shield gating and the shieldgate meta: a simple rework.

[SDGDen]

So, we've had the shield gate meta for... a bit now. I'd like to look back at what shield gating was supposed to do, what it actually did and what could be done to the system to get it closer to its intended function.

 

first, what was the point of shield gating?

#1: preventing one-shots. people didn't like getting one-tapped and shield gate was created to solve that

#2: improving shields, before shield gate, shields were just worse than health on most frames (with the exception of frames that revolve around shields)

#3: giving incentive to build into shields. 

of course, this was all supposed to be achieved without making it overpowered.

 

now what *actually* happened?

#1: oneshots are definitely prevented, this part works entirely as intended and players have been enjoying it ever since.

#2: improving shields. this is where it starts falling flat. sure, having shields in general is improved by shield-gate but the shields themselves are still quite weak.

#3: incentivising building for shields. this is where shield-gating currently fails miserably as it achieves the opposite, the only way to build into shield gating is by NOT building into shields. in fact one of the most popular tricks even listed on the wiki is to run a decaying dragon key to lower your shields.

on top of that, it is safe to say shield gating is incredibly spamable which has resulted in it being quite overpowered.

 

so, why is that?

the problems mostly stem from how shield-gate is regained. shield gate is restored when your shields are completely full. this means that the quicker you can fill your shield bar the better. this means having as little shield as possible is best, as shields regenerate at 5% per second + 15 per second. resulting in a logarithmic increase in time to regain your shield gate capping out at 20 seconds theoretically while at fastest (valkyr + decaying dragon key) its about 1.2 seconds (in both cases excluding recharge delay)

 

this means investing in shields makes your shield gate capabilities worse by effectively increasing the cooldown on it, not to mention the longer it takes to regain your shields the more likely you are to take damage, adding more time to the shield regeneration. 

on top of this, it means that if you can get your shields low enough, you can have near-complete uptime on your shield gate, which is just free invulnerability.

 

I'd propose the following very simple change:

instead of resetting when your shields are full, shield gate resets after 800 shields regenerated. if you have less than 800 shields itll just keep counting up while your shields are full.

this creates a situation where you are no longer looking to minimize how long it takes to regen your entire shield bar, but just 800 shields. if you have 800 shields this will take around 15 seconds without speccing into shield recharge speed mods, however those mods and shield mods themselves will be hugely beneficial to shield gating since the higher your total shield capacity, the faster you'll get 800 shields back. at 1600 shields it'd be down to 7.5 seconds ish and at 4000 shields shieldgate comes back in 3.7 seconds (before factoring in shield recharge speed mods)

this also gives even more power to abilities that grant shields as they count toward shield-gate resets.

lastly this means high-shield frames reset their shield gate before their shield is full. EG hildryn resetting her shield gate at 20% of her shields depending on your build.

 

for the valkyr from earlier, it means that with her 19 shields total, she'd spend 50 seconds to regain shield gate as the worst case scenario. making the dragon key an actual demerit and making low shield count no longer important. of course valkyr will be fine. she's a health-tank after all. thats why her shields are so low.

 

because you now need to invest mods into getting a fast shield-gate regeneration speed, its considerably less overpowered since you are giving up other things to get that (or running a 101-20 second ish shield gate)

I'd also like to add one more thing:

improved physical damage resistance on shields. slash, puncture, impact. maybe crank those to 50% resist instead of 25% to give shields a bit more strength in general. currently shields behave like health with 100 armor, imo it can behave like health with 300 armor instead when it comes to IPS. maybe even 75% ips resist (same as 900 armor)

 

i believe that with these two changes, building into shields would be greatly incentivised and shield-gating becomes a tool to build into, rather than the current "slap on a decaying key and pray" meta.

[Pakaku]

Instead of looking at amounts of shields to recharge per second, or a set cap of shields to hit, it would be better to look at the total time it takes to recharge from empty to full and work with fractions of shields. That way it doesn't matter how much you have, because fractions aren't whole numbers.

Shield mods would give you more shields, and you'll recover a higher fraction of shields per second. Having less shields is still a disadvantage since you have less blue health to lose, but you can still hit the shield-gate point in the same amount of time. Shield recharge speed mods would just increase that fraction of shields gained per second.

Dragon keys could be nerfed another way by increasing the amount of time it takes to recharge from empty. You'd have less shields and it would take longer to reach the shield-gating point again.

[(PSN)c1234567890alvi]

Can we instead rework/improve armor?

[Traumtulpe]

You can't reasonably nerf shield gating while you have Warframes with invincibility, invisibility, 95% damage reduction, thousands of armor, extra health bars, etc running around.

I mean, you can, but then people will just stop using the Warframes that can't protect themselves. I can stop using shield gating and instead play Revenant Prime for permanent complete invincibility, how does that improve the game?

[L3512]

7 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

You can't reasonably nerf shield gating while you have Warframes with invincibility, invisibility, 95% damage reduction, thousands of armor, extra health bars, etc running around.

I mean, you can, but then people will just stop using the Warframes that can't protect themselves. I can stop using shield gating and instead play Revenant Prime for permanent complete invincibility, how does that improve the game?

Players without in-depth knowledge or experience want to nerf shield gating.

To them, you simply slap a dragon key on and are immortal with no other considerations or effort.

[--END--Rikutatis]

2 hours ago, SDGDen said:

i believe that with these two changes, building into shields would be greatly incentivised and shield-gating becomes a tool to build into, rather than the current "slap on a decaying key and pray" meta.

While I definitely think decaying dragon key is unintended and will eventually be "nerfed", saying all you have to do is slap the key and pray is kinda silly. There's actually more engagement, timing and mechanical input into rolling guard-dodge within the shield gate time window and then repleshining shields with an ability within the rolling guard immunity timer, then there is in playing Inaros up to level 400 without having to do anything at all other than standing there and not dying. Or heck, even Revenant for that matter. Besides, even when/if DE nerfs decaying key, you'll still be able to slap some Helminth ability that replenishes overshields and achieve similar results that way. It'll just be more constrained in the build, which is fair I guess. But my point is that I hardly see this as a game breaking priority that is ruining the fun of public lobbies, specially when there's multiple other ways to achieve immortality in the game (hello, vazarin). 

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

8 minutes ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

specially when there's multiple other ways to achieve immortality in the game (hello, vazarin). 

That reminds me, I really need to try that with Garuda....

[Yakhul]

Warframe is probably the ONLY game i have ever played where having more shields, is actually worse than not having any shields at all.

Shields definitely need a rework, but I am afraid that in reworking shields, we would be gutting ONE frame.

Much like what happened with self damage, where ONE frame gimmick had to be sacrificed in favor of 50 other frames, if Shields get reworked for better or worse, ONE frame, the ONLY shield based frame in the game, Hildryn, would either get a huge buff that would make her incredibly overpowered, or a huge nerf that would deter everyone from ever using Hildryn again.

[AntifreezeUnder0]

Shieldgating becomes a must if you do lvl cap things. So far lvl cap requires even more dedication. Rest of game can be done by just fooling arround. 

But boosting toxin effect on bypassing shields more on enemy ai is welcomed!

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

1 hour ago, L3512 said:

Players without in-depth knowledge or experience want to nerf shield gating.

To them, you simply slap a dragon key on and are immortal with no other considerations or effort.

Agreed. I think the meta has locked in a certain mindset and deeper dives aren't being explored. 

[SiriSnugglebottoms]

Can't change shield gating without reworking survivability in general. Anything that only makes shield gating worse actively makes the game worse and less diverse.

[Hypernaut1]

Maybe it should just have a cool down, so lowering shields doesn't give an advantage. Then release a mod, arcane to lower that cool down, to give players the option to find tune it. 

[0_The_F00l]

While i do feel the current iteration of shield gating can be improved ,

I do not see it being an issue per se , sure it can get spammy and is borderline abuse of an exploit, though technically it's working as per intended mechanics.

But as long as it does not affect my playstyle i am not too inclined to oppose it.

Lets not forget that using augur / respite require energy consumption , it's not just free energy.

I personally don't use the dragon key "exploit" , but 0.3 seconds of breathing space per cast is a nice thing to have.

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

Shield gating is not an issue but a symptom that derivates from enemies on higher levels constantly dealing unbearable amounts of damage.

Yes many frames do come with abilities to reduce incoming damage, or totally avoid it, but it's not like shield gating is totally free compared to them, nor is as effective as some.
We need to run both the Dragon key and quite some mods so we can get shields back on a single ability cast, or 99'9 periodical % of the times one would simply die.
So yes, shield gating is spammed, as much as attacks are spammed towards us. There is no praying in shield gating, because it is secured as long as you do things correctly.
Think of it as a 5th ability, after all, it costs energy to be unkillable for a second.

I'm more in favour of focusing on making health and armour better as of now though, plus standardizing enemy damage output and damage in general, similar to Kahl missions.
Which I am sure that is going to get someone on my neck just by mentioning it and how it sucks because you cannot one shot kill each sentient with a Grakata bullet as you would if you had modded it yourself - probably.

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

Now then, I totally agree that the original point of shield gating has been missed by quite the mark - so has been for many, MANY things in the game -, and your idea to change it, but compared to the current shield gating, it's arguably worse in terms of expensiveness by quite.

What is better?
Needing a few shield mods which must be on your frame build + some arcanes with debatable efficiency for the same ones (Barrier & Aegis), all just for shields.
OR
Using a variated repertorium of mods that mainly benefit your abilities, weapons, and passively shield gating + can be equipped somewhere else but your frame, making your build more "open" to different options but having to build for shield, which is the way many squishy frames have to survive?

Valkyr doesn't need shield gating, because her fourth makes her immortal.
That is, primarily, why your suggestion of building for shields on a frame such as her, falls flat.
Even if a decayed dragon key meant longer shield gating cooldown, it wouldn't matter.

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

Now a small disclaimer: I do not use shield gating on any frames but Mag, since, Polarize exists. No dragon keys on any frames.
I am the guy who dies again and again, and leans more into adaptation + DR abilities + CC abilities to circumvent the issue.

[SDGDen]

5 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

You can't reasonably nerf shield gating while you have Warframes with invincibility, invisibility, 95% damage reduction, thousands of armor, extra health bars, etc running around.

I mean, you can, but then people will just stop using the Warframes that can't protect themselves. I can stop using shield gating and instead play Revenant Prime for permanent complete invincibility, how does that improve the game?

i've covered damage reduction a while ago more in-depth than this! i like to cover one topic at a time. if i had to write a single post that covers every single facet of balancing survivability i may hit the post size cap if there is one. 

 

revenant is a weird case, where in theory, mesmer skin is fine. until you realize that we have way too many tools to regenerate our energy and thus you can pretty much guarantee being able to recast it as soon as it runs out. this is also the issue we currently have with many nuke abilities, where the issue is not neccesarily how strong the nuke is but rather how energy cost basically means nothing anymore.

 

5 hours ago, L3512 said:

Players without in-depth knowledge or experience want to nerf shield gating.

To them, you simply slap a dragon key on and are immortal with no other considerations or effort.

weird... i've been playing for 8 years, studied game design, and frequently test things as well as sometimes run polls.

but apparently i have no in-depth knowledge or experience, because someone who doesn't like the term "nerf" disagrees with me. 

 

3 hours ago, SiriSnugglebottoms said:

Can't change shield gating without reworking survivability in general. Anything that only makes shield gating worse actively makes the game worse and less diverse.

correct! but as i said in response to traumtulpe, if i was going to write one post on survivability as a whole it'd be uh.... much too big of an undertaking. I personally like doing breakdowns and running numbers a lot but i tend to do one topic at a time. this time it's shield gating. i've already covered armor and damage reduction powers previously. I've been planning on doing a breakdown of abilities but that's such a huge topic it's challenging to start with and i've had to do an emergency move to a new house a couple weeks ago so my gear is.... not all the way set up yet. soon! 

plus, just like with the AOE nerfs, DE can't change everything at the same time either. something like the above suggested change would be (relatively) easy to implement and would allow them to monitor the difference just that change makes before moving on to other items. doing everything at once also leads to needing to make a LOT of assumptions on how each of your changes affects the other changes. much better to implement one at a time and be able to measure the difference.

 

4 hours ago, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

Shieldgating becomes a must if you do lvl cap things. So far lvl cap requires even more dedication. Rest of game can be done by just fooling arround. 

But boosting toxin effect on bypassing shields more on enemy ai is welcomed!

the game is not balanced against level cap, it's not even balanced around steel path.

the game is balanced with "end game" being level 80-100 enemies in mind. everything past that is either infinite runs doing infinite scaling things or DE slapping level increases and other modifiers on missions (steel path and archon hunts) in order to attempt to compensate for power creep. 

so "shieldgating becomes a must if you do lvl cap things" is more proof of it being overpowered than an argument on why not to nerf it.

 

6 hours ago, (PSN)c1234567890alvi said:

Can we instead rework/improve armor?

see above on "but what about other survivability methods", also armor is actually doing fine! I do have a breakdown of DR that involves armor as well that i made a while ago.

 

4 hours ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

While I definitely think decaying dragon key is unintended and will eventually be "nerfed", saying all you have to do is slap the key and pray is kinda silly. There's actually more engagement, timing and mechanical input into rolling guard-dodge within the shield gate time window and then repleshining shields with an ability within the rolling guard immunity timer, then there is in playing Inaros up to level 400 without having to do anything at all other than standing there and not dying. Or heck, even Revenant for that matter. Besides, even when/if DE nerfs decaying key, you'll still be able to slap some Helminth ability that replenishes overshields and achieve similar results that way. It'll just be more constrained in the build, which is fair I guess. But my point is that I hardly see this as a game breaking priority that is ruining the fun of public lobbies, specially when there's multiple other ways to achieve immortality in the game (hello, vazarin). 

fair, and there still will be with the proposed changes, just instead you should build into shields some more and frames that have shield gate tanking is more effective on high shield frames instead of low shield frames (which makes a lot more sense tbh). 

as for the other ways to achieve immortality.... yes! they exist, and honestly? they're also kind of an issue. i did cover DR stuff a while back.

you are quite correct in that (unlike AOE spam) the shieldgate meta isn't actively making the experience of other players worse, in fact you could say it has a positive effect on the gameplay of other players to a degree since they don't have to go back and revive anyone. However it does take the challenge and threat out of the game and that's kind of a huge deal for how engaging the game actually is in the long-term. especially if they're ever planning to do a proper end-game (which as we can hopefully agree on, SHOULD be challenging, engaging and generally difficult.)

 

2 hours ago, (PSN)Pablogamer585 said:

Shield gating is not an issue but a symptom that derivates from enemies on higher levels constantly dealing unbearable amounts of damage.

Yes many frames do come with abilities to reduce incoming damage, or totally avoid it, but it's not like shield gating is totally free compared to them, nor is as effective as some.
We need to run both the Dragon key and quite some mods so we can get shields back on a single ability cast, or 99'9 periodical % of the times one would simply die.
So yes, shield gating is spammed, as much as attacks are spammed towards us. There is no praying in shield gating, because it is secured as long as you do things correctly.
Think of it as a 5th ability, after all, it costs energy to be unkillable for a second.

I'm more in favour of focusing on making health and armour better as of now though, plus standardizing enemy damage output and damage in general, similar to Kahl missions.
Which I am sure that is going to get someone on my neck just by mentioning it and how it sucks because you cannot one shot kill each sentient with a Grakata bullet as you would if you had modded it yourself - probably.

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

Now then, I totally agree that the original point of shield gating has been missed by quite the mark - so has been for many, MANY things in the game -, and your idea to change it, but compared to the current shield gating, it's arguably worse in terms of expensiveness by quite.

What is better?
Needing a few shield mods which must be on your frame build + some arcanes with debatable efficiency for the same ones (Barrier & Aegis), all just for shields.
OR
Using a variated repertorium of mods that mainly benefit your abilities, weapons, and passively shield gating + can be equipped somewhere else but your frame, making your build more "open" to different options but having to build for shield, which is the way many squishy frames have to survive?

Valkyr doesn't need shield gating, because her fourth makes her immortal.
That is, primarily, why your suggestion of building for shields on a frame such as her, falls flat.
Even if a decayed dragon key meant longer shield gating cooldown, it wouldn't matter.

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

Now a small disclaimer: I do not use shield gating on any frames but Mag, since, Polarize exists. No dragon keys on any frames.
I am the guy who dies again and again, and leans more into adaptation + DR abilities + CC abilities to circumvent the issue.

sheld gating being a symptom of how enemy scaling works does not prevent it from being an issue, it's simply an issue tied to another issue.

 

because of how the game is balanced currently, at the high end it's kinda "either you get one-tapped or you're pretty much invulnerable" and yeah! that has to change as well. I've been slowly working through various items, analysing them and figuring out what the issue actually is, so i'll likely cover other stuff (ahum enemy damage output) in a later post. 

valkyr was an example of a frame that currently works really well with shield gating when based on her design (passive health tank + immortality on demand + life steal) she really has no business being a shield tank. that's the whole point of her having 600 armor but only 75 shields. she's not a shield-based frame. why is shield-gating specifically so powerful on her? makes no sense.

as for shield gating being more expensive: yes, that's the point. the point is that to get near-immortality, you have to build into it. building into something generally means sacrificing other things. I have warframes on which i do not run any survivability mods, i've sacrificed them in favour of ability improvements. meanwhile on my hildryn i pretty much just stacked all the shield mods as a meme and it works. IMO it is unreasonable to demand every frame be able to go largely invulnerable all the time without any investment into that. 

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

hace 3 horas, SDGDen dijo:

sheld gating being a symptom of how enemy scaling works does not prevent it from being an issue, it's simply an issue tied to another issue.

 

because of how the game is balanced currently, at the high end it's kinda "either you get one-tapped or you're pretty much invulnerable" and yeah! that has to change as well. I've been slowly working through various items, analysing them and figuring out what the issue actually is, so i'll likely cover other stuff (ahum enemy damage output) in a later post. 

valkyr was an example of a frame that currently works really well with shield gating when based on her design (passive health tank + immortality on demand + life steal) she really has no business being a shield tank. that's the whole point of her having 600 armor but only 75 shields. she's not a shield-based frame. why is shield-gating specifically so powerful on her? makes no sense.

as for shield gating being more expensive: yes, that's the point. the point is that to get near-immortality, you have to build into it. building into something generally means sacrificing other things. I have warframes on which i do not run any survivability mods, i've sacrificed them in favour of ability improvements. meanwhile on my hildryn i pretty much just stacked all the shield mods as a meme and it works. IMO it is unreasonable to demand every frame be able to go largely invulnerable all the time without any investment into that. 

But is it really an "issue"? It doesn't negatively affect gameplay, nor the others around you in a negative way.

Why is it an issue then?
Because people found the way to make the most out of it with the least effort, to the point where even frames that weren't meant to, can?
Maybe, because it has ended up being different from the "concept", and by different I mean, unfairly better?

And again, if you need to sacrifice useful mods and arcane slots for the same seconds of invincibility, is there really a point to it?
Comprehensibly enough, more people would prefer 1 second of invincibility with all the little benefits of augur mods, for as I mentioned, these also contribute to the rest of the frame, and not just one part of it, than using a slot of it for either more shields or faster shields.

The key here is distribution and efficiency of the space at disposal.
With a grid that only allows to fit 8 mods, sacrificing one for a shield mod to get 440% more of your base shields, is not enough.
The more shields you have, the longer they take to replete, the longer they take to replete, the longer you're vulnerable.

Maybe if enemies had consistent EHP and damage, frame builds would be more balanced between powers and survivability, instead of split.

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

The thing about your concept is that it doesn't invalidate or just erase the current meta, if I've understood it the way I think I have (see "2)"), instead it creates a new way to do that one thing, which is what makes it great, but it needs a tiny adjustment if you really want to compete with the current DKey meta.
For that, I supplement your concept two additions that I think makes it a whole:

- Mods that grant shields on energy conversion, restart shield recharge as well.
- Each 800 shields is 1'3s of invulnerability.
With these tiny changes we both get rid of the main issue with shield gating - the 4 second delay - and actually give a bigger reason to building for higher shields.
Thanks to erasing this, modding for high shields like you conceptualise is still viable, if not even better, since you'll start recharging your shields at a higher point than 0, meaning it is also less seconds to wait for the 800 mark! How you like that?

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

hace 12 horas, SDGDen dijo:

instead of resetting when your shields are full, shield gate resets after 800 shields regenerated.
if you have less than 800 shields itll just keep counting up while your shields are full.

Now for a bit of maths & analytics, looking at your original post again, correct me if I'm wrong about anything I'll say, sorry if I do;

For 1'3 second(s) of invincibility, you need to get 800 shields, easy to comprehend.

Second sentence is confusing though, I understood it in two ways;
1) If my frame has less than 800 shields, its a problem because it needs to reach 800 "on the background" to give me shield gating.
2) If my frame has less than 800 shields, it's not a problem as long as I can get to 100% of them which counts as '800'.

hace 12 horas, SDGDen dijo:

this creates a situation where you are no longer looking to minimize how long it takes to regen your entire shield bar, but just 800 shields.
if you have 800 shields this will take around 15 seconds without speccing into shield recharge speed mods, however those mods and shield mods themselves will be hugely beneficial to shield gating since the higher your total shield capacity, the faster you'll get 800 shields back. at 1600 shields it'd be down to 7.5 seconds ish and at 4000 shields shieldgate comes back in 3.7 seconds (before factoring in shield recharge speed mods)

You are still looking at minimizing how long it takes to regenerate your entire shield bar, whether it is 800, 1200, or 120.
The sooner it's at the x mark, the sooner you can get that iframe. The lower the shields, the faster they reach said max, therefore there's still no point on building for "more" shields, as much as there's a point building for "faster" shields.

Why would I want to recharge specifically 800 shields, if all frames by default but Hyldrin have less than that?
Even with your method, using mods that convert energy into shields is better, because as long as shields are toped-off, you still get the full benefit from it, and a couple casts are more than enough in most cases, plus faster than waiting for shields to start recharging.

It's mathematically more effective to use a single shield regen mod like Fast Deflection than it is to equip Redirection on a frame with a big base shield pool, so I guess it's too for the rest, maybe I'm wrong here.
Exhibit A: Hyldrin + Redirection (3555), 192/s, 18'5s to fully recharge, 4'1s to reach 800 shield gate margin.
Exhibit B: Hyldrin + F.Deflection (1575), 179/s, 8'6s to fully recharge, 4'4s to reach 800 shield gate margin.

The difference to reach 800 shields is incredibly minimal.

This is where the actual problem relies, not necessarily the recharge rate of shields, but those 4 seconds it takes to start again.
Lowest possible time, with all shield capacity mods + shield recharge mods is (on Hildryn), at 1044 shields per second with 6030 max shields, 5'77s + 4 from the delay, for a total of 9'77 to fully regain shields. It would take 5 seconds to regain shield gate. 1 from the actual second it recharged shields (supercool!), and 4 from the delay.

That said, it's a bit unfair to use Hyldrin as an example, as she is a special case for shields having a shield-gating period of 3 seconds.
If combined with rolling guard, which would also fit in this build, you could be actually immortal.

Looking at it: once shield gate is over, only one second remains before shields begin to recharge, performing RG then would mean 2 seconds of shield recharging, getting another 3 of immortality, and RG would be on a less than a second cooldown by then.

hace 12 horas, SDGDen dijo:

this also gives even more power to abilities that grant shields as they count toward shield-gate resets.

lastly this means high-shield frames reset their shield gate before their shield is full. EG hildryn resetting her shield gate at 20% of her shields depending on your build.

But again, abilities that grant shields will be the exact same... Polarize refills all your shields, Hyldrin wants to have shields all the time regardless, or else she won't work, and Harrow is... 3/4 of the same, but he also has to sacrifice shields for part of his ability kit.
Even Styanax or Equinox would be on the same tracks. It takes less effort to just put a Dragon key which doesn't even go in the frame and use their respective abilities to get full shields, because like you've said, even if you have below 800, it still counts a long as they're filled.

Gauss though, could work.
Knowing his shield recharge is stupid fast, combined with shield recharge mods and max capacity mods, you maybe could get all your shields in less than 3-2 seconds.

Once more, abilities that grant shields are no different from using mods that grant shields on ability cast.

hace 13 horas, SDGDen dijo:

for the valkyr from earlier, it means that with her 19 shields total, she'd spend 50 seconds to regain shield gate as the worst case scenario. making the dragon key an actual demerit and making low shield count no longer important. of course valkyr will be fine. she's a health-tank after all. thats why her shields are so low.

 

because you now need to invest mods into getting a fast shield-gate regeneration speed, its considerably less overpowered since you are giving up other things to get that (or running a 101-20 second ish shield gate)

I'd also like to add one more thing:

improved physical damage resistance on shields. slash, puncture, impact. maybe crank those to 50% resist instead of 25% to give shields a bit more strength in general. currently shields behave like health with 100 armor, imo it can behave like health with 300 armor instead when it comes to IPS. maybe even 75% ips resist (same as 900 armor)

And this is what I thought would mean if I understood the mentioned sentence the first way...

A huge problem is created here, rather than an improvement.
Instead of helping people reach shield gate with ease, you're forcing them to build for higher shields if they want to make use of the mechanic more easily.

Equinox for example with her 300 shields.
Shield gate benchmark is set at 800, she recharges by default her shields on 10 seconds, would need close to 30 to reach SG.
Either that, or she's forced to try gain 500 overshields which is not that easy when you're constantly getting damage unless your ability generates so much shields it's just ez pc, like Mag, Harrow or Hildryn again.

And when you begin a mission, are you at 300 "800" shields, or at 300 "300" shields?

The concept is rather confusing, or maybe I'm not understanding it properly.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

You guys will be complaining about everyone being Nezha Revenant and Rhino after this. 

I started playing Banshee because of shield gating.

[Tyreaus]

We need a more comprehensive player durability rework than this.

For one, like Tramtulpe says, we'll just drop frames relying on shield gating to survive. I think there are ways to tweak gating so that it's both more purposeful and encourages higher shield values (scaling gate time based on max shields / shield mods e.g.), but given shield gating is considered "overpowered" here, I feel like that wouldn't fly.

For two, I want to point to one particular line:

14 hours ago, SDGDen said:

preventing one-shots. people didn't like getting one-tapped and shield gate was created to solve that

This is what they call a "big red flag". You're building in a system to keep the player from getting one-tapped? Hold up: clearly getting one-tapped is a problem in this context (contrast say Super Meat Boy), so why is that not getting addressed?

I quite like shield gating, janky as it is. How it's a more interactive form of survival that is in active response to being dealt damage, in lieu of total AI shutdown (death or CC or otherwise). At the same token, it sure seems something's broken that was never fixed. Maybe we ought to look at fixing that first instead of trying to adjust the band-aid.

[(XBOX)Erkwounder]

What if? shield gating gain more and more powerfful if ishiiels are largerr and larger to damage reduction. Then there should be some mods wichc affect to shield gating speed too. Third thing would be pure damage reduction to shiled only, similar way like Caliban, but only for itself.

Dragon keys shoud affect negative to our tenno, not buffing them!

 

[Traumtulpe]

7 hours ago, SDGDen said:

the game is balanced with "end game" being level 80-100 enemies in mind

No it isn't. You can kill everything in that level range in one hit. You can use Inaros and be functionally invincible while AFK in that level range. That, very clearly, isn't balanced.

Also, nobody even uses Dragon Key shield gating in that level range. If you want to balance the game at that level, shield gating is of ZERO concern.

[Berzerkules]

Do you even use shield gating in content where it is beneficial? Why push for nerfs of things that you obviously don't use and has zero effect on your game play?

[XaoGarrent]

12 hours ago, Yakhul said:

Warframe is probably the ONLY game i have ever played where having more shields, is actually worse than not having any shields at all.

This problem exists precisely because most frames that rely on shields *aren't* built properly around their shields, like Hildryn or even Mag is.

Having more shields is only worse on a frame that is forced to rely on shields, but has no or bad shield mechanics.

The same is actually true of health and armor frames: Most health and armor frames have some kind of strong health sustain in their kit, some way to vastly boost their armor, extremely high base health and armor values, flat absorb abilities that can work with armor, or otherwise some kind of mechanic that acts as a force multiplier on their EHP.

Health and armor frames would be in just as much a sorry state if the part of their design pertaining to mitigation was as lackluster as say, Gyre. Or I suppose in Gyre's case, I should just say "non existent."

[L3512]

8 hours ago, SDGDen said:

weird... i've been playing for 8 years, studied game design, and frequently test things as well as sometimes run polls.

but apparently i have no in-depth knowledge or experience, because someone who doesn't like the term "nerf" disagrees with me. 

 

With no idea of your background but reading a sentence like this,

16 hours ago, SDGDen said:

rather than the current "slap on a decaying key and pray" meta.

It's not a far reach to conclude that either you have no practical knowledge or experience of which you speak or you have intentionally overplayed a perceived negative issue to bolster your arguments.

It's the old, create a problem and sell the solution.

Shield gating as a survival mechanic allows pretty much every frame in the game to do any content but requires a lot more from the player than simple armour/ability/health tanking. Unlike the many nerfs DE has done in the name of balance, the arrival of shield gating and subsequent use of the decaying dragon key has mostly levelled to playing field in terms of a frames ability to survive, even better is that this requires skill and attention from the player.

[Berzerkules]

8 minutes ago, L3512 said:

 

With no idea of your background but reading a sentence like this,

It's not a far reach to conclude that either you have no practical knowledge or experience of which you speak or you have intentionally overplayed a perceived negative issue to bolster your arguments.

It's the old, create a problem and sell the solution.

Shield gating as a survival mechanic allows pretty much every frame in the game to do any content but requires a lot more from the player than simple armour/ability/health tanking. Unlike the many nerfs DE has done in the name of balance, the arrival of shield gating and subsequent use of the decaying dragon key has mostly levelled to playing field in terms of a frames ability to survive, even better is that this requires skill and attention from the player.

This right here. 

Shield gating gave almost all frames a viable way of surviving in a way that wasn't tied directly to their base armor stat. Instead your ability to survive is based on your reaction time and quick decision making skills. It's a more active playstyle imo. Shield gating is far from a perfect scenario but I have yet to see any good suggestions on how to change it. Most of the time suggestions come from people that don't use it and don't really understand how little time you have to save your ass. 

[AntifreezeUnder0]

9 hours ago, SDGDen said:

so "shieldgating becomes a must if you do lvl cap things" is more proof of it being overpowered than an argument on why not to nerf it.

There is no need to nerf it. Pros and cons lets more  frame via shieldgating become viable option for overall gameplay. That is what game is all about.

Same goes with ''powercreep'' its obvious that top tier weapons be top tier. While other weapons using the game mechanics offered can step into high dmg tier too.

Well also its a must to use vazarin dash, rolling guard(optional) and other game mechanics to do lvl cap runs, priming, gundition or condition overloads to deal with lvl cap demolysts.  

Armor has diminishing returns, , health is meaningless even if you have 10k+ hp and rather high armor you get 1 shotted. Shieldgating is a mechanic which lets you take it higher, and enable to use squishy frames, that is if toxin enemies isnt near you :) then you dont have time to shieldgate.Since game is all about variety its only a good option to have a mechanic which lets any frame be more useful.

And on top of that, since im grendel player its for me is impossible to boost shields via mods to adequate nr, and only archon shards can help with that.

Then again shieldgating take an effort to make it work. And as in other comments said, it doesnt affect other people. In the end this is just a race in missions to see who kill more, or do higher dmg.