Solutions to the AoE Nerfs

[FeRixia]

9 minutes ago, MechNexus said:

"Not all nukes require setup"
"Gyre can walk to the end unless it's heavy armour"

Read that again and think about it for a moment.

(aside: the "these weapons are useless now" was a sentiment expressed at the time the nerf went out - and unless i'm misinterpreting Kaiga's post, this very thread too)

The setup is just in the build just like AoE weapons. Mirage? Press 4 and run along with your personal turret. Xoris? Spam it into the ground for up to ~28m effective aoe with influence. Gyre only falls off beyond base SP without strip (also not every faction even has armor). And the sentiment, again, is that the devs tried to force a playstyle change and you can counteract that with the same weapons by using different builds I suggested. Also check the edit for more examples. At least, that particular user's sentiment is that AoE spamming is dead which the original post is trying to "disprove" and I do not agree with. But not running these things forces a more annoying playstyle drawback which is a bit too harsh especially in teams (did you know ammo drop rates are nerfed the more players are in a squad?).

Edited January 4 by FeRixia

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

24 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

Building frames or weapons that are now useless due to nerfs, and nerfs in general, doesn't automatically make you guilty of this now nonexistent playstyle. 

Nothing is useless in such an easy game. Unless you can provide an example.

[MechNexus]

9 minutes ago, FeRixia said:

The setup is just in the build just like AoE weapons. Mirage? Press 4 and run along with your personal turret. Gyre only falls off beyond base SP without strip (also not every faction even has armor). And the sentiment, again, is that the devs tried to force a playstyle change and you can counteract that with the same weapons by using different builds I suggested. Also check the edit for more examples.

Yes, that's still setup. It's not like the old days where you'd just have a Banshee (or even mag) spamming 4 all day and doing nothing else, you always at minimum need some means of stripping defenses, and advanced units with overguard or guardian eximus providing additional shields, and even nullifiers make that a little trickier than in the old days. That little extra step is why the nuke abilities dodged the nerf hammer, and AoE weaponry (which I remind you, people were going AFK with) did not.

The "forced playstyle change" was totally justified and won't be undone for reasons outlied in one of my previous posts: It was proving disruptive to other players and trivialising content that's supposed to be challenging and (as a result) engaging. It's kinda hard to make anything that challenges someone if they're allowed to just go AFK nuking everything with no resistance. Yes, you can bypass the nerfs with your build, but that's also intended and expected because imo short of ammo mutation, everything else has some kind of opportunity cost. Taking Carrier means no Smeeta Kavat for random buffs, Energized munitions means you don't get any other helminth skill (e.g Roar, Pillage, or Gloom) that may be more powerful, and Scavenger Aura means no corrosive projection, steel charge, growing power, etc. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, that's why the change is good because you now need to sacrifice something else to spam AoE weapons again, which can keep the power in check.

To get off a way-too-long tangent: No, the nerf isn't getting undone and no, it wasn't a valid way to play. There's an old bit of game design wisdom that says if given opportunity, a player will optimise the fun out of the game - and I don't know about you, but brainoff borderline AFK strats aren't what most people would consider fun. If I wanted that i'd go play cookie clicker.

[FeRixia]

13 minutes ago, MechNexus said:

Yes, that's still setup. It's not like the old days where you'd just have a Banshee (or even mag) spamming 4 all day and doing nothing else, you always at minimum need some means of stripping defenses, and advanced units with overguard or guardian eximus providing additional shields, and even nullifiers make that a little trickier than in the old days. That little extra step is why the nuke abilities dodged the nerf hammer, and AoE weaponry (which I remind you, people were going AFK with) did not.

The "forced playstyle change" was totally justified and won't be undone for reasons outlied in one of my previous posts: It was proving disruptive to other players and trivialising content that's supposed to be challenging and (as a result) engaging. It's kinda hard to make anything that challenges someone if they're allowed to just go AFK nuking everything with no resistance. Yes, you can bypass the nerfs with your build, but that's also intended and expected because imo short of ammo mutation, everything else has some kind of opportunity cost. Taking Carrier means no Smeeta Kavat for random buffs, Energized munitions means you don't get any other helminth skill (e.g Roar, Pillage, or Gloom) that may be more powerful, and Scavenger Aura means no corrosive projection, steel charge, growing power, etc. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, that's why the change is good because you now need to sacrifice something else to spam AoE weapons again, which can keep the power in check.

To get off a way-too-long tangent: No, the nerf isn't getting undone and no, it wasn't a valid way to play. There's an old bit of game design wisdom that says if given opportunity, a player will optimise the fun out of the game - and I don't know about you, but brainoff borderline AFK strats aren't what most people would consider fun. If I wanted that i'd go play cookie clicker.

Maybe also consider why players would rather go afk. Boring enemy and mission design like Mirror Defense. Objectives boiling down to nuke enemies and go to extract or camp a corner and kill things. Sure they "fixed" the aoe problem and you can still afk to an extent, but the problem is most missions simply aren't engaging or remotely interesting to veterans regardless of what gets nerfed or not. It's a valid way to play if that's what you care about, getting rewards without having to get insanely bored of repetitive content which is at the core of the game anyway. Heck I'd rather sit on an Ivara wire and hold mouse button on a Shedu rather than engage in what seems to be purposefully soul sucking mission types like survival or mobile defense.

Also, aoe of any sort is apparently "disruptive" because that is what you sign up for when going public. WF has been for ages a race to nuke everything first and run to extract. And with all the powercreep, that won't be changing. No matter your viewpoint, players (me included) will find the best way to nuke content for the best rewards if we want to (which was what Whispers turned into even because of the simplistic missions yet again). Is efficiently clearing hordes in a public match with endgame gear disruptive? Is throwing Mallet once a minute and standing there an invalid way to play a survival? Well that's up for debate. I'm saying the nerfs were too harsh and not to completely reverse but tone them down a little.

Edited January 5 by FeRixia

[RichardKam]

5小时前 , Kaiga 说:

The game's reviews were bombed back to the stone age after the AoE/wukong giganerf, what did you expect?

It would have been nice of them to have refunded our upgrade mats, though, however justified these changes were, as much of the most popular content that everyone spent time and effot building went down the drain practically overnight.

We are still in the stone age and things seem to be going really well. What is the problem? No one took the review bomb seriously. 

DE took away automation from the game. This is one of the best thing that happened since 2014. 

btw it was not a nerf at all. The only parameters that got changed was the ammo and AoE radius. Compared to other nerf in Warframe history it was extremely gentle. Beside there are already thousands of ways to bypass the ammo problem, people just refuse to acknowledge that because apparently pressing a few more buttons is too much of a hassle.

[Slayer-.]

Just to add another funny to this already funny thread.

In before the posts complaining about why you nerf Thermal Sunder DE on Titania, blah blah blah.

Though it is funny to watch doing relic runs all you hear is the sound of the skill going off cha chung cha chung, I don't mind I get to crack the relic faster and get out of the mission to crack the next one, the Titania player can have all the kills, or the competing Titania player. 

[SDGDen]

6 hours ago, Loza03 said:

The position your operating under is the idea that the nerfs themselves are fundamentally bad, that they're a problem to be fixed, when in truth, they were themselves a solution.

 

If anything, a solution that could very probably be applied to far more things. 

this. so much this.

 

nerfs and buffs are equal tools in a dev's arsenal when it comes to balancing the game.

for some reason, the warframe community doesn't entirely grasp that concept, and gets EXTREMELY mad when DE nerfs things, even if it's completely justified, even when the "nerf" is actually a bug fix. it doesnt even take long for players to get USED to a bug and decide it's the new norm (elemental ward right after the abyss of dagath update, it was only around for a day or two but people got super upset about the "mega nerf" that brought it back to the same power it had before the update) 

 

[SDGDen]

22 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

We are still in the stone age and things seem to be going really well. What is the problem? No one took the review bomb seriously. 

DE took away automation from the game. This is one of the best thing that happened since 2014. 

btw it was not a nerf at all. The only parameters that got changed was the ammo and AoE radius. Compared to other nerf in Warframe history it was extremely gentle. Beside there are already thousands of ways to bypass the ammo problem, people just refuse to acknowledge that because apparently pressing a few more buttons is too much of a hassle.

someone checked the reviews and a very decent chunk of them were A: in chinese and B: either complaints about wukong, general "game bad" or in a couple cases even "a friend of mine told me to leave a bad review, so i did".

it was *literally* for a large part the chinese playerbase reviewbombing because their wukong AFK strat got obliterated. (AFKing is a lot more of a thing within the asia region, just a difference in culture i think?) 

[trst]

3 hours ago, FeRixia said:

Maybe also consider why players would rather go afk. Boring enemy and mission design like Mirror Defense. Objectives boiling down to nuke enemies and go to extract or camp a corner and kill things. Sure they "fixed" the aoe problem and you can still afk to an extent, but the problem is most missions simply aren't engaging or remotely interesting to veterans regardless of what gets nerfed or not. It's a valid way to play if that's what you care about, getting rewards without having to get insanely bored of repetitive content which is at the core of the game anyway. Heck I'd rather sit on an Ivara wire and hold mouse button on a Shedu rather than engage in what seems to be purposefully soul sucking mission types like survival or mobile defense.

Also, aoe of any sort is apparently "disruptive" because that is what you sign up for when going public. WF has been for ages a race to nuke everything first and run to extract. And with all the powercreep, that won't be changing. No matter your viewpoint, players (me included) will find the best way to nuke content for the best rewards if we want to (which was what Whispers turned into even because of the simplistic missions yet again). Is efficiently clearing hordes in a public match with endgame gear disruptive? Is throwing Mallet once a minute and standing there an invalid way to play a survival? Well that's up for debate. I'm saying the nerfs were too harsh and not to completely reverse but tone them down a little.

The whole "content isn't engaging" argument is beyond ridiculous in this context. If it's not engaging then the very unsurprising solution isn't to then seek out how to make it even less engaging but to make it more engaging. Also this is a video game we're talking about, and if you find that you need to resort to remove as much of the "game" as possible from it then one must question why you'd play it to begin with.

And just because there's still other sources of disruptive AOE that doesn't justify making yet more disruptive AOE. Plus that feeds back into the issue of lacking engagement as pushing more disruptions in just means it's even easier/more likely to lack engagement.

Really the AOE nerfs barely count as a slap on the wrist and the game would be better overall if DE committed with all their proposed solutions. But, again, do encourage players to aim for more brainless spam just so AOE can become an unavoidable problem for DE again.

Edited January 5 by trst

[SDGDen]

1 hour ago, trst said:

Really the AOE nerfs barely count as a slap on the wrist and the game would be better overall if DE committed with all their proposed solutions. But, again, do encourage players to aim for more brainless spam just so AOE can become an unavoidable problem for DE again.

the game as a whole would be a lot better if DE dared to commit to nerfing things for the sake of game balance.

the entire reason why we currently have things like the fragmented one's damage attenuation where it does NOT matter how much damage you deal as long as you hit the per-second damage cap is because of rampant powercreep that results in us being able to one-tap anything that doesnt have DA.

that's the tradeoff we made. we allow powercreep and in return, we get DA on enemies that mean investment is meaningless.

 

[Tiltskillet]

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

btw it was not a nerf at all. The only parameters that got changed was the ammo and AoE radius.

Yeah, those are nerfs.  Mostly justified nerfs, IMO,   but let's not be afraid to call things what they are. 

 

[SDGDen]

6 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Yeah, those are nerfs.  Mostly justified nerfs, IMO,   but let's not be afraid to call things what they are. 

 

it's kinda stupid how we have to be careful with calling things nerfs because the community goes ballistic over the word itself. as if their parents were killed by a nerf or something.

 

[Slayer-.]

3 minutes ago, SDGDen said:

it's kinda stupid how we have to be careful with calling things nerfs because the community goes ballistic over the word itself. as if their parents were killed by a nerf or something.

 

nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf
nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf
nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf
nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf
 

There, that should help them get it out of their system. 

[Armadillidium_vulgare]

I'm honestly really glad they nerfed AOE weapons. I enjoy this game. I play it a lot, even.

It's hard to enjoy when there's nothing to do but follow behind the lunatic running a fully kitted out Bramma or Zarr, trying to scrape up a couple of kills so that I don't feel like the entire mission was just a waste of my time.

The AOE ammo nerf was a good thing, and if they make it even harder to run AOE weapons I won't object because of how much I hated playing follow the leader during the AOE meta. Unless there's some solution to THAT problem, I don't want DE to revert any AOE nerfs.

[ECCHOSIERRA]

12 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

Sorry, couldnt help it.

  Hide contents

 

I find it hilarious that people still cant get in their heads why DE did the Nerfs and keep on pushing for reversal of the nerfs or finding ways around them.

Have DE remove any form of Self Stagger immunity and/or return Self Damage to the game and i might upvote any topic asking for the reversal of the Nerfs.

Self stagger ignoring primed sure footed (or a similar nerf) would be an automatic do not ever use aoe again for me.

Do not pass go, do not collect 200$, no. Would not equip. Ever. 

I barely use AOE weapons at all since the changes as ive always hated "worrying about running out of ammo" in games. 

[RichardKam]

1小时前 , Tiltskillet 说:

Yeah, those are nerfs.  Mostly justified nerfs, IMO,   but let's not be afraid to call things what they are. 

 

To be specific, what I considered a "nerf" is a reduction in damage number or damage output. 

Looking back at Warframe history you will notice a lot of brute force nerf because Steve thought "hey this weapon is over-used so I will just cut it damage by half. Problem solved". The most recent and probably the last one was the glaive nerf. Just because glaive prime forced slash explosion was so powerful, they decided to reduce damage and extend the throw animation of all glaives including the freaking kestrel and vanilla halikar. Other contenders include melee and condition overload nerf. Of course we cannot talk about nerf without mentioning Vivergate. 

AoE ammo changes? The damage number, critical change, critical damage, status, every stat remain unchanged, except ammo, blast radius and headshot multiplier. Out of the three, headshot multiplier is the only one related to damage. 

So yeah, I don't consider this a nerf. But there is no point drilling on definition here as long as we enjoy the outcome.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

1 hour ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

I barely use AOE weapons at all since the changes as ive always hated "worrying about running out of ammo" in games. 

in other games, sure, running out of ammo is sometimes game over, but when you're a magical space ninja who is also likely carrying an incredibly overpowered melee weapon, guns are a suggestion really, at least for fighting the vast majority of mobs. it's like that one DOOM meme: "hah he's out of ammo!" *cracks knuckles* "oh no, he's out of ammo!!"

3 hours ago, SDGDen said:

as if their parents were killed by a nerf or something.

hey, I've been shot in the eye by one of those, for like a solid minute I was contemplating what I'd be naming my Guide Dog lol. 

[Merkranire]

I can see an argument to revert the nerf; I think DE didn’t get the memo that the players know what’s best for the game, and what’s best is AFK play.

It is kind of annoying in general that they don’t let us take the wheel and really steer it in the direction that we’re desperately trying to achieve, and we’d be there already if DE didn’t keep stopping us from booting up the game to turn it off. Very annoying 😠

[Merkranire]

12 hours ago, FeRixia said:

(did you know ammo drop rates are nerfed the more players are in a squad?).

Huh. Learn something new every day

[Aruquae]

Last I checked the goal of the nerfs was to have AOE weapons be “emergency” nukes. The occasional nuke if you would. They exist for their big BOOM when the battle gets hairy. They’re basically what archguns were supposed to be: powerful weapons with downtime to balance out said power.

[SneakyErvin]

11 hours ago, SDGDen said:

it's kinda stupid how we have to be careful with calling things nerfs because the community goes ballistic over the word itself. as if their parents were killed by a nerf or something.

Pfft. Dont be so insensitive mate. What do you know about the living standards of others. How can you know their parents occupation? Maybe there are some poor fellows and fellases around here that grew up with nerf herding parents in a galaxy far far away, and those parents perished to a nerf heard stampede.

On a more serious note regarding the OP's subject. The solution was and is simple, all that is needed is to stop shooting that single lonely enemy and use the AoE for what it is intended, kill masses of mobs per shot. No ammo problems pre- or post- nerf even with the lowest ammo capacity weapons being used.

[(PSN)CommanderC2121]

Honestly I think AoE weapons are in some of the best state they’ve ever been. They have clear upsides and downsides.

 

If we compare now to the other 2 major time periods for AoE, 1)  where you insta killed yourself if your shot was slightly too close to your frame, 2) AoE had no downsides at all and was beyond the most dominant weapon type, then I dont see how the current iteration isnt the best for the game.

[Tiltskillet]

10 hours ago, RichardKam said:

To be specific, what I considered a "nerf" is a reduction in damage number or damage output.  ...

AoE ammo changes? The damage number, critical change, critical damage, status, every stat remain unchanged, except ammo, blast radius and headshot multiplier. Out of the three, headshot multiplier is the only one related to damage.

So yeah, I don't consider this a nerf.

It sounds like you recognize this is your own idiosyncratic definition.  But in that case it seems odd to jump into threads and try to impose it on people who are just using the jargon conventionally.  Especially when, even by your own definition, the headshot change makes it at least a minor nerf.

10 hours ago, RichardKam said:

Of course we cannot talk about nerf without mentioning Vivergate. 

Before my time, so maybe I have this wrong, but wasn't that all changes that didn't affect "damage number, critical chance, critical damage, status"?

10 hours ago, RichardKam said:

But there is no point drilling on definition here as long as we enjoy the outcome.

Probably so.  Probably so whether the outcome was enjoyed or not, even.

[FeRixia]

Thanks for the responses thus far, though I don't agree with some of them. I just think one of the aspects of the nerf should be toned down, be it firestorm, ammo pickup, or ammo max (such as merciless bonus). Right now we have a few options: spam with no conditionals with Tonkor/Envoy, use EM and spam with Zarr/Ogris/Bramma, or use mutation/scavenger/carrier instead and be a little more careful. I rarely bother switching to other weapons for lone enemies or barely glance up from staring at the minimap so these ways are the most comfortable. I've also found Primary Tombfinger to have big aoe with unlimited ammo and fast recharge though the damage is more lacking and it has an annoying fire mode.

I really don't like the implication that the devs want you to switch weapons per enemy and would rather keep spamming the same weapon. Another suggestion is make ammo drops consistent in all size squads. I have no issues maintaining Bramma ammo in a solo SP survival but all full team exterminate has problems.

For AFKing I can use tonkor Wukong or Octavia and that's fine.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 hours ago, FeRixia said:

Thanks for the responses thus far, though I don't agree with some of them. I just think one of the aspects of the nerf should be toned down, be it firestorm, ammo pickup, or ammo max (such as merciless bonus). Right now we have a few options: spam with no conditionals with Tonkor/Envoy, use EM and spam with Zarr/Ogris/Bramma, or use mutation/scavenger/carrier instead and be a little more careful. I rarely bother switching to other weapons for lone enemies or barely glance up from staring at the minimap so these ways are the most comfortable. I've also found Primary Tombfinger to have big aoe with unlimited ammo and fast recharge though the damage is more lacking and it has an annoying fire mode.

I really don't like the implication that the devs want you to switch weapons per enemy and would rather keep spamming the same weapon. Another suggestion is make ammo drops consistent in all size squads. I have no issues maintaining Bramma ammo in a solo SP survival but all full team exterminate has problems.

For AFKing I can use tonkor Wukong or Octavia and that's fine.

"I rarely bother switching to other weapons for lone enemies or barely glance up from staring at the minimap" 

Your problem and no one elses.