The problem with damage autenuation on arcons and liches

[Apocalypse94]

First and foremost for everyone that doesn't know what damage autenuation is, its a damage reduction/armor that is applied to certain boss enemies like arcons and liches.

how it works in short is that it gives the enemie more DR the more damage you do.

For example: If your initial hit does 100k dmg the enemies gets 50% DR so you do 50k dmg. if your hit does 200k the enemie gets a 66% DR and you will do 80k damage(the numbers are not exact it is just an example)

The idea behind this is that it prevents advanced players from oneshotting it while at the same time allowing newer players to still be able to kill it.

here is my Issue: The DR only takes into concideration the initial damage from each hit and not total weapon attack. that is why everyone is running kuva hek, because it has insane multishot

and that way you can still oneshot it.

another thing is that melee is basically useless because the damage seems to be capped no matter how strong ur melee is.

I tested this with my melee heavy attack and no matter how much crit/combo/damage i give it it is always capped out at around 5k dmg(with is nothing)

how is it that my melee that has an intial hit of 2milion does 5k damage and each pellet from a kuva hek shot does like 20k(no riven btw)

this is just super boring and lazy design in my opinion.

no creativity everyone just uses multi shot now and thats it

[(NSW)Greybones]

The game has an option to one-shot a boss, and you’re expecting players to… use something else?

Even without DA, that instant-kill is kind of what players want. Creative and alternative ways to do the same thing isn’t exactly a high priority when grind is at stake

[Drachnyn]

Damage attenuation was a terrible idea. The system failing when it comes to multishot helps us one shot insanely boring fights but that's just the system breaking. I would rather DE determine an amount of eHP they want a boss to have and then let the players figure it out themselves. If I dont deal enough damage with a particularly weak setup then I should be the one to fix that.

[Apocalypse94]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Drachnyn:

Damage attenuation was a terrible idea. The system failing when it comes to multishot helps us one shot insanely boring fights but that's just the system breaking. I would rather DE determine an amount of eHP they want a boss to have and then let the players figure it out themselves. If I dont deal enough damage with a particularly weak setup then I should be the one to fix that.

yes i 100% agree

vor 3 Minuten schrieb (NSW)Greybones:

The game has an option to one-shot a boss, and you’re expecting players to… use something else?

Even without DA, that instant-kill is kind of what players want. Creative and alternative ways to do the same thing isn’t exactly a high priority when grind is at stake

i am not complaining about the players but about the system

[(NSW)Greybones]

1 minute ago, Apocalypse94 said:

i am not complaining about the players but about the system

I found it weird how you thought players would gravitate towards something other than the one-hit wonder.

Something I’ve been wondering about the current incarnation of DA though; if you load up on damage, you get knocked down a peg, right? Doesn’t matter whether you’re advanced or a newbie, the game’s saying that there’s something wrong with the build. What happens if you build in an alternative way that’s not loaded up on damage?

[Apocalypse94]

vor 28 Minuten schrieb (NSW)Greybones:

I found it weird how you thought players would gravitate towards something other than the one-hit wonder.

Something I’ve been wondering about the current incarnation of DA though; if you load up on damage, you get knocked down a peg, right? Doesn’t matter whether you’re advanced or a newbie, the game’s saying that there’s something wrong with the build. What happens if you build in an alternative way that’s not loaded up on damage?

i never thought that. i am saying the system is flawd wich makes players do what they do.

why would you not build towards damage in a game where you have to kill enemies?

the game is not saying there is something wrong with building gamage its just that the damage autenuation is a bad solution for preventing oneshots

 

[(NSW)Greybones]

4 minutes ago, Apocalypse94 said:

why would you not build towards damage in a game where you have to kill enemies?

Alternative and interesting gameplay and builds spring to mind, not to mention potential to not get DA’d so much (if my understanding is correct). It gets a bit stale building purely for damage and using one or two builds in a game that doesn’t really need pure damage all the time and provides plenty of opportunity for alternative builds and approaches; it can be fun for a bit, but then it maybe gets relegated to the loadout manager.

About DA though; from my rudimentary understanding of it, it’s actively punishing excessive amounts of damage, right? The one-shot thing is an oversight or unintended effect; for the most part it prevents oneshots by aggressively undoing the build that someone’s made, which seems like it’s saying that for that level of content, there’s a better-suited build that doesn’t have so much focus on damage

[(NSW)Greybones]

Like, what if you did 80k damage? Would the DA kick in and reduce it or would you just do 80k damage? Is there some kind of sweet spot where DA isn’t undermining the build?

Edited July 10, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[Apocalypse94]

vor 7 Minuten schrieb (NSW)Greybones:

Alternative and interesting gameplay and builds spring to mind, not to mention potential to not get DA’d so much (if my understanding is correct). It gets a bit stale building purely for damage and using one or two builds in a game that doesn’t really need pure damage all the time and provides plenty of opportunity for alternative builds and approaches; it can be fun for a bit, but then it maybe gets relegated to the loadout manager.

About DA though; from my rudimentary understanding of it, it’s actively punishing excessive amounts of damage, right? The one-shot thing is an oversight or unintended effect; for the most part it prevents oneshots by aggressively undoing the build that someone’s made, which seems like it’s saying that for that level of content, there’s a better-suited build that doesn’t have so much focus on damage

i am not sure i understand your point. the only way you are gonna kill enemies is inflciting damage. what alternatives are there?

Range/cc/surviability?

utility doesn't help you kill something.

also building multishot to kill archons is also agressively building damage its just in the form of multishots+

vor 1 Minute schrieb (NSW)Greybones:

Like, what if you did 80k damage? Would the DA kick in and reduce it or would you just do 80k damage? Is there some kind of sweet spot where DA isn’t undermining the build?

that was just an example to explain the mechanic. not to be taken literaly

 

[(NSW)Greybones]

4 minutes ago, Apocalypse94 said:

i am not sure i understand your point. the only way you are gonna kill enemies is inflciting damage. what alternatives are there?

Range/cc/surviability?

utility doesn't help you kill something.

Now I’m confused. You don’t need to insta-kill everything, which frees up alternative ways to build and play and the experiences contained there-in depending on the mission, possibly involving CC or whatever to varying degrees depending on how someone builds and plays

[Apocalypse94]

vor 4 Minuten schrieb (NSW)Greybones:

Now I’m confused. You don’t need to insta-kill everything, which frees up alternative ways to build and play and the experiences contained there-in depending on the mission, possibly involving CC or whatever to varying degrees depending on how someone builds and plays

well yeah this is true in a mission where killing enemies is not as importand. wich is basically nowhere. expect for defense where some cc/utility is good.

arcons is about killing a big boss so it should be all about damage. in my opinion

alternatively you gives the arcons some actual mechanics where you can use utility to then do it more effectively or survive longer. that would be a good idea

Edited July 10, 2023 by Apocalypse94

[(NSW)Greybones]

7 minutes ago, Apocalypse94 said:

that was just an example to explain the mechanic. not to be taken literaly

I understand it’s an example, but it’s telling me that the more damage you build for, the more DA kicks your build to the curb. The way DA seems to be structured is making me wonder if there’s some kind of build that doesn’t get curbed by it, where someone could make a build that flies under the DA radar, as it were.

[Apocalypse94]

well yeah thats the whole problem. everything gets punished exept multishot because of how the mechanic works.

vor 1 Minute schrieb (NSW)Greybones:

I understand it’s an example, but it’s telling me that the more damage you build for, the more DA kicks your build to the curb. The way DA seems to be structured is making me wonder if there’s some kind of build that doesn’t get curbed by it, where someone could make a build that flies under the DA radar, as it were.

 

[(NSW)Greybones]

3 minutes ago, Apocalypse94 said:

well yeah thats the whole problem. everything gets punished exept multishot because of how the mechanic works.

 

You… understand what I’m asking, right? If they fixed the multishot so it got punished too, I’d still be wondering about that sweetspot

7 minutes ago, Apocalypse94 said:

well yeah this is true in a mission where killing enemies is not as importand. wich is basically nowhere. expect for defense where some cc/utility is good.

arcons is about killing a big boss so it should be all about damage. in my opinion

alternatively you gives the arcons some actual mechanics where you can use utility to then do it more effectively or survive longer. that would be a good idea

😐 I can assure you that if there’s a gradient in your TTK for the game, that’s not a guaranteed mission failure or anything and it’s perfectly fine. DE is trying to introduce that gradient forcibly through DA because some damage junkies want to insta-kill the Archons and DE don’t agree with them, which personally I find it weird and it behaves inconsistently, but if there’s a way to play by the game’s rules where I’m not being DA’d without relying on what seems an exploit, then I’d be more fine with the mechanism

[AegidiusF]

Il y a 1 heure, (NSW)Greybones a dit :

Creative and alternative ways to do the same thing isn’t exactly a high priority when grind is at stake

I totally agree and I think this is one very important point.

We have to grind a lot in this game and making the exact same mission again and again is not really fun, and players will be forced (at some point) to try to do it as fast as possible (one shot the boss).

I'm not saying it is ok, and I'm not saying it is bad : I'm just saying that grind will always have an impact on most players gameplay.

If players were "abusing" from AoE (shhoting on their feet) was for the grind/farm. Wukong was the most used frame because he used to let players finish their missions as fast as possible.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Personally I don't mind it. Now to be super clear, that doesn't mean I don't understand, acknowledge or sympathise with people that dislike damage attenuation. Damage attenuation itself is a type of mechanic, and there can be different types. Lephantis and even Nullifier bubbles employ a type of damage attenuation. 

Warframe and games in general can have a lot of different mechanics and systems when it comes to damage modifiers, damage resistance and so on, and this can also often reflect different ideas, attitudes people can have about them respectively. So sometimes what can seem simple, can involve a lot more. Like some people would prefer that all weapons could be competitive with each other across different situations, some other people prefer a hierarchy or order of sorts. Personally when it comes to games, I don't have super hard preferences, but again, that doesn't mean I don't understand, acknowledge those that do. In Warframe specifically, there are some activities, you can pretty much bring any weapon and complete the activity fine, but then there are some activities, with a very clear order in which case some weapons (tools and builds) are very very much more effective and efficient than others. Eidolons, Profit Taker, Level Cap, Archons etc and I don't mind it. In some ways, I actually even like some elements of that, because it can give more niche weapons opportunity to shine. Of course that can come with downsides too, because you can say that its a negative for weapon/build choice, and many may prefer using certain weapons, and if those weapons are rendered ineffective, can feel like an unfair punishment. 

[Numerounius]

You got some points wrong but yes I mostly agree.

I hate it because your squad can straight up get punished for dealing more damage. If I wanted to bring a brewed loadout of something like using Saryn to boost my damage numbers into the millions with a Stropha my damage literally becomes less than it does unmodded because of how harsh it is. Or if everyone is attacking it as if it was a normal boss the DA/DR just becomes count how long it takes for a sliver of health be taken off rather than seeing an improvement in dps when you activate a buff ability you didn't have on before.

It doesn't help that it was designed around something that can hit for hundreds times more damage than you can achieve with a normal bossing build and given that it is a flat DR this means that it is unfairly targeting the regular methods since it is designed to flat DR for something that hits way harder, The Voidrig 4. Meanwhile if I wanted to bring something that completely bypasses the system such as sonar spam or kuva hek one-shot I am suddenly in the clear?

I think the intent behind the system is there with it preventing one-shots but the enemies already have so many other mechanics that really highlights how bad it is with it being at the forefront of it all. Such as armor that cannot be removed, unaffected by abilities, other DR lich mechanics, workaround, phases. I would be fine if the system was revised with workarounds being removed if the system was re-balanced to not take upwards of 5 minutes to kill a single one of these enemies, but rather something closer to 1-2 minutes with a build of your own design.

[(PSN)ARC_Paroe]

Bosses should have a damage cap for sure, and that damage cap should be in 1 second intervals with exceptions for damaging status effects (since those only stack to 4 any way). 
DA being abused by multishot is just a shortsight from DE that punishes low end players who cant reach those 300+plat levels of damage, though. 

[(PSN)Unstar]

I think the Archon Hunts are fine as long as you're using one of the tools that circumvents Damage Attenuation, whether it be the Phenmor or the Kuva Hek.  What really sucks is that if you aren't using a similar tool the fight is an artificially lengthy and tedious slog.  In principle I'm not against Damage Attenuation, but I feel like it's vastly over-tuned at the point where it invalidates the majority of the Arsenal (even the "meta" parts).

[PublikDomain]

The current Attenuation is kind of indefensible regardless of your take... If you don't like it and think it shouldn't exist, well then you don't like it and think it shouldn't exist. Understandable. But if you think that Attenuation does have value and should exist... then oversights like multishot and Phenmor bypass it so the current implementation doesn't even work.

IMO Attenuation is flat-out mechanically bad, but worse than that it's a bandaid for a problem that doesn't even need to exist. None of this would be necessary in the first place if they just balanced the game already. It's just another example in a long list of examples showing how DE's reactive balancing attempts are flawed/ineffective, and we're only going to keep getting mechanics like this and status immunity and Overguard and damage adaptation and nullification and so on until enough of it finally breaks or becomes unusable.

[(NSW)Greybones]

10 hours ago, Apocalypse94 said:

i am not sure i understand your point. the only way you are gonna kill enemies is inflciting damage. what alternatives are there?

Something that’s been niggling at the back of my mind that may be tied to our back and forth;

If I’ve got a weapon, say a Braton, and I’m fighting level 40 enemies, what would you build the gun like?

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

13 hours ago, Apocalypse94 said:

First and foremost for everyone that doesn't know what damage autenuation is, its a damage reduction/armor that is applied to certain boss enemies like arcons and liches.

how it works in short is that it gives the enemie more DR the more damage you do.

For example: If your initial hit does 100k dmg the enemies gets 50% DR so you do 50k dmg. if your hit does 200k the enemie gets a 66% DR and you will do 80k damage(the numbers are not exact it is just an example)

The idea behind this is that it prevents advanced players from oneshotting it while at the same time allowing newer players to still be able to kill it.

here is my Issue: The DR only takes into concideration the initial damage from each hit and not total weapon attack. that is why everyone is running kuva hek, because it has insane multishot

and that way you can still oneshot it.

another thing is that melee is basically useless because the damage seems to be capped no matter how strong ur melee is.

I tested this with my melee heavy attack and no matter how much crit/combo/damage i give it it is always capped out at around 5k dmg(with is nothing)

how is it that my melee that has an intial hit of 2milion does 5k damage and each pellet from a kuva hek shot does like 20k(no riven btw)

this is just super boring and lazy design in my opinion.

no creativity everyone just uses multi shot now and thats it

Forgive me if I'm wrong but didn't the og incarnons also have their insane damage multipliers cross through the damage reduction, effectively making it melt the bosses compared to any weapon lacking the insane multishot you've mentioned?

[0_The_F00l]

I still maintain that DA is a terrible mechanic which shows lack of foresight , willingness or the ability of DE to balance encounters.

I completely blame DE for letting powercreep get to this point that they had to implement such a nonsense mechanic and evidently is why things like circuit and "alternative to warframe" game modes have come up , 

A full damage rework where all our various multipliers are squished is what I think is needed.

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

15 hours ago, Apocalypse94 said:

First and foremost for everyone that doesn't know what damage autenuation is, its a damage reduction/armor that is applied to certain boss enemies like arcons and liches.

how it works in short is that it gives the enemie more DR the more damage you do.

For example: If your initial hit does 100k dmg the enemies gets 50% DR so you do 50k dmg. if your hit does 200k the enemie gets a 66% DR and you will do 80k damage(the numbers are not exact it is just an example)

The idea behind this is that it prevents advanced players from oneshotting it while at the same time allowing newer players to still be able to kill it.

here is my Issue: The DR only takes into concideration the initial damage from each hit and not total weapon attack. that is why everyone is running kuva hek, because it has insane multishot

and that way you can still oneshot it.

another thing is that melee is basically useless because the damage seems to be capped no matter how strong ur melee is.

I tested this with my melee heavy attack and no matter how much crit/combo/damage i give it it is always capped out at around 5k dmg(with is nothing)

how is it that my melee that has an intial hit of 2milion does 5k damage and each pellet from a kuva hek shot does like 20k(no riven btw)

this is just super boring and lazy design in my opinion.

no creativity everyone just uses multi shot now and thats it

Judging by how many times this subject has been brought up without DE responding or doing anything about damage attenuation or even addressing it in any way whatsoever im gonna guess that this thread will be more of the same.

 

The archon fights specifically feel kinda janky to me because theres also the fact that death is more punishing than any other game mode including arbitrations.

So it turns into "whatever frame can face tank everything". 

 

In addition to the felarx/kuva hek etc meta being a thing. 

But whatever. I stopped caring. I do the activity once or twice a week to get my shart and dip.

[FA22_RaptoR]

I mean, there are ways to get around it as you stated.... I still use the Phenmor and don't have any issue soloing them archons, I feel there has to be a better way of dealing with them though.

IMHO I always eye roll when I run in public and the thing gets one-shot... I understand people wanting to get through content as quickly as possible but it seems like such a waste when it gets blown out like that...