What are DE's intentions with AOE/multi-target weapons?

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

So we all remember awhile back when DE brought out the AOE ammo nerfs. They also removed +ammo from merciless which was a change i personally hated because it affected a lot of non aoe weapons. But. 

Since then we have multiple incarnon weapons that can one way or another, clear rooms. Be it an AOE blast like strun or a bouncy boom effect like latron or a big giant catchmoon blob.

Prisma lens has innate ammo mutation so theres no reason not to use ammo drum in the exilus slot and bring it up to 15 shots. Thats better ammo economy than most other AOE weapons right now. The incarnon weapons arent difficult to charge and maintain decent uptime.

 

I dont remember the context or where it was said but i seem to recall someone from DE saying "warframe is a multi-target game". And im wondering if the intention isnt so much to not have AOE/multi target be a thing but end the era of one or two weapons being so oppressively strong that they overshadow everything else. 

 

So maybe theyre leaning towards okay theyre gonna let us have aoe room clear cheese weapons but they dont want there to be one or 2 outliers (like bramma and nukor were at times) that eclipse everything else. 

 

Or maybe they're gonna turn around and say oh no we went too far with what we're giving players and we're about to see another giant nerf wave and people are gonna be pissed when they see a hit to weapons they invested plat/forma/rivens etc into.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Not being DE, that is hard for me to answer, but I imagine there are a few variables, that have degrees of nuance, rather than one particular overriding concise intent. Those variables can also be shifting and fluctuating, and regardless of that, fans or those interested in those intentions and execution of intent, will also often misinterpret, believe, or claim something else instead. 

Like I think one general variable, they consider, is popularity and uniformity, which OP mentions. I think as one basic and oversimplification of a variable, is that they prefer healthy competition, which I also think a general broad player base does as well. Over monopolisation in a given category. I think they prefer more active, engaged play styles, again, over generalisation, over more passive AFK potential styles. They probably have degrees of data that they attempt to implement as well, having a meta shake up now and then is also probably beneficial for business, as I imagine despite what individuals may say, also coincides with (again over generalisation) many fans desires. Just, its more complicated and nuanced. Like I don't think we are going to see a giant nerf wave soon, unless possibly, if it counts, the possibility some Rivens for some Incarnons may be reduced/nerfed, maybe. Via increased usage/popularity. Though they also may not, because in a weird way, there are so many of these new Incarnons that are so powerful, its not like all people are rushing to a single one, as of yet, lots of talk about them in Forums and by content creators, but may not reflect the larger majority. 

Also, even the very way you unlock them, is via Circuit... a mode, which sort of actually makes powerful weapons a bit less at the forefront, because of the RNG element/aspect. That itself can mitigate certain types of attempts at efficiency, (team of 4 Kuva Zarr players doing a 4 hour Survival), whist also giving people the nice feeling, when they roll such powerful weapons, whilst also incentivising making as much of your arsenal strong. 

Like there is a lot to such things. 

[PublikDomain]

I wish they'd just make up their minds and be upfront instead of pussyfooting around with it. Do they want us to be using our whole arsenal or not? Do they want AoE-only meta or not? And how does the Drifter, Kahl, etc. gameplay fit into that? They keep trying to make difficult content, and everything they've put out reiterates that players say they want difficult content, yet they have said they struggle to produce difficult content with the way the game is balanced, so are they going to address that balance or give up and do something else? What's the plan, here? Is there a plan? Can they plan to make a plan? Do they know what they need to plan to plan to make a plan?

[(PSN)robotwars7]

yeah, I'm starting to think that there's some sort of "civil war" in the devteam between those who despise the AoE meta and those who are encouraging it:

dev 1: "we're adding wide AoE weapons"

dev 2: "NOOO! you can't do that it makes the game too easy! *nerfs the AoE weapons*

dev 1: "oh yeah, well if you dislike high damage, how about I do this! *removes self damage*

dev 2 "HOW DARE YOU! *adds self-stagger instead, and nerfs ammo capacity on AoE weapons*

dev 1: alright alright look... we haven't had any new prisma weaponry in a while, so I'm gonna add a new one to baro."

dev 2: ok... what is it?

dev 1: Prisma...... Lenz!

dev 2: 

either way, Prisma Lenz is alright, and I'm glad Prisma weapons are back on the menu.

[Hypernaut1]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA said:

 end the era of one or two weapons being so oppressively strong that they overshadow everything else. 

 

 

I think this is they main reason. They don't seem to care if something is OP as long as it doesn't overshadow other weapons. If something gets too popular, it gets nerfed.

[Voltage]

50 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

I wish they'd just make up their minds and be upfront instead of pussyfooting around with it. Do they want us to be using our whole arsenal or not? Do they want AoE-only meta or not? And how does the Drifter, Kahl, etc. gameplay fit into that? They keep trying to make difficult content, and everything they've put out reiterates that players say they want difficult content, yet they have said they struggle to produce difficult content with the way the game is balanced, so are they going to address that balance or give up and do something else? What's the plan, here? Is there a plan? Can they plan to make a plan? Do they know what they need to plan to plan to make a plan?

I'm still in the boat thinking this is just more preparation for mobile players. Mobile controls are painful on the beta, so I assume DE is fleshing out AoE even more so players on the phone can easily jump into the game.

[Famecans]

the multi-target is an illusion because it only works in survival and territory defense missions. most missions require more health stamina than killing multi-targets.

I feel that warframes became stronger soon, through damage reduction or health modifiers. we're getting a lot of mods and health boosts and the mobile crowd is going to use this as the mobile gameplay is complicated for the rolling guard's ballet strategy.

[Tiltskillet]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA said:

So we all remember awhile back when DE brought out the AOE ammo nerfs. They also removed +ammo from merciless which was a change i personally hated because it affected a lot of non aoe weapons. But.  . . .

It's less contradictory if you accept this statement they made in Veilbreaker:

Before we get into the specific ‘WHAT’ of the changes to AoE, let’s talk about the broad ‘WHY’ of these changes. There are 3 core reasons:

1) “Can this be automated?” 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.

If so it seems better to think about Incarnon in the context of weapons like Sepulcrum, Battacor, Sporothrix, etc, which weren't touched or only minimally so by the ammo nerfs. The power level is different, but the Incarnon mechanics are more similar than they are to typical launchers.

[BroDutt]

1 hour ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

yeah, I'm starting to think that there's some sort of "civil war" in the devteam between those who despise the AoE meta and those who are encouraging it:

dev 1: "we're adding wide AoE weapons"

dev 2: "NOOO! you can't do that it makes the game too easy! *nerfs the AoE weapons*

dev 1: "oh yeah, well if you dislike high damage, how about I do this! *removes self damage*

dev 2 "HOW DARE YOU! *adds self-stagger instead, and nerfs ammo capacity on AoE weapons*

dev 1: alright alright look... we haven't had any new prisma weaponry in a while, so I'm gonna add a new one to baro."

dev 2: ok... what is it?

dev 1: Prisma...... Lenz!

dev 2: 

either way, Prisma Lenz is alright, and I'm glad Prisma weapons are back on the menu.

Dev 1 : New dev like Pablo (sadly people think he like to nerf things), Rebb (seriously Revenant too OP)

Dev 2 : The old gang like Steve (the reason he decided to make Soulframe A.K.A drifter slow, tactical fighting) and Scott (hate any player that try not to play the game as intended eg. the simulacrum fiasco)

AOE had become Meta for years, until probably the old gang points out that some player just AFK with Wukong Clone and Kuva Zarr/Kuva Bramma.

Pablo even said that WF will not stop any player using Meta build to kill a lot of enemy. But AFK is where he drew the line.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA said:

Prisma lens has innate ammo mutation so theres no reason not to use ammo drum in the exilus slot and bring it up to 15 shots. Thats better ammo economy than most other AOE weapons right now. The incarnon weapons arent difficult to charge and maintain decent uptime.

Thanks for random info. I'm using carrier and... it's good to know.

2 hours ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

think they prefer more active, engaged play styles, again, over generalisation, over more passive AFK potential styles.

33 minutes ago, BroDutt said:

But AFK is where he drew the line.

  *meanwhile Xaku in the see of blood and body parts* la la la

It seems like @(PSN)robotwars7 said that there is some kind of conflict or something. Look at Xaku. They are basically saying "afk". You are putting 2 Gazes, grabbing guns and just moving. 4th even stops time. You have 75% damage reduction or evasion. How to make it better? Spam heavies or use Sly's survival instinct that forbids you to attack. So what you do? Yeah 2nd. Oh and they even removed disarming feature which were one of the most active form of Xaku (not the best).

On other hand you have stuff like Voruna 4th that needs 1,2 and be lucky with slash (2nd have to proc Slash) so it can kill group of enemies. Or STyanax cannot even cast single ability during 4th (it could)?

ps. That's probably Kagura skeen in your avatar

2 hours ago, (XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA said:

I dont remember the context or where it was said but i seem to recall someone from DE saying "warframe is a multi-target game". And im wondering if the intention isnt so much to not have AOE/multi target be a thing but end the era of one or two weapons being so oppressively strong that they overshadow everything else. 

I may get it wrong because it was long time ago so take it with grain of salt.

They understand that it's multi target game, that player want power fantasy (using Bazooka or something) but they want you to think more, Like Tilkskillet quoted

42 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

1) “Can this be automated?” 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.

In workshop, afair, they showed how they can stand in one spot, shooting bramma without moving. No enemy even sees you (some void small room entrance, ~1/2 smaller than elevator). They don't want something like this.

They nerfed ammo so you cannot just spam explosives mindlessly. After change I've even tried Carrier and you could get no ammo if you spam too much (especially not killing).

Incarnon have some sort of "do X headshots" (not hard to do if you know what you are doing) then you have limited magazine. If you change back you loose it.

2 hours ago, (XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA said:

Or maybe they're gonna turn around and say oh no we went too far with what we're giving players and we're about to see another giant nerf wave and people are gonna be pissed when they see a hit to weapons they invested plat/forma/rivens etc into.

If you think it's too powerful then it may get nerf hammer. Now... or few years later. Who knows.

[ShogunGunshow]

I'm beginning to think that DE deliberately nerfs stuff just so that they can reintroduce the same problem later and make you chase that same high.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

The intention is to use them if you like, and to not if you don't.

Things simply existing aren't a reason to get upset.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

1 hour ago, ShogunGunshow said:

I'm beginning to think that DE deliberately nerfs stuff just so that they can reintroduce the same problem later and make you chase that same high.

This

introduce a bunch of big AoE Incarnon to keep hype going

they'll all get nerfed in 2 months

Do Not be fooled into buying 4k platinum rivens for these weapons, you know what's coming.

[0_The_F00l]

I believe their intentions are pretty simple.

Make sure that new and old weapons can  both be sold to justify dev time and investments made while keeping the player base sufficiently engaged.

It inherently does need a spiral of waxing and waning of weapons to ensure this happens.

I totally expect more changes to make the current meta obsolete and a different meta to take its place as time goes on. This is primarily the reason we have so much power creep.

I am hoping we get a full stat squish soon.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

DE has no plan. More specifically, Pablo has no plan. Some people want balance and other's don't. some people hate when somone else kills most of the enemies and others like getting stuff done efficiently. There is nothing Pablo can do that wouldn't cause outrage, so he's doing nothing. I have my opinions, but I get where he's at. It's impossible for him to win.

[trst]

The ammo "nerfs" were really just to deal with AFKong and Specters automating gameplay. It did absolutely nothing to the AOE meta.

The new Incarnons range from being equal to pre-existing meta AOE weapons to performing well below them due to their ammo mechanics (which is different from the ammo "nerfs" since Incarnon ammo can't be modified/restored via mods).

And the Primsa Lenz has an innate ammo mutation because the regular Lenz already had that since it released. Also all AOE weapons have fine ammo economies so long as you're not fighting low level missions with awful enemy density.

 

DE never intended to remove AOE or even make it less of an option. The whole goal of them "nerfing" them before was, as they said, automation. Plus there's the only other metric they "nerf" by with is gear that dominates usage which alone warranted the AOE "nerfs" plus the Wukong one.

However since dominating usage is one of their major deciding factors then it should be expected to see Incarnon nerfs or maybe even the actual AOE nerfs they discussed (removal of self stagger immunity and/or the return of nerfed self damage). So anything happening there is inevitable if enough players are flocking to Circuit and are continuing to use Incarnons.

[Marvelous_A]

AoE has always been working just fine even after the ammo nerf if you don't, say like dump your whole Ogris magazine onto a single scorpion or something

[ReddyDisco]

1 hour ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

Do Not be fooled into buying 4k platinum rivens for these weapons, you know what's coming.

Use the hype to sell rivens for these weapons and make bank, because you know what's coming.

[(PSN)thowed]

Whens that pocket nuke launcher from Fallout coming?

[Skoomaseller]

rest assured we will have more aoe weapons to commit war crimes more effectively and efficiently

speaking of which, we NEED a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher like the SPNKr from halo

57 minutes ago, (PSN)thowed said:

Whens that pocket nuke launcher from Fallout coming?

incarnon atomos

[Mr.Holyroller]

All I'll say is I can take the devs seriously about AOE balance when they continually nerfed aoe primaries while glaive prime is still the most OP AOE weapons, and then they release extremely broken things like lex incarnon

[SneakyErvin]

For me the answer is very simple if you look at what Pablo have said in the past.

DE are fine with releasing new AoE options aslong as they dont become a new dominant pick that overshadows everything else. And to counter AoE usage they rather implement new game modes instead of making sweeping changes to the core content that many people enjoy. That new content has less incentive to use AoE, or limitations that make it harder to utilize. This goes hand in hand with what Pablo said a few years back regarding revamping old game modes. It is not something they want to do, since people enjoy those modes, so if a change is to be made to a current mode, they rather create a new and similar one. That way those that enjoy the old can still play the old and those that want a change up has the new activity.

Duviri, atleast The Duviri Experience is a good example of how they've handles AoE as meta. You now have a mode with RNG pulls that also can make use of both AoE and single target during the mission in order to make it as smooth as possible. Which opens up choices that actually matter more before you start the mission. If you get into the dilemma of having to pick between 1 good AoE weapon or 1 good single target gun you need to decide which you prefer most. Will you focus on potentially clearing the undercroft stages as smooth as possible with an AoE weapon or do you rather have a quick kill on the Orowyrm? Granted the further we get in progress the less it matters since operators exsist for undercroft clearing. However, the system is far better and gives more incentives than any other place in the game where AoE solves all pretty much, or you can just carry a gun for each task without giving it any thought.

11 hours ago, BroDutt said:

Dev 1 : New dev like Pablo (sadly people think he like to nerf things), Rebb (seriously Revenant too OP)

Dev 2 : The old gang like Steve (the reason he decided to make Soulframe A.K.A drifter slow, tactical fighting) and Scott (hate any player that try not to play the game as intended eg. the simulacrum fiasco)

AOE had become Meta for years, until probably the old gang points out that some player just AFK with Wukong Clone and Kuva Zarr/Kuva Bramma.

Pablo even said that WF will not stop any player using Meta build to kill a lot of enemy. But AFK is where he drew the line.

Eh. Pablo and Reb have been part of WF since the early beginning of it all, they arent exactly new. And the AoE meta wasnt really a thing for more than a year before the adjustments to ammo economy landed to "balance" it, since it didnt really become a meta until Galv mods and arcanes were introduced, prior to that melee reigned supreme. Self-damage removal simply saw an increase in the use of AoE, but it never turned meta during that time. We had a brief period where Bramma was meta because it was severely overtuned and people ran around macro spamming it as some new maiming strike.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

5 hours ago, Mr.Holyroller said:

All I'll say is I can take the devs seriously about AOE balance when they continually nerfed aoe primaries while glaive prime is still the most OP AOE weapons, and then they release extremely broken things like lex incarnon

All glaives had their damage and attack speed nerfed. There was people upset, but it died down because people realized nerfs don't mean anything in such an overpowered and easy game.

[Mr.Holyroller]

21 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

All glaives had their damage and attack speed nerfed. There was people upset, but it died down because people realized nerfs don't mean anything in such an overpowered and easy game.

The damage and attack speed nerf is negligible. Still kills 195 gokstad gunners in 2 slash proc ticks with no outside buffs

 

[--END--Rikutatis]

Pablo said it himself a while ago: AoE is perfectly fine and a part of WF's power fantasy as long as: 1) it doesn't allow for game automation/afk play; 2) it's not too disruptive to other players; 3) it doesn't overshadow all other weapons. 

The new incarnon AoEs, despite their extreme power, are still less disruptive and more tame in range than the old primed firestorm zarr/bramma meta blowing up two floors worth of enemies in a single shot. The only exception for me atm seems to be the torid, maybe. That one does seem to be a bit out of control compared to other beam AoEs, I'm still not fully convinced there isn't some unintended bug going on making it perform better than it should.