We Need Some Mediocre Ability Mods

[CrownOfShadows]

Ok so this has irritated me for a very long time, and I'm finally just going to ask for it because I end up wishing for it just a little too often.

There's a huge gap between the low ability mods and the high ability mods and I want some mediocre mods. Let me try to illustrate:

I'm making these linear ascents based on the fact that we have mods with no downsides up to a limit, and then mods that start having downsides, so I'm assuming DE is ok with mods with no downsides up to this point and I start from there. It's a big assumption, but it's all I have to go off of.

So anyways, we go from Stretch at 45% all the way up to Overextended at 99% - with nothing in between. Likewise we go from Primed Continuity at 55% to Narrow Minded at 99% with nothing in between, and Streamline at 30% all the way to Fleeting Expertise at 60%. Strength is a bit more complicated because it is pretty heavily saturated with mods, but we basically have Intensify at 30%, Transient Fortitude at 55% and Blind Rage at 99%.

Each of these is balanced against another ability when they go beyond a certain point. Strength is unique in that is balanced against both Duration (Transient Fortitude) and Efficiency (Blind Rage).

What I'm really looking for all the time is mods in the middle, but there are a lot of other things that could be done with ability mods as well. Let me try to show this as well...

And there's also a possibility for creating double corruption ability mods like this:

Now there's some question about how DE chose what ability to balance against what ability. Why is Range against Duration instead of Strength or Efficiency, for example? And this gets pretty technical because you probably have to chart out the averaged warframe power scheme or something, power over distance multiplied by efficiency & duration - they might even have some dope formulas they worked out to figure this all out idk, and then see if there are bad spikes. But I think it's probably safe to assume that none of that is in stone, and that there are other balancing options for each - just like Strength is balanced against two. Another thing to note is that there's some possibility that depending on what ability is matched the metric might change. In the Brittle Range mod example above, I had to guess that it was mostly similar, but DE would likely have more rigorous math behind such a thing. Also, certain mods stack and certain are mutually exclusive, and of course stuff like arcanes comes in too.

But anyways I think diversifying the negatives would be helpful because different frames have different needs, and a massive hit to duration might be unacceptable or very painful, or likewise a massive hit to range might be very painful, but those same frames might be fine with massive hits in other areas like strength, efficiency, or energy.

Note that efficiency and duration are often two sides of the same coin for some abilities (mostly channeled ones) but often weighted differently per frame & ability. Also note that efficiency is a slightly less useful tool because of the insane energy regeneration now available.

So I guess I'm basically asking for two things here:

1. Ability mods that are middle-of-the-road, between the base mods and the very high-cost corrupted mods
2. Diversification in the ability downsides (if practical) to better accommodate more frames/playstyles

---------------

A note on the actual modding here. This desire is not necessarily due to a lack of mod space (although that's a factor ofc), but rather it's due to wanting things like range, duration and strength, and willing to make sacrifices for them, but not to the enormous degree demanded by the current corrupted mods. Like yes, I do want duration - and I want more than 55% duration (Primed Continuity) but I do NOT want -66% range (because to compensate for that I now have to use Stretch/Overextended.

Ok let's say I want close to +100% duration, right? The only way to get that without sacrificing range is to use Primed Continuity + Constitution + Augur Message / Archon Shards.... OR Narrow Minded + Stretch + Augur Reach (to get the range back up to 100%). But almost always, I'd rather just go halfway and take a smaller hit: Primed Continuity + [new middle mod of +75% duration & -35% range] and then I can add stretch on after to bring it back up if I want to.

To show you an example of how these middle mods actually work right now consider this: I want +100% range. That's Overextended (+99%r, -60%s) + Transient Fortitude (+55%s, -27.5%d) to bring the strength back up to 100%). This works because Transient Fortitude is a middle mod, the only one we have. If we didn't have Transient Fortitude here, we would have to use Overextended + Intensify + Augur Secrets / Archon Shards (just to get the strength back to about 100%).

Of course, we normally want above average range, strength & duration where we can fit it, so that's more mods on top of this, sometimes with a full repetition of this issue (like if I wanted high duration here - like +100%), I'd have to repeat this whole process except with no middle mod to help out).

[Vilmera]

you have both my hands up in support of your proposal. I often encounter a lack of diversity when it comes to stats exchange 

and i like your work on examples 👍

[taiiat]

there are some that exist currently FWIW, the Archon themed Mods. they offer modest amounts of __ along with some other Stat.

however there are some interesting permutations that we could have, like +Range,-Duration; +Range,-Efficiency; +Efficiency,-Range/Duration
i also like your 'Channeled Expertise' and 'Enraged Expertise' - Mods that are conditional help make interesting results.
i'm not so sure about 'Fluctuating Range' and 'Barbaric Range', however. the former seems complicated to keep track of in Gameplay and also liable to become a free no downside option for some Abilities - and the latter just always sounds awful, from how unreliable and inconsistent it'll be, plus kinda en/discouraging you from Killing Enemies rather than some sort of ebb and flow.

ofcourse, some of these theoretical Mods are either "nobody will ever use this" or "nobody will use this except for those one or two Abilities that get to use it for free" :P
so those Mods probably wouldn't happen, since Mods are trying to force us to make some tradeoffs without just choosing to leave the Slot empty instead.

Edited February 25 by taiiat

[CrownOfShadows]

39 minutes ago, taiiat said:

however there are some interesting permutations that we could have, like +Range,-Duration; +Range,-Efficiency; +Efficiency,-Range/Duration

Exactly, yes.

Yeah I realized after I posted that Barbaric Range would be busted on Saryn because she doesn't use her abilities fast enough to care that much about efficiency. There are so many outliers to everything - I don't envy DE the task of making sure a mod isn't out of control somewhere lol

Edited February 25 by CrownOfShadows

[Aevire]

These are great. I especially like the idea of more explicit side-grades like how we have Archon vs. normal vs. Umbral Intensify/Vitality. Having other alternatives to popular mods like Augur Reach (maybe featuring other set bonuses, like “Jester Reach” or something) and Transient Fortitude (maybe a ‘Shallow Fortitude’ which offers only +44% strength but with a -22% reach penalty, you get the idea) would increase build diversity and although I don’t think that there should exist a +/- mod for every two stats in the game (frames shouldn’t just be able to dump a single stat) and in general I think that mod slots are a valuable resource and Warframe mods shouldn’t have more than 2 abilities (+ set bonus maybe) either positive or negative just to ensure the value of mod slots is the same, I like a lot of the ideas presented here. The Expertise side-grades are all excellent. I also think it’s worth noting that we do not need “smaller” versions of corrupted mods - just use a second copy of lower rank. Brittle Range already exists in game, it’s a rank 3 overextended. 

[CrownOfShadows]

2 hours ago, Aevire said:

I also think it’s worth noting that we do not need “smaller” versions of corrupted mods - just use a second copy of lower rank. Brittle Range already exists in game, it’s a rank 3 overextended. 

Ah this is a really great point, I didn't really think about that - I almost never partially upgrade mods but that kinda solves half of this problem I suppose. Like in that last example where I want +100 range I could use a half-ranked Blind Rage instead of Transient Fortitude. I suppose the only area where this wouldn't work is if you're trying to maximize something besides strength. Like when you're building for max str usually it's Transient Fortitude and Blind Rage together.

OR I suppose it's also a problem if you just want more than +100% on any two related stats, such as range and duration. To get +100 range and +100 duration you have to use... Overextended, Narrowminded, and then Stretch + Augur Reach to bring the range back up. So it takes one more mod than it should because there is no middle mod.

Edited February 27 by CrownOfShadows

[CrownOfShadows]

.... hmmm interestingly Fleeting Expertise is kinda acting like a middle mod as far as it's numbers go - there just is no 99% efficiency mod like there is for the other stats (which makes total sense - that'd be crazy).

But this means you can run Blind Rage and compensate for it with just one mod (assuming you only care about strength and efficiency - if you care about duration too then it's 3 mods because you have to use Primed Continuity to compensate for Fleeting Expertise's penalty).

Basically efficiency is out of sync numerically compared to the other ability stats when it comes to mod scaling (because it mod-caps at 60% instead of 99%, but it's still compensating for the other's drawbacks as if it were 99% - like in theory, based on Fleeting Expertise's +60% value, it should be more like -30% duration as the drawback not -60%... so they're counting Fleeting Expertise as if it were a 99% mod when it penalizes duration but it's compensating for Blind Rage like a 60% mod...

... are duration and range balanced against each other fairly evenly (although not exactly because Overextended is 90% and 11 capacity not 99% and 16 capacity like the other 99% mods -- surely intentional[?]), while Strength and Efficiency are separately balanced against each other in their own little world? (with a random crossover between the two worlds being Transient Fortitude). Uh, so then if we wanted to scale say Strength against Range, therefore....

....ermegawwwd....

...alright I went down a bit of a rabbit hole:

(I'm really tired, I'll have to double check this later, but it kinda blows my mind - no wonder it feels so wonky)

UPDATE: seems correct

Edited March 1 by CrownOfShadows

[Aevire]

Yeah you also have to consider that some of them are 2 gain:1 loss (like Transient Fortitude) and some are closer to 3 gain:2 loss (Overextended, Narrow Minded, Blind Rage), their net bonus is usually always around 30%

[Raikh]

10 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

....ermegawwwd....

...alright I went down a bit of a rabbit hole:

The Corrupted Mods are definitely not done uniformly and they are weighting the different Stats themselves very differently, which we can already see by how much we can get of each Stat. Power Strength we can get pretty absurd amounts of, Duration and Range still quite a lot but still a good bit less than Strength and lastly Efficiency is the Stat we can get and well need the least of. Also notable that Archon Shards offer only Duration and Power, not Range or Efficiency. Similar story for Warframe Arcanes.

For instance I don't expect to see more Range Mods in a big way. Ability Range has been a control rod for a lot of abilities and some abilities probably have a bit less base range than they should have jsut because 180% more is technically available to them to cover a lot of space.

Efficiency is the Stat we can use the least of since we can only reduce the cost of abilities by up to 75%. But it also behaves a bit differently than the other Stats. Negative efficiency incurs less of a penalty, whereas positive efficiency behaves much more strongly than the other Stats.
Logically if you were twice as efficient (200%) you'd incur half the cost and on the opposite end being half as efficient (50%) would double your cost. But in Warframe this is effectively reversed. To half the cost you only need 50% more Efficiency, but going down to 50% efficiency only increases your costs by 50%. Thats also why Blind Range can be a deceptively cheap ability cost increase and using Efficiency to counteract it is often not very efficient.

I'd love to see more modding options, more combinations and generally stuff to try out, but I also think the reaosn why some Stats see fewer mods and options and why some combinations only exist in the way they do is quite deliberate, atleast on some ends, Efficiency and Range, primarily.

 

[CrownOfShadows]

So I got curious enough and decided to map out a full spread of what max and medium range mods would look like under our current scaling.

A few notes:

1. The same educated guessing used above were used here. While there is some uncertainty this should be very close to what these mods would actually look like with our current scaling. The main question marks are is DE using curves on any of these and the mod capacity scaling varies tremendously per type of mod. I double checked all these but errors are not impossible for sure (I caught several in the process - note that there is about a 2-5% uncertainty value for all of these numbers due to me not building hyper-detailed graphs - definitely shoulda in hindsight)
2. Some stats were difficult to calculate because they involved extra steps. Calculating how range and strength compare for example - there is no direct comparison, so I had to first compare range to duration and then duration to strength, scaling as I went. Thus there is both a massive assumption that DE would not have a special ratio for that combination and also an extra space for errors on my part. The only other combination that requires two steps like this is range and efficiency. So take these 2 combinations with a lot of salt.
3. The medium/middle mods were chosen based on the halfway point between the max and the base (i.e. Overextended and Reach) and the negative stat scaled respectively along with the mod capacity.
4. Capacity is rounded to the closest whole integer
5. Range is increased from the current mod cap of 90% (Overextended) to 99% (mostly for my sanity & curiosity). As a result the capacity also increased from 11 to 13.
6. Note that Transient Continuity has replaced the current Transient Fortitude (moving from +55% to +66%). This was mostly for consistency's sake, however also note that the current Transient Fortitude has a mod capacity of 16 which I completely abandoned as it seemed out of whack with the strength mod capacity scaling, but it's certainly possible that all 3 of these Transient mods under strength would actually be 16 capacity not 11.
7. Enjoy my fashion framing I guess 😀 (started to have to make some fast looks near the end - was running out of material)

A few things I noticed:

1. I don't think we'd actually want all of these. While most would be useful, some would be very niche and one or two would never be used. I think the middle mods tend to be much better & safer candidates for real use. The efficiency mods in particular are punishing in their drawbacks (due to how efficiency scales against all the other stats) and I think it might be much better to create streamline-adjacent mods instead (like archon mods; a +20-30% efficiency with a bonus attached). Things like Granum's Continuity would probably be useless for most everyone because of how those two stats interact on abilities.
2. I don't think DE would want some of these. Overextended Expertise may be too strong in their eyes because of energy regeneration possibly over-correcting on this. Of course this is one of those extended combinations that they might want a special ratio for. Narrowminded Expertise is also problematic with it's -80% efficiency which is higher than Blind Rage's -60% efficiency (which I assume to be mod cap). This might make abilities so expensive that they can't even be cast or be otherwise oppressive. Also Blind Reach is probably too strong on frames that don't care about range.
3. Some combinations brush up or go over the 100% limit, Narrow Minded Fortitude most notably at -120%. While I actually don't think there's too much harm in this because there are other mods to compensate, it is still potentially problematic (think Speedva). So when things get close to 100% or over any threshold we don't like for that stat, that would probably be the case to cap out that stat and then include a second detrimental stat to finish off the negative scaling.
4. Efficiency middle mods are funny because they must fall between the mod capacity of Fleeting Expertise (11) and Streamline (9) - thus they must be 10 capacity, which in turn determines their strength rather precisely. All the others have a lot of room for where exactly their middle ground might fall both in capacity & percent but efficiency doesn't (unless the middle mods were to share the 9 capacity space). This is rather ironic to me because one of the main straws that led to this original post was frustration over a lack of efficiency mods in particular.
5. Duration & Range are the two stats currently most direly in need of a middle mod.

 

Edited March 1 by CrownOfShadows

[CrownOfShadows]

One of the types of mods I'm looking for very often is an Augur-style efficiency mod, around 7 capacity, something to round out a build, with a nice bonus on the side. We have one like this... Boreal's Hatred, but at 15% efficiency it just doesn't make enough of a dent, it's more like a shield mod with a perk than an ability mod with a perk, and it's 9 capacity (the same as streamline.. so if you want efficiency..).

It's hard because efficiency numbers are so low in general, but maybe an augur style mod at 22%, 7 capacity, with a bonus of some kind?

I typically want some kind of efficiency back when running anything with blind rage which cuts it WAY far down - that's why I'm often looking for something like this.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

We could definitely acquire a Primed version for Stretch, Intensify and Streamline though, the game's power levels elsewhere kind of go in that direction already. Didn't even expect Primed Redirection to ever be a thing, yet here we are. Although, maybe not? since Archon mods do not really go past Primed mods values (Archon Continuity is basically Primed Continuity but with 2 more capacity cost and an extra effect, yet Archon Stretch is Stretch with 7 more capacity but with another side effect).

That being said, unmaxed mods are still a thing, especially with Corrupted mods, where you get less of the stat, but you also reduce the tradeoff, I've messed around with it, especially Overextended, and it's done wonders for quite a few minmaxed builds.

[Monolake]

 

There are already several STACKABLE mods with the same stats - for any value you want at lower ranks, its already oversaturated and redundant. You simply use 2-3 mods of the same stat and its balanced out by slot limitation - so you compromise on equipping other mods, there is no need for these corrupted mods, they would add nothing new.

For build variety and more interesting build setups the game needs new UNIQUE mods that dont duplicate what we already have - ie new shards with unique effects are great addition (too bad shards are not mods and expensive to just swap -  so you cant play around and experiment with them much)

[Birdframe_Prime]

You know, I'm all for more ideas of Exchange mods, or even just a couple more of the Nightmare mods that add a little of one stat and a little of another.

I do think you have to be aware of DE's wariness to add two particular stats, though; Efficiency and Range.

The stats DE don't want together appear to be; Range and Strength; Strength and Efficiency; Range and Duration; Duration and Efficiency. 

If you're able to balance out the stats of, say, Range and Strength, then you won't balance out Efficiency, and so on, to limit the builds and force people to take their min-maxing choices a bit more seriously.

So, like the prospect, not sure how things will work out ^^

[ChaoticOrderly]

Gonna need to reconsider this solely because of how range is the most volatile stat to give players more of. Have you seen a corrupted Xaku in fissures? Absolutely insane.

[CrownOfShadows]

1 hour ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

Gonna need to reconsider this solely because of how range is the most volatile stat to give players more of. Have you seen a corrupted Xaku in fissures? Absolutely insane.

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

You know, I'm all for more ideas of Exchange mods, or even just a couple more of the Nightmare mods that add a little of one stat and a little of another.

I do think you have to be aware of DE's wariness to add two particular stats, though; Efficiency and Range.

The stats DE don't want together appear to be; Range and Strength; Strength and Efficiency; Range and Duration; Duration and Efficiency. 

If you're able to balance out the stats of, say, Range and Strength, then you won't balance out Efficiency, and so on, to limit the builds and force people to take their min-maxing choices a bit more seriously.

So, like the prospect, not sure how things will work out ^^

Well, I definitely do agree that range is problematic and that they are wisely being cautious about it. It can get out of hand fast I suppose.

BUT keep in mind that they give out a free +100% range on relic fissures and invigorations (hmm is it in arbis and archons too? idk), so there's not exactly a moratorium on it, and even if we had a range middle mod and stacked both along with Augur Reach that still wouldn't equal that bonus (of course, then you have to figure on a stacked range frame with such a fissure bonus which is probably where the real problems would lie).

Additionally there's always the option to do side-grades like archon style mods (which are mutually exlusive and thus can't be stacked), or just variations of overextended that have different trade-offs. Like I'm not really even asking for more range (or any stat at all) here, I'm really just asking for more options in the drawbacks.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

BUT keep in mind that they give out a free +100% range on relic fissures and invigorations (hmm is it in arbis and archons too? idk), so there's not exactly a moratorium on it

Always, always, always remember; Temporary buffs do not count. If all it lasts is 30 seconds or so in a mission, or for a week to one random frame that you can occasionally overwrite to pick your favourite, then it genuinely doesn't fall into the normal limits.

So the only possibilities you're left with, in realistic terms, are non-stackable mods.

So a Corrupted version of Streamline, for example? Possibly.

But to me I feel that one of the supposed leaks is more what DE would do, which was the 'Condrix' variation on Corrupted mods. The mods in the shot were basically just the exact same mods that we have now, so non-stacking, but the positives were lower while maintaining the same negatives. The trade-off for lower positive stats was the bonus damage and resistance to damage from the Sentient faction. So Condrix Overextended was part of a 'set' with +% Damage to Sentients, +% Tau Resistance, and then the stats were only +75% Range with the same -60% Strength.

Now, I'm fairly sure that the 'leak' was just BS because the screenshot was overlaid with text from a Forum thread.

So why do I feel that this is what they'll do?

It's because of the pattern they're working on with the basic mods, Prime mods, Corrupted mods and Nightmare mods. Corrupted mods are the strongest positives with actual drawbacks. Prime mods are not as high stats as a Corrupted, but they have no drawback. Basic mods are just positives to a single stat, while Nightmare mods are able to provide a similar boost to the basic ones, with an additional stat thrown in.

So if you go by that pattern, I think what you actually want isn't some of these mini-Corrupted mods.

I think what you're looking for are Nightmare mods that can add on a small boost to a stat plus a utility stat.

And I think that they would probably be exclusionary in some way, making you replace one of the other mods on your build if you wanted them. Say the equivalent of 'Absent Expertise' which would have +27% Efficiency and +30% Parkour Velocity. Then put it at an awkward 13 mod point cost. Why would DE do that? Because it would allow us to stack Streamline, Boreal's Hatred and Absent Expertise to get to... wait for it... 172% Efficiency. Not quite the maximum, and it takes 3 mod slots to do it. But with no other drawback to your Duration, you can then not nerf your Range using Narrow Minded to get that back up. See? 

Alternatively, DE could go with the Conditional route, and give you something extremely limited by slotting it into the Arcanes. Where you could get a Range boost beyond what you normally can, but only on a conditional chance that you could easily miss...

It's an interesting thought project at least.

Edited March 18 by Birdframe_Prime

[JimothyStevens]

I love these.

[CrownOfShadows]

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Always, always, always remember; Temporary buffs do not count. If all it lasts is 30 seconds or so in a mission, or for a week to one random frame that you can occasionally overwrite to pick your favourite, then it genuinely doesn't fall into the normal limits.

So the only possibilities you're left with, in realistic terms, are non-stackable mods.

So a Corrupted version of Streamline, for example? Possibly.

But to me I feel that one of the supposed leaks is more what DE would do, which was the 'Condrix' variation on Corrupted mods. The mods in the shot were basically just the exact same mods that we have now, so non-stacking, but the positives were lower while maintaining the same negatives. The trade-off for lower positive stats was the bonus damage and resistance to damage from the Sentient faction. So Condrix Overextended was part of a 'set' with +% Damage to Sentients, +% Tau Resistance, and then the stats were only +75% Range with the same -60% Strength.

Now, I'm fairly sure that the 'leak' was just BS because the screenshot was overlaid with text from a Forum thread.

So why do I feel that this is what they'll do?

It's because of the pattern they're working on with the basic mods, Prime mods, Corrupted mods and Nightmare mods. Corrupted mods are the strongest positives with actual drawbacks. Prime mods are not as high stats as a Corrupted, but they have no drawback. Basic mods are just positives to a single stat, while Nightmare mods are able to provide a similar boost to the basic ones, with an additional stat thrown in.

So if you go by that pattern, I think what you actually want isn't some of these mini-Corrupted mods.

I think what you're looking for are Nightmare mods that can add on a small boost to a stat plus a utility stat.

And I think that they would probably be exclusionary in some way, making you replace one of the other mods on your build if you wanted them. Say the equivalent of 'Absent Expertise' which would have +27% Efficiency and +30% Parkour Velocity. Then put it at an awkward 13 mod point cost. Why would DE do that? Because it would allow us to stack Streamline, Boreal's Hatred and Absent Expertise to get to... wait for it... 172% Efficiency. Not quite the maximum, and it takes 3 mod slots to do it. But with no other drawback to your Duration, you can then not nerf your Range using Narrow Minded to get that back up. See? 

Alternatively, DE could go with the Conditional route, and give you something extremely limited by slotting it into the Arcanes. Where you could get a Range boost beyond what you normally can, but only on a conditional chance that you could easily miss...

It's an interesting thought project at least.

Well it's about mod space and compensating.

The reason I'm looking for corrupted mods a little bit more than side grades or nightmare style mods is because to get to the same number requires 2 or 3 mods instead of 1, which in turn affects the entire build to some degree. Like in the current scheme a middle corrupted mod fully compensates for the drawback of a high corrupted mod, whereas a nightmare mod wouldn't and would thus have to be combined with another mod (if you want to fully compensate).

I didn't quite follow your efficiency example (you surely meant 72% not 172% 😂, but you lost me after that when comparing it to duration & range), but if you wanted to compensate for Blind Rage you could either use Streamline + Boreals to get close, or if you happened to not care about duration you could just use 1 mod, Fleeting Expertise. Now if you're a frame that does care about duration, well you have to pay for that with an extra mod slot, which is really the heart of the issue. If there was an Expertise that punished something besides duration, say range, then maybe you're on a frame that's cool with that, and you save a mod just for being you.

The only real reason not to create more corrupted varieties that I can see has to do with the dangers of stacking. If we have a new corrupted range mod for example, let's say at the mid-point of 66%, and we stacked that with overextended (+90%) and stacked that with augur reach (+30%) and stretch (+45%); that's +231% range compared to our current max of +165%. It's a fair bet that DE probably ran the math on this and thought it was too much. But it obviously wasn't game-breaking, due to stuff like fissures, which doubles our current 165% to bring us to a whopping +330% range. So my basic point in bringing that up there was that, yes, even though fissures might be temporary, DE is ok with 330% on some level (in fact, because you can combine invigorations and fissures, they're somehow not scared out of their minds about +660% range... which honestly scares me a lot and sounds broken af). Anyways, that fissure number is a full +100% better than the +231% we would achieve with a new corrupted middle mod. And achieving that is pretty painful because it would take half of your entire modding capability to achieve it (4 mods) - and that's assuming you're not also wanting to run another corrupted mod that punishes range.

So I am worried about range, it's a very strong multiplier (and much of this argument also applies to duration [which interestingly is not a fissure or invigoration bonus]), and surely DE is worried too, but I'm also saying there's probably a good deal of room even for stacking-style mods still, especially since corrupted mods come with built-in drawbacks.

But do I think we need more range? I don't, I think we're in a good spot. I'm not actually endorsing more range (or any stat) - rather, the main reason I want these corrupted middle mods is actually not to stack them with high corrupted mods, but to compensate for the other negatives of high corrupted mods. So if there's a way to create middle corrupted mods that don't stack I'd be down for that too, but that might get pretty tricky - not sure if it's possible due to the different ways they need to be combined, but it might work, it's an interesting idea.

Like it might be tempting to view the corrupted drawbacks as an alternative to mod space. Want to punish players for building super high stat? Well you can either attach drawbacks to that like corrupted mods or you can force them to use more mod space. However I think a mod slot is way more of a punishment than a mod drawback, and the reason behind this is because not all frames care about all stats equally. So sure, narrowminded might punish your range hard for all that duration, but some frames shrug that off, and some are crippled by it and have to invest another 2 mods to bring it back up.

Like narrowminded on Mesa is whatever, she doesn't care at all. But narrowminded on Gyre or Equinox or something is so brutal that if you don't compensate for it the build is dead because they need range just as much as they do duration. So Mesa gets what she needs for free basically (1 mod, +100% duration) and for no other reason than that there's a mod with a downside she could care less about, while others have to use 2-3 mods depending on how much they care because the mods don't cater to them, and so we're un-equally punishing frames who don't care about certain stats simply because we don't have corrupted mods with different downsides. Now this is a simple example with 1 stat, but this is even more true when a frame wants 2 stats, or 3, or heaven forbid all 4. The tree of nerfs goes in only certain directions, and if your frame doesn't align with those, the price is more mod slots, which are at a massive premium because you also need to build for other things like survival, energy, and augments. Archon shards and arcanes can help with a lot of this, but not all of it.

Some examples. Let's say we want +100% duration and +100% range and at least around the default 100% strength. Currently, this takes 6 mods to achieve [Overextended and Narrowminded for the +100% of each stat, and then 4 to compensate: Stretch, Auger Reach, Intensify, Augur Secrets]. The big question is: is this too much of a mod-slot ask for these stats?

Well, to answer that I'm going to compare to building +100% strength and +100% duration while maintaining the default 100% range. This takes 4 mod slots to achieve [Narrowminded and Blind Rage for the +100s and then Stretch and Auger Reach to compensate]. Of course if you're lucky enough to be on a frame that doesn't care about range, then this magically becomes 2 mods instead of 4.

And we might as well take the third possibility; building for +100% strength and +100% range while keeping 100% duration. That's also 4 mods [Blind Rage, Overextended, Transient Fortitude and Augur Message]. Again, if your frame doesn't care about duration, this is just 2 mods. Compare that to the 6 mods some frames have to spend to achieve the first result, which is so prohibitive that nobody can even do it.

(I'm ignoring efficiency for simplicity because of energy regen and energy pool size but some frames really do suffer from bad efficiency, like Ember and Protea. Also, all of this is rather oversimplified because each frame is unique in how they build, helminth, etc etc, but the basic inequality should be apparent)

(Note also that these examples are all building for 3 stats, but more often you're building for 2 stats instead and the paradigm shifts to favor strength builds above all others)

But now let's pretend we had a full suite of corrupted mods to work with (which probably isn't the healthiest modding environment but just in theory). What would these builds look like then? Each should take at least 3 mods to achieve, but it could be done in different ways (either 2 high mods and 1 medium/low, or 1 high 1 medium and 1 low - assuming all are piling their negatives into one category, although realistically it would probably be 4 mods because all piling into one negative would have to be compensated for). Now when you compare that to the current situation, this only saves you 1 mod in the last two examples but it saves you 2 or 3 mods in the first example, which in that case is huge. 3 mod slots is BIG amount to save just because the mods now align with your frame and no other reason.

This inconsistency in the stat-to-mod space here is what's driving the issue, and it's completely due to the lack of options in the mod's drawbacks. It's hard to guess how much of that is intentional and how much is arbitrary, but all the stats are intertwined and interdependent, so the thrust of this effort was to show that there's space for more variety by exploiting that network a little more. More corrupted mod variety should even out a lot of the stat-to-mod cost disparity between frames.

[Birdframe_Prime]

8 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I didn't quite follow your efficiency example (you surely meant 72% not 172% 😂,

No, my friend, I meant 172%. This is because in Warframe modding the neutral is a base state of 1.00, or 100%, so 72% would actually be -28% of the stat from modding, while 172% would be +72% from modding.

You'll notice that I very specifically put the + symbol in front of the mod stats, but when I came to the total it did not have the + symbol because it was the actual stat.

For the the next part, you actually explained it pretty well yourself. You've gone through a longer version of the explanation, without touching on Efficiency. But to be clear:

The idea of being able to stack the Strength with two mods, then compensate for the negative Efficiency by using Streamling, Boreal's Hatred and the proposed Absent Expertise, would mean that you wouldn't have used Fleeting Expertise in the build, your Duration would still be about Neutral, and you could use a regular Duration mod instead.

People underestimate the power of stacking lesser mods instead of using the Corrupted ones, as you've pointed out in your reply.

What people often miss is that by having stacking smaller mods, you can entirely ditch Corrupted mods for the same, or better, stats.

While I appreciate that having more small-scale trade-off mods in the form of mini-Corrupted is something you really want to lean into, the entire system of them is greatly overestimated by a lot of modders.

As long as they stick to DE's particular foibles, having more straight-upgrade mods, like Nightmare mods, is fine. Making mods that exclude another mod does appear to be the way that DE are going. So having a Nightmare mod that excludes, say, Narrow Minded (maybe Absent Minded, for example) for an equally high mod point cost, adding an amount of Duration that makes it compete with the other Duration mods, but not overshadow them, would then be more viable for a build because it gives us that extra Duration mod without the drawback of negative Range.

I think the point I'm fumbling with...

The point I'm not really getting across well, would be this:

It's more important now, since we already have the Corrupted mods for min-maxing in a way DE are comfortable with, what players and DE will want to do is to create lesser mods that don't have drawbacks or negative stats.

This is because it's often more important not to have a negative than it is to have super-high positives.

We're seeing it more and more in DE's frame design, that push to have no more dump stats and the push to have something powerful actually available if players try non-standard builds. Take Qorvex as an example of this; his most powerful function is by building for Range and Duration without ditching his Strength or Efficiency. He wants to spam his 4, he wants to have his Chirinka Pillars out as long as possible, and he wants those pillars to be able to touch as many enemies as possible in their range after being empowered by his 4 (since the crowd nuke by proc'ing his explosions by charging his Pillars with his 4  is more powerful than any of his direct damage could ever be). 

Take Gauss. Gauss just needs to be at 100% Strength, complete neutral, for his abilities to have their full functions. He wants Efficiency for his spam, he wants Duration for his Redline, and he wants Range for his Thermal Sunder.

Look at what they're about to do to Loki, of all frames, in the next update... it's weird... the new functions they're adding to his Decoy and his Switch Teleport benefit from Strength......... I mean... Strength... On Loki... For the first time since his release.... That one really confused me until I realised they're slowly pushing to have builds that don't fully benefit from dump stats.

It's more important not to have negatives in many builds now, than it is to push min-maxed stats. Just enough to hit the right thresholds is fine. And since those thresholds on many, many frames include all four basic stats, it's less likely that Corrupted Style mods will even be desirable.

That all said.

I'm not averse to more of your idea.

I do feel that more mods with medium stats are needed, even if they are trade-off style Corrupted mods.

Just remember DE's method, where they don't actually want you to min-max any frame and get the full benefit out of them, they always want you to think 'but maybe I shouldn't dump that stat'.

[CrownOfShadows]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

No, my friend, I meant 172%. This is because in Warframe modding the neutral is a base state of 1.00, or 100%, so 72% would actually be -28% of the stat from modding, while 172% would be +72% from modding.

Ah

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

For the the next part, you actually explained it pretty well yourself. You've gone through a longer version of the explanation, without touching on Efficiency. But to be clear:

The idea of being able to stack the Strength with two mods, then compensate for the negative Efficiency by using Streamling, Boreal's Hatred and the proposed Absent Expertise, would mean that you wouldn't have used Fleeting Expertise in the build, your Duration would still be about Neutral, and you could use a regular Duration mod instead.

People underestimate the power of stacking lesser mods instead of using the Corrupted ones, as you've pointed out in your reply.

What people often miss is that by having stacking smaller mods, you can entirely ditch Corrupted mods for the same, or better, stats.

While I appreciate that having more small-scale trade-off mods in the form of mini-Corrupted is something you really want to lean into, the entire system of them is greatly overestimated by a lot of modders.

As long as they stick to DE's particular foibles, having more straight-upgrade mods, like Nightmare mods, is fine. Making mods that exclude another mod does appear to be the way that DE are going. So having a Nightmare mod that excludes, say, Narrow Minded (maybe Absent Minded, for example) for an equally high mod point cost, adding an amount of Duration that makes it compete with the other Duration mods, but not overshadow them, would then be more viable for a build because it gives us that extra Duration mod without the drawback of negative Range.

I think the point I'm fumbling with...

The point I'm not really getting across well, would be this:

It's more important now, since we already have the Corrupted mods for min-maxing in a way DE are comfortable with, what players and DE will want to do is to create lesser mods that don't have drawbacks or negative stats.

This is because it's often more important not to have a negative than it is to have super-high positives.

We're seeing it more and more in DE's frame design, that push to have no more dump stats and the push to have something powerful actually available if players try non-standard builds. Take Qorvex as an example of this; his most powerful function is by building for Range and Duration without ditching his Strength or Efficiency. He wants to spam his 4, he wants to have his Chirinka Pillars out as long as possible, and he wants those pillars to be able to touch as many enemies as possible in their range after being empowered by his 4 (since the crowd nuke by proc'ing his explosions by charging his Pillars with his 4  is more powerful than any of his direct damage could ever be). 

Take Gauss. Gauss just needs to be at 100% Strength, complete neutral, for his abilities to have their full functions. He wants Efficiency for his spam, he wants Duration for his Redline, and he wants Range for his Thermal Sunder.

Look at what they're about to do to Loki, of all frames, in the next update... it's weird... the new functions they're adding to his Decoy and his Switch Teleport benefit from Strength......... I mean... Strength... On Loki... For the first time since his release.... That one really confused me until I realised they're slowly pushing to have builds that don't fully benefit from dump stats.

It's more important not to have negatives in many builds now, than it is to push min-maxed stats. Just enough to hit the right thresholds is fine. And since those thresholds on many, many frames include all four basic stats, it's less likely that Corrupted Style mods will even be desirable.

That all said.

I'm not averse to more of your idea.

I do feel that more mods with medium stats are needed, even if they are trade-off style Corrupted mods.

Just remember DE's method, where they don't actually want you to min-max any frame and get the full benefit out of them, they always want you to think 'but maybe I shouldn't dump that stat'.

Hm, well, I see what you're saying I think. Moving all frames towards having a more generalist approach to stats means we would need less corrupted mods and more generalist mods, and your examples are solid... but... well assuming that's their goal, it's going to take a long time to get all frames to that place, like probably another decade, and even then they will never be perfectly equal across all abilities.

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The idea of being able to stack the Strength with two mods, then compensate for the negative Efficiency by using Streamling, Boreal's Hatred and the proposed Absent Expertise, would mean that you wouldn't have used Fleeting Expertise in the build, your Duration would still be about Neutral, and you could use a regular Duration mod instead.

People underestimate the power of stacking lesser mods instead of using the Corrupted ones, as you've pointed out in your reply.

What people often miss is that by having stacking smaller mods, you can entirely ditch Corrupted mods for the same, or better, stats.

Well this is true but it also isn't, depending on the stats you're after, the slots you have to work with and the frame you're on.

Like you can spend 5 ability mods and get 227% duration and 169% range and just barely an even noticeable drawback in 95% strength (Narrowminded, Overextended, Primed Continuity, Transient Fortitude, Stretch) and you can hit those same numbers without corrupted mods using 6 mods (Primed Continuity, Constitution, Stretch, Auger Reach, Augur Message and Nira's Hatred) - and likely most everyone would be fine dropping Nira's Hatred here because 5 slots is too much of an ask for a build, so your argument works pretty well here it's just 1 more mod which is only 15% - a perfectly acceptable loss in order to give that slot to something we need more.

BUT

Compare this to a strength and range build. Using 5 mods we can hit 235% range and 224% strength, while taking a small hit on duration at 73% and the big efficiency hit at 45%. Now to do this without corrupted mods is actually impossible. The closest you can get is 6 mods at 190% range and 183% strength (Umbral Intensify, Augur Secrets, Amar's Hatred, Stretch, Augur Reach, Cunning Drift).

And doing this same test with only 2 mods the results are more stark. Like Blind Rage + Transient Fortitude is 255% strength and you can only hit 168% with non-corrupted using Umbral Intensify and Augur Secrets, that's almost a full -100%. If you only had 2 slots to give and you want strength, it's impossible to hit those numbers without using corrupted, impossible to even get close. Of course, that's the most extreme example stacking 2 corrupted mods, but what if you really want range and you only have 2 slots to spare for it. Overextended + Stretch = 235% range. Without that corrupted mod it's Stretch + Augur Reach = 175% which is -55% off the corrupted combo, again, it's impossible to hit numbers like that without corrutped. Of course, the question after this is always: how much does that hurt and how much do I care?

There's a lot more validity to what you're saying than I initially credited here, like you often spend almost as many mod slots compensating for corrupted mods as you do just building without them, but it really depends because sometimes they are just an absolute win and can save you 1-3 slots or give you a benefit you just would not be able to achieve otherwise, so I don't know that it's a good rule of thumb. There are probably just as many cases where using corrupted is the better choice as there are for where it's not.

[CrownOfShadows]

Also, as an addendum to this, Nidus, Inaros and Kullervo rather suffer from losing access to the Augur set. While there are many sets oriented towards hp tanks, like the Carnis, Hatred, Jugulus and Gladiator sets, none of these affect ability stats.

And while you might argue that these sets provide the equivalent survivability boost to the Augur set, this isn't quite true because of shield gating. A more true equivalent would be a set that provides overgaurd and an ability stat, unfortunately such could be used by shield frames too, and combined with augurs, to provide too much survivability, so probably if you went that way you'd want to either restrict such mods to shield-less frames or make them mutually exclusive with the Augur set.

[(PSN)MYKK678]

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Also, as an addendum to this, Nidus, Inaros and Kullervo rather suffer from losing access to the Augur set. While there are many sets oriented towards hp tanks, like the Carnis, Hatred, Jugulus and Gladiator sets, none of these affect ability stats.

And while you might argue that these sets provide the equivalent survivability boost to the Augur set, this isn't quite true because of shield gating. A more true equivalent would be a set that provides overgaurd and an ability stat, unfortunately such could be used by shield frames too, and combined with augurs, to provide too much survivability, so probably if you went that way you'd want to either restrict such mods to shield-less frames or make them mutually exclusive with the Augur set.

I can certainly appreciate the amount of time and effort put into this, but there's no sign of it happening because it isn't really needed.

As someone pointed out months ago, you can just collect multiples of a mod like Fleeting Expertise and then have them levelled differently. If you wanted to go wild you could have multiples of all of the ability mods covering every single level. Fleeting Rank 1, Fleeting Rank 2, Fleeting Rank 3 etc etc. The Corrupted Mods weren't given random minuses, they were chosen specifically as part of balancing out the system. Introducing most-if-not-all of your examples above would throw that balance into chaos.

Let me give one example.

One mod you proposed was the Conditional Mod Enraged Expertise. Gives 15% efficiency, and you gain efficiency based on missing health. At first glance, on paper, that looks like a good idea. But the variables weren't taken into account at all. First off the mod itself is not for Health Tanks, Health Tanks tend to try to regen any missing health, otherwise they'll die. So they'll rarely benefit from it, not enough to take up a mod slot. The mod is only going to give efficiency based on your current missing health. So realistically it's only going to suit someone who wants to run around half dead all the time. Then the variables start to pop up. Accidentally running over Health Orbs, having Vaccuum on your Companion and automatically collecting Health Orbs, a teammate using Wisp pops down a Health Mote and there's no way to get around it, Trinity Heals, Nidus automatically losing out on ever using the mod because of his innate healing etc etc etc.

All those issues, created from just one of the Mods suggested so far. What you've accidentally run into here is "the exact reason why we don't have mid/other mods". Even the Archon Mods just copy the stats of their namesake, with no increases or decreases, with the bonuses keeping as far away from ability percentages as possible. Because unless Ability Percentages are changed or overhauled in the future, right now everything works and is balanced so no frame can have any unfair advantages over others based solely on the Mods.

All in all, they just couldn't release neither the first nor second batch of Mods you proposed. There also seems to be something terribly wrong with the math/numbers of the second batch. Specifically the "Medium" ones. It doesn't make a lot of sense for +Range Mods to cost you more Efficiency than Duration. Efficiency is obviously a weird stat with a cap of 175% and diminished negative effects, so it is hard to calculate for, but the numbers just don't look right yet.

As I said though, A for Effort, I do appreciate the amount of work put into all of this. But these difficulties you're facing are exactly why the Devs haven't thrown caution to the wind and added in more mods. Its not as simple as calculating how much one stat should be decreasing another by and then forming that into a mid mod.

Edited May 13 by (PSN)MYKK678
.

[(PSN)Sentiel]

Why does Channelled Expertise look like a Final Fantasy boss? It's awesome!

 

To the topic, we have a lot more options to indirectly affect our Strength, like Growing Power, Arcanes, Operator abilities, and much more, but we have significantly less variety for Duration (only one Arcane and a Tome mod come to mind) and Efficiency (again, Tome mod and some free to cast options like Zenurik), while we have literally nothing for Range. 

I've read opinions that DE doesn't want us to have more Range so we can't nuke whole rooms more than we do now but then they give you a +100% Range Helminth buff so if that's available, mods that do the same should be also available (e.g.: Primed Stretch +75% Range).

[CrownOfShadows]

1 hour ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

As someone pointed out months ago, you can just collect multiples of a mod like Fleeting Expertise and then have them levelled differently. If you wanted to go wild you could have multiples of all of the ability mods covering every single level. Fleeting Rank 1, Fleeting Rank 2, Fleeting Rank 3 etc etc. The Corrupted Mods weren't given random minuses, they were chosen specifically as part of balancing out the system. Introducing most-if-not-all of your examples above would throw that balance into chaos.

I disagree primarily because we need different stats to compromise on, not the same stats, in which case a half ranked mod isn't helping.

1 hour ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

One mod you proposed was the Conditional Mod Enraged Expertise. Gives 15% efficiency, and you gain efficiency based on missing health. At first glance, on paper, that looks like a good idea. But the variables weren't taken into account at all. First off the mod itself is not for Health Tanks, Health Tanks tend to try to regen any missing health, otherwise they'll die. So they'll rarely benefit from it, not enough to take up a mod slot. The mod is only going to give efficiency based on your current missing health. So realistically it's only going to suit someone who wants to run around half dead all the time. Then the variables start to pop up. Accidentally running over Health Orbs, having Vaccuum on your Companion and automatically collecting Health Orbs, a teammate using Wisp pops down a Health Mote and there's no way to get around it, Trinity Heals, Nidus automatically losing out on ever using the mod because of his innate healing etc etc etc.

You may have missed the point of that example, it's meant to work primarily in conjunction with Molt Reconstruct (and the Augur Set and Brief Respite, etc), because hp tanks love to use that arcane for it's amazing health regen (if they aren't gloomers). It's meant to help save you by making it easier to cast abilities when low hp, as casting abilities is a primary way of staying alive, something that is put in jeopardy when low health and low energy. Regardless, it's just an example to help show possibilities, I'll leave the details up to DE.

1 hour ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

All those issues, created from just one of the Mods suggested so far. What you've accidentally run into here is "the exact reason why we don't have mid/other mods". Even the Archon Mods just copy the stats of their namesake, with no increases or decreases, with the bonuses keeping as far away from ability percentages as possible. Because unless Ability Percentages are changed or overhauled in the future, right now everything works and is balanced so no frame can have any unfair advantages over others based solely on the Mods.

I disagree, there is no real reason we don't have more mid mods other than they just didn't get around to it (or possibly because they were scared of the stacked totals when you run both a high mod and a mid mod like Transient Fortitude and Blind Rage). Mid mods don't provide an unfair advantage to any one frame except in the case where certain frames benefit from certain ability stats more than others, and as noted this is already massively the case with the existing stat canyons.

1 hour ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

All in all, they just couldn't release neither the first nor second batch of Mods you proposed. There also seems to be something terribly wrong with the math/numbers of the second batch. Specifically the "Medium" ones. It doesn't make a lot of sense for +Range Mods to cost you more Efficiency than Duration. Efficiency is obviously a weird stat with a cap of 175% and diminished negative effects, so it is hard to calculate for, but the numbers just don't look right yet.

The numbers in the initial post are definitely not correct, I was just spitballing when I made those. The numbers in the later posts should be correct except for the caveats mentioned. You're welcome to check the math yourself on those, it's not my strength.

1 hour ago, (PSN)Sentiel said:

Why does Channelled Expertise look like a Final Fantasy boss? It's awesome!

 

To the topic, we have a lot more options to indirectly affect our Strength, like Growing Power, Arcanes, Operator abilities, and much more, but we have significantly less variety for Duration (only one Arcane and a Tome mod come to mind) and Efficiency (again, Tome mod and some free to cast options like Zenurik), while we have literally nothing for Range. 

I've read opinions that DE doesn't want us to have more Range so we can't nuke whole rooms more than we do now but then they give you a +100% Range Helminth buff so if that's available, mods that do the same should be also available (e.g.: Primed Stretch +75% Range).

 

Yeah range is touchy, but I agree I don't know that we really need to be as scared of it as we have been - especially for mid mods, although this varies by ability, I'm sure some nukes would just become way too oppressive.

* re Channeled Expertise; haha it does kinda. I hope we get a new Equinox skin one day that has epic horns kinda like this prime skin.

Edited May 13 by CrownOfShadows