Humble feedback on health tanking and maybe a way to let it keep up with gating all the way

[kerozen666]

Currently there is a hard cap on how far one can push a frame using health as it's main defensive option. there is simply a point were damage will just be too much to be absorbed. On the other hand, Gating with overguard and shields don't have this situation, as if someone is getting their timing and energy eco right, they are virtually invincible.So how can health tanking be made as viable as gating without creating something that will become more annoying than useful once the damage gets high enough, or that could be abused to create immortality (like using the same gating as shields but pairing it with any regeneration)

So after overthinking for a while, the one way i tought that could work would be to adress the issue at the source. the idea is simple, since there is a point where damage gets too much, we make it so that point is never reached. To do so, a special modifier could be applied on players, companions and any item that one would desire to see damage capped. That modifier would come as a way to keep the scaling of enemy damage received as bellow to a certain predetermined level, while still allowing normal enemy scaling for other values, and allow for damage redirection (octavia's mallet, Nekros' shadows) to still properly scale. I will also fully admit that i don't know the precise way damage is calculated on shots, i'm simply presenting this based on what i know the game has. 

This is also only an idea coming from a player who love this game and wants it to live long. Other solutions are likely possible, I simply thought sharing this one could help, since it goes at the source and is likely futureproof

[Drasiel]

For frames that have 0 shields I will admit that they become more dangerous to use sooner due to the lack of gating but I think it's reasonable to reach a point where any damage means death when you have the option of unlimited mission time. The issue I see instead is that in the situation where a single attack could kill you, any frame with a shield takes 2 shots to kill while the pure health frame only takes 1. Even a gating build is susceptible to death if you mess up, the main difference is they need to mess up twice to fully fail. 

[Sojufueled]

Someone has, god help them, taken Inaros to level cap. So it can be done. Honestly, survival is in about the best state it's ever been right now.

[Traumtulpe]

31 minutes ago, Sojufueled said:

Someone has, god help them, taken Inaros to level cap. So it can be done.

They used Protective Sling. You can make anything go to level cap with that - but you shouldn't have to.

[kerozen666]

Il y a 12 heures, Drasiel a dit :

For frames that have 0 shields I will admit that they become more dangerous to use sooner due to the lack of gating but I think it's reasonable to reach a point where any damage means death when you have the option of unlimited mission time. The issue I see instead is that in the situation where a single attack could kill you, any frame with a shield takes 2 shots to kill while the pure health frame only takes 1. Even a gating build is susceptible to death if you mess up, the main difference is they need to mess up twice to fully fail. 

Gating is harder to do pull out, but once mastered, damage literally become an issue of the past (aside from toxin procs). That devalues the other type of survivability since you outdo them by mastering one trick. Frames with kits designed around soaking hits become less interesting. Sure, the hard cap has always been in the game, but now there is one trick that allows you to bypass it, and it's not even a tanking setup, it's a quirky dodge. That's why i'm suggesting a cap on damage scaling recieved. we've already conquered the cap, and providing options to let you reach it with health might be too exploitable. but i've seen people suggest to change the scaling to be like the armor one, which could work,, and i've seen someone else suggest a proportionally scaling DR thing, which could also be interesting

[Raarsi]

For frames like Inaros--actually, lemme rephrase that: for exclusively Inaros, he could have some internal effect where he never takes more than a specific threshold of damage per second.  I'd go with 99.99%, but that's just me.

The other issue Inaros has is that for a health sponge, he doesn't exactly have enough self-healing to compensate for it at higher levels compared to other no-shield frames like Nidus (who has innate passive healing per second) and Kullervo (who has overguard, a reliable enough self-healing skill, and the third highest base armor value of any frame).  Modifying nearly all of his abilities so that they heal based off his max HP like his finisher passive but without the kill requirement would also alleviate issues with health tanking on him.

[kerozen666]

il y a 16 minutes, Raarsi a dit :

For frames like Inaros--actually, lemme rephrase that: for exclusively Inaros, he could have some internal effect where he never takes more than a specific threshold of damage per second.  I'd go with 99.99%, but that's just me.

The other issue Inaros has is that for a health sponge, he doesn't exactly have enough self-healing to compensate for it at higher levels compared to other no-shield frames like Nidus (who has innate passive healing per second) and Kullervo (who has overguard, a reliable enough self-healing skill, and the third highest base armor value of any frame).  Modifying nearly all of his abilities so that they heal based off his max HP like his finisher passive but without the kill requirement would also alleviate issues with health tanking on him.

I mean, Inaros is in urgent need of a rework. But your idea of giving him some reactive and scaling resistance isn't bad, i'd just put it for every frame, like an alternative adaptation that remove gating and damage specific resistance, but instead act like some instant damage attenuation scaling with enemies (yes, nanomachines). and the more i think about it, the more that scaling adaptation interest me more than the cap. it's ultimatly the same thing, but you get the full tank power fantasy.

[Harutomata]

Enemy damage scaling got out of hand, which is not necessarily an issue for most warframes because they have means to survive or avoid damage.
I support the idea of reworking enemy damage, not just because it'd be better for frames with lower base shields, but also because for many warframes taking even one instance of damage to health oneshots them, which creates a second problem, making support warframes with HP healing abilities less relevant.
I'm not saying people should have to rely on healers, but Warframe is a co-op game, and it'd be cool to see them get more use again with a rework on enemy damage. Or alternatively change those HP heals abilities into something that's useful on high level Steel Path too.
Overheals applying a buff that has a max value of your max HP, and if it reaches it you get an equal amount of Overguard of your max HP? Just an idea, but then people would reduce their max HP to "overguardgate" more. Well Overguard gating is weaker than shield gating so maybe it wouldn't be so broken.

You know what else got less relevant? CC frames with the introduction of enemies with Overguard, even though it's meant to be their main means of survival and main role.
I know they were added to not trivialize difficulty, but there should be some middle ground between immune and not immune.
Whether DE is doing it on purpose or if it's just a byproduct of trying to balance the game more, changes to the game in the previous years remove more and more incentive to play anything else other than DPS warframes.

[Drasiel]

3 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

Gating is harder to do pull out, but once mastered, damage literally become an issue of the past (aside from toxin procs). That devalues the other type of survivability since you outdo them by mastering one trick. Frames with kits designed around soaking hits become less interesting. Sure, the hard cap has always been in the game, but now there is one trick that allows you to bypass it, and it's not even a tanking setup, it's a quirky dodge. That's why i'm suggesting a cap on damage scaling recieved. we've already conquered the cap, and providing options to let you reach it with health might be too exploitable. but i've seen people suggest to change the scaling to be like the armor one, which could work,, and i've seen someone else suggest a proportionally scaling DR thing, which could also be interesting

Gating is more costly in mandatory mods, reaction time, and time awareness than any other tanking option. I say that as someone who focuses on tanky options. Gating is also not just a quirky dodge, with the changes to "decay-gate" and the addition of Catalyzing Shields, shield gating is not just an emergent defensive behaviour from the community but a Dev endorsed and validated option.

Even once gating is "mastered" all you need is to screw up your timing once or be hit with an energy drain effect to lose the ability to regen your shields on demand and suddenly you're looking death in the face. 

The problem isn't that high alpha damage takes out health tanks, that's just the result, the problem is that health tanks lose the ability to react to that damage and save themselves. Shield gating at the level where alpha damage is high enough to one shot doesn't save you from death by just existing, it gives you just enough time to react so you *might* be able to save yourself. This might seem like a crazy idea but I actually wonder if might be viable to change Health only frames to take their damage in an "over time" format. So you get hit for the damage but instead of being applied instantly it drains your health at a certain percentage until all damage has been taken. it would give you the chance to react when you take damage that would have one shot you. It might be difficult to come with a clear way to display that on the hud or other exploitable behaviour I haven't considered but it would alleviate the inability to react to high alpha damage and give something unique to pure health frames.

[kerozen666]

il y a 36 minutes, Drasiel a dit :

Gating is more costly in mandatory mods, reaction time, and time awareness than any other tanking option. I say that as someone who focuses on tanky options. Gating is also not just a quirky dodge, with the changes to "decay-gate" and the addition of Catalyzing Shields, shield gating is not just an emergent defensive behaviour from the community but a Dev endorsed and validated option.

Even once gating is "mastered" all you need is to screw up your timing once or be hit with an energy drain effect to lose the ability to regen your shields on demand and suddenly you're looking death in the face. 

The problem isn't that high alpha damage takes out health tanks, that's just the result, the problem is that health tanks lose the ability to react to that damage and save themselves. Shield gating at the level where alpha damage is high enough to one shot doesn't save you from death by just existing, it gives you just enough time to react so you *might* be able to save yourself. This might seem like a crazy idea but I actually wonder if might be viable to change Health only frames to take their damage in an "over time" format. So you get hit for the damage but instead of being applied instantly it drains your health at a certain percentage until all damage has been taken. it would give you the chance to react when you take damage that would have one shot you. It might be difficult to come with a clear way to display that on the hud or other exploitable behaviour I haven't considered but it would alleviate the inability to react to high alpha damage and give something unique to pure health frames.

the slow drain would be one way to do it, but consider it like something tho be applicable to all frames potentially, not just one. Like, other frames have their kit around hp regain, and a frame like chroma need s to be able to take health damage to gain their full abilities. Right now i've been convinced by the idea to make a mod that would basicly give scaling DR so that you could really get in full tanking, probably an alternative to adaptation that would also remove gating. kinda the same as capping, but it let you still feel like you are taking on high level stuff

[Drasiel]

21 minutes ago, kerozen666 said:

the slow drain would be one way to do it, but consider it like something tho be applicable to all frames potentially, not just one. Like, other frames have their kit around hp regain, and a frame like chroma need s to be able to take health damage to gain their full abilities. Right now i've been convinced by the idea to make a mod that would basicly give scaling DR so that you could really get in full tanking, probably an alternative to adaptation that would also remove gating. kinda the same as capping, but it let you still feel like you are taking on high level stuff

That's basically where our opinion divides here, The pure health frames are missing an advantage other frames have, but for me that doesn't mean that every frame needs to have that same defensive boost applied, that just exacerbates power creep and cheapens what could be a unique facet to a subcategory of frames. There are also a lot of frame agnostic ways to regain health in the game now too. Since we're talking about tanking and survival, let's keep to that topic, Chroma doesn't need to take health damage to take full advantage of his defensive abilities, he needs health damage to take full advantage of his offensive abilities. 

[kerozen666]

il y a 29 minutes, Drasiel a dit :

That's basically where our opinion divides here, The pure health frames are missing an advantage other frames have, but for me that doesn't mean that every frame needs to have that same defensive boost applied, that just exacerbates power creep and cheapens what could be a unique facet to a subcategory of frames. There are also a lot of frame agnostic ways to regain health in the game now too. Since we're talking about tanking and survival, let's keep to that topic, Chroma doesn't need to take health damage to take full advantage of his defensive abilities, he needs health damage to take full advantage of his offensive abilities. 

i want to clarify, by applying to all, i mean accessible like a vitality mod is available to all frame. the idea is to give an alternative to gating  to frame that can make use of it. Making it a mod or just capping overall mfits that bill. net every frame will be able to health tank with those options, but the one made to play with health damage and recovery, would.

also, for chroma, you only need shields for the defensive buff, but that buff applies to health damage, so he still needs to be able to use health tanking to be worth using

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

how about Damage Attenuation, for Tennos?

The Archons have it, fair play to turn it around?

[GPrime96]

On 2023-11-04 at 4:02 PM, kerozen666 said:

Currently there is a hard cap on how far one can push a frame using health as it's main defensive option. there is simply a point were damage will just be too much to be absorbed. On the other hand, Gating with overguard and shields don't have this situation, as if someone is getting their timing and energy eco right, they are virtually invincible.So how can health tanking be made as viable as gating without creating something that will become more annoying than useful once the damage gets high enough, or that could be abused to create immortality (like using the same gating as shields but pairing it with any regeneration)

So after overthinking for a while, the one way i tought that could work would be to adress the issue at the source. the idea is simple, since there is a point where damage gets too much, we make it so that point is never reached. To do so, a special modifier could be applied on players, companions and any item that one would desire to see damage capped. That modifier would come as a way to keep the scaling of enemy damage received as bellow to a certain predetermined level, while still allowing normal enemy scaling for other values, and allow for damage redirection (octavia's mallet, Nekros' shadows) to still properly scale. I will also fully admit that i don't know the precise way damage is calculated on shots, i'm simply presenting this based on what i know the game has. 

This is also only an idea coming from a player who love this game and wants it to live long. Other solutions are likely possible, I simply thought sharing this one could help, since it goes at the source and is likely futureproof

I wonder how this would work with T4 Void damage modifier.

[(NSW)Greybones]

I’m not sure why health needs to keep up with gating…?

Dying at that high of a level makes sense. What’s weirder is the implied idea that we’re not supposed to die

[Waeleto]

They have to introduce a mechanic that nothing can take your health form 100% to 0% in ONE shot

[kerozen666]

Le 06/11/2023 à 17:15, (PSN)haphazardlynamed a dit :

how about Damage Attenuation, for Tennos?

The Archons have it, fair play to turn it around?

the more i think about it, the more I feel like this would be a good idea. maybe introducing it as a mod that replace adaptation and disable gating (as a balancing point and to make sure it's really to be for health tanking, not making gating stronger). 

[Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-11-04 at 1:02 PM, kerozen666 said:

Currently there is a hard cap on how far one can push a frame using health as it's main defensive option. there is simply a point were damage will just be too much to be absorbed. On the other hand, Gating with overguard and shields don't have this situation, as if someone is getting their timing and energy eco right, they are virtually invincible.So how can health tanking be made as viable as gating without creating something that will become more annoying than useful once the damage gets high enough, or that could be abused to create immortality (like using the same gating as shields but pairing it with any regeneration)

So after overthinking for a while, the one way i tought that could work would be to adress the issue at the source. the idea is simple, since there is a point where damage gets too much, we make it so that point is never reached. To do so, a special modifier could be applied on players, companions and any item that one would desire to see damage capped. That modifier would come as a way to keep the scaling of enemy damage received as bellow to a certain predetermined level, while still allowing normal enemy scaling for other values, and allow for damage redirection (octavia's mallet, Nekros' shadows) to still properly scale. I will also fully admit that i don't know the precise way damage is calculated on shots, i'm simply presenting this based on what i know the game has. 

This is also only an idea coming from a player who love this game and wants it to live long. Other solutions are likely possible, I simply thought sharing this one could help, since it goes at the source and is likely futureproof

In a way I think your solution is sort of like "Health Gating" (without the invincibility period) If the max is--say--5,000, you have 12,000 HP, and the enemy attack is 10k, then you would hit 2 "Health Gates" before dying on attack 3.

And while that would let you live through the first two attacks, what happens if there are three enemies all launching 10k attacks at the same time? You'd still die instantly. So I think there'd have to be a brief invulnerability moment of time to react between "Health Gates" in that case.

Or, alternately--and this starts to sound like attenuation at this point--the max could be a percentage. Let's say any single attack can only do 50% (rounded up) of your current health (minimum damage at 100). In that case if you had 12,000 HP, then a large hit would do 6k damage, Then 3k, then 1,500, then 750, then 375, then 187, then 100, and then you'd die. It would take 8 large hits to kill you. And that would give an advantage over low-HP frames that start with numbers like 300 (which would be dead in 3 hits).

If you coupled the halving/min100 system with a brief moment of invulnerability (like 0.2 seconds) then that would give high-HP builds something similar to a shield gate of 1.6 seconds to live while being blasted to smithereens.

AND if you devised an HP regeneration strategy that could acquire HP faster than the Health Gates (+801 HP every second) then you could achieve that immortal melody the other frames love to sing.

[kerozen666]

il y a une heure, (NSW)Probably_Asleep a dit :

In a way I think your solution is sort of like "Health Gating" (without the invincibility period) If the max is--say--5,000, you have 12,000 HP, and the enemy attack is 10k, then you would hit 2 "Health Gates" before dying on attack 3.

And while that would let you live through the first two attacks, what happens if there are three enemies all launching 10k attacks at the same time? You'd still die instantly. So I think there'd have to be a brief invulnerability moment of time to react between "Health Gates" in that case.

Or, alternately--and this starts to sound like attenuation at this point--the max could be a percentage. Let's say any single attack can only do 50% (rounded up) of your current health (minimum damage at 100). In that case if you had 12,000 HP, then a large hit would do 6k damage, Then 3k, then 1,500, then 750, then 375, then 187, then 100, and then you'd die. It would take 8 large hits to kill you. And that would give an advantage over low-HP frames that start with numbers like 300 (which would be dead in 3 hits).

If you coupled the halving/min100 system with a brief moment of invulnerability (like 0.2 seconds) then that would give high-HP builds something similar to a shield gate of 1.6 seconds to live while being blasted to smithereens.

AND if you devised an HP regeneration strategy that could acquire HP faster than the Health Gates (+801 HP every second) then you could achieve that immortal melody the other frames love to sing.

I mean, since i posted this, i've started to want attenuation more. ultimatly, it is a scaling cap with extra step, but you still get the full super tank build fantasy. 

as for the health gate, it would be way too cheesable. you would literaly only need to build for regen and never hp. simply having regen that give you 1 hp dunting the gating period makes you completly immortal. with a .2 second gating, a rejuvenation aura plus an archon shard and poof! immortality and also infinite energy thanks to rage

[Probably_Asleep]

4 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

I mean, since i posted this, i've started to want attenuation more. ultimatly, it is a scaling cap with extra step, but you still get the full super tank build fantasy. 

as for the health gate, it would be way too cheesable. you would literaly only need to build for regen and never hp. simply having regen that give you 1 hp dunting the gating period makes you completly immortal. with a .2 second gating, a rejuvenation aura plus an archon shard and poof! immortality and also infinite energy thanks to rage

That's interesting! I've never tried Health-Tanking before so I didn't think it was possible to be generating more than 100 HP every 0.2 seconds (or 500/sec). But you're right if you could do that then my numbers would make you untouchable.

I chose 100 minimum damage because I thought that was extreme. For example, if you had Wisp's Vitality Reservoir at +492% Strength (all Strength Mods, Empower, Molt Augmented/Vigor, and Energy Conversion), 5 Tauforged Azure Archon Shards with Health Regen, and four Squadmates with Growing Power and Coaction Drift, then you'd have 224.775 HP/second regen. Which is insane (to me, who uses Mag). But even that is only about 45 HP every 0.2 seconds, not even half of the immortality threshold. I'm curious now what kind of regen numbers health tanks are getting.

[kerozen666]

il y a 3 minutes, (NSW)Probably_Asleep a dit :

That's interesting! I've never tried Health-Tanking before so I didn't think it was possible to be generating more than 100 HP every 0.2 seconds (or 500/sec). But you're right if you could do that then my numbers would make you untouchable.

I chose 100 minimum damage because I thought that was extreme. For example, if you had Wisp's Vitality Reservoir at +492% Strength (all Strength Mods, Empower, Molt Augmented/Vigor, and Energy Conversion), 5 Tauforged Azure Archon Shards with Health Regen, and four Squadmates with Growing Power and Coaction Drift, then you'd have 224.775 HP/second regen. Which is insane (to me, who uses Mag). But even that is only about 45 HP every 0.2 seconds, not even half of the immortality threshold. I'm curious now what kind of regen numbers health tanks are getting.

health tanking varies a lot depending on the frame. a lot are reliant on regen, other do flat heal, other do life steal, ands some even rely on extrenal sources. health gating is not something you can do because of that, because it would need to be on a frame per frame basis, and that is easy to mess up. your 100 hp threshold isn't something every frame can attain, due to the multiple way to heal. it would create heal tax on builds, with mandatory subsume, or have player simply bind their health pad to a mouse button. shield gating is doable because there is no way to instantly regain shields from break other than abilities, and it's also why there is no threshold. to gate, youonly need to be casting with a single mod that convert energy to shield. it's why i'm looking at capping damage/having instant damage attenuation as the alternative, as the one thing all health tanks can do is take hits.

 

500 hp/sec is something you can attain with inaros with an arcane grace. you won't have room for much else, but it's doable

[Redrigoth]

Inaros with endlessly scaling hp and armor might have a high enough effective hp that it allows him to survive things naturally. Imagine inaros with 60khp and 10k armor. He can be just as tanky as the enemies he is fighting. Maybe a lv9999 blitz eximus can hit him for 80% max. The rest of the bullets and melees can chip away at him. Maybe they do enough damage to reduce his hp by 3% each with adaptation equipped. Arcane grace would still sustain him as in lower levels. He would just die if he is eating too many bullets or blitz eximus shots. Maybe heat and corrosive effect cutting his armor would be dangerous for him.

[CrownOfShadows]

I've suggested a "health-gate" many times.

This can be achieved through gray-health (although overguard kinda stole that spot) or through checkpoints in the health bar itself (75%, 50%, 25%), or through multiple health bars.

[kerozen666]

28 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I've suggested a "health-gate" many times.

This can be achieved through gray-health (although overguard kinda stole that spot) or through checkpoints in the health bar itself (75%, 50%, 25%), or through multiple health bars.

the issue with those is that they could either be abused or will ultimatly be semi useless if not fully. Like, if you can't recover health while gated, you'll just die as soon as the invul stop, and if you can, it will just be abvused by basic regen

[CrownOfShadows]

37 minutes ago, kerozen666 said:

the issue with those is that they could either be abused or will ultimatly be semi useless if not fully. Like, if you can't recover health while gated, you'll just die as soon as the invul stop, and if you can, it will just be abvused by basic regen

Eh... I don't see this as an issue at all - I mean if we're comparing it to shield gate "abuse" then it's exactly the same. It just provides reaction time and avoids one-shots - that's the whole point really, it's not about being immortal it's about not being one-shot, I don't see how that's "useless". The only other way I can think of to take hp & armor into super high content would be to just provide more health - instead of hp-gates give 50k hp - same philosophy (avoid one shots) just not as fool-proof because some big damage might happen.

Like you can make these same arguments you're making about shields - ''you can't regen shields while invul, or if you can it would be abused.' People don't die as soon as the shield gate timer expires though - they react.