Enemy armor should get reworked to better the game, especially steel path

[kerozen666]

I have been playing since 2016, and during those years, I have noticed how armor has influenced the game. Right now, notably on steel path, armor is creating an issue that affect how much fun you can have with your arsenal due to how much more resistant it makes enemies using it. 

The effective HP of an armored foe rapidly dwarf those of an enemy using shields or health alone. best example would be a corrupted lancer and crewmen that you would encounter in the void. at level 140 in SP, a corrupted crewman would have 43,795 EHP, while a corrupted lancer, who would stand right next to it, has 567,329 ehp, or 12 time more than it. This enormous gap is thus push us, the players, to mod and gear ourslves near exclusively around dealing with armor, which get pretty samey rapidly, on top of restraining what can be used. 

Having armored EHP being in the same values as shielded enemies would thus allow a lot more possibilities for player loadouts and builds, on top of lessening the effect of gear power creep, since the playerbase would not be as encouraged to go overkill

[SDGDen]

this is also what leads to the steel path binary meta of "if your build doesnt have an armor strip, it will suck in steel path. if it does have an armor strip it shreds steel path"

 

[NorthernDarkIceSoul]

25 minutes ago, SDGDen said:

this is also what leads to the steel path binary meta of "if your build doesnt have an armor strip, it will suck in steel path. if it does have an armor strip it shreds steel path"

 

non binary right activists even here

[NekroArts]

15 minutes ago, kerozen666 said:

Having armored EHP being in the same values as shielded enemies would thus allow a lot more possibilities for player loadouts and builds, on top of lessening the effect of gear power creep, since the playerbase would not be as encouraged to go overkill

From my experience, there will be players that go overkill because they simply enjoy it. They like achieving big numbers and they like to use it against enemies with "big numbers". We already changed the scaling from exponential curve to an s-curve, and SP just adds 100 levels to the base Star Chart with +150% to hp & armor, and shields are multiplied by 2.5. If you want to lower it down you're going to need an answer for those who wants another level of SP.

Honestly, we can just level SP as is. Sure, that means your options are going to be narrowed, but you only "have" to do each node once for completion.

• Arcanes and Steel Essence? Players can literally stay on Mercury if they're not powerful enough.
• Resource and Mod drop chance increase? They like the perks from Mastery Rank - they're objectively good to have, but subjectively you only need to be MR 16 to gain access to everything.

[Merkranire]

The mode was introduced for players who went way overkill in the first place, and it’s not the only way to play the game in either build or location. SP’s modifiers that are intended to give crunchy enemies and more of them are what you want looked at first before changing the whole game that those modifers are based on

Edited January 23 by Merkranire

[Merkranire]

3 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

Having armored EHP being in the same values as shielded enemies would thus allow a lot more possibilities for player loadouts and builds, on top of lessening the effect of gear power creep, since the playerbase would not be as encouraged to go overkill

wait a sec….

Hahahaha. I re-read the original post and this jumped out. I think you might be under a wrong impression. The only encouragement needed is that it’s an option that exists

Edited January 23 by Merkranire

[Packetdancer]

I mean, I feel like the problem being pointed out here is less "Steel Path" and more "multiplying armor by 2.5x has a vastly more impactful effect on enemy EHP than multiplying shields by 2.5x does."

It's quite possible to tackle Steel Path in a  huge variety of manners -- and it can be enjoyable figuring out what new methods can work, because puzzles are fun -- but I won't deny that it feels slightly unbalanced that armor is so much the single main obstacle on Steel Path that there's a widespread belief that you can't tackle the Steel Path without building solely around armor strip or the slash/viral status meta.

So while I will categorically deny any "Steel Path can only be tackled this way" claims, I also think that the balance is... not actually broken but maybe a little "wonky," for lack of a better term? Like a metaphorical car with a flat tire, or something.

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Packetdancer said:

I mean, I feel like the problem being pointed out here is less "Steel Path" and more "multiplying armor by 2.5x has a vastly more impactful effect on enemy EHP than multiplying shields by 2.5x does."

Or even if shields are multiplied by much more than that, lol.

 

[Packetdancer]

8 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Or even if shields are multiplied by much more than that, lol.

Oof... I'd never actually sat down to run the numbers, and always just taken it at face value that they had the same multiplier.

That's just plain sad; poor shields, they get no respect.

[KitMeHarder]

7 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

Having armored EHP being in the same values as shielded enemies would thus allow a lot more possibilities for player loadouts and builds

That's just a very linear thought process though, more goes into it than that. Not to mention, countering armor is not mandatory. But lets look at the base 3 factions.

• Grineer
  • They're tanky and that's about it. That's their entire shtick.
• Corpus
  • You have to deal with their abundant nullification. Often times making them harder to nuke.
  • Their shieldgate is a pain to deal with, often requiring select guns to equip Hunter Munitions for them to feel good. (What is often thought of as an anti-armor mod.)
• Infested
  • Infested's shtick is how they buff their allies/debuff you. Armor spore clouds, massive CC immune overguard bars, healing auras, etc...
    • Disruptor's -90% ability damage, -75% ability duration, energy leech on hit, and chance for magnetic procs.
    • So again, both ancients often make Infested harder to nuke than Grineer.
  • Their abundant toxin damage to counter the oh so meta shield builds.
  • Etc... So my builds "struggle" more with Infested than they do with Grineer like 80-90% of the time.

EHP is not/should not be the only thing that adds difficulty/variety to the game. Ever since the 2020 RRR patch I think armor is in a good spot if you take a broader view.

Edited January 23 by KitMeHarder

[(PSN)Sentiel]

58 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Or even if shields are multiplied by much more than that, lol.

 

I was under the impression that the 50% DR we got to Shields was applied to enemies as well.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if enemies got the same shields like the Arbitration Drones and some DR on top of it. It would make modding specifically to tackle them worth it and Corpus wouldn't be such a joke.

[VibingCat]

9 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

a corrupted crewman would have 43,795 EHP

80791 EHP because shields are multiplied by 6.25 in the Steel Path.

 

If you want to be efficient, you'll have to kill the Corpus with toxin and the armoured units with either slash status damage or anything you like after stripping all their armour. If you do so, both factions are fairly vulnerable up to level cap, besides overguard.

[kerozen666]

19 hours ago, SDGDen said:

this is also what leads to the steel path binary meta of "if your build doesnt have an armor strip, it will suck in steel path. if it does have an armor strip it shreds steel path"

 

exactly. Technicly, there is also priming and viral stacking as options, but it's ultimatly the same: negate armor or slog down. It's Borderlands 2 slagging problem all over again

[kerozen666]

13 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Or even if shields are multiplied by much more than that, lol.

 

you mean that even with that, shielded ennemies still get vaporized due to how overkill our builds have become to deal with armor. damn

[kerozen666]

15 hours ago, Packetdancer said:

I mean, I feel like the problem being pointed out here is less "Steel Path" and more "multiplying armor by 2.5x has a vastly more impactful effect on enemy EHP than multiplying shields by 2.5x does."

It's quite possible to tackle Steel Path in a  huge variety of manners -- and it can be enjoyable figuring out what new methods can work, because puzzles are fun -- but I won't deny that it feels slightly unbalanced that armor is so much the single main obstacle on Steel Path that there's a widespread belief that you can't tackle the Steel Path without building solely around armor strip or the slash/viral status meta.

So while I will categorically deny any "Steel Path can only be tackled this way" claims, I also think that the balance is... not actually broken but maybe a little "wonky," for lack of a better term? Like a metaphorical car with a flat tire, or something.

my point is more about armor in general, as even back in 2016, you ended up running build more geared toward dealing with armor than anything else when you went generalist. Steel path just make sure you can't miss it. 

Also, yes, you indeed can aproach with multiple builds, i mean i run pure lightning on my melee nowadays thanks to melee influence. I was just making a generalization, considering how basicly everything but armored stuff gets vaporized by builds that tackle armor

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, kerozen666 said:

It's Borderlands 2 slagging problem all over again

Just had to say it... armor is no where near as bad as the horrendous mess that was slag. If you weren't Sal (or to an extent Maya), Slag was a tedious micromanaging mess that certain builds like melee Krieg couldn't even really utilize. They're not comparable in the slightest.

[ShogunGunshow]

The "Steel Path is optional" excuse meant a lot more when they didn't have anything meaningful behind it.

But then they added gun arcanes to it and welp.

This is extra funny/frustrating because they had just done a rework of enemy armor/level to have diminishing returns because enemy ehp was getting out of hand. Then they slapped a huge armor bonus on SP and oops its the same problem.

Tbh any enemy armor rework - like giving enemy tiers of armor instead of a continually escalating value - is necessarily going to have to be paired with a rework to all armor strips and status.

However, given DE's solution of green shards to give everyone access to armor strip, I don't think a status 3.0 is ever in the cards.

[kerozen666]

8 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Just had to say it... armor is no where near as bad as the horrendous mess that was slag. If you weren't Sal (or to an extent Maya), Slag was a tedious micromanaging mess that certain builds like melee Krieg couldn't even really utilize. They're not comparable in the slightest.

not as extreme, but still a pain that needs to be countered to have a decent ttk. Like, please, go bring a blast build on sp without damage boosting, viral stacking or armor stripping and tell me how it goes

[ShortCat]

There is no armor problem.
Armor works well at doing what the multi-element damage system is designed for - select the right build for the right faction. In Warframe we have different health/damage types and all of them have a different interaction with each other. In case of armor, you can either go armor ignore with Slash/Slash+Viral or anti-armor with Corrosive+green shards or go with armor removal abilites and build entirely against exposed Flash. In some cases you can even just bruteforce your way with excessive damage. There are options.
I also completely disagree with the EHP argument. Armor ignore setups do not fight the mountain of EHP but only health, so that a lvl 140 Corrupted Lancer will die just from one 20k Slash tick. On the other hand, Corrossive procs remove % of armor and do not care how many billions there are, so that 1 proc also removes billions of EHP. EHP does not reflect how durable an enemy is. A Corpus unit could habe 1337¹³³⁷ Shields and 10 HP, which would ammout to a humongous EHP number, yet a Lato with just a Toxin mod would oneshot it.

As mentioned by other posters - each faction has its own stick, Grineer are just individually more durable due to armor and punish bad builds more than any other faction atm. If anything I would like the old scaling back, because with recent power creep injection made the game too easy, so that even on steal path enemies die the moment they spawn.

[KitMeHarder]

4 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

Like, please, go bring a blast build on sp without damage boosting, viral stacking

Bringing the good/correct element has nothing to do with armor though. Viral does nothing to directly counter armor. It debuffs Corpus and has a good multiplier against them just like it does against the Grineer. 

Telling me to use a bad CC-based element doesn't bolster your argument. Armor scaling and status procs (that need a buff) are two completely different arguments. (A change that actually needs to happen.)

5 hours ago, kerozen666 said:

go bring a blast build on sp

That's like telling me slag is a problem. And to exemplify that, I should use fire against Hyperion armor on OP10.

[CoffeeElemental]

10 часов назад, ShogunGunshow сказал:

and oops its the same problem.

It's Armor 2: Electric Boogaloo.

On one hand, I do agree that armor in this game is a bit (a lot) ridiculous in its later segments. So you have to either remove it completely or bypass it completely. And allow me to yet again mention Synthetik and how that game handles armor behavior: based on the difference between your armor penetration and target's armor values, your projectiles can either pierce (or punch through if we're talking Warframe) the target, bounce off of the target or have its damage reduced. I think they have a pretty clever system there.

BUT on the other hand - isn't that what armor is supposed to be doing? Maybe it's the players' damage or ability to remove/ignore armor that needs to be toned down? And before someone starts screeching "it's a pve game!!!1" - imbalance leads to powercreep, and powercreep leads to boredom. Which is exactly what is happening in SP right now - you're either bashing your head on impermeable armored bullet-sponges or just delet everything that moves with a few buttons, almost no inbetween.

I really don't know why I typed all that. Everybody knows armor sucks as much as before, everybody knows player's damage output can be fkn broken in this game. And everybody knows that there's probably no cure for that. Eh, whatever.

[Birdframe_Prime]

I mean... it's kind of funny to me that the binary 'if you have Armour Strip you're okay in Steel Path, if you don't you're stuck' thing actually exists.

Players have been building for level cap without armour strip for a while. When you're against Grineer the basic Viral/Bleed builds work fine, and if you're a savvy about how some of the abilities work you can go for hours in Steel Path without problems. (I mean, not to bring the anecdotal into this, but I am Birdframe_Prime, I take Zephyr on long walks into Steel Path Survival with test weapons to see what they can do with Tornado, and simple things like a Corrosive/Heat build doesn't seem to lose KPM for a good four hours...)

We've got everything from Citrine status nukes to Kullervo's practically infinite scaling with his 3/4 and 3/1 combos, we have... so much that isn't armour strip that's Steel Path viable in the game at the moment. Even Banshee, who was historically 'valhalla awaits' built with her Silence stun and Arcane Trickery, but more recently became known for her Silence gutting Acolytes, her Shield Gating and Sonar Spamming for ridiculous damage boosting to make regular weapons hit for multi-billions...

We have the power-creep to not care about armour.

We really do.

Even if it does seem to make the scaling of enemy EHP ridiculous, it... kind of... doesn't matter. Because people can, and regularly do, hit level cap with functions that just aren't bothered by the enemy EHP.

[Monolake]

Armor scaling was already curbed into minimal. The whole Steelpath got added cause the basic enemies became utter pushovers and boring to fight. And on top of it you have insane powercreep with all the weapons and abilities  - which you can put on any frame too and remove armor if you want. So now even SP enemies are pushovers and boring to fight.  So what are you asking for really? How much 'fun' do you have running lvl10 missions where everything dies from a sneeze?

The real bad part is that DE resorts to obtuse damage caps/attenuation that completely negates player dps suddenly turning your maxed out weapons into mk1 lato. Thats what you get after 10 years of poor balancing and uncontrolled powercreep.