemies".

It's the same thing as using a knife and fork to eat a steak. There is no reason to use a spoon to eat a steak.
I would use a spoon if I were eating soup or ice cream, but all I see on the menu are several steaks.

[Proscriptor]

I fully support the AoE nerfs as they have been outlined, because it realliy is a way to reduce the occurence of near-automated gameplay and so-called disruption of other players*, which worsens the game. The rationale stated in the devstream, and the examples, are very strong.

It doesn't necessarily have to bee seen like that, but that's one way to put it; a better way to put it maybe is "nullifying the co-op aspect", because players will prefer to scatter and find their own groups of enemies. This is due to their experience only being worsened when other players are nearby, as the presence of any other player robs them, partially, of a sense of agency.

So my message to devs is just stick to the vision, you got it. 

[Venus-Venera]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb DrakeWurrum:

While I personally FULLY support the idea of moving away from the AOE meta.... I'm a bit concerned with exactly how they're viewing and thinking about things from a design perspective.

Have they at all considered that it's not that AOE weapons are TOO efficient, but that non-AOE weapons aren't efficient enough? I agree that AOE weapons could be reduced in power some, but... a lot of non-AOE weapons just flat-out feel too weak to get the job done. As an extreme example: There's a reason I only ever use bows if I'm intentionally playing solo and stealthy.

This is an problem that pops up even without AOE weapons. I'll go in with a loadout specifically avoiding the AOE meta, or I'll just focus 100% spamming my melee attack as I bullet jump to every enemy I can see...
And I end up with 75%+ of the damage/kills, if the group isn't using more efficient methods. If I'm actively choosing to just... go ham, kill as many enemies as I can, even if it means I "steal kills" from a guy on the team who can clearly handle himself... I can easily do the work of a 4-man squad by myself.

Have they considered dramatically increasing enemy spawn rate for groups with 4 players? Have they considered that, with this game being a looter shooter grindfest of mass slaughtering low-tier enemies, that we need MORE enemies for them to at all be able to keep up with our power creep?

oh my...
I think we're going to chew on these awkward discussions about aoe meta for a long time. and lenz is also aoe. so this is super awesome meta weapon, isn't it?

if you would at least play the game, then you would know that the reality is very different. and you can only laugh at tweets like wukong "op"...
and the problems of new players don't seem to interest anyone but me...

[Proscriptor]

aoe weapons will still be the strongest overall. the nerfs will only somewhat balance them out

evidence: right now, even without primed firestorm equipped at all, and without any max ammo increases / ammo regen options, aoe guns are better in most general gameplay scenarios than single target. do you really think you will run out of ammo with, say, zarr?

[Proscriptor]

i'm aginst this idea because it makes no sense

a gun that thematically makes a big explosion should have a big radius, and a gun like panthera that has a tiny explosion intended only to break up the disc so it's fragments can fly outward should have a small radius etc.

in short: big explosion = big radius, small explosion = small radius

[Proscriptor]

the devs have preempted this line of reasoning by increasing the headshot damage multiplier.

[Venus-Venera]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom:

So with AoE bracing for incoming changes, can the size of AoE radii be a bit more homogenized?
We see this happen with melee. The upper end of melee range is roughly 2.5x as long as the short end.
AoE has variance like one gun getting 1.7m, while others get 7m.

AoE could be much the same. Set the bottom range to be 2-2.5m, and the upper end to be 6-7m. Make the blast radius mods be a flat value, like what you did with Reach and Volatile Quick Return. Base blast radius mods could be +1.5m, Primed could be +3m, just like Reach (after Veilbreaker) and Primed Reach.
The top end of AoE range is now the same/lower than before, and the bottom potentially has a more appreciable AoE component now.
Shotguns could also use blast radius mods, be it a new mod (pls no) or just changing the classification of Firestorm to be "Primary".

Make falloff scale with range. Example: A 3m AoE has 30% damage falloff. Add Primed blast radius mod (+3m) and the range goes to 6m, but falloff increases to 60%.
Now the smaller AoEs can make use of blast radius mods while the big ones don't go from big to huge.

The only potential issue I see is that current small AoE "balanced" (need a few more quotation marks there I think) by the fact that they're small get to be strengthened too much by flat range, to which the response is this: shift more of the AoE damage into the direct hit. But this isn't an issue I feel, besides a few outliers like Laetum.

TL;DR make range mods flat, set a lower range for AoE size, Nerf big AoEs by extension.

this can't work because weapons don't have the same performance.
only one aoe weapon has top performance at the moment. and that's kuva zarr!
very weak weapons like lenz would completely ruin it, even though it's already completely useless.

[Proscriptor]

if your eyes are strained from playing too much warframe (12h a day as you say), you should definitely play less for a while so to rest your eyes a bit. that will make you be able to judge the changes more objectively and from a more relevant, more general, perspective. 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

25 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

a gun that thematically makes a big explosion should have a big radius

And the big would remain big, just slightly less so. Thematic-ness has already been broken by melee range mods. You can make daggers be longer than Polearms.

26 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

a gun like panthera that has a tiny explosion intended only to break up the disc so it's fragments can fly outward should have a small radius

Bramma and Zarr both "break up into fragments" yet have extremely large base radii.

33 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

big explosion = big radius, small explosion = small radius

Those are self-referential and useless. What is the criteria to meet big explosion status? It's saying "Big explosions should have big radii because they have big radii" What is the criteria to meet small explosion status?
Your other argument is based on a vague sense of being "thematic", which doesn't really hold up. You can still have base ranges be on the shorter side, but now there's the option to make them have a more meaningful impact, just like what was done with melee.

[Proscriptor]

it's thematic

rocket laucher shoots a big rocket and has a big explosion vfx = big radius

panthera shoots a disc with a tiny explosion vfx, barely any, = small radius

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

3 minutes ago, Proscriptor said:

it's thematic

rocket laucher shoots a big rocket and has a big explosion vfx = big radius

panthera shoots a disc with a tiny explosion vfx, barely any, = small radius

This is again, self-referential and useless. Panthera has a small VFX because it is small. It's just saying "This is small because it is small."

Your thematicness will still be around. I'm not saying "Make Basmu's explosion have a base range of 7m".
I'm saying "Make Basmu's explosion have a base range of 2-2.5m, with the option to mod it higher by a more appreciable amount that doesn't overwhelmingly favor very high base range AoE."

[Proscriptor]

the explosion looks small and in in-world terms it is small, it's visually and thematically designed as a small explosion, therefore the radius should be small.

[Tiltskillet]

5 hours ago, Proscriptor said:

the explosion looks small and in in-world terms it is small, it's visually and thematically designed as a small explosion, therefore the radius should be small.

Oh, ok.  To me adjusting the visuals as well is such an obvious part of this package, that I  didn't question it.  Yes, I'd want these to be calibrated to loosely match radius. 

It's actually an opportunity to better represent explosions visually than is done now.   Because some of them are way off.   Extra credit if they scale somewhat with Firestorm/Fulmination, although I wouldn't be too disappointed if that didn't happen.

[Venus-Venera]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb kinoko_takenoko:

The reason why AoE is used so much today is because it is an attack method that fits many scenes, and I don't see a problem.
If AoE is being abused in situations where it is not appropriate (e.g. Eidolon Hunting), it may be a problem, but you don't use Zarr when fighting Eidolon, do you?
(If you have a separate means of attacking Eidolon and only use Zarr when fighting Grineer in the vicinity, that might be possible.)
I think what we need is a scene for non-AoE weapons, "a scene other than fighting a large number of enemies".

It's the same thing as using a knife and fork to eat a steak. There is no reason to use a spoon to eat a steak.
I would use a spoon if I were eating soup or ice cream, but all I see on the menu are several steaks.

Yes. important points!

kuva zarr only kills weak enemies. on sp there are already big enemies and you can only kill them with armor ignore skill and mostly with mele.
kuva zarr doesn't have enough ammo without sp arcane. bramma is also unplayable without sp arcane and carrier.

and without aoe weapon my sentinel will be killed. on sp it happens very quickly. and if more than 5 ranged enemies attack me on sp, then i'm dead too, because few warframes have usable def skills or a lot of armor.

I don't think they test the changes at all. otherwise they would quickly realize that it is total nonsense.
or just try to play void mission on sp with last warframes and weapons. I can only shake my head...

[selig_fay]

18 hours ago, Venus-Venera said:

oh my...
I think we're going to chew on these awkward discussions about aoe meta for a long time. and lenz is also aoe. so this is super awesome meta weapon, isn't it?

Sorry, do you really use sarcasm to prove that Lentz is far from meta? Ooooooo, you're wrong. You are very wrong. Not only is it sooo destructive weapon, it also makes Khora Cat sooo destructive.

[Venus-Venera]

Gerade eben schrieb selig_fay:

Sorry, do you really use sarcasm to prove that Lentz is far from meta? Ooooooo, you're wrong. You are very wrong. Not only is it sooo destructive weapon, it also makes Khora Cat sooo destructive.

here is talked about aoe meta all the time. lenz and many other weapons are also aoe.

because I only know 1 aoe weapon with top performance. but here all aoe weapons are supposed to be ruined...

[selig_fay]

1 minute ago, Venus-Venera said:

here is talked about aoe meta all the time. lenz and many other weapons are also aoe.

because I only know 1 aoe weapon with top performance. but here all aoe weapons are supposed to be ruined...

I understand the people who talk about weapons with 1-2 meters AOE. This literally does not hurt many enemies. But I'm sorry, Lenz is really big. Even with the current Nerf, he will live and will survive a lot of weapons simply thanks to its Crit and the possibility of guaranteed status.

[motorfirebox]

On 2022-08-27 at 1:38 PM, sky_191970 said:

I remember back when memeing strike was a thing, and all kinds of things were reworked to get rid of it, then self damage, then atterax walling, etc etc. Now it's going to happen all over again with explosives. At this point I'm surprised that DE still doesn't get it. If they are just riding out metas to keep the game relevant and profitable, they need to find another way. It could also just be DE misunderstanding what players want; why are we going around in circles? Players like things that are POWERFUL and COOL. That is literally all you need, yet instead it's a phoenix cycle of an old meta dying to make way for the next one and it's getting old. There can be an infinite number of overpowered options in the game and people will still try new things and come back for more. Yet for some reason, builds/mechanics keep getting phased out and it's a kick in the pants for players who have stuck around to create good builds and become accustomed only for the nature of the game to change and render their previous build work and passion laughably outdated. I get that in some ways this is necessary, but this is a prime example of Warframe harming it's most loyal players.

Players don't like things that are powerful and cool, they like things that let them farm quickly. If landing single-target headshots was the best way to farm, then nobody would be using AOE and DE would be nerfing shotguns.